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Do You Recognize Yourself in this Column?

By Gloria Diaz

Check out Gloria's Blog — Edge of Gloria!

Fort Wayne Reader

2010-07-19

Back in the mid-90s, I discovered a great ‘zine called Answer Me!. Chock full of hate, it was also well-written. It was notorious in the ‘zine community; you either loved it or hated it. What impressed me about the publication is that it put most other DIY rags to shame. Professionally laid out, the research was amazing. Jim Goad was sick of editors cutting out his best stuff. Along with his wife, Debbie, he decided to print his own stuff and it was astounding. The article about serial killers and mass murderers is legendary; the article about one hundred spectacular suicides made for sad reading. The Goads made an important point: it’s the non-suicidal in our society that makes life suck.

I don’t feel like doing research, but here’s a list of people who make me miserable, from time to time.

Dive bombers: These are people you are friends with. Life goes on with them, nothing seems wrong, until they drop a bomb on you and you’re so dumbfounded, your jaw is still sitting on the floor a day later. With them, you never see it coming.

The Jellyfish: I got this term from Bridget Jones. The Jellyfish are all about the art of the sting. You don’t realize you’ve been insulted until it sinks in a few minutes later and they’ve run off. At least one of my family members is a Jellyfish.

The Control Freak Paranoid: Thinks you can’t run your life, and invades it to the point where they are adjusting your water heater temperature for you because they want to save you money (I actually had this happen to me). There’s nothing you can do about these people except change locks and seriously think about putting a restraining order on them. (This describes one of my other family members.)

Dudes/Damsels in Distress: Have a situation they are trying to deal with and claim they need help or advice. When you give it to them, they get all huffy and say, “I'm doing the best I can.” Okay, so if everything is under control, why are you calling me because you can’t handle things? I ended one friendship because I couldn’t take any more insanity. Speaking of which, this person did end up in a mental hospital. She should have taken my advice.

The Charmed Lifers: These are people that freak out if there is a microscopic ding in their new car, if the appliance they just bought doesn’t perfectly match the rest of their kitchen stuff and generally make use of their abundant free time to polish each pebble in their gravel driveway. It’s all I can do to keep my lawn mowed while working three jobs, but my tree-hating neighbor would probably love to cut down all my trees in my yard so the leaves don’t pollute her barren backyard. I have a fantasy of selling my house to some huge white-trash, meth-making family and watching her horrified reaction as she deals with the new neighbors.

But if I did that, that would make me a douche bag. And that’s another group for another column.