Get ready, we’re going for a ride with this one!
I’m running across one of those rare times when everything is coming together to anger me. Personal things, professional things, religious things, all kinds of things involving government. I think you get the picture. The reason for this entry is to get it out of my head and into this post where I can look at it and start to deal with it.
Personal Things
Rick has started parking in the driveway again with his van. Looked at by itself, that sentence means little to nothing. However, Rick is the only person left who first moved into the my place. That was 35+ years ago. He’s in his 70’s and has hoarding tendencies.
As a result, despite the fact that 5 of us live in then house, Rick’s stuff takes up the entire garage, the freezers in three refrigerators plus a stand alone freezer, the hall closet and cupboards, the entire den, my bookshelves in what could be considered the living room, most of the pantry, most of the back yard, one of the three parking spaces in the driveway (with his boat) and the primary spot at the front of the house with his enormous dually camper. Additionally, 5 of us are left holding the bag when it comes to sharing the bills equally even which means paying for TV channels that only he watches, paying for an unnecessary alarm service, paying exorbitant electrical bills because of all the refrigerators that nobody else has any space in yet NOT paying to have a professional come in to clean once or twice a month. So the straw that broke the camel’s back is “Rick has started parking in the driveway again with his van. It’s the one thing that the other renters have that he hasn’t moved in on. I wouldn’t be as angry as I am except for the fact that he has done this twice before too.
Professional Things
This may be the place I am least angry. One thing I do to earn a living is I substitute teach. I was recently asked to sub for a person that I know isn’t overly fond of me and lo and behold, the late on night before my assignment he cancelled. Now, I don’t know whether or not it was because he no longer needed a sub or simply because he didn’t want me to sub for him. Regardless, the timing came at a point in the evening where I could very easily have been frozen out of work today. Based on how things are going in general, I’m taking this personally.
Something else I do to earn a living is do ride share driving. A couple of weeks ago, for the first time since starting this gig in 2015, I had occasion to kick a person out of my car and refuse the ride. I may have been a little abrupt in how I addressed my issue (barfing in my car) but the young woman I was speaking to about it chose to take offense instead of understanding my point of view and thanking me for trying to be helpful. In her view, it was totally inappropriate for me to even bring the subject up. As somebody who has had the interior of all three of his vehicles baptized by vomit once and thrown up numerous other times, it was a simple preventative step that has save me and my car. With her attitude and the distance the ride was supposed to go it was an easy decision for simply eject her from the car and move on to the next ride request.
Religious Things
The most recent and maybe the most complex depending on whether I include what’s happening in Israel or not. I tend not to watch TV and instead spend my watching time on YouTube (YT may come up later in my political side of the rant). Something I see all too often is how this group or that group is or is not Christian. And because YouTube and other social media sites reward alarmist language, the aforementioned groups may or may not be “Satanic” or “Demonic” which may or may not be hyperbolic. I appreciate warnings and so on but I’d be much more interested in how we all could work together to bring people to the saving Grace found in Jesus Christ.
Political Things
I don’t even know where to begin with this. The Biden administration? There is so much wrong with the Biden administration I could be typing here for days. The Hamas butchery in Israel? Unfortunately, there is a connection between the atrocities committed in Israel and the Biden administration. Gavin Newson and the 9th circuit denying citizens their God given 2nd amendment rights? The border crisis?
After seeing what happened in Israel, the border issues in the United States just might piss me off the most. Israel had preventative measures in place and at best got complacent in their enforcement. We on the other hand have borders that are functionally open with no safeguards, governors who are shipping illegal immigrants all over the country, and at least two border states amongst the dozen or so that are trying to keep law abiding citizens from being able to arm themselves adequately if at all.
Wrap-up
I don’t know how to wrap this up. The one thing I know to do is to try and leave all my cares, my worries, my issues and most of all my anger in the hands of God. He is big enough to handle it all because I certainly am not.