from the book Twisted

I've been on a diet for four days, so this won't be pretty. I can't have a Coke, I can't eat anything fried, dessert is absolutely out of the question, and junk food is evil. That takes care of my four basic food groups. This column is fuelled by bland, boiled fish, leafy green vegetables, and the only thing that's keeping me alive, black coffee. If you're expecting something bright and sunny this morning, get a grip, get a life, and get out of my way.

1. Those people who get up on the bus, start preaching, then ask for money. It always happens. You drag your sleep-deprived carcass into a bus, hoping to catch a nap between stops. Your eyelids feel heavy and you willingly sink into a dream, the one where Liam Neeson (Cindy Crawford, if you're a guy) is painting your toenails. He has just finished with your big toe when a voice slices through your consciousness like a fork craping a blackboard. Your eyelids fly open and Liam vanishes in a cloud of automotive exhausts. Why is that person standing in the front of the bus, wielding a heavy book? Omigod, it's them! Aaargh...

You can forget about sleeping because for the next ten minutes you will be subjected to a sermon on how your soul has already been consigned to the fiery pits of hell but even you are not beyond redemption, yes, all you have to do is do what they do, and you too can have a reservation in heaven! Brothers and sisters, The Lord loves you no matter how scummy you are, even you over there, the one who's falling asleep. He wants you to be saved, and by the way, we're passing around this box in case you want to give us money so we can continue saving other people's souls--this is purely voluntary, you understand, you don't have to give a cent. We are doing this entirely for love, at great significance to our personal lives, sorry no, I don't have a change for twenty.

While I respect the fervor, the commitment, the sense of duty of the lay preachers who gives sermons on buses, my personal view is this. God loves me. God wants me to be happy. If constant sleep-deprivation causes me to lose consciousness while crossing the street, and I get hit by a car, I will not be happy. Therefore, I am entitled take a nap on the bus. After all, God loves me, too.

2. People who smoke in no smoking areas.Sure you have the right to smoke. Sure you have the right to choose your own poisons. Sure you have the freedom to suck tar and nicotine until your lungs turn black and your throat becomes a raging sea of phlegm. If you want to continue stuffing your hard-earned money up the snouts of multi-national cigarette companies, that's fine, too. Just don't smoke in enclosed places when I'm around.

I particularly hate it when I've just washed my hair (a complex process of two shampooings, conditioning, and styling--ever notice how the more products designed to make your life easier hit the market, the more complicated your life gets?). And when I get to the office, everyone is puffing away like a fiend. Within five minutes, my hair smells like ashtray, my clothes smell like industrial by-products, and I don't even smoke! Studies show that just inhaling cigarette smoke can give me some respiratory ailment that will eventually kill me! Tell you what, you murderers, I'll respect your right to smoke if you respect my right not to breathe your smoke. I mean, if I'm going to die of substance abuse, let it be my own substance abuse, not other people's. Now if you don't heed this simple request, I'm bringing out my water pistols.

3. Men in leather without socksI don't care how cute your shins look naked, it's tacky, it's unhygienic, and as Francine puts it, it's so Eighties.

4. People who converse loudly on moviehouses. Tell you what. The next time you have the overwhelming urge to air your opinions to the movie audience, go home and write a movie review. Maybe you have some undiscovered talent. You certainly have no manners.

An even more loathsome variety of a loud viewer is the play-by-play announcer. This vile species delivers a detailed account of what is going on upon the screen, while the movie is in progress. They're like those simultaneous translators at the United Nations, except that the UN ambassadors don't feel like dragging the translation from their chairs and tossing them out on the sidewalk. As paying viewers, we have the right to throw them out of the theater, especially when their blow-by-blow account is hilariously inaccurate.

5. When you're in line at the ATM machine and the clod in front of you takes forever because he doesn't know how to use the blasted machine, or maybe she's withdrawing money from five separate accounts. ATMs are for people in a hurry. If you want to take your sweet time, go to the bank.