In Which Jamie Decides to Join Civilization, and Buy a Toaster

My mom and I were having a discussion yesterday about our insomnia and in my usual segue to nothing, I forwarded the idea that I think I'm agoraphobic (I'm becoming a hypochondriac, too but we needn't talk about that at the mo') .

Not a clinically significant kind of agoraphobia, but I suppose it sounds more romantic than "pessimist and misanthropic" which are terms much more apt to accurately describe my Weltenschaung. Or whatever, I didn't take German, and don't feel like going to my Hegel collection and looking up the word.

Today I ran one of my typical random social experiments which has no statistical or scientific merit whatsoever, but still remains to my mind an absolute confirmation of my dislike of most people in the world.

While out running errands I had the misfortune on two separate occasions to happen upon two young women, both of whom blew their auto horns at me and threw insulting glares worthy of Shannon Dougherty (I don't think I spelled that right, but then, I never watched Beverely Hills 90210, either, because I was too busy becoming the frazzled introvert you now know and love an adult). There was no real reason for them to blow their horns; they just thought I was "in the way" and "too slow" apparently, never stopping to ponder that perhaps they needed to a) realize there's a valid reason why a traffic light turns red at a busy four way intersection b) get the hell off their cell phone c) slow down.

Is it just me, or do most youth between the age of sixteen and twenty five even know how to drive with two hands on the steering wheel? I am starting to suspect from random observations that this is a skill fast going the way of operating a manual typewriter and looking up information using a card catalog instead of a websearch.

And don't they show that nasty movie from 1965 or whenever, with all the blood and guts hanging out of a mangled car, a clear testimony as to the Dangers Of Driving Distracted? Or is there some New Driving (like New Age and New Math) Method out there, which expressely forbids driving with both hands on the steering wheel, and instead preaches zealously that one must always be preoccupied with the latest inane bit of Hollywood gossip? No seriously, I'm not being all Officer Safety here, or anything, but I wonder what kind of cosmic crisis would befall American youth were they deprived of their cell phones whilst operating motor vehicles...

And while I'm sounding approximately ninety-two-years-old, let me now gripe about the other thing I hate about Being Anywhere That Is Not My Apartment. Ill behaved children. Screaming is not cute, it is noise pollution. Enough said.

Meanwhile, I'm starting to feel a right sided twinge again, which may be nothing, or may mean another hospitalization (my colon and I are rooting for the "nothing" option).

And I realized, in my many, many moves, I somehow have managed to keep a bread machine, but no toaster. This has lead to my unfortunate Lazy Woman's Experiences With Broiling Bread And Other Products, the products of which, as you can imagine, turned out very smoky and carbon-y. I have thus confirmed, in my unscientific but ironically, highly Pavlovian way, that I need to just get my ass over to Target and buy a friggin' toaster, already.

But not before they ban all annoying people from being in the store at the same time as me.