So, uh, thanks for everyone’s deep concern about my footwear. I am not buying those boots. Or any other boots. Oh look! Here is the most expensive article of clothing I have ever purchased! And yet, I would need the equivalent of several of these, plus a lot of alcohol and also perhaps a crash cart to revive me from the ensuing heart attack if I were to spend that kind of money on shoes. Or, really, anything that doesn’t either use electric current to accomplish a household task or somehow facilitate the getting from point A to point B.

You know how they say that when you don’t have anything nice to say, you shouldn’t say anything at all? No?

Me neither.

In the immortal (if slightly mangled) words of Maurice Sendak: Let the wild grumpus begin!

Here are some things I hate today:

1) My hair. Christ. I’m two weeks out from Hairgate and the good news is that I no longer feel completely bald. The bad news is that all the grey is growing back in and so now I have to decide do I just leave well enough alone because in another week or two my hair will actually be around the right length (finally) or do I risk another dye adventure? I am not the sort of person who normally spends this much time thinking about my stupid hair.

2) Christmas music everywhere. I love Christmas music as much as the next person, assuming that the next person likes it but DOESN’T WANT TO HEAR CHRISTMAS MUSIC BEFORE THANKSGIVING.

3) The hold music at the doctor’s office. I understand they’re busy and I may have to hold. I do not want to listen to 4-second snippets of bad country music interrupted by very chirpy commercials for whatever the latest “news” at the practice is. (“Did you know that we’ve been joined by Dr. Goryaiva Vgjkhwkjghwg? IT’S TRUE! He comes to us from Croatia and did a specialty in the application of Q-tips and butter in wound care!! Welcome, Dr. Vgjkhwkjghwg!!”)

4) Socks. I hate buying them, I hate how dirty the kids get them, I hate that half of them disappear, I hate pairing the ones that are left. Screw the landfills; I want disposable socks.

5) People. See, I would explain this, but then I would get email from a bunch of lovely people apologizing for any transgression they may have committed, which of course they didn’t, at all, but are now afraid they may have. Meanwhile, the people who actually might perhaps want to rethink their interpersonal styles will blithely go about their way thinking, “I wonder what happened. Tralala!”

Instead of explanation, I will instead let you–a few hundred of my very closest friends–in on a very special project currently underway. It’s true! For a long time Joshilyn and I have been looking for just the right opportunity to collaborate. Finally that day has arrived. After careful consideration, we’ve realized that we are wasting our talents elsewhere. CLEARLY we are meant to be writing a reality television series, based on all of the people in our lives who should, honestly, just shut up already.

It’s going to be GREAT! We’re calling it Posey Jam Island. We’ll populate an island with people who haven’t got a clue, and follow them as they submit to a series of grueling tasks (namely, having to live with one another) and each try to win the title of Most Unbelievably Self-Absorbed. We’ve already written several scenes.

Joss favors the scenario where–after allowing the entire tribe’s food supply float away in their only canoe, because she was busy licking hallucinogenic toads–one of our heroines sobs so piteously that half the island’s inhabitants truly believe she had nothing to do with this flagrant irresponsibility.

She also gives thumbs-up to a repeating theme wherein one tribe member runs around telling each of the other members how they’ve done everything all wrong, based upon his in-depth, 15-second analysis. The others are fairly tolerant of this behavior, right up until the day when they saw his head off with half a coconut shell and send it out to sea as shark bait.

Me, I’m torn. There’s the gripping nighttime scene where one player stares into the fire, poking the embers with a stick, while everyone else sleeps. She shakes her head as he whispers quietly to no one in particular that she just doesn’t understand others (though she tries, LORD HOW SHE TRIES!). Her fireside muttering is interspersed with clips of the other players talking about how great she is, and how she’s just misunderstood. In a flashback clip we get to watch said girl-next-door kill a wild boar with her bare hands and devour it raw… then return to base camp and insist that she’s a vegetarian. The scene ends with the final squeals of the boar played in the background as she continues to poke at the fire.

On the other hand, I’m also a sucker for the scene where Player A approaches Player B for help catching some fish. Player B starts sounding off on a variety of issues completely unrelated to fish (or even food, for that matter), culminating in a long rant about how A really needs to consider the importance of basket weaving to the future of economy. Player A–understandably stunned–agrees to think about it. He then tries to slowly back away, only to have Player B fling his buff to the sand in disgust. “WHEN ARE YOU GOING FISHING??” he bellows.

The winner will undoubtedly return to civilization to wander around in a fog of cluelessness and persecution, periodically gesturing to the year’s supply of humble pie they’ve won to declare, “What am I supposed to do with THAT?”