The Seventh Guesstimation of The Human Condition In Its Entirety

For those of you, thousands I’m sure, who wait with bated breath for these bi-weekly analyses of what it means to walk this earth upright on two feet, today’s write-up may come as a bit of a letdown. I could tell colorful lies about how I haven’t written any prose in the last two weeks due to my apartment burning down or suddenly developing an acute case of arthritis that has frozen my fingers into taloned claws, or I could tell the boring truth that I have had more real deadlines to meet that have unfortunately taken precedent over this self-imposed 1500-words-every-other-Wednesday business. In either case, I don’t have anything to send to the printers today.

When the Great Scorer comes to mark against my name, one bad newsletter won’t make the difference between me getting past the pearly gates or not. Neither would a missing one, I suppose, but that’s beside the point now. Instead of taking the position that this is an entirely un-serious endeavor for everyone besides myself and that no one would hardly even notice this newsletter’s absence in your inbox this week, a position which I strongly considered, I’ve allowed myself to borrow one single moral from The Good Doctor Thompson in good conscious: a haphazardly lashed-together collection of hastily scrawled chickenscratch is better than no story at all.

In the thirty minutes I have to write this before going to work, feeling quite sour at both myself and the world for reasons I cannot go into at this time, I’ve decided that I’ll frame this seventh anemic write-up around Seven Things I Hate Right Now, hopefully providing some refreshing vitriol during a time of year that often oozes a saccharine sense of reflection.

1. Artificial Sweeteners

I would sooner drink the fluid that drips out of my kitchen sink strainer than a cup of coffee with Stevia mixed into it. Whatever negative effects on my health I may incur by using something like brown sugar pales in comparison to the psychic damage that is guaranteed by sipping any aspartame-enhanced beverage.

2. MUNI Police

For the last five months, I’ve been waging a holy war with those black-and-blue uniformed bastards. I maintain the position that public transportation should be free for all, and thus my praxis dictates that I never pay for the bus. I’d be a hypocrite if I did. As such, I am constantly on edge on the bus, scanning the next stop to see if any clipboard-wielding goons are waiting to slap me across the face with a $140 ticket. On many occasions, I’ve spotted these unfriendly faces and been forced to get off a stop early and walk a lap around the block, pretending that I’m not waiting to board the exact same bus I just departed from.

3. The Old iPhone Chargers

After being caught outside in the rain without an umbrella or jacket, my year-and-a-half-old iPhone has been rejecting my USB-C to Lightning charging cable, advising me to remove the charger until all the moisture inside has evaporated. Somehow, this is not a problem for the previous decade’s regular USB to Lightning charging cable, which I’ve been using for the last few weeks to my incredible displeasure. I’m not usually one to sing the praises of the richest company in the world, but whatever magical runes they’ve been inscribing into the USB-C that allows me to charge my phone from dead to full in 30 minutes are certainly worthy of some gentle praising.

4. Bad Matcha

Over the last few years, I’ve developed a powerful taste for Matcha. Having long abandoned the masculine ideal of a cup of black coffee and all the preconceived notions that follow, a well-made matcha latte is one of the finest mundane pleasures in life. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to come up with an effective litmus test of whether or not an establishment will provide one up to my standards beyond simply ordering one and throwing half of it away when it tastes like lawn trimmings. I’ve never been one to have a strict and structured coffee order, so I’m not too adept at verbally identifying my caffeinated beverage preferences beyond the vague, “however people normally order it.” As a result, I will likely subject myself to many more mediocre matchas, but this isn’t a list of Seven Constructive Solutions, it’s a list of seven things I hate and a poorly constructed and conceptualized matcha latte earns a spot on that list.

5. The Song APT. by Rosé and Bruno Mars

This song has tapped into that mythical genre of absolute corporate dogshit shopping-mall music that has been previously reserved for songs like Maroon 5’s Payphone and Pharrell Williams’s Happy. I cannot spend any more time writing about this song without producing an earth-shattering groan and eye-roll so I must move on. My deepest condolences go out to every Macy’s employee in the country.

6. Overpriced Mexican Food

I’ve been plagued by this ever since I left Los Angeles. This is very much so a San Francisco-specific problem, but even the little mom-and-pop, hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurants in this city charge at least three or four dollars for a single taco. I understand that running a business anywhere in San Francisco is much more expensive than the overhead of the restaurant I go to in Inglewood, but there is something truly unnatural about spending $15 on three street tacos.

7. Clear Rum

Some of the worst nights of my life have been kickstarted by a slip of the tongue over the bar. I don’t realize that I’ve uttered the words “Rum and Coke” instead of “Jack and Coke” until I see the bartender pouring that devilish clear Bacardi into my glass, and by that point, it’s too late. I won’t embarrass/incriminate myself by telling the stories of what happens after these verbal missteps get the best of me, but the end of them are all the same: keeled over on the bathroom floor cursing myself for not just sticking to tequila.