Things that should be outlawed/enforced.

1) People who ride their bikes AGAINST traffic. I am going to add here, people who ride their bikes without a helmet, don't know that they are not a car, have their iPods blaring so they can't hear you, and then blow through red lights when you have a green causing you to almost make them into a pancake. (And not the good blueberry kind.) Oh, and, hey tattooed bike messenger...you're basically invisible due to the fact that you carry 42 lbs on a six foot frame. Since your bike is fatter than you, and B.O. doesn't actually emit a cloud of color, it makes it semi-difficult to view you weaving in and out of traffic at 900 miles an hour in a side mirror that is not the size of the one on the Hubble Telescope.

2) Pit bulls. Look, I know everyone wants to save them. I get that. But you know that whole theory about there are no bad dogs, just bad dog owners? I don't buy it. No one ever got killed by a Pomeranian, unless they were maybe licked to death. And even if that were true, guess where the majority of dog owners lie? Think of it this way. Imagine I was walking my pet crocodile down the street...people might not be all that thrilled to see its enormous people-eating, child-mauling head coming their way. "But, he's such a sweetheart! Here's a live goat, Chompy. Aren't you so cute?" I'm just saying, if you own one...be aware that I don't like jogging by it, and I don't think it's cute when you let it walk ten feet in front of you.

3) Dog owners who use extend-a-leashes. This is the all time worst invention ever. First of all, if you own one, sorry, but you're probably a moron. It's almost without fail, that the people who use these leashes are exactly the people who shouldn't use these leashes. The entire purpose of a leash is to control your dog. We live in a city. A city with tight sidewalks. Letting Spot run twenty feet ahead of you on a thin invisible wire that has no end in sight is not only inconsiderate, but downright irresponsible...to the dog, to other dogs on real leashes who can't get away from your dog, and to every single person around you. If you have one, and you live in the city, please throw it out. You don't know how to use it. Trust me.

4) People who ride their bikes down the wrong side of the street being pulled by their pit bull on an extend-a-leash. You know who you are.

5) Construction workers who use pneumatic air guns to nail shit together at 7:30 in the morning on a Saturday. I would like to pneumatically nail gun you.

6) People who think it's okay to pull up into the middle of an intersection even though they have a stale green light and all cars in front of them are at a stand still. If there is no room for your gigantor Hummer to comfortably rest on the other side of the light, don't go. If you go, and you sit there and block the intersection, you deserve to have something aimed at you. My choice would be the previously confiscated pneumatic nail gun.

7) People who drive Hummers and throw wrappers out of their car windows. I mean, REALLY? Is there a contest I don't know about?

8) Cab drivers who hold up their finger and shush you when you are trying to give them directions because they are so engrossed in their cell phone conversation...and then take a wrong turn and don't apologize or turn off the meter. These guys are ten times chattier than thirteen year old girls, twice as surly, and not nearly as good at driving. Perhaps I should start tipping in lipgloss and Hello Kitty pencil cases.

9) People who turn the bass up in their cars so loud that your car (four cars over from theirs) vibrates like a Shiatsu massage chair.

10) Abandoned houses (particularly when they are next to mine) boarded up for over half a decade, and no one doing a damn thing about it.

Moldy lemonade.

I think I just drank some.
But the sad thing is, I may get another glass.

Gym, not so dandy.

I just want to start out by saying that normally, I love my gym. It's $25 a month...no contracts. It's clean. There's only a very small percentage of veiny, waxed men wearing World Wrestling belts and cut off Ts grunting their way to bigger bulges...so that is a perk.

It's also close to work, so 2-3 times a week, esp. during the winter, I can go at lunch, get it over with, find out what's happening on the soaps, and still fit into my sweatpants. It's really an excellent relationship.

But, a few months ago, as I'm walking out of the gym having a heated debate in my head between Wendy's vs. McDonald's, I get talked into one of those "free" personal training sessions with the head trainer guy. So I schedule it, am duly impressed, and after the session (with zero blood in my brain and the inability to ambulate) the guy "persuades" me to spend $540 on, like, 8 sessions, which is not all that great a deal. (In case, unlike me, you're any good at math.) But he's "giving me a great deal." Jedi mind trick? I'll take it!

Okay, so after I sign the paperwork, literally with hand shaking from low blood sugar and near tears from being the biggest sucker in the world, he tells me that he can't be the one who trains me, so he'll probably hand me off to one of his other guys. Hello, Master Bait-and-Switch, didn't see you there.

I'm, truth be told, pretty annoyed to have been burned twice in one transaction. But, I decide to make the best of it, and my new guy is super cool, and even though I actually CAN still walk when I leave a session with him, and I'm not all that sure he's really watching for how I'm positioning myself when I'm doing weird exercises, he's fine.

So I run out of pre-paid sessions, and the urge to be guilt-tripped into buying more kicks in. So I ask him, today, if I can do 1/2 hour sessions instead of hour-long ones, and he's fine with it, but we have to ask Master Bait-and-Switch, the keymaster to the training deals.

Well, so, Master BS goes right into how if we're going to do this "special" favor for me, I have to order twice as many sessions and how if I sign this in-triplicate paper that says they can charge my credit card for $1000 over the next three months, then I can do it. And then he shoves it over to me.

I explain that I have to check with my purse-strap controlling husband (even though I am the tightwad who won't ever let us buy anything) and I can't just sign it all willy-nilly.

He's like, "Listen, I won't do anything. Just sign it, and then call me if you can do it, and I'll put it in."

Sure. Let me just sign this legally binding contract that says that I have to pay you a huge sum of money, and authorize you to use my credit card to do so...and I'll trust that you that you won't do anything with it.

He pulls the oldest trick in the book and puts me in the uncomfortable situation (after he's offered me this 'I'm your best friend, shhhh, sweet just-for-you deal') of having to either sign the paper or question his integrity.

So, I say that, even though I trust him (RIGHT), I can't be sure it's not going to end up in the wrong hands (HIS) and end up with $1000 coming out of my account (OOPS!).

I leave it that I'm going to go back and sign it tonight if my mean tightwad husband (ME) will let me. But, it left such a bad taste in my mouth, I'm not sure if I ever want to go back. I hate stuff like that!

Look, I'm a sucker. Fine. I'm totally willing to spend money! I'm totally willing to pay large amounts of cash for the attention of a personal trainer even though I haven't lost a single pound or had anyone look twice at my diet or fat% since the first day when I wrote the first check.

But, now I'm supposed to sign in blood for 30 training sessions? Give me a freaking break, dude. Grrr. If I all this fake weight training was working and I was a little stronger, I would break him in two.