In Vitriol

Very rarely can any one point to one moment in time, and with the remarkable clarity that comes from 20/20 hindsight, realize that there, at that precise moment, it all started to go horribly wrong. However, there are we few, we unhappy few, that have that gift bestowed upon them. I am one of that band of brothers. For me, the date is September 29th, 2006. That is the day on which my life went down the path marked "SHIT ZONE AHEAD." Funny, how clearly it is to see the mistake(s) that I should have known I was making. That was the day that I purchased the money pit/death trap in which I currently reside. I loathe it. There is, in fact, not one good thing about it. I can't even say, with any confidence it will not leak or collapse, that I have a roof over my head. There in lies part of the reason for this vitriolic post. The roof that was "redecorated" by the tree that tried to kill me, and one very crooked, crackhead contractor later, is STILL not fixed, and needs to be completely redone. The joy of home ownership is one of the biggest fucking lies perpetrated on the American people in a hundred years. There are no joys. The "tax break" myth is absolute bollocks. The money you save in taxes is more than made up for by the constant lawn work, the plumbing leaking, the painting that needs to be done, the updating of the kitchen that you need, the heater breaking, or the fucking trees that try to murder you in your sleep. All in all, I would just rather pay the fucking taxes. Let good, old Uncle Sam buy a ten thousand dollar toilet seat with my money. Some government official or local politico needs to have a comfy place to take a crap right? Why not let me pick up the tab for it? After all at least then I would not have to worry about doling out the extra money to fix the fucking toilet when it starts to leak. Of course the money pit/death trap, while being by far the largest mistake I have made since that fateful (fatal?) day, is not the only one. After all, why do things in half-measures? If you are going to ruin your future make sure you do it right, no need for just fucking up half way when you can shoot the moon. The beauty of these mistakes are that they are all encompassing. There are horrid personal mistakes, glaring career mistakes, shocking financial mistake, and just down right stupid fucking everyday mistakes. I am like the Baskin-Robbins of mistakes, 32 flavours, and then some. The sad part is that on some level I had some vague notion of some of this mistakes, and yet I made them anyway. I feel like I should adopt the George Costanza approach, if every instinct I have is wrong, then the opposite MUST be right. Like some bizarre world where up is down, and left is right. Perhaps the opposite of whatever my next decision is will be the right one. The one that gets my life out of the aforementioned ten thousand dollars crapper, and on the road to recovery. One never knows I suppose until, of course, almost three years later when they put two and two together and finally, after multiple attempts, get an even number less than six, but more than two. Wisdom comes late, or so they say, and trouble when it comes, comes not as a single scout, but in battalions. Well it appears I have battalions of young, unwise idiots piloting my brain ship into the shoals of disaster. Somewhere I am depriving a village of a perfectly good idiot. I say this with complete honesty, and in no way motivated by a desire for any sympathy. Sympathy is for the old, the weak, and the feeble minded. Oh wait I am old, and appear to be feeble minded, perhaps a LITTLE sympathy would not be such a bad thing. Actually, it probably since I am so feeble minded it would just be lost on me anyway. Whatever this disease is that allows people afflicted with it the ability to see, but not learn from, or repair their major life changing disasters, it is certainly one that you don't need.