What
would the world be like if we only did good things for others? Would it
be a better place to live? These are the questions I often ask myself
as I callously brush past a homeless person on the street or gleefully cut
someone off in heavy traffic. I never seem to get an answer though. It must
be that I don’t care. Anyway, being kind to others seems like it would
be a lot of work.

Today’s Sainted/Tainted features annoying ringtones, poorly-made cookies, heart attacks, and the Renaissance Festival.  

The
teens who stole my son’s backpack from him at the bus stop yesterday
morning. The bag contained a birthday present from his mother, a
“Banana Phone” cell phone which played that insipid song each time a
button on it was pressed. Thank god you stole it. It was enough to
drive a man mad I tell you, MAD!

It would only have been a
matter of time until I snapped. Eventually they would have come. They
would have broken down the door and found the boy lying there, cold and
grey and still. And the others too, they would join him. Join him in
his blissful, peaceful sleep. Free from tears. Free from the pain the
world so expertly rains down upon quiet children. That phone was his
window to the world; a gateway to living hell. And now that portal has
been sealed. Hopefully forever. Godspeed.

The
little kids who brought me a plate of so-called “chocolate chip
cookies” the other day. First of all, I’m an old woman. I’m on a very
fixed diet. The doctor says I can’t be eating sweets.

Secondly,
I was sick with the flu. What kind of a thing is that to do, bringing a
sick person cookies? Haven’t you young ladies ever heard of chicken
soup? I ate one of the cookies (out politeness) and it made me sick to
my stomach. You girls have no concern for your elders.

Finally,
you put far too many chips in the cookies. A standard classic chip
cookie should have AT MOST five or six chips in it. Some of yours had
upwards of FIFTEEN! Are you girls insane?! I didn’t have diabetes
before, but after eating one of your cookies I’m not so sure anymore.

The man who clutched his chest and collapsed in the entry way of
the Park Heights Wendy’s last Saturday. My kids thought you were just
hilarious. Thanks for the smiles.

You
“actors” from the Renaissance Festival who visited my father (a cancer
patient) at our home. He is a very sick man and is no longer able to
attend the festival, so you guys decided to come and pay him a visit.
Bad idea. First of all, his condition has worsened a great deal
recently, and so he is on a number of high-end painkillers. Because of
this (and because of the cancer), his mind is in a very fragile state.
He is in no condition to be dealing with a bunch of community theater
rejects who refuse to bathe and speak in fake British accents.

You
do realize of course that not everyone was BRITISH during the
renaissance, don’t you? They weren’t even consistent accents either.
Most of you sounded like chimney sweeps, a few of you were doing
Newsies voices, and I think one of you (the fat one) was even doing
material from Monty Python sketches. It was beyond belief. After you
left, my father told me he was finally ready to die. Frankly, I was too.