Though the truck be small, it still shall not be had

Sometimes the truck I won't have with something is not really a big rig - but more of a Ford flatbed. But these must be dealt with as well.

I will not have a flatbed's worth of truck with:

I'll Have No Truck With Peeps

Here's a perennial favorite I'll have no truck with: PEEPS.

People, Peeps are not candy. They are the industrial run-off from candy.

Peeps are the marshmallow leavings from some other confection, and one day some GENIUS of the novelty candy world got the idea to catch the hot sugary drippings in a mold that is somewhat shaped like a baby chick. Pass that glob under the Pink Glitter Machine, throw a few dots on there for eyes, BINGO - you've got Peeps. I bet they're stale before they leave the conveyor belt.

Peeps are the pigs-feet of the sugary holiday treat world - they are the last thing that can be used from that product. Creating them was a matter of pride for some manufacturer, not invention. Whatever warehouse they roll out of, there is a big sign somewhere that says ZERO PERCENT SUGAR WASTE!

Peeps are Easter basket space-filler - that's it. They are the packing peanuts of the Easter Candy world. They are one step above the asbestos grass that comes along in the basket, and not one big step at that.

Last week I tried Peeps again for the first time in five years or so to be sure - nope, nothing's changed.

Related: From McSweeney's, HELPFUL TIPS FOR FIGHTING AND WINNING THE WAR ON EASTER.

I'll Have No Truck With Your Decorative Guest Towels

I'm at your house, I've gone to the bathroom, I turn around to wipe my hands on the towel, and there's all this decorative embroidery and monogram work to contend with.

Very pretty, but how am I supposed to dry my hands on that?

Number one, I don't want to wipe my hands all over some heirloom, number two, all that delicate threadwork isn't going to be very absorbant, now is it?

Can you leave me one piece of simple terrycloth not festooned with lovely needlework? How many times have I come over and ended up wiping my hands on my pants because I was afraid of soiling the damn guest bathroom towels?!?

Give me a real towel in the guest bathroom. I'll have no truck with the decorative ones!

Begone, truck! Truly, ye shall not be had here!

Something I will have no truck with:

The word "methinks" used anytime after the Elizabethan period in literature.

Give me a goddam break. This word has no place in the 21st century, much less on your website. Do me a favor. Look down at your legs. Are you wearing tights? No? Well, is there a doublet around your torso? Corset all laced up nice and tight, only to be undone by your betrothed? Are you writing thine website with a quill pen, and using Ye Olde HTML?

No? Then lose the fancy-talk, Shakespeare, and join the rest of the groundlings.

What an annoying little bit of fancy-lad prissiness this word is. Just know that if you use it I immediately picture you in a page-boy haircut.

Here's the rule of thumb: if you are using this word, and you were born after 1603, then shut up.

JUST SHUT UP.

CAN'T YOU JUST STOP SAYING IT, YOU'RE MAKING ME SICK TO MY STOMACH.

In this town, at the end of the day, there will be no truck

Question: Is it possible to live and work here without developing grand theories about it that you love to share with people, as if the whole world is just wondering what it's like? Answer: NO.

I will have no truck with the people of my new city who use phrases of the type

In this town, [LOS ANGELES / MOVIE INDUSTRY GENERALIZATION HERE]

In this town is the apex of smarm. When someone says in this town they have achieved the pinnacle, nay, THE VERY ZENITH of smarmitude.

When I hear an In This Townism it literally makes the bile rise in my throat. ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO STAND THERE AND GIVE ME THIS PRECIOUS NUGGET OF ANGELENO LORE, I want to scream. DID YOU ONE DAY DREAM OF BEING ABLE TO RELAY TIDBITS ABOUT THIS CITY AND ITS MANY QUIRKS? HAVE YOU SAVED THEM UP IN SOME MENTAL FILE AND NOW, TODAY, YOUR DREAM IS REALIZED?

Secondary to this are pearls of entertainment business wisdom prefaced by At the end of the day.

At the end of the day, [SOME STATEMENT OF ENTERTAINMENT WORLD KNOWLEDGE THAT THEY BELIEVE IS HARD-WON AND WORTHY OF ATTENTION]

LISTEN TO YOURSELF, I want to scream. DO YOU TALK THE WAY BECAUSE YOUR BOSS DOES? ARE YOU HEARING YOURSELF?

Let's make it into a game. 10 points for an In This Town, 5 for an At the End of the Day. 20 if they are holding a Starbucks coffee when the say it, 40 if it is uttered into a cell phone while driving. All four at once? JACKPOT! YOU WIN! GO HOME!

Of course this is the most unfortunate and frankly stupid pet peeve that I have. It's a bit like going to a musical and complaining because there are songs.

Spontaneous Intersection Presidents

Just because I stopped using the Things I'll Have No Truck With category for a while doesn't mean I've gotten lax. On the contrary there are still a whole host of people and issues with which I share many things, but truck is not one of them.

And to prove it, here's one now.

Those people who feel it necessary to give me that kingly "wave through" at an intersection, even when I already have the right of way and don't need special permission from them.

I suppose I could look at it another way and just be thankful that they're acknowledging they won't hit me as I take my rightful turn. But for some reason it comes across as them granting me special dispensation out of their benevolence. I don't like it. Whether I'm on foot or in my car, I don't like it.

Imagine me walking in front of their car, stiffly holding out the palm of my hand towards them as I did. REMAIN STOPPED! PEDESTRIAN IN CROSSWALK! DO NOT ACCELERATE AT THIS TIME!

I think they'd find it a little unnecessary as well.

Dear sir in the schmancy Jaguar: We are all equals here. You don't get to be Intersection President just because you want it.

And to demonstrate the illegitimacy of your presidency, I'm going to give up my turn and wave YOU through the intersection now. That's right, there's been a coup.

Oh, I see you're annoyed now. 'Why isn't this jerk walking?' you wonder. 'Did I not, in my capacity as leader of this great intersection, grant him passage?'

Sir, you can stay there and be annoyed for as long as you want. I am a petty man, and I can wait.

No Truck With Fake National Companies!

Here's something with which no truck shall be had, by me or mine, be it a rental truck or one purchased outright:

So-called national companies that are in reality no more than a loose federation of franchises, with no central standards or accounting of their practices.

People! I'm not asking for a company to be able to scan my retina or my voice and immediately output my entire transaction history! I know that what you arrange with one person at the phone company generally is immediately forgotten! We don't live in the Minority Report world, and while some companies display a Borg-like disdain for humans, they have not yet gotten the hang of the Borg inter-hive-mind communication. Fine! I can understand that! I accept it!

And I'm also not asking for every company that does business in more than one state to implement some sort of over-arching database to make everything uber-convenient. I don't expect the kid behind the counter at McDonalds #5172 to know what I ordered at McDonalds #9181. I don't expect Starbucks barristas to universally know that I like tall lattes.

But some companies seem ready to hand out their logo on a shingle to just about anyone that thinks it might be cool to hang one outside their window!

Even if I don't expect every single franchise to do everything the exact same way, how about if they occasionally talk to one another? Some example offenders:

1. U-HAUL.

   For all the information the individual U-Haul franchisees seem to be responsible for in Chicago, for instance, I could easily qualify as one of their authorized rental locations sitting right here in Santa Monica. I own no trucks, I keep no records, I never answer my phone, but I AM listed on the U-Haul website. What gives with that?

   (Look for my saucy letter to U-Haul for their part in our moving fiasco in this space. They will RUE THE DAY.)

2. BALLY'S GYM.

   Wife Ami had a membership at Bally's in Chicago. (I disdain Bally's as known purveyors of oontz music.) So she had to get on the phone to the national chapter or whatever and make all sorts of account changes and get dispensations to go to their gyms out here. What gives?

   Why couldn't you just walk into any Bally's and have Hans Oontzman at the front desk make an address change? What is the point of a membership if you don't belong to the whole of Bally's? But no, special calls had to be made.

   The most amusing thing was how Wife Ami couldn't see how this could have been made any easier for her. "All I had to do was call the national office and have them make the change!" She said. "What could be easier!"

   "How about walking into any Bally's and just presenting your card," I said.

3. STATE FARM INSURANCE.

   There are so many ways I will have no truck with insurance companies. But this narrow bit of non-truckedness is their franchise, or branch situation. In order to switch our insurance out here, all we have to do is locate another agent, then arrange for that agent to call the old agent, who will send our paperwork or whatever. What gives?

   Why am I having to introduce these agents to each other like some sort of insurance agent yenta, when of course they all already know each other from their Annual Gloating Convention, held as a part of the Pentaverate Conference in the Bilderbergh Hotel? How about at minimum, providing a list of possible agents? Better yet, WHY DON'T YOU JUST MAKE THE ADDRESS CHANGE IN YOUR NATIONAL DATABASE, AND BEGIN YOUR HARD, UN-ENVIABLE TASK OF CHARGING ME THE HIGHER CALIFORNIA RATE?

Let me sum it up this way: the information has to get from one branch to another. If your company doesn't feel responsible for it, and if I'M acting as the inter-office courier, of my own account info, then I should at least get the special courier rate.

The thinking man's "truck" entry

Something I'll have no truck with:

Any use or derivation of the phrase "It is the thinking man's _________." Is anything smarmier than this shoot-from-the-hip insult? Even when it's apt, I hate it.

NO TRUCK.

I'll have no truck with this (read: I don't like it)

LISTEN! I don't like it when you people write something and then include a little parenthetical telling me what exact meaning I'm supposed to glean from it.

Examples:

-While companies strive to reduce this two-thirds tax through lower labor costs (read: outsourcing), researchers are looking further down the road.

-Rumsfeld's memo outlined how prisoners might be placed in uncomfortable physical positions (read: stacked naked in a human pyramid) to make them more forthcoming during official interviews.

-The film critic was so worldly and wise that his observations simply could not be conveyed within the popular context (read: zeitgeist) of one language.

Much like other formatting issues I have no truck with, this modifier is an unnecessary stage direction for how the text is supposed to "sound." When I see (read: ) I always imagine the word coughed loudly into a fist, or delivered as an aside to the audience to clue everyone in to the author's cleverness.

Lord knows I'm guilty of including unnecessary stage directions in my writing, but ultimately, whatever meaning is meant to be (read: ) in your sentence should be in the sentence itself. If you include a (read: ) in your sentence, then go ahead and include everything I need to know inside those parentheses, because that's all I'm reading.

So as I have spoken, so let it be done.

A thing of which I'll have no truck

People who begin an email or message board entry with "Ummmm..." or "Uhhhhh..."

This is the sign that the text to follow will be snarky, sarcastic, and superior, and should be skipped. Usually it has something to do with someone not following the precious posting rules on a message board, which followers of this irregular category will know is something also of which no truck shall have I.

Now that I'm about it, I also deny truck to all those that speak this way as well. Because it's certainly not confined to the electronic word.

Bottom line: Unless you are actually using "Ummmmm..." or "Uhhhh..." in its correct usage, which is to stall for time while you think of what you're supposed to say next, then it should not be employed at all.

Another thing I'll have no truck with

Self-Appointed Message Board Police. Why is it that no matter what the topic, no matter what the political leaning, no matter even if there IS no political leaning, even if it's just a comedy site: where there is a message board, there are message board police?

And I'm not talking about the site administrators that have to make sure nobody uses bad language or steals email addresses or pick up underage girls. I'm talking about regular posters who appoint themselves the Defender of the Message Board Integrity.

These are the people that aren't usually commenting on the subject of a post or thread - but on HOW GOOD of a post or thread it is. Is it worthy of the Message Board's stated principles? Does it abide by the site guidelines? These are the concerns of the Message Board Police.

God forbid you stray off topic with these people, or submit a bad URL, and HEAVENS FORFEND you post something that may have already been put up in the past (on Metafilter in particular this is the worst of the cardinal sins). Step out of line and the Message Board Police are right there to SLAP YOU DOWN SWIFT AND SURE WITH THE RIGHTEOUS ANGER OF GOD.

These people always seem to keep a line open to the site admin to report when someone's "flame" gets out of hand. They seem a bit like the little smart girls that tattled and sat in front of the class.

Other things I will have no truck with

1. Using asterisks to indicate that you really *really* want to emphasize something.

Folks, we already have the ability to speak boldly, and the ability to speak from a certain slant. And if we're in pure plaintext mode, there's always the antiquated method of using all caps to indicate that you REALLY mean to emphasize something.

The advent of electronic communication like emails or web pages makes the HOW of human communication a lot different, but I maintain that it has not affected the WHAT. There's no call to draft the special characters into service as some sort of markup for your thoughts.

Similarly, people who do the faux HTML-markup of their text make me <DAFFY DUCK VOICE> SOOOOOOOOOOOOO </DAFFY DUCK VOICE> mad!

2. Any film criticism - or literary for that matter - that cannot resist using the phrases fin-de-seicle or zeitgeist deserves to be disregarded.

My feeling is, and this goes for number one on today's list of Things I'll Have No Truck With as well: If you call yourself a writer then you should be able to express yourself with the words of one language alone. Leave the special formatting to the publisher and leave the foreign phrases to the diplomats.

(Previous things I will have no truck with.)

Things I'll Have No Truck With

Here's an excellent article on advocacy of a certain position and why it sometimes leads to narrow-mindedness. And if there is one thing this blog will have NO TRUCK WITH, it is NARROW-MINDEDNESS.

http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2000/12/advocacy.html

The parallel with baseball fans championing / demonizing a particular manager exemplifies what I hate about political discourse. This is what I was talking about with my mini-rant on Lileks and also a bit when I was blasting Instapundit.

I found this on Metafilter, by the way, which is exactly where you should go if you ever find yourself with ten minutes to spare and need an excellent web diversion.

On this same topic, John heard Giuliani give a keynote address at the conference he's attending in San Fran, whichever one it is, and has a great assessment, also articulating something that makes me irritated about discourse.

I beg of him however to move his purple bar over a bit, as it has been committing Contentas Obscuras for a few days.