Dear Haters

Sometimes I get my deepest self-reflections from reading comments from people who absolutely hate me. While I usually feel most of them misunderstand me, some succeed in calling me out on my B.S. in ways I could never achieve on my own.

Of course, there are also some miserable angry meanies out there that can just kiss a butt too. You know who you are!

With a small handful people eager to point and laugh at my every failure, I put up a front, and often hold back sharing some of my hardships. I didn’t realize how much so, until I had a conversation with a cousin in Georgia, who pointed out how I never seem stressed out on social media. This came as a shock to me, considering I see myself as an open sore who shares too much.

So let me open up a little to set your minds at ease.

Haters, take note:

I am stressed

My cardiologist could confirm the above statement, if I still had health insurance. I take pills at a high dose every day to ensure I don’t have a stroke and die. I am a 49-year-old man with 1 kidney and high blood pressure, a broken back, and I already had one knee go out. Being a superhero has its consequences.

Financially, things aren’t the best right now. Right after they gave me a good review and a raise for setting up and running the casino marketing print shop, some Cabbage Patch Kid-faced dude came in one morning and informed me they were eliminating my position. I used to hold jobs for years, even getting statewide awards. In the past few years, that stability has diminished.

With health and money, I am aware of the bed I made for myself. I used to play the game right, being a good little cubicle dweller, holding back my inner demons that kept my middle fingers down. Perhaps working 4 years for the world’s most famous legal pimp broke that. When I stood up against powerful groups to defend the Hof empire, I let out another me that I can’t put back. For this reason, I have become mostly un-hirable anywhere locally (so I’ve been told).

My family is stressed

My wife of 26 years is amazing. Besides being an awesome mom to all 5 of our kids, she’s a hard working lady who’s put in some time with the State. For what she puts up with there, and what she has achieved professionally, I am very proud of her. She’s come a long way since I met her in the mail room of the Nevada Appeal in the late 1900’s. She’s the glue that holds our family together, and I know I’m lucky she hasn’t gotten tired of my shit yet.

The last two kids I had, became legal adults. Just a few months ago, my second oldest son got married. My youngest daughter just moved out and started college. All of them are starting out in a wrecked economy, where jobs are few and the expenses are high. Compared to when Lisa and I were their age, prices have risen 94%.

My vehicles are stressed

Our Honda got pulled out of back yard retirement, and I learned how to do a valve job on that (which I would do several more times until I realized the problem was bigger).

The old C20 I call Air Force Amy, which has been a constant project and my daily driver, just blew it’s torque converter.

My trusty Suburban is grounded to the back yard until I get the $400 I need to rebuild the engine. That truck is a legend, but she found her limit.

My kids’ shitboxes are always breaking too. Between theirs and mine, I’ve been a full time driveway mechanic, doing jobs far beyond my pay grade as a graphic artist.

Our country is stressed

Every time I look at a headline, it seems worse than the last one. TDS is real, but it’s not what the cult says it is. Trump has deranged the minds of everyone, haters and boot lickers alike. Families are getting disappeared. We’re starting wars and even threatening allies. It’s even been made obvious that this country, and possibly the world, is run by cannibalistic pedophiles.

It’s just so much, all at once, all the time now. Everyone picks a camp, ignores what goes against their confirmation bias, and marches on. For me, it seemed like the obvious choice not to pick the side of cruelty and fascism, but many people openly disagree with me on that.

My dog is not stressed

I rescued an abused 6-month old puppy just before I got canned from the casino. For my blood pressure and inner demons, this little dude has been the best medicine. He scares easily, so I have to be gentle, no matter how my day is going.

Pepper has grown a little physically, and by leaps and bounds emotionally. It took a lot of effort and patience to get him to trust these big hairless gorillas that used to only hurt him. He’s learned that most people are nice, and his new family has his back. He also scored, since I cook fully balanced fresh daily meals for my doggos.

Even posting updates about Pepper can help redirect my attention from all the bad news and meanies online. This kid can get me out of a bad mood, just by snuggling up next to me and looking up with those brown eyes. We’ve become each other’s therapy animals, it seems.

Where do I go from here?

Hell if I know!

For those of you joining from a Facebook link, there’s a possibility I have blocked you from my gossip group, “My Dayton Peeps is Bigger,” or even blocked you from my personal account. It’s partially spite, partially protection. Some of you have teamed up in an attempt to get my account banned, which would have wiped out 15 years of my family memories there. So if I don’t feel right about you on that platform, I just cut you off.

Even on NextDoor, these turds try to jump me! One random guy I’ve never heard of, wrote a post the other day to encourage everyone in my NextDoor neighborhood to report me to get me permanently banned. Ironically, I think this caused him to get banned, since we haven’t heard from him since.

Got something to say?

If you love me, hate me, or never heard of me and have something to say, I’m all ears. See the comment section below. Don’t hold back! There’s no Zuckerberg here, kid!

*Note: I get a lot of spam bots hotting the comments, so I have to manually approve them before they show up here – so if it doesn’t show up right away, give it a minute.