On my old blog, my profile stated simply: "I love my friends and family dearly and hate everyone else tremendously." I really can't sum up my philosophy on life any better than that. If I know you and you are a friend, I will help you and support you and be there for you. If I don't know you, or if I know you and dislike you, I just don't care. You can live, you can die, you can get horribly disfigured – whatever. This is one reason that I don't contribute to charity. I'd rather provide charity to people that I know deserve it and that I have personally determined are worth my time and effort and money. I'm not going to waste it on some anonymous person. This also explains why I have to be convinced to vote. I'm an upper class straight white male – I have nothing to worry about no matter who's in office. Why waste the energy on something that will never benefit or affect me? Now before you protest that this doesn't make sense or that I'm crazy, think about it. Are people you don't even know really worth your blood, sweat and tears?

Now, this weekend, I came across someone who just confirmed for me that my apathy tinged with disgust towards the random stranger is in fact a good idea. Allow me to elucidate:

I was driving over to a friend's house in my usual manner, which means going about 20 mph faster than the other cars, skipping through lanes and around cars like it's a chessboard, and just driving like an aggressive driver does. At one point, I hit one of those horrible slowdowns where each car across all three lanes is side by side, all going exactly the speed limit or slower. Usually, I just go around them in the median or the right-hand turn lane, but these lanes were blocked, so I had to bide my time until one of them inched ahead of the others.

The vehicle I was stuck behind was a big redneck's truck, with a sticker of Calvin peeing on something, a "W" sticker, something about killing all ragheads, and another sticker professing the driver's desire to be fishing rather than driving. In the back of the truck were three boys/men – all probably between 16-30, haircuts ranging from buzzcuts to mullets, some with baseball caps, and all of them with those pinched, mean faces and beady little redneck eyes. They were already in the category of "Boy I wish their car would spontaneously combust so that these morons can't procreate", but then it got worse. By cutting off the geriatric bluehair in the lane next to me, who had started to slow down to a painful crawl, I was able to get around the three lane blockers and ended up in front of the truck at the next light.

Looking in my rearview mirror, I see a pigheaded little man behind the wheel. He just looks like someone that would smell like BO, spit tobacco continuously, and make you want to wash your hands every time you got within ten feet of him. I was feeling dirty just driving in front of him! And while I thought it couldn't get any worse, I watch this reprobate stick his index finger into his nose all the way up to the knuckle. Now, at first, I was generous in my forgiveness. People pick their noses sometimes – it's just a nasty habit, but nothing too terrible, right? Wrong. I continued to watch in abject horror as he plonked his finger out of his nostril, inspected the prize glistening on the end of his dirty, grimy finger, and then . . .

And then wiped it on his upper lip! I almost slammed my own head into the horn when I saw him do that. If you're going to eat it, eat it. If you're going to flick it, flick it. But don't save it for later by wiping it on your upper lip! What the holy fuck is that about?

And then he did it again. And again. And a fourth time. I looked anxiously as the light mocked me, staying red. My stomach was churning, and I was a hair away from projectile vomiting. And right before I reach my limit of nasal prospecting and lip smearing, the light turned green. I breathed a sigh of relief and drove off, with a final glance in my mirror, only to see his pig-like tongue slop out of his mouth and slide over his top lip, collecting his nuggets of gold and depositing them in his toothless, disgusting gullet.