Thursday Thirteen: Don't Say or Do In Public

I am brain dead today so I decided to make my blogging life easier and dive into the Thursday Thirteen world. Plus, Claudia always inspires me with her lists of 13 things, so I've combined admiration with my brain deadness, and I've decided to give this a go.

For my inaugural thirteen, I've decided to share thirteen things you should not do or say in public. I'll leave out the obvious like eating boogers and having sex. Instead, I'll share some things I've noted over the past couple weeks.

Thirteen Things You Should Not Do or Say in Public:

1) Whisper that you want to cut off Barack Obama's nuts. I'd say this is a no-brainer but any nut-cutting references should especially be avoided if you're:
1) a reverend
2) wearing a mic
3) on a national "news" station.


2) Eat pork rinds: Especially don't eat the extra large bag of pork rinds. Ugh, I can't even write more about this one. It's just nauseating.

3) Pull on a stranger's hair to check if it's real. Really, I beg you. And if you do it, don't make it worse by saying, "How'd you get that weave in there with no tracks at all? You got a lace front? I don't see no glue!"

4) Assume that the gang of kids with someone all belong to that person. Some of us do take our extended family or our own kid's friends out in public along with our own children. We don't really need to see your disapproving looks or hear, "Girl, that's a lotta kids! How many baby daddy's you got?"

5) Try to convince a Depeche Mode fan that Depeche Mode is not that great. Actually, don't do this in private either. There's no faster way to turn a relationship, whether it's work or personal, sour. Do this and you'll automatically be ejected from whatever circle of trust you were in or trying to get in. You're belief that Depeche Mode is either not musically worthy or is somehow a spiritually bankrupt form of artistic expression... yeah, just do the zip motion across your lips, turn the key and shh.

6) Talk about your STD. I really don't need to know the details of who you think you got it from and whether this bout of Chlamydia is worse than last year's Gonorrhea episode.

7) Sing Pussycat Dolls tunes. I know it's hard when you're listening to your iPod and you're all into it, but, um, the lyrics are inane. Plus, even though they use Autotune, their "singing" is still pretty unbearable. You, on the other hand, don't even have Autotune, so guess what? Your singing is the audio equivalent of idiocy raking it's nails on a chalkboard.

8) Equate slavery with anything else. Even if you think your oppressed experience is the modern day equivalent of slavery, read some slave narratives to school yourself. And I highly recommend you don't make this equation in a roomful of black folks, unless they all work for Fox News. Then you'll be their new best friends.

9) Walk around without flip flops in the gym locker room. This is just gross and sort of belongs in the "don't eat boogers" category, but when you do this while incessantly talking about what you did your dissertation on, you make folks start to wonder if street smarts might actually be better than book smarts.

10) Discuss how many carats are in your diamond enagagement ring. There's a good chance that someone on the crowded, rush-hour El train will follow you off the train and jack said ring from your finger. Then'll they'll take it over their cousin Chucky's house, 'cause he knows someone who knows someone who'll pay cash for it, no question's asked. Come to think of it, speaking of the El, you should also not...

11) Diss other passengers on the El while you are riding along with them. I know, buck wild gas prices are forcing you to abandon your SUV and ride with the unwashed masses, but that doesn't mean you should talk on your cell phone to your friend about how you're scared of us and we smell. Remember, not only do we smell, we're also crazy. So hush up till you get to the end of the line at Linden.

12) Talk about your drama with your period in a restaurant. Please spare me the imagery of your heavy and constant bleeding. I don't need to know how many pads you went through in an hour. I'm just trying to eat my soup and salad, not pretend I'm your OB/GYN.

And, last but certainly not least, please do not...

13) Fight with your significant other at the Shedd Aquarium. Really, fighting in public is just not a good thing at all, but come on, do the thousands of kids that are just trying to check out the sharks and the giant sea turtle really need to hear, "Like you ever do the f***ing dishes!" and all the follow-up sniping? Plus you had two small children and a newborn with you? Methinks you need to go home and sleep off your anger.

Now that was fun. What would you add to this list?

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