Dredd

Wayne's Wisdom:

Double check everything and don't trust anyone.
 
I've been harshly criticized by nearly everyone in my life for not having enough faith in my fellow man. For example, if I'm taking a trip to Disneyland and I ask my imaginary girlfriend if she's got the tickets, I listen to her response about how she does, then I nod in approval and reach for her purse so I can wrangle up and personally witness the glory that is Goofy's face that's watermarked on every ticket. Why the lack of confidence in my companion? Because when you drive two hours and then walk 14 miles from the only parking structure with any available parking in the greater Los Angeles area, you expect to get in. You don't anticipate having to put your house up as collateral at the nearest Moneytree to afford two additional tickets to the happiest place on earth. Repurchasing tickets is just excruciating when you can mentally picture your first refi that are those two original goddamn tickets that are resting comfortably at home on your kitchen counter.

Apparently a $1000 dollars wasn't enough of a penalty for me to learn my lesson, because another time my girlfriend wanted to go to a casino/concert that's about a 35 minute drive away. She had just turned 18, so she wanted to do something that only 18 year-olds can do. I told her to just go buy a can of Snuff and maybe knock out a pack or two of burners. Apparently she wanted to brain storm a bit more and maybe do something slightly more entertaining. That's when she came up with the idea to go to the concert. I hate leaving the house and interacting with the rest of the world, but I thought that I'd be a primo partner and make her happy. I then took all of 49 seconds to toss on some cargo shorts and a two size too small polo shirt that I had since my days in high school. I even topped my fashion-less foray off by busting out my finest pair of flip-flops. At this point I waited until the Mayan calendar came to end and my first gray pube sprouted. At least that's what it felt like when I was waiting for her to finish applying her makeup, stretch all eleven of her major muscle groups and successfully butter up her behind to fit into an unnecessarily yet provocative and picturesque dress. Seriously girls, I understand sprucing yourself up a bit, but for the love of God, if it takes more time to get ready than it does to enjoy the experience, it's not worth the effort. Smash cut to two hours later and us being about 33 minutes into our 35 minute drive when out of nowhere my Barbie Doll-brained beau enlightened me that she had forgotten her ID. Now, I don't entirely blame her for forgetting the only thing she actually needed to bring. I mean, it's your birthday and you're doing something age related, why would an ID be necessary? Naturally, when I expressed this same sarcasm in her direction it didn't go over too well. By that I mean I never got laid again and our relationship ultimately failed, kind of like my trust in the human race. This is why I decided to take matters into my own hands. I double and triple check with everyone and demand four types of proof for everything. Going on a long road trip? Need your fellow travelers to use the bathroom so you don't have to stop before you break the city limits? Demand to hear the toilet flush, the water rinse and the levies of their bladder burst forth. Need to make sure that that irresponsible co-worker is really going to cover that shift for you? Call them, text them and send them a fucking flock of homing pigeons. By getting a simple and repeated guarantee, you can avoid mistakes and having to hate everyone around you.
          
Unfortunately, these types of moves have forever branded me as a distrustful douche. It's also ensured that I never face the consequences of the infuriatingly frustrating. That's not to say that I don't personally mess anything up. I flirt and full-on fornicate with failure frequently. The key is that I'm suffering the wraith of my own retardedness. Not reaping the rudeness of society that's comprised of mostly selfishly motivated shitheads.
 
My ex-roommate, former pizza delivery driver brother, and quasi-best friend, Matt, leaned a lot more on the opposite end of the optimistic and open minded spectrum. That's why one day when he took a delivery, he was politely greeted, generously tipped and then given a horrific look of utter astonishment, all within the same 17 seconds of space and time. You see, this customer decided to make a reasonable, somewhat common, and some would say, mildly condescending move where he checked to make sure his order was correct. Some retail workers find this lack of trust in our ability disturbing and patronizing. I find it following my wisdom to a tee. Customers shouldn't trust retail workers. For the most part we're a bunch of pot smoking, drunkards that spend more time playing beer pong than we do at work. Matt's middle aged customer was apparently wise enough to understand our intellectual inferiority and really got the full effect of it when he opened his pizza box and saw that there was a slice of pizza missing from his pie.  Turns out our drug addicted head manager, Luis, got super baked and thought it would be a bright idea to pilfer some already paid for pizza. Think about that for a second, this is a guy who was supposedly the cream of the retarded crew crop. A store owner literally had to sit down with this goon and decide that he was a leader. It's terrifying that an owner that probably has more cash stuffed in his money clip than I'll ever earn in my life surmised that this grifter should have power over the rest of us. According to Matt, the customer gave him a look like it was him who had stolen the errant slice, which is the dumbest of all the assumptions. Why would the guy delivering the food do the defiling? He was responsible for the foods safe arrival and would obviously take the brunt of the attack if anything was mishandled. This is where the idiom "Don't kill the messenger" shows its level of truth. I mean, do you get super pissed when the mail man delivers you your credit card bill? No, and you shouldn't. We're merely traveling with and ultimately handing you somebody else's hard work. Oh, by the way, nothing ever happened to our lovely manager, Luis. He simply took the call and talked his way out of any trouble by bribing the man with free food that wasn't his to give out.

This is why I don't trust others. It's also why I made sure that I double checked every pizza that I ever delivered, I chatted with every insider that gave me a questionable address and triple checked all the money that I managed to squeeze out of every last one my customers. Seriously, when patrons inevitably gave me a 10 gallon trash bag full of moist nickels to pay for their thirty dollar order, I made sure to count it. I didn't take their word for it, because half the people in this world are liars and the other half are unreliable at best. Don't take my word for it, though. Try this technique out, because I'm betting you'll find out that life goes much more smoothly when you bet on your own abilities.