Guests.

This is a complete and total rant. An angry one. I still can't figure out what's wrong with my iPhoto pics, so I guess in a weird way my irritation is the only reason I have an entry tonight.


I am so irritated. Ugh. I can't stand it anymore.

I HATE guests.

More accurately, I hate your guests. I especially hate when they invite themselves to our house on their whim, and you for some reason are not outraged because "that's how we do it in Nigeria".

You know what? I don't give a damn how they do it in Nigeria. I don't know if you've forgotten this, but they do a lot of crap wrong in Nigeria, and all over the place for that matter. I don't care whose culture declares this an acceptable practice. I don't care where these cultures exist. I don't care why they think it's okay to do it. You know what I think? It's rude, it's obnoxious, and it's inconvenient. And please, spare me the patronizing "Oh, they're not guests, we've known them since we were in Nigeria!" bull. I can't stand that crap. Why?






One: This is a very simple concept-- I am not you, and your friends are not my friends. I never for the life of me have been able to understand why you think I should be so sycophantically attached to your friends. Why I would want to answer the phone if I were to see them on the caller id, or why I would want to talk to them and share superficial aspects of my pathetic life with them? I don't even do that with my own friends. I don't want to talk to them about "how school is" or "what I've been up to". They don't really care, and I don't really want to talk about it. Why am I obligated to attend their utterly inane parties? That's another thing I hate with a fervent passion-- parties. They are never fun. They are never time well-spent. They are nothing but me sitting alone, avoiding too much of that pointless "mingling", trying not to step on too much spilled food and drink, and protecting my ears from music or a Nigerian movie that's blaring on too loud.

Two: Because if they weren't guests, we wouldn't have scrambled to clean up the house before they arrived, and you wouldn't have have had to run out to the store just to get a box of 7Up, even though you'd literally just gotten home from work and were tired. Then, when they arrived four! freaking hours later, you wouldn't have had to sit there dumbfounded when he asked for "just water. Or I'll have juice. Juice." We don't have any juice in the house. We don't have any filtered water in the house, just tap. We might have been able to provide these things if he'd have called ahead of time and scheduled a reasonable time to show up at our house, like a considerate human being. Yes. This man, your "friend from the old country", randomly decided he could show up at your house with a same-night-phone-call's notice, and then has the gall to ask for a beverage we can't even offer as if he's ordering a meal from freaking Applebee's, without so much as a please or thank you in sight.

And then he happens to bring his son along. I am as irritated by your friends' kids about as much as I am irritated by your friends. I hate the inevitable comparisons, and I hate the fact that they are often times things that I am not, things that I am still struggling to be. I hate that all your friends love to brag about their kids. I hate everyone waiting to see when I will finally make something of myself. I am livid at the fact that you expected me to like our guest's son simply because he attends the school I should be graduating from this year, and clearly am not. "He goes to State!" you said, grinning as if I should have been beside him right that moment, showering him with confetti and blowing a damn party whistle. Yeah, he does. Good for him. Meanwhile, I don't. This is somehow supposed to make me feel better? I'm supposed to be clicking my heels together and celebrating some sort of victory? Why, exactly? Do you at all think about what you say?

I have to get out of here. I am reminded of this fact every time one of their spontaneous "non-guests" arrives with practically no warning. It is one of the ultimate reminders that I hate where I am in life, and that I've let this nonsense go on too long. What am I doing, anyway? It's time for me to get up and do something about the aspects of my life that need to change.