VICARIOUS UMBRAGE…

PLASTICVILLE-USA

VICARIOUS UMBRAGE…

I have recently discovered a cable/Sat television channel called Investigation-Discovery. It is part of the large Discovery group of channels that can be found on most cable and satellite systems. ID as it is called is a collection of true crime stories that revolve around the police solving serious personal disappearances and murder. My wife and I just refer to it as “The Murder Channel”. While the vast number of stories are about evil people doing premeditated evil things, quite a number of the stories are about normal people who under terrific stress of the moment snap and commit the most foul of crimes.

As I watch these shows I wonder when I am going to see the story of some poor hapless server who works at a restaurant in TV who after being berated for the Nth time for failing to bring a drink straw or a napkin after she’s already been to the table 47 times for stupid stuff finally snaps and beats the arrogant Villager to death with his 9-iron.

One of the good things that can be said about TV is that it functions as a corral for 150,000 of the most poisonous and toxic personalities on the planet. The Morse organization has probably done the world a fine service by keeping these people penned up in their own playland, which keeps them from further infecting the world with their poisonous attitudes.

The worse part of that falls upon the people who have to work in TV and have to deal with a collection of over-privileged, over-indulged spoiled brats. In a way it’s like having 150,000 junior high school students all in the same place. The people who work in the restaurants, stores and medical offices should all get combat medals.

Over the years we’ve had a lot of laughs at the absurd behavior of Villagers and as I have said before there’s no better single source that totally captures the combined arrogance, stupidity and general spoiled-brattiness of Villagers than the web-board “Talk Of The Villages”. In one single readable form the entire stench of “America’s Friendliest Hometown” is on full display for all to see 24/7.

Until a few days ago I thought I was pretty familiar with all the loony ideas that Villagers have about things. But if nothing else, Villagers are an inventive group, especially when it comes to finding things to gripe about. Enter the concept of “vicarious umbrage”.

We’ve mentioned the restaurant threads several times. Pretty much one of two things always happens. Somebody writes and says a place they went to was great, which is immediately followed by a chorus of boos indicating that the original poster is crazy and wouldn’t know a good meal from a retreaded tire. Or..somebody writes that a place they went to wasn’t any good, and the crowd then piles on about what a great place it really is. But it wasn’t until a few days ago that somebody wrote about a terrible meal that they WERE NOT having. I’ll explain…

Some poster starts a thread called “Horrible Prime Rib”. As you are reading the post it looks like the guy went out on Valentine’s with his wife to one of the restaurants in TV and ordered some prime rib for dinner and he’s wasn’t impressed with what he got. However as you re-read his words CAREFULLY you come to understand that this man did NOT order prime rib for his dinner. The meal he is writing about was served to OTHER PEOPLE at ANOTHER TABLE several seats away from him!

Yes…you’ve got it right. This Villager was complaining about a meal he did not order and that he did not eat! Instead of paying attention to whatever it was that he had, he was writing a nastygram about a meal that someone else had ordered and was eating! In his little review he was complaining about unordered food, and trashing the name of the restaurant for serving such a sad piece of prime rib. Apparently the person who actually HAD ordered the food seemed to find it to his liking. He ate his meal, paid his ticket and left. Our poster on the other hand who did not order the meal, did not eat it, and ultimately did not pay for it, was complaining about it all!

Now if this goofball scenario wasn’t bad enough, as of this writing there are 60..count ‘em..60 responses to this little restaurant “review”. So one idiot writes a review about food he didn’t eat and 59 others chime in with their various opinions. Nowhere but TV!

At last count there are over 2,200 clubs and activities available for Villages residents. But no matter how many activities are on tap for Villagers the number 1 activity for ALL Villagers will always be bitching about how bad they’ve got it here in “America’s Friendliest Hometown”!