Well, I came up with a New Years Resolution. I actually had no intention of resoving anything this year, but this just occurred to me the other night and it seemed like a really worthwhile cause.

I am going to try to cut back on courtesy laughs.

Allow me to 'splain. See, I work with a handful of dumbfucks, and the nature of my job brings me into contact with several hundred other dumbshits. But specifically here I'm talking about coworkers. I have found that I can spend great chunks of my life engaged in a courtesy laugh, where some asshole says something they think is funny, I know they think it's funny so I laugh to make sure they don't feel bad, and in doing so I allow them to continue believing that they actually are funny. In fact, most of the time they are unfunny at best, and offensive and embarrassing at worst. Now I hold comedy in a pretty high regard. I like funny, I like to laugh, I fucking like good comedy. Every time I let slip a courtesy laugh not only do I boost the egos of certain dumb motherfuckers and reward their bad behavior, but also I think a little piece of me dies.

You know, the endless cycle of courtesy laughs had occurred to me before, but I'd never really thought much about doing anything about it. And then the other night, a douchebag from my work said something that made it all snap. He had previously been talking about wanting to write a website similar to the Onion, except specific to Oregon. And he had examples of FANTASTIC FUNNY STORY IDEAS which all just happened to be incredibly stupid and not even slightly funny. But I laughed along, just to make this person feel good, because I would imagine not many people are so kind (not that I'm particularly kind, I'm just non-confrontational). And then last night at work he tells me that he's registred a website for the purpose of creating said stupid bullshit unfunny site, as he announced, "IN THE GRAND TRADITION OF THE ONION." And I thought, "Ugh, my courtesy has allowed this to happen. Things are out of control."

So there you go. That's my resolution. Cut back on the courtesy laughs. I don't think I can knock them out entirely, because they are, unfortunately, a part of life. But I definitely have to give away less of them. What's the worst thing that could happen? People who I don't like and who annoy the fuck out of me decide they're going to talk to me less? That'd be a fucking heartbreaker.

Oh shit, P.S., people. While I'm on the subject, I just remembered another example of the stupidity of this coworker. Okay, so I bought a minivan about a month ago. Fuck off. I don't have to justify it to you! Small convertible sports cars are out, minivans are in. The Ford Windstar is the pinnacle of cool in '05, you heard it here first. Anyway, I got this thing and of course the previously mentioned annoying coworker made the requisite "soccer mom" jokes. Big fucking deal. Obvious jokes. Well then last night he tells me that I hadn't thought of the "soccer mom" aspect of the van until he mentioned it. He's that sure he's such a fucking whiz that he thought of "soccer mom," so bright that it could have never occurred to me without him mentioning it. I informed him that "soccer mom" is about the most obvious reference anyone could come up with, and that I in fact titled the emails to my friends and family to inform them of my purchase of the shaggin' wagon "jason the soccer mom." He claimed that was impossible, because if I had thought of the soccer mom bit I would have never bought the thing. I told him that actually the preconcieved notion of who drives a minivan had crossed my mind eight months ago when I first decided I'd like to buy one, but that I just didn't give a shit.

So you see what I'm dealing with here.