Kristen Stewart’s posture

You’re gorgeous, young, and rich. You’re part of the biggest movie franchise around, save maybe Harry Potter. You have a vampire AND a werewolf fighting over you, for chrissakes. Life, unlike the Volturi, doesn’t suck.

Own it.

Stand up straight.

Every time I see you at an schmancy event, hunched over and rocking back and forth like a rhesus monkey who misses its mom, all I think is “Gollum in lipgloss.”

You’re all moody and shit, equating paparazzi photos of you to images of someone being raped. Newsflash, Bella, you don’t get to be emo in Proenza Schouler. You shouldn’t be pissy while getting oxygen facials, being adored by the world's 15 year olds, and macking on R-Patz.

Take some calcium, hit a Pilates Reformer class, and stop looking like you’re itching to ring the bells of Notre Dame at twilight.

(photo: celebrity-mania.com)

Come visit the Facebook fan forum!

TIWTPITF now has a Facebook fan page. I realized that the comments section of the blog really only scratches the surface of the things you'd really like to beat down. Come visit the PITF Facebook community and join the curmudgeonly confab.

City carriages

While I’m not crazy about them, I can cope with seeing a quaint carriage rolling along a dappled Central Park path or through a tiny town’s historical festival. But when I’m on a bus that’s buzzing by a horse-drawn carriage that’s clopping along in the summer heat, pulling blithe tourists pointing out the Hard Rock Café, my heart sinks.

I don't mean to nag but horses and Hummers should not be sharing the roads. I cough up a black lung in the summer when I’m walking around an urban center for just an afternoon. I can only imagine what equine lungs inhale when Nelly is continually staring down the end of a exhaust pipe. Unless you plan on putting a surgical mask over her muzzle Michael Jackson style, she shouldn’t be pounding the pavement. I may not be a horse whisperer but I can hear her silent screams loud and clear.

(photo: latopdog.blogspot.com)

Foodies

Don’t sniff it, don’t eyeball it, don’t comment on how it’s plated like a pagoda or a Zen garden, don’t detail the 39 steps it took to make it, don’t start comparing it to the meal you had at El Bulli, and don’t complain about the new chef while alternately giving me his culinary CV.

I don’t want to hear it. I just want to eat it.

I love food as much as the next person. I like food the way Homer likes his doughnuts and burgers and junk food aisle, oh my.

But a food snob I am not. You’ll never find me asking whether my Copper River salmon was gill-netted and bled and dressed on site. I’ll never lift a fiddlehead fern and wax rhapsodic about hunting the zenmai in East Asia during a trip with Anthony Bourdain. I’ll fork that fern and put it where it belongs: my belly.

Don’t put nettle pasta on a pedestal, put it in your piehole. After all, it’s food. You’re supposed to eat it, not dissect it.

Sometimes, I just want to eat a box of mac and cheese, and not the Annie’s kind. And I don’t need you to tell me how to zest it up with Emmentaler cheese and Linguiça. Don’t take the comfort out of my food or I might have to bust out the mandoline and create a new dish of hurt.

(photo: mmonroedesigninspiration.wordpress.com)

Excessive fragrance

Back in the day, when fresh water and showerheads were a scarce commodity or nonexistent, folks covered their stank with aggressive oils and unguents that were slightly less overwhelming than the B.O. that comes from weeks of schvitzing and lord knows what else.

God bless the modern age and God bless the bathtub. We don’t have to mask our natural funk with a bucket of Estée Lauder’s newest eau de parfum. I don’t need to know you were in a room…three days after you bombed it with your Prince Matchabelli mushroom cloud. Your Wind Song stays on my mind…and my scent receptors.

Scent is like lingerie; only a chosen few (i.e. not your neighborhood) should have the privilege of experiencing it. A stripper once told me that she wears scented powder when she performs because as her body heats up, the scent is released and only those close to her can smell the faint fragrance. Hot.

Not so hot? Dudes doused in cologne. I can smell you too, preening across the room in your spendy CREED aftershave. I was assaulted by Drakkar Noir for pretty much all of the 80s. While all the alcohol in your cologne can be used to sterilize a wound or stoke a fire, it leaves me cold.

(photo: pocketchange.become.com)

Headbands

The age of Aquarius is over, kids. And may the 80s rest in totally rad peace. I may want to get physical, but it won’t be while wearing an Olivia Newton-John headband. These headbands—I'm talking about the dumbass, hippie-dippy, Pocahontas ones that fit across your forehead—are only useful if you are playing tennis against Björn Borg in 1976. They aren’t fashionable, they are barely functional. This leaves me scratching my head, wondering why someone would follow in the misguided footsteps of Mischa Barton and the Sisters Kardashian and strap this sparkly tourniquet around her noggin. Are you trying to cover a zit or draw attention up and away from your muffin top? Compensating for a bad haircut?

Whatever the case, pull that thing off and use it to wrap a present instead of yourself. Looking at your headband is making me itch…or maybe it’s the acrylic legwarmers I suddenly felt the urge to pull on. If only I could find my Jane Fonda Workout Betamax…

(photo: www.mystyle.com/mystyle)

The Ikea habitrail

Confession: My apartment is lousy with Ikea. But it’s not for any love for the brick-and-mortar store (or butik, to the Swedes out there).

Nr.

As I seek out my malm bureau, I realize I should have picked up a bag of meatballs from the giant cooler in the Swedish Food Market so I could leave a trail. Even with the help of the signage that seems to sprout around every corner like skinny kvart lampposts, I’m lost in the mousetrap, or should I say mouseträpp?

The Ikea habitrail is rivaled only by Gaylord Opryland Hotel, a distant second. They should just put a giant hamster wheel and a water dropper by the entrance and make it official. Clogged with kids hopped up on lingonberries and couples quarreling over the merits of vanvik vs. florö bedframes, the aisles of Ikea are sure to bring on a headache faster than the time it takes to fill up your cart with crap that’s not on your list. Instead of monster bags of tealights, Ikea should fill the endcaps with bins of ibuprofin. Ädvil is a name that would be right at home in this Swedish funhouse; just don’t forget the umlaut.

[Thanks to Dave Miller for this suggestion!]

(photo: tlc.howstuffworks.com)

Sidewalk cyclists

I’ve been noticing something around my neighborhood. I can’t really help it, seeing as I have to weave and dodge, even when I’m on the supposed safety of the sidewalk.

Out of nowhere, a biker yells, “Left!” as he whizzes past me, narrowly avoiding a tree bed. He, however, cannot avoid my tire ire.

The thing that really chafes more than Lance Armstrong's saddle sores and sets me off on an epic tour de rants? There’s a bike lane on my street! What’s next, you greedy Spandexed asshelment? Pumping up your tires in my flowerbed?

Cyclists want it both ways. They want to right to ride on the street—which they have, by the way. In fact, cyclists are legally supposed to ride in the road. But they also reserve the right to jump the sidewalk and draft behind a stroller when the mood hits. Sorry, but it’s called a sideWALK, not a sidePEDAL. Keep your wheels on the road. If you continue to want your cake and eat it too, you are destined to either find yourself on a 4-wheeler in the ER or be named as the defendant in a hit-and-pedal. Regardless, you will shoot to the top of my cycle list.

Darla's punch list

This list comes to us from Darla, who writes Scrappin Blog!

1. People who cheat on their spouses.
2. People who attempt to seduce a married person.
3. People who have no respect for the sanctity of marriage.
4. Swingers.
5. People who lie.
6. People who think that anything and everything is forgivable.
7. People and businesses who waste your time.
8. Businesses that overcharge you.
9. People and employers who cheat you out of money you're owed.
10. People who have loud car stereos and don't have the courtesy to turn it down when you're stuck next to them at a red light.

(photo: http://scrappinalrad.blogspot.com)

Reader's Digest gives TIWTPITF a shout out!

In the June/July 2010 issue, Reader's Digest names the four funniest bloggers in America and, yep, TIWTPITF made the list! Check it out and congrats to the other bloggers. In particular, RD dug our post on Shoeless Households.

What have been your favorite posts? And what have we not yet hit that we desperately need to whack, crack, and smack?

Heather's punch list

1. People who say "disorientated" or "vunerable."
2. People who cut off or tailgate people driving with trailers. Do you not realize that I am twice your size and will crush you because I can't stop that fast? And don't get me started about banging up my horses in the trailer because I have to make like the Starship Enterprise and perform evasive maneuvers to avoid your stupid ass! Hurt my horses and you'll wish all I did was punch you in the face! And no, just because I have this big-ass trailer, I will not help you move!
3. People who always have to 'one-up' you in conversation.
4. Bright yellow vehicles of any kind—especially trucks or Hummers. Do you really need to be that ostentatious? Or do you just lose your car in the parking lot all the time and thought it might help?
5. People who leave drawers and cupboard doors just barely open. Does it really take that much more effort to close it the rest of the way?
6. People who tailgate and tag on to the car in front of them as the light is turning red so they don't have to sit through another light cycle. This is especially bad with unprotected left turn lanes. Seriously?! You weren't even anywhere CLOSE to being in the intersection already! There's no way you fooled anyone here. Where's the cop when you need him?
7. Parents who don't discipline their kids or follow through with any discipline they do hand out. This is especially bad in any retail setting. "I'm gonna count to three. I mean it. I'm really going to count this time! Do you want me to start counting? Is that what you want?" Oh, please count! For God's sake, PLEASE COUNT! I'm dying to see what happens when you count!
8. Reality TV. Enough said.
9. People who leave long-ass boring messages on your voicemail. Do you really think I have the time to listen to four minutes of you repeating or explaining or just talking to yourself? You're lucky if I didn't delete it after 10 seconds.
10. People who insist on doing things the hard way. I am efficient at a lot of things. If I offer an idea on how to do something easier and faster, its probably going to be a good one. Just try it out instead of wasting everyone's time doing something we could have already had done three hours ago!

And one more:

People who move every piece of crap they own and THEN do a Goodwill donation! SERIOUSLY? Go through your crap BEFORE you make all your friends and family help you move it, and THEN move! I will gladly take everything you don't want to the trash or donation if it means we don't have to pack it up and move it all the way across three counties to your new place and then take it to toss or give away! (Am I the only one I know who ever thinks of this)

(photo: www.groovythemes.com)