Yo no tengo la paciencia...

True confessions time:

My name is Larry and I have no patience.

None.

Seriously.

And sadly, with my lack of patience comes my lack of tolerance for stupid people and situations that should be controlled.

But let me explain a little. It's not that I mind waiting for something. If I go see a popular movie on opening night, I expect to wait and I'm cool with that. But if it's 3:00 pm on a non-holiday Wednesday and I go to the movies, only to be confronted with a line around the block because they only have one usher/ticket taker, my lack of patience will flare up.

Make any sense? Does it make me seem less, well, monstrous?

I don't know when it started. It probably was at a food court when I used to work in a mall, when I got stuck behind someone who had no idea what they wanted but lacked the courtesy to step aside and let others move ahead of them.

Or it may have been at the grocery store, when someone left their cart blocking an aisle completely so they could go to a different aisle and find something.

Or it may have been in a parking lot, when someone trying to back in a Yukon Denali needed about 87 tries to get into their space. (As an aside, if you can't park it, you shouldn't drive it.)

I know, I know, I shouldn't let stuff like this get to me. I should just be able to take it all in stride and enjoy life, be grateful for what I have. But for some reason I just can't. And I feel that my lack of patience and tolerance is growing in direct proportion to the growing number of self-absorbed people that populate our country (especially in the Northern Virginia area).

I don't think I'm smarter or more important than others. I just have very little free time to do the things I like (or need) to do, so when I run into an impediment that prevents me from doing what I need to do, I somewhat-instantly lose my patience.

I thought exercise might help—and it does—but not with this.

Maybe meditation? Maybe Xanax?

Otherwise, I'll just carry a voodoo doll and a ton of pins, and call it macaroni.

Thanks for listening.