I have been doing this blog thing for a long time and know for a fact that I have had no effect on anyone ever.  I know that I never really set out for that to happen anyways.   Other than the millions of dollars I would get for writing this blog, there was no other reason.  Then, this dude came along and claimed that he read a post of mine after I read one of his and said that it had some sort of effect on his life.  He claims that I liked his blog, which can’t be true, because I don’t like anyone’s blog, including mine.  So you can’t really believe anything he says.  But you can read what he says below, despite the fact that I don’t believe it.

Bitter Guest Post by Matthew Bennett  http://www.matthewalanbennett.wordpress.com/

I am normally a happy guy with an optimistic viewpoint on life. When things go wrong, they just go wrong, and I deal with it. “It is what it is” is a staple in my vocabulary. I say it, take care of things, and move on. Like I said, optimistic. I am here today to help you, inform you, warn you that reading about Ben’s bitterness will bring about some of your own. There is not a doubt in my mind that it’s entirely HIS fault that the last two weeks of my life have been very, very bitter.

You see, Ben “liked” one of my posts on WordPress. That’s how he gets you. Being the curious, optimistic type of guy that I am, I clicked on his Gravatar, found his blog, and began to read. I laughed at his witty writing and his infectious bitterness. I laughed out loud (I now refrain from saying lol, because it sounds way too jovial) as I read through, and this piqued the curiosity of my wife. I sent her the link. She said, “Wow. This guy is a great writer. And he’s funny!” I’m not generally a jealous type of guy, but she’s never said that about my writing. Ever. Not my book, or my articles for other websites, or my short stories. She will edit them for me, and just say, “looks good.”

Two weeks ago, that’s how the bitterness began. The next morning, I woke up to a ton of snow on my truck. I cleaned it off, and headed out for my morning coffee. No turn signals. Either direction. I have been, for the past two weeks, putting my 4-ways on to indicate a turn, and hoping that nearby traffic somehow understands which way I would like to go. I don’t know how the bitterness got to my truck, but HE did it somehow. It’s like my turn signals just kinda gave up, and said, “The life of a turn signal is not worth living.”

And then Ben’s Infection of Bitterness continued, on my truck no less, as the windshield wipers also, with a cry of anguish, decided that they would no longer be a part of keeping my windshield snow, rain, and dirt free. Sure, they still look like they are working. When you turn them on they go up about ¾ of the way, stop moving and then start screaming at me. “We will no longer be a party to slavery”, they moan. I can, as I’m driving, reach out the window and force them the rest of the way up. Then they go back down. Then they come back up, stop, and scream for more. And now, when I start my truck and try to turn the radio up, it turns down. Then I turn it down, and it turns down. I have to restart my truck to get the volume back to 50%.

Oh, how I wished that it stopped there! But just a few days ago, I limped my vehicle to a gas station. On the way home, someone slid in the snow right in front of me, and hit a guardrail. At that point in my life, I was still somewhat of an optimist, so I decided to pull over and help. I got my snow shovel out to help the guy get unstuck. The very first shovel full of snow, my trusty tool broke. And not just a little. I put it in the snow entirely intact, heard a large cracking sound, and pulled out the bloody stump, sans the orange plastic head. My shovel had succomed to the bitterness.

I got into my truck, to drive home and get my metal shovel, and realized that I was also stuck in the snow. With 4WD and 17 inch studded snow tires. I was stuck. So I walked the last block home to get the garden shovel, so that I could get us both out. On the walk back, I saw a large tow truck pull him out with a chain. Then the truck, packed up the chain, and drove off. This proved to me that more people are reading Ben’s blog than I could possibly imagine. The guy I stopped to rescue must have felt obligated to stick around for a minute, and he called one of his friends to come help me out. The friend came along, pulled over, looked at my truck, looked at me, looked back at my truck, and said, “You really can’t get out of this yourself?” Bitter.

If this is all that happened, I might still have been able to grasp onto some positive-type thinking and get through the adversity. But it just keeps going, and going. And I just keep reading, and reading the blog, and I can’t stop. It has gotten even worse since I commented on one of his posts, and we had a brief discussion about bitterness. Now it’s almost April and there’s still snow everywhere, and it’s snowing outside as I write this. I don’t know how Ben controls the weather, and I’m not even sure if he knows he’s doing it. This past weekend my keyboard stand gave up the ghost while I was playing it live on stage. My keyboards just started sinking lower and lower and lower until I was bent over playing a solo just above my knee line. I’m sure I looked like a bad-a musician at that point. In the middle of a song, I’m bending down to play my keys, and standing up to sing my harmonies, and bending back down to the keys. Someone ran over my baby trees in my yard, I’m pretty sure they’re dead. My mailbox won’t stay closed. My water pump shuts off often while I’m taking a shower. IOS 6.1.3 is making my phone battery last about 43 minutes before a recharge. The cat poop is even starting to smell worse. My Playstation 2 won’t recognize my Dance Dance Revolution disc anymore, so how am I supposed to lose weight now? The list goes on and on.

It is impossible to stop reading about the bitterness, so if you are here, you should probably just resign yourself to your fate right now. Because it is what it is.

Arrrghhhhh

Matthew is so bitter

 

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