Please stop LOLing

The title of today's rant has been inspired by the insipid and obnoxious use, misuse, and overuse of the acronym "LOL". To be frank, I hate it. I don't even hate Glenn Beck as much as I hate "LOL". I cringe at the sight of it... also cringe at the sight of Glenn Beck.

Almost as bad as "LOL"

Anyway, I have taken some examples of thoughtless and irreverent "LOLing" from the internets, and will pick said examples apart and destroy them.

Item 1: Person A: "You should have stopped by! I was there! lol"

Person B: "Well, I need to figure out how to find you so I can come visit you lol."

Okay, first of all, this conversation is not at all funny. Nothing about this is funny. I'm not even cracking a smidge of a smile, and you know what... the people writing this weren't either. Person B has left out the period between "you" and "lol" altogether, thus making it grammatically awful too.

"Hahaha! I side with Don here. Video games are so much better than football. Lol." You already said "Hahaha", which essentially tells your reader you're laughing like a lunatic, so the "LOL" is extraneous and perhaps implies that your reader doesn't understand the meaning of "Hahaha!".

"We got about 18 inches or maybe 2 feet... a wicked lot of snow. LOL." I mean, I guess this is fine since snow is absolutely hysterical.

Item 2: The MAN use of "LOL". Now, I love an effeminate man just as much as the next non-homophobic person, but there's essentially nothing less manly than when a dude types "lol". I mean, where does it fit? "Hey, Gene. I'm just writing you this text to let you know I hit 240 lbs on the leg press yesterday. I love our gym bromance. LOL" Or "Mitch, can you pick me up a latte at Starbucks? I left my debt card in my running shorts, and the wife won't bring it to me. LOL" Stop it, men.

Item 3: This isn't an item, but an example just how jaded I happen to be. My friend texted me the other day while sick and said "I'm an ugly fuck in a sweatsuit." When I read this text, I LAUGHED OUT LOUD!!! I wrote a text back saying "That made me hysterically laugh." LOL WOULD have been appropriate at that moment, because I was laughing, and it was noisy, but I refused to abbreviate. LOL means nothing to me. You could just thrust it into any written conversation. It's like hearing someone snore, or watching a GOP debate. It's useless and doesn't help anyone.

There will be a post one day, (probably soon), that discusses the disdain, resentment and misery I feel when people can't spell "you're" and "your". I'm not sure I have the energy for it now, so it'll have to wait. But while we're on the subject of grammar and things, I'll share this. It's fantastic!

Now, as a follow up to my first blog, I'd like to mention the fact that my parents read it. I had some sort of massive brain failure while I was on the phone with my mom, and I told her about it. The whole concept confused my dad. First, I tried telling my mother, who is BEYOND inept at computers, how to find the site. She googles "mischief and the meatball" not knowing that she could just type in the URL. She doesn't know what a URL is so I spared myself the agony of explaining it from 2,597 miles away. A few examples of what she found are:

1. Mischief managed minus powerpuff girls movie plus meatball sub?

2. Gluten free mischief: Mama's meatballs and fettucini.

Number 2 sounds pretty good. Maybe I'll check that out.

My dad was in the background, and apparently does not know what a blog is. I can hear him saying, "She has a blog? I don't understand." What's not to understand? Then, as my mother is reading it out loud to him... and me over the phone, I hear him say "My daughter is nuts." Congrats, father. It took you 28 years to figure that out. Very astute. Also, the hardest my mother laughed was when she read the Watergate reference. It really shows her age. Then I suggested she share the blog link with her friends. Her reply: "I might and I might not. You don't identify yourself on here do you?" Obviously, my parents are proud. And I think I just really gave myself the ultimate life wedgie. I shared this link with my parents.... WHY?!?! Maybe they'll forget about it if I never talk about it again. Maybe they'll love it, and if I fail at everything else, they'll be like, "Well, we loved her blog, so we're still proud." Or they'll lie and tell me they don't read it, when they do, and I'll slip up and mention something horrible on here that gets me in the shit house with them. I mean, it's not like they didn't already know that they produced a hell raiser bent on mild social disruption and minimal chaos. Regardless of what they think, great life choice sharing that link, Mischief. Maybe my photo belongs in the first post next to Madoff.

Mom, pops, if you're reading this, dammit.