And there seem to be a dozen different ways people like to respond without actually giving the time. "Half past five." "Quarter to six." "Eighteen after four." Look, if I'm concerned about the hour, I don't have time to work equations. And then there's the allusive "fifteen till." Fifteen till? Fifteen till what? If I knew that, I wouldn't be asking for the time!

My absolute favorite response, though, is, "Time to get a watch." Sure, I'll do just that. And then you can fish it out from under your coccyx, smartass.

Anyway, I glanced at the TV just in time to catch the opening of a commercial, which was helpfully subtitled with two little musical notes and the comment "bluesy guitar riff." Now, if I were deaf, how the hell would I know what "bluesy" sounded like?

They can have 6 people working two lines and it still takes me 20 minutes to get a box of Milk Duds. And it's not like any of them are just standing around. All of them are always rushing back and forth — doing what, I don't know. Are they lost? Can they not remember where the popcorn bin is each time?

I dunno, maybe they're all perpetually dumbfounded that they just charged a guy $38.00 for a soda and some Sweet Tarts.

Holy crap, she was annoying.

"Hello. All our associates are busy right now, but please stay on the line for an incredible offer!" [Muzak.]

They tear me away from my Internet porn search and they don't even have the decency to annoy me up front. Instead, they make me wait for it. Last time, I had to hold on the line a full 8 minutes before I could hang up on them...

You look like complete morons.

That is all.

I'm at the front of the line, so there's really nowhere for me to go. I actually had to move forward as far as I could, shuffle surreptitiously to the left, then step to the right. We ended up standing next to each other.

Next time I'm just going to start grinding with whomever insists on standing that close to me. Either I'll teach him a lesson, or I'll make a good friend.

But, I guess that's what I get for never washing them. (Febreze is a bachelor's best friend.)

But, it's not only computer- and technology-related names, either. How about a line of hair-care products termed EnzymeTherapy? Or a brand of contacts called FreshLook ColorBlends?

And in the blind, monkey-see, monkey-do fashion so common to the populace, people have begun combining words that don't belong together and arbitrarily capitalizing others. Faxmodem. DualBand. The ridiculous ReWritable. I've even seen InterNet. Not to mention the Kroger commercial that instructs us to "HaulAway the Savings."

What's even more annoying is when companies insist on lowercasing what should be proper nouns. The aforementioned EnzymeTherapy actually appears in literature as enzymetherapy. It's not a real word and lack of capitalization indicates that it's not a name, so it just looks like a damned typo! Besides, what company in its right mind would want to denigrate its own name by making it appear as an improper noun? And at the same time, many of them turn around and capitalize what shouldn't be in order to make it appear more important! (e.g. "We are professionals in the Business-to-Business e-Commerce arena.") IBM has gone so far as to trademark the term "e-business" and their usage guidelines insist that it always be lowercased, even at the beginning of a sentence.

Apparently, the overwhelming influence of the contracted URL and the trend-saturated, unimaginative corporate beast has warped people's understanding of second-grade grammar. Just imagine if the Internet had been present in its current form years ago — we would all be checking the YellowPages for Carrepair while our children drink cocacola and play with their LincolnLogs.

And half the time, they mount the thing so high that the water on my hand runs down into my shirt sleeve. I can buy a robot lawn mower, so why can't I wave my hand in front of a sensor and receive some paper towels?

And while I'm on the subject, the doors at the grocery store open automatically — let's work that technology into the john, why don't we? In fact, I don't want to touch a damn thing in a public bathroom ever. I'm willing to take this so far as to make the whole floor like an air-hockey table — float in, float out.

And what about skipping every 7th line between the first and last pages? Well, that actually worked... (Good advice for those of you still in school.)