#5 - People Who Don't Remove the Protective Stickers

Here's the deal: I'm essentially predisposed to hate people. If I meet someone new, until I figure out he rules, my default assumption will be that he sucks. This is because while awesome people are the best, hateful people are much more interesting than people who are just okay. Now, this is not to suggest that my approval is anything anyone needs to go out of his way to earn; In fact, I assume most people assume I suck, because in so very many ways, I do. I'm comfortable with the assumption of suckage because, in my experience, a lot of the best people both rule and suck simultaneously in some kind of alchemical but ultimately satisfying ratio. I mean, if you think about it, how many of the people you most treasure are actually quite difficult to like? A lot, right?

Now, although my new acquaintance evaluation tendency is the Assumption of Sucking, I'm usually willing to talk to someone long enough to determine if, underlying the initial suck, there might be a vein of promise hinting that, overall, the person is pretty cool. There are, however, a few things which will immediately cause me to cut bait and toss the new person on the suck pile. Chief among these is the failure to remove the stickers from your purchases. If I see you using your cell phone and you've yet to peel off the plastic protecting the screen? Bye. You suck. Similarly, if I'm at your house and there are still stickers on the bottoms of your wine glasses? You're cut off. See you later. Want me to put in the movie? Sure. But if I discover that little sticky strip still clinging to your DVD player, I'm going to spend the rest of the evening badmouthing you to my wife. Feel free to do the same to me. You've got ample reason.