The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

I’m at the eye doctor’s office.  To pass the time, I am blogging on my cell.  So, please excuse the typos.  LOL. No, my eyes are not dialated, its just that I can’t type on this phone! 

I’d much rather be home doing anything (except dishes or floors ).  I’d really like to be home playing WoW.  I tanked my 1st Cataclysm dungeon with my Pally the other day. It was not easy,and we died a few times, but we got through it.  The priest was the only one who knew it well, and even he kept having management issues.  The warlock didnt know to soulstone the healer,the hunter kept pulling ahead, and the tank kept pulling too many or in the wrong place.  Stupid tank.

It could be worse, I guess.  I understand that it’s a 45-50 average wait for DPS to get a random heroic.  I think theres two reasons for that.  One would be the new guild progression.  Guilds have been running more heroics together, leaving fewer tanks and healers available.  The other reason would be anxiety.  What’s there to be afraid of?  Well, failure, mainly.  Its much easier to do damage than it is to hold hate, manage mobs, and keep everyone buffed, healed, and free of diseases. If the hunter pulls before the tank is ready, the hunter has little consequence.  If he gets kicked out, he can just requeue.  If they wipe, the tank sucks and they had a stupid fail healer.  Its not his responsibility!

As a society, I think we fear responsibility in general.  Its far easier to point towards others than to be the one to bear everyone’s success on his or her shoulders.  I will admit that I am a nervous wreck when I tank.  DPS is less stressful, a walk in the park comparably.  SO, why tank?  Because I think everyone should take a turn. Maybe if there were more people tanking or healing, we’d wait in queue less time.  And, maybe if people were more understanding of others trying to learn how to tank or heal the new content, more would be willing to step up.

OK, so I’m home now.  It didnt take too long for the Optometrist to figure out I’m blind.  Lol. Got a stronger prescription.  Now I’m off to play WoW.  See you in a dungeon somewhere.

Impatience

You think I’m going to blog about waiting for the patch, don’t you? Nope. I actually have a real life. . . and real irritations.

This is an open letter to the jerk in the black conversion van who called me some rather harsh names today. I have a couple of things to tell Mr. Ignoramous:
1) Last time I checked, it is ILLEGAL to make a left hand turn on a red light.
2) I am not going to run a red light in front of THREE police cars!

Let me explain what happened.

It was 1 pm, and traffic was heavy. I was in the left-hand turn lane at a green light. The oncoming traffic also had a green light and seemed to be flying steadilly by. I sat at the light, turn signal on, waiting paitently to pull through. The light turned yellow, but I did not ease into the intersection because passing through at that time was a police cruiser. Then, through the red light, an unmarked cruiser. Caught by the light–a thrid unmarked cruiser. Just because those ugly Chargers are aren’t painted black and silver, they still stick out like a sore thumb. The police light is visible through the windshield, and they have a police shield with a lightning strike on the front vanity plate. If you live in this city then you can easilly spot them.

I guess Johnny Awesome didn’t see them.   He was behind me in the turn lane, and I guess thought I could power through the light. He pulled up on my bumper as if he was a NASCAR Driver giving me a bump. Yay! Van Racing! So much more exciting than Truck Racing, I’m sure!  Then he laid on his horn.  I looked up in my rear-view to see this 50-ish looking man in a black baseball cap guesturing wildly.  Then he proceeds to roll his window down and start cursing at me because I didn’t run the red light! 

The light turns green, the thrid unmarked police car drives on through.  (Yeah, thanks for the help, dude.)  Traffic is still heavy, and there’s no way for me to get across.  I would have liked to have made my turn–I wasn’t trying to sit there for my morbid amusement.  Johnny Awesome honks his horn again and revs his sickly engine.  He really, truly wants me to make a left hand turn into oncoming traffic!  At this point I rolled down my window and told the man “I’ll turn when I’m ready to.”   He called me a stupid B___.  I screamed at him that he is a redneck dumb___.  He pulls into the lane beside me, thinking he’s going to intimidate me.  I rolled down my passenger window and said to him, “You want to get yourself killed, be my guest, you stupid piece of ______.  You always curse at women like that?  This is one that will whoop your ____ for being disrespectful!”  (I was thankful that my kids had not been with me–I don’t normally let them hear me talk like that.)

He looked scared.  I couldn’t believe it!  I had scared that man!  He expected me to be sweet, mild-mannered mini-van momma; someone he could bully into getting out of his way.  Instead, he got me.  I used to be like that.  I used to bend over backwards to keep other people, even strangers, happy.  Time and experience has shown me that being a doormat only gets you stepped on. 

There was a woman seated next to him in the passenger seat.  She looked as if she was also mid 50-ish, long stringy hair, glasses, smoking a ciggarette and slumping against the door.  I wondered if he treated her the same way as he had tried to treat me.  She definately was allowing him to act like an idiot and try to push me into the intersection, traffic or not. 

He sputtered, trying to think of a comeback and be the big man again, but the light changed to green.  I waved “Bye Bye” at him and pointed at the light.  He gunned that poor, tired engine and zoomed away. 

I saw where he was headed in such a hurry.  When I got off of work at 5, I saw that ugly black conversion van parked at one of those Internet Gambling places.  So, I guess I had been standing between him and loosing his paycheck to a slot machine.  He needs to play a game that only costs $15 a month–Buy a copy of World of Warcraft and join the online sensation that’s sweeping the county.  I almost felt as if I understood for a milisecond.  But, would I act like a lunatic and try to shove people out of the way with the bumper of my minivan to get home to play WoW faster?  Of course not!

Oh, and in case you’re wondering if it really is illegal to pull out into an intersection on a yellow light, block it until the light turns red, and then dash across, this is from the NC DOT Motor Vehicle Drivers Handbook:

When two facing vehicles approach an intersection at the same time, the right of way rules are not much help. Both drivers can move straight ahead or turn right. If one driver is going straight while the other wants to turn left, the driver who wants to turn must wait.The driver who wants to turn left must give the proper signal and wait until the turn can be made safely. Therefore, in this case, the driver who is traveling straight ahead has theright of way.  

Tomorrow, I might post more about World of Warcraft.  There’s a lot going on in the game with the new content coming out, The Pilgrim’s Bounty going on, and me tanking a short-handed raid through Obsidian Sanctum with only 2 wipes on my Paladin.  (Not that I’m bragging–the person who really got us through that was my friend “Mystics” the Shaman, who healed our crazy butts single-handedly!)  Yeah, I’ll talk about some of that stuff tomorrow, after we get home from doing the Thanksgiving Family Get-together at Hubby’s Grandma’s house.  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  🙂