Dear Crazy-Like-A-Bull-Guy at Brentwood Station,

It's not that I don't sympathize. I have lost count of the number of times I've been on that damn pedestrian bridge with 500 lbs. of groceries in my arms and by damn bus pulls up early. Do you try to hurry? If it waits the time it is supposed to, you'll make it with time to spare; if you have a bus drivewr who hates you (as most are wont to do) then that bus'll be there just long enough for you to get within spitting distance of the rear fender before it lazily pulls away while you curse, wave your arms, and scream "Noooooooo!" at the heavens while shaking your fist most cheesily than Darth is Episode 3. I know it sucks. Especially when it is raining.

I understand that you gave in to the impulse to run and catch the bus at the station. I understand that running full throttle was a viable option, as 5 bags of groceries and a case of Coke, which you tucked under an arm like a football, was a mere pittance on your broad an generous frame and not the burden my groceries were to me. I even get the fact that sometimes, running, we lose track of how wide our elbows swing out, and how much momentum we have (case of coke tucked up in there with more protection that I've seen balls get at a superbopwl. I mention this again because said case under said elbow acted much like a battering ram in the next paragraph).

So you bumped into me. I get that. I happens. Well, not really bumped, more like slammed. Where our ideas diverge from each other in terms of what is an acceptable accident in in the fact that when your beefy arm hit my shoulder, sending me, my groceries, and my ipod flying in different directions, you didn't even bother to acknowledge the faux pas. You left casualties in your wake -- namely, smooshed bread, a chipped ipod case, and a bruise of my hip the size of Texas -- so some kind of apology would have been nice. A simple look over your shoulder with grimace and hollered "sorry!" would even have been nice; I have ceased to hope for the sort of gallantry that would have had you actually stop to help me up and offer an apology, because, hell, your bus was at the station and as we all know THAT BUS MAY NEVER COME AGAIN.

oh, wait. It comes every fifteen minutes. Dumbass.

hoping you choke on a loaf of unsquished bread,

Natalie Zed


Dear Subway sandwich stores, particularly the one in the student centre right next to the arcade,

What is God's name is that SMELL?!

I mean, honestly, despite the puny grams of fat and Jerad and all that, you're still a fast food chain. I understand there should be some funk -- usually something greasy that is divinely enticing when you're really hungry and suddenly repulsive when you're not. But this -- I don't even know how to describe. It's like ass, after a brisk am jog, stuffed with rotting lettuce and bad fake cheese. But there's something else. Something more industrial. Melting plastic? Is it the barest hint of sulpher? Or the collectiver smell from the slimy, gelatinous preserving agen found on lunchmeat slices? I cannot say.

Whatever it may be, you need to fix it. Not only can I not enter a Subway, but I need to mouthbreathe whenever I am in the vicinity. Your meatball sandwiches are darn tasty, and I'd probably buy them regularly, if I could stand entering your building. Either change your name to Fukwiches, or invest is some deodorant for your stores. Scented candles, perhaps. Glade plugins. Hosing the place down with a swill of Dawn, Rite Guard and hot water through a water cannon. Something.

Thanks for making my olfactory nerves try to reach up and strangles my brain,

Nat Zed


Dear Hewlett-Packard

Make printers that work. I have had to change the name of my 1210 All-in-One from Thomases the Reticent to You Really Want to be Chucked Out Window, Don't You? It's less than 2 years old and I have never been mean to it. The hell.

fleeing to the competition,

Natty Zee

Dear Guy at Tim Horton's Wearing a Carebears Button and 8 Poppies,

I see that you hate your job. I worked, part and full time, in the service industries for years, as students are wont to spend their time in financial purgatory. I understand and, again, sympathize.

I am going to, however, send my drink back when I asked for a steeped tea and get coffee. I am also going to send it back a second time when you put cream in the tea instead if milk (though you put milk in the coffee...). My order is not complicated ot onerous, does not involve extra flavour shots or soy or the creation of foam or the addition of cinnamon sprinkles. I just want tea with a little milk and sugar.

Also, I can hear you mutter about me to your coworker -- I am three feet away from you. Said muttering makes me even less sympathetic when you infuse your voice with a whiny, verge-of-faux-tears catch when you insist the second drink wha exactly what I wanted because your supervisor wandered by between smoke breaks.

Finally, when I pay for a croissant, I expect to actually recieve said croissant, and threatening to go back through the electronic order log to prove me false is not going to deter me. And, perhaps it is completely evil of me, but when you sulkily get my croissant, humbled by the log you thought was on your side, I will ask, as sweetly as I am able and with my most saccharine smile, if you could warm it up for me.

using her powers for awesome more than for good,

Natalie Zed

ps. muaha.