I Give Up...

You know, I really didn't want to do this. I was content to set the keyboard aside until New Years Day and spend my time thinking of resolutions and watching shitty college football bowl games, but no. Nope. This fucking world cannot leave me alone. Let's have another fun multiple choice quiz, shall we?

This year for Christmas, Carter got:

A) Lots of cool schwag like iPods and DVD's.
B) Clothes
C) A call out of the blue from someone he really he cares about and misses like crazy.
D) His ATM card number stolen and his bank account nearly wiped out by some scum-sucking shitbag in California charging shit at Wal-Mart.

If you answered "D", you get a gold star! Look up to the heavens once again and thank the creator you aren't living in the hell that is my life!

I know I've done shitty things. I've hurt people and I've made a lot of bad decisions, but for the love of God, what the hell did I do to deserve this latest clusterfuck? All my life I've tried to be a good person. I've stayed away from every vice you can think of, from smoking to gambling to drugs, and hell, I'm pretty sure I only had one stay in detention in my entire academic career. I consider myself a good friend, I don't abuse, neglect, mistreat, or cheat on women, and I have manners and respect for my elders. I have a clean, neat appearance, I bathe, I shave. I have a four-year college degree, and I don't spend my life walking around being a total asshole to every human being on the planet.

You know what I say to all of that? Why? For what? None of it seems to matter. I'm not shirking responsibility here. I know I could have busted my ass harder and had more ambition in my life, but fuck man, there's just no excuse for the amount of shit that I've had piled on me just in the past two years. Did I anger the cosmic forces somehow? Does someone out there have something against me? What the hell, man? Do I deserve to apply for job after countless job and never even get so much as a phone call? Do I deserve to have weird random injuries and illnesses no one seems to be able to explain like a collapsed lung that put me on the shelf for months at a time? Do I deserve to have what little money I have left in the world stolen by some piece of shit hacker? What's going on here?

I don't know. Maybe I do deserve all of this. Though I never did anything to stain mankind, I guess I never contributed much to the cause, either. I suppose I'm being sent a pretty huge message by someone out there, and it says, "All right, the way you've been doing it for 32 years ain't cuttin' it kid. What else have you got for us?" To whoever it is out there sending this message, the only thing I can say is I'm sorry. I'm sorry, and I'll try something else. I don't know what, but I'll try. Just stop all this terrible shit for a while, ok?

Merry Christmas...