If you think it seems that I was given this authoritative role undeservingly, I couldn't agree with you more. My duties in the store haven’t changed, and while the owner of the company insisted that I would be given more responsibility, I find it hard to believe in a company that rarely, if ever, has anything to do. Thus, I have a spiffy new title and slightly higher pay…so naturally I’m not going to protest a promotion. Ahhh…what a wonderful company this is.

My reign of terror officially begins February 1, 2007. Be afraid….be very afraid.

--“Speak when you are angry, and you’ll make the best speech you’ll ever regret.” 

We’ve been guilty of this before, I’m sure.  Being in a heated argument with somebody; emotions fly, and words just come out of your mouth that you would never normally say.  Are they any less true though?  Well, sometimes we say things to purposely hurt the other person, simply because we know it will hurt them.  Other times we say things that we’ve had on our minds, but were afraid to say before.  However, being mad gives us a rush of adrenaline and confidence, and it gets blurted out.  Either way, I’m not trying to say that either of them are justified.  If you must say something, it’s best to wait for a calm moment when it won’t come out pompous or condescending.  All too often, we’re too “in the moment” to care about how the other person will feel, because we’re so heated that we will say or do anything to get them more mad.  My advice: Calm down, take a breather, forget about what’s happening or what’s been said, and get back to the topic later when all is less intense.  Now, if I would only follow these rules myself.  A wise woman once told me “just walk away”.

Unfortunately, some of us don’t have this self-restraint in high quantities.  Yes, I’m speaking about myself.  To be honest, I don’t think I was like this before, but that was long before, when I was a naïve kid who just took what people said at face value, and trusted it.  Soon after I left high-school, and into the pseudo-real-world, I started to think a bit more for myself.  As such, I became the way I am now.  I’m sure my friends, and ex-girlfriends can vouch for this.  I’m an argumentative, stubborn, and defensive person when it comes to debating; be it a friendly debate, or a verbal “fight”.  Those three things are a terrible combination, but seem to always come together; if you have one, chances are you have them all.  I’m not trying to use any of these as an excuse to justify things I may have said in the past.  Rather, I’m attempting to understand it a bit more, so that I’ll avoid doing it in the future.

For example, if somebody tries to tell me I’m doing something wrong (no matter what it may be), instead of taking it as a bit of constructive criticism, I automatically take it as an attack directed towards myself.  My instinctive response to this would be to either A) Defend myself and try to prove that I’m not wrong, you are, or B) shoot back with some sort of response denoting that you’re just as wrong as me, but at something else.  Wow…even as I write this down, I’m noticing how utterly lame that is of me.  But, I hope that I don’t stay that way forever…I’d like to think that there’s always room for self-improvement.  Nobody’s perfect, and I’m not asking to be, but here’s to being one step closer to normality.

It goes without saying that both men and women have expectations of each other in a relationship.  Now, it’s hard to mention that without being a bit stereotypical, but for the most part, I’d say that the stereotype is quite accurate, with minor changes here and there on both sides.  With that said, I think it’s safe to say that the reason a lot of relationships don’t work out is because the expectations on both ends are conflicting.  One person wants something that the other doesn’t.  And thus, once it seems like there’s no longer a point in holding on because both sides are butting heads, it all ends.

That’s the easy part to determine.  The hard part is figuring out what exactly the expectations are, and of course, we all have different expectations of our boy/girlfriends.  They’re not all written out in a reference book to look over, so what can be done?  Well, easiest way…let your partner know what you expect of them and what you expect from them.  It’s that easy.  If a conflict arises, that’s the hard part.  But it’s never hard to open your mouth and voice your opinion.  Nobody can expect another person to change if they see no reason to.

Expectation plays a huge role in whether a relationship will work or not.  All too often, both sides want the same thing, but are unwilling to let the other side know.  Why is that?  Insecurity seems like a big issue.  The fear that you’re the only one that’s into it, and that you’re the only one that cares.  If you start to think about that a lot, it starts to become a truth for you, and you won’t go anywhere at all.  Sometimes taking that bold leap gets you into trouble, but at least you’ll know the real truth.

The expectations women and men have differ, and the reason for this is that women’s goal in life, in general, is material.  What do I mean by this?  Well, women like nice clothes, they like to buy stuff to make themselves look nice, they like comfortable settings, etc.  Want an example?  Look no further than dorm rooms, or student housing.  You walk into a female dorm room, and the vast majority of them are nicely kept, have flowers on the windows, little posters or pictures up on the wall, nice pillows, etc etc.  A guy’s dorm?  It’s a place to sleep, put a computer, and possibly study.  No more, no less.

A guy’s goal, is to obtain a woman.  Plain and simple.  Borrowing another line from Mr. Chappelle: “Men buy nice cars.  Not because they like nice cars, but because they know that women like nice cars.”  So according to this, the reason guys work so hard, is to please women with the things they want.  Now, this isn’t to say that all women are like this, but there’s a little bit of it in all women.  I was thinking about how all the richest people in the world are men…and it kind of makes sense.  Personally, I don’t believe that feminist crap about keeping women down.  I think it’s just because women don’t feel the need for all of that, because they’re not really out to impress anybody.  Men, on the other hand, have nothing to offer.  Yes, I said it, and it’s true, we don’t.  So we have to work hard in order to have something to offer.  Because if we don’t…well, we should just expect the worst then.

It’s odd how we tend to attribute things that seem to be out of our human control, to be a “change in luck”.  Whether good or bad luck, or whether you believe in good or bad luck, we all seem to have a general notion of what we know as “luck”.  For the more superstitious, we always seem to be in a state of good luck or bad luck at all times.  Few good things happen at once…or sometimes life just seems to be on the right track…well, must be luck then.  Some crappy stuff happens, and you’re just having bad luck.  Now, I’m not really a believer in this, because all stuff happens for a reason.  Events that seem random, are actually not random at all.  We just make it out to be, because it seems to be the easy explanation to things.

Let’s say for example, you find a $100 bill lying on the ground.  Well, it’s your lucky day, isn’t it?  Not every day that something like this happens.  You’ve just become $100 richer.  Now, this may be luck, but if you think about the events that brought this through, it doesn’t seem so much anymore.  Because, with your recent gain in $100, some poor soul just lost $100.  Bad luck?  Perhaps…we like to make it seem that way, and blame our scapegoat friend Mr. Bad Luck. 

The fact of the matter is, sometimes, shit just happens.  There need not be an explanation of why it happens, it just does.  But all too often, we’re just so adamant on searching for this explanation, that we place blame wherever it’s easiest to place.  For those who are less dedicated to the notion of luck, when something bad happens, it’s often easiest to blame a person.  Why wouldn’t it be?  People make mistakes, and mistakes happen.  Seems logical enough.  But back to what I have said, sometimes, shit just happens, and there’s nothing you can do.  Maybe the next time something happens, or maybe you can think back to a bad event that you blamed somebody for something, anything at all, just think about other circumstances that may have affected it.  If you’re still set on placing the blame, that’s fine.  But there’s always an alternative story, and another angle to see it from.

I like to believe that people don’t deliberately do things to piss people (people they like, or family, or whatever) off.  Of course, we all do things to deliberately piss people off sometimes, but I’m talking more about…stuff in everyday life that just happens.

How did this all come up for me?  In an odd event today, my car broke down.  I’ll spare the details, as I don’t know much about it myself; I’m not much of a car guy to tell you the truth.  Whatever happened, it has rendered my car useless, and sitting in my driveway collecting dust and enjoying the hot, humid weather Toronto has thrown at us the past few days.  Anyway, relating this to my original topic…where’s the blame to be placed?  I just so happened to be driving the car at the time, so it’s easy to blame the driver.  Apparently, there was some shabby mechanic work done on my car a while back.  This seemed like a more logical explanation, but I really don’t want to fall into that trap of pointing the fingers again…nothing can really be proven, and even if it can be, it was a while ago and there’s not much that can be done.  I think I’ll just sit back, take the easy route out, and just say I’m hitting a streak of bad luck.

It’s a guilty pleasure for all of us…and we all know it’s unhealthy, but we continue to eat it….why?  Well, maybe because it just tastes so good.  I’ll work it off…go jogging tonight, but that Big Mac is just calling my name.  This is how we rationalize eating McDonald’s food sometimes, and in all honesty, maybe we’re just kidding ourselves…but something happened that might change our minds.  No, it’s not that stupid “Super-Size Me” movie.  Sure, there were some memorable moments in it,…but honestly, if you’re dumb enough to eat 3 healthy McDonald’s meals a day and not expect your cholesterol to shoot through the roof, then you have another thing coming.  The reason I’m against that movie is because in reality, if you eat the same thing 3 times a day, I don’t care what it is, it’s most likely unhealthy.  Eating Tim Horton’s donuts for 3 meals a day will lead you to an early death, yet nobody boycotts Mr. Horton’s chain.  But I digress…

Now, I’m not saying that eating McDonald’s, in moderation even, is necessarily a good thing.  In the past few months, I’ve eaten less and less.  And I’m not really missing the taste of it anymore.  I used to have cravings, but not so much anymore.  Even still, I might have it every few weeks or so.  I wanted to start eating a bit healthier…(READ: bit), but now there might be another reason to consider not eating so much at McDonald’s…

About a month ago…or possibly a bit before then, the McDonald’s chain of fast-food restaurants did something I never thought they’d do.  In a bold move, they got rid of the “McDeal Menu” and replaced it with a line of obviously inferior, sub-par alternatives, including the “bite-sized” double cheese burger, and a miniaturized version of the McChicken.  When I first heard about this, to be completely frank, I was a bit outraged.  Paying full price for McDonald’s combos??  “That’s preposterous!  What were they thinking?”

But upon thinking about it a little deeper, I realized that, in fact, it’s not that bad of a thing…  Think about it, before, the only thing deterring people from eating at McDonald’s were the repeated claims that their food would put them into an early grave.  Blah blah blah, it usually fell onto deaf ears.  It’s nothing they haven’t heard before.  They say the same about cigarettes and alcohol, but those are still around.  So eating a couple of burgers isn’t all that bad.

However, what happens when there’s another element added….pricing.  A Big Mac combo on Tuesdays used to come out to a mere $4.27.  Not too bad for a relatively filling “meal”.  What about now?  For that same combo, you’re looking at $6.13, which doesn’t seem like too much, maybe, but that’s almost a $2.00 increase!  That’s quite substantial if you think about it.  Buy 3 Big Mac meals now, and it costs about $18.50.  A few months ago, that could’ve bought you 4 meals on a Tuesday, and you’d have a bunch of change too. 

But is the apparently higher cost really be enough to sway people away from eating at McDonald’s as regularly as they used to?  Well, it sort of worked on me, and I’m hoping it does work on other people too.  Slight moderation isn’t bad, but if you’re eating at McDonald’s 2-4 times a week, maybe the pricing will start to change your mind.  After all, for just a bit more than that, you could get an equally satisfying meal at a Subway chain, and not worry about your cholesterol as much…that is, if you’re really on the go.  McDonald’s definitely made the alternatives much more attractive now, with their price hike, cause they’re all around the same range, why choose such an unhealthy option?  I’m definitely lovin’ it.