The urban obstacle course

As if it's not enough that I work off Fifth Avenue and therefore must navigate through hordes of European tourists every morning (many of whom, let's face it, are not as svelte as the media would have us believe), I am also in peril as I walk up the street from the sidewalk itself. Particularly in the warmer months.

Yes, fellow not-tall women, I am sure you know what I'm referring to: the dreaded heel-snag in the cracks of the sidewalk. Anyone who wears heels that are at all narrow has likely had this happen to her (or him, I don't judge). There you are, casually strolling along, when suddenly -- what's this? I am still moving but my shoe isn't? Ah, yes, that is because my poor heel had become wedged in the mystery substance used in the sidewalk gaps, which for some reason has a slightly rubbery consistency that softens in the heat. It is fairly embarrassing to have to spin around, hopping to avoid the frightening thought of putting one's bare foot on New York City pavement, and pluck your shoe from the crack. Ugh. 

Business News

I just have to ask, what is going on in hair & makeup over at CNBC? I love that the network has this fleet of highly educated, articulate female business reporters, and I accept that in television, looks do matter.

But is it really necessary for them all have hairdos that could smoothly transfer to the stage at a Miss America pageant? These women are out there interviewing CEO's of the country's (and sometimes world's) biggest companies, for which I imagine they must wake up at something like 4am.... can't the wardrobe people leave them some shred of dignity and not pouf up their hair quite so much? I think the goal should be to present each of them as though they are going to a board meeting at a global corporation. I have never personally been present at such a meeting, but I highly doubt that it is preceded by hairspray and a pick to fluff up any of the attendees' hairstyles. Ladies of CNBC, it's time to get serious, band together, and flatten down your hair!

Safety first!

Is my computer at work really housing such ultra-sensitive data, and so suceptible to attack, that it is necessary for me to change my password every month? It's enough of a challenge already for me to remember the rotating handful of passwords I keep in mind for my couple of email addresses, online banking, etc. And now here comes along this totally over-anxious requirement that I not only think up a new password every month -- which, by the way, can't be any password I have ever used before (!) -- but also, it must contain at least one capital letter and one number. Seriously? Who, exactly, is trying to access my pitifully formatted Excel spreadsheets that such measures could be useful? IT types, I'm all ears on this one.

Buyer beware

I can admit it: I like to return things. As an impatient person, I often prefer to buy a bunch of items at, say, H&M, where I generally know my size, instead of waiting in an agonizingly long line to try things on. If something doesn't fit, no problem! I keep the tags on and bring it back and no harm done.

Due to this propensity, I am pretty opposed to establishments that only offer store credit for returns. Who do they think they are! First of all, what exactly is this policy about? If you require me to keep the tags on something, and I bring it back to you evidently unworn, how is that any different from trying it on in a dressing room?

In any event, since it is against the grain for most retailers these days, is it too much to ask that if you employ a credit-only policy that you make it very abundantly clear to your customers before you make a sale? Put up a giant sign at the register. Train your salespeople accordingly. But please don't bury it in the fine print of a receipt I will only see after you've taken my hard-earned pennies for your $150 embroidered sweatshirt!

This policy is significantly more absurd in an online context. If I don't even have the opportunity to try somethign on, what gives you, HauteLook.com, the right to hang on to my cash when your size four Diane von Furstenberg dress arrives and drapes over me like a size eight? It seems ridiculous to force me to gamble like this just to buy mid-level designer clothing at a discount. Now I basically have a non-interest-bearing checking account with you, with funds that can only be withdrawn for, say, a marked-down pair of Joe's Jeans. For shame.

Anyone want a $138 credit....?

"Don't Be A Poop-er-trator"!

I really don't know why, but I seem to live on the dog-poopiest block in all of Manhattan. And frankly, it's disgusting. People: if you have a dog, surely you are aware of the requirement to clean up after said dog when you take it out for a walk. Yes, it's gross, and that's one of the main reasons why I've never gotten a dog myself. But once you become the proud parent of a pooch, it becomes your civic duty to remember that nobody wants to dodge their special sidewalk presents on the way to work in the morning. Grab a plastic bag (which I hear are in ample supply at the grocery store) and get it together!

Retail, continued

As may be apparent from my posts, I am not a particularly patient person. Sadly, I am also incredibly successful at getting in the very slowest line when there are multiple cash registers to choose from.

As a result, I have had ample time to contemplate the question of why any sort of store with several registers open at one time would fail to employ the one-line system -- which you see at the post office and the Gap, for example -- whereby all customers get in the same single line and then step up to each register as it becomes available? I am no mathemetician (thankfully for anyone who relies on the work of mathemeticians, by the way), nor am I an efficiency expert, but the logic of putting everyone in the same line just seems inescapable to me. Many times I have cursed my bad luck at happening to get behind a seemingly 97-year-old woman who wants to haggle about the sale price of a tube of toothpaste at the drug store, and watching other customers flit away, happy with their new AAA batteries and shampoo, while I wait for ages just for the privilege of walking away with some new face wash, which I need that very day, or else would be happy to save the trip for a time when Mrs. Ancient is not hogging the line.

The absolute worst at the drug store, incidentally, is when I am stuck behind someone who gets caught up in a never-ending quest for their specific brand of cigarettes, which of course are sold out or being held in some sort of side storage space. Nobody should be buying or selling cigarettes to begin with! This one always stretches my impatience to its limits.

Reduce, reduce, reduce

With all the emphasis on greening things up these days, I am baffled that the big suburban grocery stroe chains are still so dependent on these teeny-tiny plastic bags at checkout. it's actually not even so much their plastic-ness that kills me (an argument can certainly be made that many of these bags get kept and re-used for other things). It is their teeny-tininess! Who invented a bag for use at, hello, a GROCERY STORE which can barely contain a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread?! These days I am rather beholden to Fresh Direct, which certainly has its own packaging flaws, but when I lived in LA it frustrated me to no end to wrestle with 15 little plastic bags to buy provisions for one person for a week. And no paper option! To me, the paper bag is such a no-brainer, and I am always amazed when there's a choice between the two and people actually ask for plastic. I would love to hear why!

Calories Count

On the one hand, I find it admirable that an ordinance was passed requiring chain restaurants here to post the caloric content of all of their foods. On the other hand, I certainly no longer want a 300-plus calorie scone at Starbucks....and I certainly don't want a 430-calorie "low-fat" blueberry muffin at Dunkin' Donuts! That is a lot of calories for any baked good, and how much is the full-fat version?! 600 calories? Isn't that like half a day's worth for a woman on a diet or something?

My issue here is, I have no doubt that actual foods at actual restaurants, as opposed to chains, have even more calories in them, but we are supposed to fend for ourselves in the landscape of truffle french fries and lamb shoulder. This makes no sense. I get in theory that the chains are more able to accurately calculate the caloric content of their mass-produced food, but am I seriously to believe that the other guys can't at least take a stab at the ballpark? The legislators who came up with the brilliant idea of allowing me to shudder at a 350 calorie slice of processed banana bread in the Starbucks case should at least have the decency to worry about my health and well-being and ability to make an informed decision just as much when I am contemplating a black-and-white cookie at Dean & Deluca. It's like a bizarro form of reverse classism, if you ask me.

Taxi! Taxi!! Taxi?

A feature often cited in praise of living in Manhattan is the fact that there is ample public transportation, and numerous cabs, which means that although you may ride to work in the pit of a stranger's arm, you can generally travel all the way across town for a mere $2, and you don't have to personally fight rush-hour traffic because you can pay someone else to do that for you.

This is all a nice idea, but sometimes, I really miss having my own car parked nearby to take me where I want to go. This is particularly true when I am looking for a cab at night, because my apartment is a good 10-minute walk from the nearest subway station, and I can't find one. And it's raining. And I don't have an umbrella.

I have learned the hard way that there are at least two intersections where you can generally be assured of being completely unable to hail a cab: 57th Street and 7th Ave., and Houston Street and 6th Ave. There are subway entrances very near both of these, and I have often considered getting on the train to, just, someplace, in the hopes of finding a cab more easily near another stop. I have walked home from 6th and Houston for failure to find a cab there. This is a distance of 1.37 miles. And to think I used to gripe when I lived in LA and couldn't find a convenient parking space -- I'm sure I never had to walk over a mile to get to my car!

The part I find truly baffling is that for some reason, all the cabs are apparently allowed to switch to off-duty at exactly the same time. Shouldn't they be required to stagger it?! It is unbearably frustrating to watch an entire fleet of cabs go by with their "off duty" signs all lit up, cab after cab after cab....as you stand there in a deep freeze or sweltering heat or getting rained on. Even worse is when one pulls over, and for a brief shining moment rescue seems possible, but then when the driver hears your address he grunts and drives off. With a splash of rainwater, even. Thanks a lot.

Blackberry Browser, why so slow?

I don't really have all that much to say on this topic, but I sure do find it annoying.

Stand clear of the closing doors, please

Oh, how I hate a crowded subway car during rush hour. Especially in summer, when waiting on a steaming platform does nothing to make my fellow passengers look or smell their best.

Of course, anyone would hate a packed subway car, a stranger's elbow in your face (I am not tall), an ipod blaring much too loudly through earphones, a giant tote bag poking you in the kidneys. But for me the more painful aspect is the utter lack of subway etiquette on display at these times. When the conductor says "step all the way in and stand clear of the closing doors," there is a reason for this. It is to allow as many of the passengers waiting the train as possible to actually board it. Stopping to hold a railing immediately inside the doors, imagining you can somehow flatten yourself to allow other people to pass you by, simply does not work. Furthermore, if you are tall, please, please don't stand 2 inches away and hover above me to hold on to a vertical pole in the middle of the car! You can easily reach the horizontal bars that run above the seats. I cannot. Show some courtesy for the smaller folk around you.

On the subject of the vertical pole, clearly nobody wants to grab it with their bare hands, and perhaps acquire this month's mystery urban virus. I get this. But at the same time, when there are 57 adults, many carrying laptop bags, occupying the same 3 square feet of space, sometimes you have to give up the leaning or arm-wrap-around and let some other people hang on to the thing! Carry Purell! I am a major germophobe myself, but sometimes, you just have to touch things you might not want to.(I will refrain from inserting the obvious Office catchphrase here).

It's no picnic packing into a massively overcrowded public transportation system, but a little manners could go a long way.

Mr. Smith and Mrs. Jones

It's possible this topic is not quite as small as myDailyVent intends to encompass, but it is a subject I feel compelled to vent about nonetheless. I've lately become increasingly outraged by the fact that society expects me to change my name when I get married someday, yet would never expect my husband to do so. What's more, over 90% of women apparently change their names when they get married, and almost nobody I know bats an eyelash at this phenomenon! I feel like I am living in the Twilight Zone.

In this day and age, it makes absolutely no sense for a grown woman to feel obligated to go through the hassle of changing her last name when she marries, while men can simply sail along and maintain the very same identities they have enjoyed since they were born. Oh, I know what you are thinking: what about the children? Well, I say, what about them? If we all decided to stop this archaic practice, surely we would figure out some way to identify members of the same family, and not in a way that requires women who wish to hold on to their names -- and, if you think like I do, who they are -- to also have a different last name from their own children. Perhaps when people marry, the norm could be to create a new, hybrid last name, so that marriage would not only represent a shared partnership between two people, but signify a change in identity as well for both participants.

I could go on, but my point is really a simple one. Just because something has been the norm for a long time doesn't mean it is necessarily correct. And I say, there is no time like the present for a change on this one.   

Doorman! Doorman! Doorman!

I have a hard time imagining a more ridiculous, less admirable, less meaningful occupation, than the men and women (mostly men) who guard the entrances to popular bars and clubs in major cities. As a rule, I'm not much for places that hire this type of staff. I feel ok about avoiding establishments where I will be judged by my appearance and/or willingness to slip some meathead in a suit a wad of cash in order to gain entry, especially considering the multitude of options in any city of a decent size, not to mention the fact that I am pushing 32 years old.

And yet. Sometimes, I really am looking for the experience that lies behind the gelled-up gatekeeper, and a normal bar without red rope and security just won't fit the bill. When I do venture out for these nights, I already know what I'm in for, and can live with someone asking me to wait in a certain line and that sort of thing.

What kills me, though, is the astonishing level of obnoxiousness displayed by some of these door guys, the condescending manner in which they interact with people who are, after all, only seeking to be paying guests at a dance club or bar, and most shocking of all, the extreme seriousness the guys apply to their respective posts. Are these dudes so very unaware of how far they are from saving the world, or doing something considered a lower-level job, yet providing a valuable service to people, like trash collecting?

As a perfect example of the door guy phenomenon, one of my best friends had her 30th birthday party the other night, for which she reserved a cabana at a relatively scene-y, popular bar/restaurant in the meatpacking district. This reservation came with a minimum bill of $1000, no small amount of money.

All was well in the beginning of the evening, but as the night went on and the bar filled up, Mr. Door Guy began to take on an over-inflated sense of self-importance. He informed one of our friends that she was not dressed nicely enough to gain entry, and she actually had to go to a friend's apartment nearby to borrow a pair of heels. As though her Converse would somehow adversely affect the experience of the other patrons?! Later, Mr. Door Guy informed me that if I wanted one of my male friends to join us, we would have to order another bottle, as "the venue is private after 830pm." Now, I am fairly certain that restaurant/bars are always private venues, and in any event, we had collectively ordered 5-6 bottles by that point in the evening, at several hundred dollars a pop, for maybe 25 or so people. I don't follow the loose math where Mr. Door Guy randomly decides to take on another couple hundred dollars for one additional guest....at a party for which we had booked in advance and already brought in almost two thousand dollars in revenue! (On a $1000 minimum, one would think this sufficient for one more guy to join our group....)

I wonder whether these guys enjoy the sensation of power, or whether, as in the scene from Knocked Up which lent its name to the title of this entry, they hate their jobs just about as much as we hate dealing with them. I feel sorry for them either way.

Silence, please

Ladies: why, why, could you possibly need to be on your cell phone while using the toilet in a public restroom? It's one thing on a bus or plane, where really, you could just as easily be talking to a friend anyway as jabbering into your cellphone, even if the phone does end up generally requiring a slightly higher volume of conversation.
However, when I go into the restroom, say at the office for example, I'm really looking for some peace and quiet while I take care of business. Given the activity involved, and already uncomfortably close proximity in bathroom stalls -- a fair question is why don't the doors and walls go all the way to the floor and ceiling? -- it is taking things one step too far to also hold a conversation in there on a PHONE. What in the world is the scenario in which you would say to yourself, hm, I really really need to take this call right now, and simultaneously need to use the bathroom to such a degree that it can't wait until I am finished?! Outside the rare case in which you have a medically diagnosed bladder control disorder, and your best friend calls to say she is giving birth right that very minute and simply can't go through with it without a quick pep talk, I have to imagine you can pick either the call or the bathroom break and handle them one at a time. I appreciate the technology that allows me the option of doing both together, really I do, but remain grossed out by those who take it.

Could This Be Love?

Answer: if you are standing on a subway platform, in full view of hundreds of rush hour commuters, in 80+-degree heat, and you are groping a person to the point where the woman standing closest to you, who is wearing a just-barely ass-covering miniskirt herself, is blushing and looking away, probably not. Just lust. And it really would be nice if you'd limit the R-rated activities to private spaces. Thanks.

Service Industry, My Foot!

Literally! My friend Sasha* and I had appointments tonight for manicure-pedicures, which we both really needed and were looking forward to getting. I had somewhere else I needed to stop on the way there, so thanks to yelp.com (which I generally love) I located a nail salon that seemed to be a cut above the usual chain nail places you see on every corner here, where the thought of whose feet were in the pedicure basin just before yours is, frankly, just gross. The so-called "spa" even had a nice-looking website, and they took appointments...or so we thought.

We were tipped off to some trouble when we were led to our pedicure chairs. Instead of being directly next to each other, Sasha's was a good foot or so in front of mine and to the left. This made conversation somewhat difficult. However, the real issue, and vent-inducing experience, was the service. More accurately, utter lack thereof. 

When a customer -- a first time customer in particular -- enters any establishment based on service, be it a nail salon, restaurant, purveyor of sex toys, what have you, the goal of said establishment should always be to welcome new business and hope for a return visit. Thus, leaving your pedicure client to wait in a chair with her feet soaking in a tub of water for over 30 minutes is probably not the way to go. To ignore repeated requests for some attention, even less so. To actually shrug your shoulders and walk away upon being reminded that an appointment had been made for a specific time, disappointing. To attempt to file nails that have been so softened by water as to render filing literally impossible, and then offer a 10% discount for the customer's next visit (ha!) is downright baffling. And so on. Sasha finally gave up and decamped for another nail salon a couple of blocks away; I was not so lucky, having submitted to some mediocre filing of my own nails before her soft-nail situation came to light. I flinched when the technician asked if she could razor the bottom of my feet, which has got to be a health code violation. (And certainly didn't stick around for the manicure.)

In a city full of so many options, I am always amazed that places like this can even stay in business for a short while, but then, this is a city that is also full of many many people. It could be that just as Sasha and I were taken in by the nice website and reasonable prices, and left furiously never to return, so too will many other women, enough so that this horrible place can subsist on one-time-only customers for years to come.

*not her real name, but we agreed this was a fun pseudonym and a name we wish we had.

There is always another one

This is an important public service announcement! 

In an office building with rows of multiple elevators, it is never actually necessary to rush up to the closing doors of an elevator and sneak your way in. If you press the button and wait a short moment, another elevator will arrive. Really. I promise. This is a particularly important note if you work in an older building, and your dash into the elevator car causes the doors to open all the way back up, and then stumps the doors into pausing a minute or two before closing again. Possibly enabling another sneaker to edge his or her way in and start the process all over again. As 8.56 becomes 8.58 and then 9.02....

Thank you for listening to this message.

Pike Place Roast, or You Can't Go Home Again

UPDATE: It seems I wasn't the only one with this gripe, and my prayers have been answered: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121392012139190357.html?mod=googlenews_wsj.

I really don't understand why, in the midst of an apparent corporate crisis, Starbucks executives woke up one morning and decided to replace their formerly delicious and bracingly caffeinated house blend with some sort of watered-down pseudo-coffee. If this is the blend that started it all, as the name suggests, then it's a total mystery how Starbucks could ever get out of Washington and become such a formidable company that I can actually sit in one store and see another out the window in certain of the New York locations.

Where the former blend was bitter, and made me feel like I might burst out of my own skin (in such a good way), Pike Place roast is mellow, soothing, almost tasteless. Essentially, everything I don't want my coffee to be.

Noise Violations

Hello there, Mr. Car Service Driver Impatiently Waiting For The Light To Turn. Yes, you. I see you there. As you are a man, I imagine you have a hard time understanding that sometimes, I may underestimate the time it will take me to cross an intersection in heels, leaving me in the street rather than safely on the sidewalk when your light turns green. Nevertheless, there is no point in honking. It will not make me move faster. Do you think I want to be in the street when your light turns green? Could I be doing it obliviously, so that your kind honk will return me to awareness and cause me to hustle across the street much faster? The answer, my friend, is an unqualified "No." 

Hands off, buster

As a relatively young person living in a major metropolitan area, I do my share of going out to bars, and occasionally clubs. And, as I assume is the case for most people who like going out, I like to be at popular places, which means, they are often crowded. In New York especially, 75 people will pack into a 12-seat bar as though this is a totally reasonable use of space, a phenomenon I suppose is to be expected when we will also keep shoving into a subway car until everyone on board is gasping for air, and people make their homes in 250 square feet.

All of which is to say, I am used to crowds and generally fine with them, but as summer kicks in and many places I frequent are busier and busier, I am noticing an uncomfortable phenomenon: the waist-graze. I understand that as one navigates a very crowded small space, a certain degree of personal contact is unavoidable as everyone involved moves around the bar or club to get drinks, use the restroom, find friends, and so on -- the shoulder tap, the gentle arm squeeze, and, in very loud spots, the full-body slither. As much as I appreciate this necessity, I simply cannot tolerate it when a complete stranger, generally male, feels the need to place his hand on my waist as a means to direct me. A shoulder or arm is fair game for stranger contact; a waist is really more for my boyfriend to grab on to. It feels like an invasion! If we have never had a conversation, dude, then seriously, respect the boundaries of stranger-to-stranger interaction, and rely on a simple "excuse me." It's going to get you where you want to go all the same. 

Packaging, continued

Not only do I have real issues with wasteful packaging, but I also can't handle packaging that makes it insanely difficult to actually access whatever said packaging contains. You know what I am talking about: electronics, mostly, that hang on hooks in stores, and are tightly enclosed in this very firm plastic. It's practically impossible to get a scissor in there, scary to approach with a knife, and then when you do manage to slice some part of it open, the edges are very sharp and totally hazardous.

I probably spent a good 15 minutes trying to open up a Tom Tom today. By the time I extracted the thing (with help from my stronger boyfriend in the end), I almost didn't even want it anymore. Granted, I have no expertise in packaging, but I'm completely stumped by what possible rationale would be behind sealing up a product so tightly that it's a complete hassle to open and use it. Who is behind all this hard plastic, and what is wrong with a good old cardboard box? I can't figure out why, if they are going to seal something up in plastic for, let's say, protecive purposes, they can't also include some sort of perforated situation so that you don't have to risk slicing yourself open to get inside the packaging. If someone has an answer to this mystery, I'd certainly love to hear it.

Convenience is appreciated. Wasteful packaging, not so much.

So, I order a lot from FreshDirect. I get that it would be better for the environment not to have all those trucks rolling around town. I get that it would be cheaper for me to carry my own groceries home and save the $6 or so in delivery fees. But, look, I live between 9th and 10th avenues, so basically my cross-town walk from anyplace is as long as it could possibly be. And, I have very small shoulders. It's hard to carry big grocery bags! So I'd be looking at delivery in any case, and I really value the convenience. Most people in other cities drive to get their own groceries, so I figure the trucks are essentially a wash.

But, in this age of environmentally friendly policies everywhere you look, I think it's pretty unacceptable that my single jar of pickles comes wrapped (1) in styrofoam. Then (2) in a plastic bag.  And then (3) in a box that must be two-by-three feet. (4) With nothing else in there.

(5) Good grief.

8.30am should mean...8.30am

So, once a year I need to be seen by a certain doctor for a certain brief medical procedure....let's just say, it involves a part of the female body and a sonogram machine and leave it at that. The important part of the story is that this procedure is perhaps 10 minutes in duration and extremely routine.

Because this doctor's office is around the corner from my apartment, which in turn is about a 30-minute commute to my place of employment, I prefer to schedule this appointment in the early morning. Pop in, pop out, and on my way to work relatively on time, is the theory. Unless, of course, I am asked to wait AN HOUR past the time of my scheduled appointment. What is the point of setting an appointment at all if you are only going to ask me to wait in a room packed full of women, mostly a generation older than me, uncomfortably shifting in their seats and clutching their gowns, underneath which I know full well they are completely naked from the waist up...for longer than 60 minutes?! For a process that takes about 10 minutes once I am finally admitted into the exam room, where I am entitled to hold an awkward conversation with an Eastern European sonogram technician (thankfully female, but still) about my symptoms?

I can't help but think, if I am only going to wait for so long anyway, that they might as well implement a walk-in policy and let patients come and go on their own time. This painfully long wait time, I must add, was on top of the two-plus months I waited to even be granted an appointment in the first place. And, adding insult to injury, there was so Blackberry service in the waiting area, an issue I generally only encounter in supermarkets and subterranean bars. (Why supermarkets? Your guess is as good as mine.) So, as I skimmed an article in People on the joyful shotgun wedding of Ashlee Simpson and that dude from Fall Out Boy, my IQ dipping dangerously as my brain shed information on the subprime mortgage crisis in order to take note that the bridesmaids wore black Vera Wang gowns, I was also half-panicked at the idea of my boss concluding that I was playing hooky due to the long-awaited seasonal June weather.

By the time I finally escaped, half the morning had gone by, and I had to wait even longer than usual for an E train, no picnic even at peak hours. Next year, I am going to make them wait an hour. Watch me.

Air conditioning

Why is it that in every office building I know in New York, as soon as the outside temperature reaches about 70-75 degrees, the indoor temp begins to hover somewhere around 32? Aren't we supposed to be thinking green these days? I hate having to contemplate one outfit for getting to work every day, and then factoring in a heavy outer layer so that my hands are kept sufficiently warm to use the computer or dial numbers on my phone. As summer goes on, my office begins to look like an outpost of the Salvation Army, strewn with fleeces and hooded sweatshirts, none of which are actually appropriate for the office. Lay off the A/C, Rockefeller Center, I beg of you! 

It's time...to vent

Welcome to myDailyVent. What goes on here, you ask? The concept is simple: every day, I vent about something that I find completely aggravating. I will invite others to do the same. You will be able to comment on my rants, and each others', but everyone will be expected to abide by the Two Ground Rules:

Ground Rule Number One: myDailyVent is about the small stuff. For example, I live in Manhattan, so a lot of my gripes are about public transportation, like how it makes me wild with frustration when I'm running late and waiting for the subway and 17 express trains come by, but I need the local. This is not the place to express your fears about your loveless marriage, or worry about putting food on the table to feed your children. These are real problems, and have no place on myDailyVent.

Ground Rule Number Two: there is no judgment on myDailyVent. Therefore, if my Vent of the Day details my horror at coming home form work to find that my housekeeper has stretched the shoulders of my favorite sweater beyond recognition by hanging it on a completely inappropriate hanger, it is not ok to comment that I should be thankful to have a housekeeper who hangs up my wet laundry in the first place! Of course I should be thankful, and I am, but I also really liked that sweater. The point here is to hop on to myDailyVent, let it all hang out, and not take it out on my housekeeper, who is a lovely lady.

These are the Rules for now. I reserve the right to make changes in the future, but in the meantime, let the venting begin!