I ran into a friend the other day at the store. I made the mistake of asking him how he was doing and he cut loose with a string of depressing things that happened to him since we last spoke. It didn’t take long before I was sorry that I asked.

We all have that friend or family member that walks around with a black cloud over their head. You know the kind.  They would go to the beach and complain about the sand.

On the drive home I began to ponder things that make people unhappy and I realized that the majority of everyday aggravations are a direct result of criminals.

How many times have you had your innards jostled because you had to drive over a huge speedbump in a parking lot somewhere? Well, they are there because people who refuse to follow the speed limit drive through the parking lot like it was the Indy 500.

All those times when you sit down at your computer and fight for 30 minutes trying to remember your password is a result of criminals out there waiting to steal our information. We sit there and swear that the correct password is being entered only to recall that we changed it two weeks ago. By the time I get logged in, I’m too stressed to care anymore.

Once I do get logged on, I then spend the next 10 minutes trying to read that weird writing to prove to the computer that I am not a robot. I assure you that if I was a robot, I would have not spent all that time trying to crack my own password.

I went to the dollar store yesterday to purchase some razors and found them protected inside a glass case. I had to wonder who is it that is stealing razors so much that they have to be placed inside a case. I opened the case to retrieve the razors I wanted and an alarm went off that sounded like there was an escape at Alcatraz. Thank you criminals. The need to protect the razors from you cost me 20 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back and the embarrassment of having everyone in the store look at me as if I was trying to break into Fort Knox.

I stopped by the bank the other day to deposit a check. I walked up to the teller window and presented the check and was told that I would need to present an I.D. to prove that it was my account. I told the teller, “Well, I don’t normally go around depositing checks into stranger’s accounts and if anyone wants to deposit anything into my account they certainly have my blessings to do so”.  Thank you Criminals. Because of you, my statement that I thought was quite funny resulted in me having to wait 25 minutes to speak to the manager and caused me to get back home late and I missed the first 15 minutes of Judge Judy. Not cool!

Later that day, I called the electric company to pay my bill. I was interrogated harder than John Gotti to prove my identity. Not learning my lesson from the bank incident I told the operator, “Who is trying to sneak any pay my electric bill? Do you want my money or not”?

So, here I sit in the dark pondering how I ended up in this position. Now, I will never be able to finish watching Judge Judy.  Thank you Criminals.