Every time I leave the house I’m surrounded by assholes!

I went to see the R.E.M. show in suburban Detroit recently (it was bad ass, thank you very much), but of course the rest of the world had to work hard to make it uncomfortable and/or annoying.

I had nosebleed seats, but it was cool because they were free! Even better, our seats were upgraded due to mediocre sales and we got seats on the incline on the floor. I’m short so it was perfect. It was like Stipe was wailing just for moi.

Since there’s always room for bitterness, and assholes apparently, the bliss was short-lived. I should note there were people with blinking buttons, and some even had glow sticks, so I was annoyed even before we sat down.

Mr. Is was to my right, and Mr. Is’s BFF & girlfriend were to my left. Flanked by humans, at least. This perky woman plops down next to my husband with her one-year-old baby. At a concert. On the main floor. At a concert. With her baby. A very loud concert. With her baby! And high contact-high potential. What is wrong with people? I don’t know.

So the baby and mommy were very happy R.E.M. fans oddly enough. In spite of my sniffy judgments, I made a lovely back story explaining why this woman might find it acceptable to bring a breastfeeding baby to a big ol’ rock ‘n’ roll show. Seriously. Breastfeeding. Why bother with nutrition when you’re about to destroy the child’s ears? She put pink plugs in the baby’s ears that kept falling out. On to the floor of the venue. She would look for them and find them and then put them back in baby’s ears. Mmm. Baby ears love beer!

I was somehow able to block the deranged family out and position myself so I couldn’t see them so that I would not be tempted to lunge across my husband to throttle the li’l mommy.

That went well until the two women behind me grew bored with the R.E.M. show and kept chattering in voices that Fran Drescher’s husband would find grating. Seriously. Through every slower song they squawked on, talking about nothing. Mr. Is and I turned around simultaneously and gave them the stink eye. It shut them up for a few minutes. If you want to chitchat go to one of the 500 coffee houses in the metro Detroit area, ok? GAH.

R.E.M. breaks out with the ballads — popular and famous ones I would assume the stupid cunts behind me would shut up to hear, but no! — and finally I turn to my friend on my left and say, quite loudly, “WHAT IS UP WITH THESE SCREECHY VOICED CUNTS BEHIND US?” and pointed and looked at them. I knew Mr. Is would have my back if a catfight broke out. They both stopped short and, thankfully, shut the fuck up.

Le sigh.

Other than that the show was good stuff and took me back to a place of drinking, sex, and friendship. Ah, college!

Oh, and if you happen to be going to one of their upcoming shows, go to their website and request a song to be played at your show. They did special dedications all night that were so cool!