Why It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Can’t be Allowed to Win an Emmy

Here is a break down of FX’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia for those of you who aren’t familiar with the show. Three friends (Mac, Dennis, and Charlie) own the worst bar in Philladelphia. Dennis’ sister, Deandra, and father, Frank, also work in the bar. Frank is also a partial owner. During the day they scheme up terrible plots that almost always involve tricking and back stabbing each other in the interest of self-fulfillment and vengeance. They are alcoholics and sociopaths and each character has their own unique propensity for vanity, immaturity, stupidity, and self righteousness. Charlie can’t read or write which makes him the stupidest but most good-natured character, Mac has the maturity of a 12 year old and I obsessed with karate (although has never taken a formal class), Dennis is self-conscious and manipulative, Dee is completely ignored and excluded by the rest of The Gang, and Frank shares characteristics of all the other characters while maintaining a position of monetary power and relative control over the group. They often get themselves into ridiculous situations such as training Charlie to enter a Fight Club, finding a Dumpster Baby, hunting a man, running a Vietnamese Russian Roulette game in the basement, sleeping with transvestites, and basically ruining the lives of those around them without concern or remorse. In short, they are the worst people alive.

For those people who follow and care about such things, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has never been nominated for an Emmy in the Best Comedy Series category. The reason behind their absence on the list is most likely that if Always Sunny got nominated, it would have to win. Shows like 30 Rock and Two and a Half Men can’t compete with the outlandish. Since it would be a crime to nominate Sunny without allowing Sunny to win, here are 5 reasons why Always Sunny cannot be nominated for an Emmy.

5. It’s Not a Network Show

How could a show on a small cable offshoot station of Fox to land an Emmy nod? FX won’t be hasn’t earned Emmy-worthy respect because the industry still revels behind the Big Four networks and brown noses them to hell and back every year. FX is for action buffs and Millenials, thus, doesn’t gain recognition by the critics despite an impressive lineup of their own programming that includes Sons of Anarchy and Rescue Me (also absent from the 2009 Emmy nominations list).

The Big Four still have a stranglehold on the industry and with the exception of HBO it’s been very difficult for shows on Cable to grab nominations in the Emmys. It will be some time before critics and peers are going to open up to the idea that Cable TV has more inventive and better written programming than most of the dribble that gets primetime network placement. People who work at networks are going to vote for shows on networks, it’s the old style of thinking that leads to shows like Sunny getting snubbed. Network primetime shows are often safe, easy, and get more viewers and for the Emmys that translates too more nominations.

If It’s Always Sunny was on Fox, you could guarantee a few more people would tune in and the Emmy voters would be less hesitant to put it on the ballet. Here’s to hoping the new Fox show, Boldly Going Nowhere, (written by the creators of Sunny) will help them get the credit they have earned.

4. No Budget + No Names = No Emmy

Sunny is a notoriously low-budget show. McElhenney, Day, and Howerton claim to have filmed the pilot episode with just $85. All were struggling actors at the time and wrote Sunny as a way to rise up in the industry. Why audition for roles when you can write the show and cast yourself?

To most people these guys are still industry no names, and despite their talent and knack for writing great comedy, the Emmy’s are always going to kiss ass to shows with big name actors like Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, and Charlie Sheen. Expect 30 Rock and Two and a Half Men to be back on the ballet next year, regardless of how their seasons turn out. Don’t let Danny Devito fool you either, regardless of his respect going into Sunny, Frank Reynolds is a character that is too risky to be looked at by most with their Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy glasses. Any character that treats his children as horribly as Frank does is not going to be rewarded for it in this country. And there’s no way anyone in Hollywood would dare cross the great Alec Baldwin by passing him up for the eccentric Danny Devito.

3. Cult Status

Did anyone try to get tickets for the live performances of “The Nightman Cometh”? What did tickets cost near you? The cheapest seats on craigslist and stub hub for the NYC Beacon Theatre showing were $100, with better seats going for $600+. Fan dedication like that isn’t found in thoughtless routine sitcoms like 30 Rock and Two and a Half Men, yet those shows were both awarded with Emmys this year. Meanwhile, even HBO’s comedies of Flight of the Concords and Entourage, each with fantastic fan followings of their own, were snubbed (Eastbound and Down wasn’t even nominated, for many of the same reasons as Sunny).

Do you have friends who are It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia fans? Go over to their house sometime and tell them you’ve never seen the show and see what happens. Prepare to cancel your dinner plans, and probably your breakfast plans the next day because you are in for an all-nighter as they plant you down on the couch and start rolling out the episodes. You’ll probably be started on “The Gang Gives Back” or maybe “The Gang Finds a Dumpster Baby” or Season 4’s “Mac and Dennis: Man Hunters” in order to get a taste for the characters. From then on you’ll be there on your own terms, insisting on going back to Season 1 and enjoying the show in its entirety.

Do you have friends who are 30 Rock fans? Go over to their house and tell them you’ve never seen 30 Rock and see what happens. You’ll go on with your night as planned while they throw out a comment along the lines of “Oh you’ve never seen it? It’s really funny.”

The reason behind these two very different reactions is because 30 Rock is a safe comedy, while Always Sunny is anything but. Taboo themes and outlandish behavior are what separate revolutionary comedy on shows like Sunny that set it apart from throwaway network comedies. And when people discover a show like Sunny for what it is, probably the funniest show on television, they can’t get enough. When it isn’t on network TV then you have yourself a cult following of dedicated fans.

With great risk comes great reward. In FX’s case they took a risk on Sunny and were rewarded with the funniest show on television and no acclaim. In contrast, NBC created 30 Rock to shamelessly promote their network and as a result the smug three-chuckle-per-episode sitcom has won them dozens of accolades. That’s the entertainment industry in a nutshell.

2. It’s Absolutely Ridiculous

The plotlines in Sunny are beyond absurd. The logic that each character uses to justify their actions is convoluted at best. They make no apologies for what they’ve done and usually believe they are doing good and helping people when in reality their behavior is destructive and malicious. For all of this, the show makes no apologies.

Similar themes can be found in Family Guy (congrats on getting nominated this year). Family Guy makes racist and rude jokes day in and day out, but often these jokes are 1-hit notes that don’t pertain to the rest of the episode. A formulaic flashback for a quick punch line that has nothing to do with anything is hardly good writing, and nowadays isn’t as offensive or “edgy” as it would have been 15 years ago. Sunny, on the other hand, harps on these themes and these jokes for entire episodes. Drug abuse, alcoholism, racism, abortion, and child abuse aren’t 1-off jokes that are quickly forgotten; they are episode-long themes that spawn boundary pushing jokes and hilarious commentary about each subject.

For Example, in Family Guy a joke about a dumpster baby would look something like this (Note: this isn’t an actual Family Guy joke, just an example of one following their usual formula).

Peter: Oh man guys I gotta poop real bad guys! Oh look, a dumpster!

(Peter Runs to the Dumpster)

Cleveland: Careful, Peter. Remember that time you found the baby in the dumpster!

(Flashback to Peter pooping in a dumpster and then hearing a baby cry, assumingly after he pooped on it)

Peter: Oh Jesus you’re right! I’ll have to be more careful this time!

(Peter opens the dumpster, sees a baby, moves it aside and poops next to it)

Peter: Oh man that was a close one!

While Family guy’s joke is funny and rude in its own respect, Sunny takes it a bit further. In the episode entitled “The Gang finds a Dumpster Baby” the gang finds a baby in the dumpster outside the bar and then proceeds to try to exploit the child by putting it in commercials. When they discover ethnic babies are in greater demand than white babies, they try to take it to a tanning salon to change his skin color, totally ignorant of the effects UV rays would have on an infant. When they get turned down they proceed to paint the baby dark brown in an effort to get it into a commercial as a black baby. This 22 minute episode is entirely devoted to exploiting an abandoned child that they found in a dumpster for their own profit.

While pooping on a baby is cruel, making several attempts to exploit an abandoned dumpster-infant is absolutely horrible, and their attitude towards it as being logical and in no way damaging to the child makes it all the worse. They exhibit total disregard for others in the ongoing effort to further themselves, and that is what makes the show so damn funny. This ridiculous behavior, sadly, is also what keeps it too risky for the Emmy Awards to touch.

1. It’s Too Funny

The nature of the Emmys is to award the most popular shows in each category, and this makes it heard for shows such as Sunny to break through. Sunny is not the most popular show on television (partially because of it’s late night cable timeslot) and partially because it’s too taboo for a lot of people. But taboo is what has helped comedy evolve over the years from The Three Stooges bopping each other over the head to Dave Chappelle doing pantomime of dodging a homeless man’s ejaculate on a crowded bus.

At the heart of Sunny’s comedy are heartless and awful schemes that are often psychologically and physically damaging. The characters never learn from what they have done and thus continue to make similar mistakes and follow the same path of chaos and stupidity that makes each episode shockingly funny, and taboo to some.

This shock value pays off in spades with the amount of times viewer are prone to laugh out loud during an episode. Watching a group of people watching Sunny often results in outbursts of laughter so loud and prolonged that the person holding the controller frequently has to rewind the DVR because they couldn’t hear any dialogue in the 15 seconds following the jokes.

Nominated shows Entourage and Flight of the Concords provoke very different responses. While Entourage is enjoyable and fun in its own sense, rare is the occasion that a viewer will laugh out loud. It’s more of a light drama than an outright comedy. Concords is hit or miss with most viewers. Either they laugh at each song or they sit around waiting for the jokes that never come. Family Guy and How I Met Your Mother are the only shows on the list of Best Comedy Series this year the consistently evoke audible laughter from their viewers, and they didn’t even win.

It is ironic that a show can be too funny to win the Best Comedy Series Emmy Award, but it’s also undeniable. If Sunny ever wants to win an Emmy they will have to tone down the inappropriate behavior, make their characters less malicious, and weed out themes of alcohol, drugs, cannibalism, and glory holes.

Thank God the writers don’t give a shit about winning Emmys.

The Chopper has gone down in flames. Woodchuck at large.

Police Officer: So tell me what happened exactly.

First Responding Fire Fighter: This man smelled something burning in his car and proceeded to pull into the dry cleaners here. He popped his hood and found the insulation was engulfed in flames. He put out the fire and removed the insulation. That’s when they discovered the woodchuck in the engine block. I called animal control to have the animal removed, it then jumped down from the car and we chased it across the parking lot where it took up a defensive position underneath that white Smart Car. After much intimidation we managed to scare it off into the woods. The animal is now back in the wild, but we have some great pictures though.

The man driving the car in that story was me.

As I left the house today to go pick up my dry cleaning I ran into my mother and my father. My mother told me I had to be at church in 20 minutes and had better come right from the dry cleaners. My father informed me that the breaks were shot on his car and I’d have to drive my old minivan the 350 miles to Connecticut on Monday. Neither piece of news made me happy and I embarked for the dry cleaners in a fairly dry mood.

As I approached the dry cleaners in my beat up POS '97 Caravan I smelled something quite foul burning. It was the smell of burnt hair/plastic and it was coming from under the hood of my car. By the time I pulled into the parking lot of Leary’s Dry Cleaning I spotted smoke rising from the hood and realized that this probably wasn’t going to be a good day. I popped the hood and lifted it up revealing several pieces of insulation in flames all over my engine block.

A man and woman to my right stood in awe at the inferno that had moved into my car and asked if they could help. “Uh, yea,” I said. “A fire extinguisher would be pretty clutch right now, and if you wouldn’t mind calling 911, I think they might have something to say about this." Moments later the guy from the dry cleaners ran out a fire extinguisher that looked to be from the late 1800’s and I used it to spray white dust all over my car. Noting that there were still embers brewing in my insulation, myself and a Good Samaritan who knew a lot more about cars than I did ripped the scorched insulation off my hood and picked it out of the wiring.

I thanked the two guys who had helped me and asked one of them, a former mechanic, if he had an advice for me. “Yea, I would probably not turn this thing on right now because the fires have melted a bunch of belts, hoses and wires.”

The woman who had called 911 for me stood over my car amazed at the charred mess that used to be my engine block. “Uh hey, guys, I think there’s an animal in there. Yea, oh wow, yea, there’s definitely some kind of animal in there!” She must have seen some charred insulation and was commenting on how it looked like a dead animal right? Wrong. There was an animal in there.

The first firefighter on the scene got to my car and was somewhat relieved that they fires were out. He called dispatch to let them know the that situation was under control; that’s when he spotted the woodchuck.

“Dispatch, we are gong to need animal control down here to remove a fried woodchuck from this guy’s engine.”

“Just to confirm that animal is dead?”

“Copy that dispatch. It’s dead.” Just then the woodchuck, against all odds, shifted around in an attempt to escape the minivan’s engine block.

“Whoa! Scratch that control this is a LIVE woodchuck!”

By this point several firefighters had gathered on the scene and realized that they just had to get a look at this thing. For once people were gathered around my car and pointing and laughing not at the fact that it’s a POS, but at the live woodchuck that started a fire under my hood. The little bastard had been eating away at my insulation, which caused pieces to fall onto the engine. Those pieces got overheated and ignited, thus causing the rest of the insulation and everything else flammable under my hood to burn as well.

After everyone had taken his fair share of camera phone pictures of this devious little rodent, we realized that we had to get him out somehow. Just then he shifted around again, found an escape hole and dropped down to the pavement beneath my van. As we crowded around, amazed at the size of this thing (I'd call it two feet long and a good 15-20 pounds on to him), we tried to formulate a plan on how to deal with it. But the scorched woodchuck had ideas of his own and darted across the parking lot in an effort to flea the scene. I called across to the dry cleaning customers, “Watch your cars, he might be coming for you next!”

Sure enough he found shelter underneath a Smart Car on the other side of the lot. The team of firefighters chased the woodland critter down, surrounded the car, and had an epic standoff that involved laughter and a broomstick. This wasn’t my fight any more so I decided to grab my dry cleaning before the place closed in 5 minutes.

The dry cleaner employees were all having a good laugh at the predicament the firefighters in their parking lot were in. I realized that my mom was probably furious with me right now as I was over a half hour late for mass. I could see the scowl in her eyes and she undoubtedly kept glancing towards the church door assuming that I had blown off mass and gone home to play video games.

As I walked out of the dry cleaners with my pressed and cleaned suit that responding police officer attempted to figure out what the hell was going on. He asked the first firefighter there what happened.

First Responding Fire Fighter: This man smelled something burning in his car and proceeded to pull into the dry cleaners here. He popped his hood and found the insulation was engulfed in flames. He put out the fire and removed the insulation. That’s when they discovered the woodchuck in the engine block. I called animal control to have the animal removed, it then jumped down from the car and we chased it across the parking lot and later scared it into the woods. The animal is now back in the wild, but we have some great pictures though.

With a big grin on his face and chuckling at the how stupid this story was he asked me if there was anything else he should know before he took my ID and car information for the insurance report. “Yea, the bitch of this whole thing is that my dad has been trying to kill that woodchuck since father’s day. Looks like that little bastard got the last laugh.”

David Slays Goliath, 2-nil

An historic day for the U.S. Men's National Team as they won a place in the Confederations Cup Finals after defeating #1 rated Spain.

Winning a semi-final spot must have been bittersweet to every US player who picked up a newspaper the next day and saw the words “luck” and “gift” used to describe how they earned a place in the last four. Now it may have been a bit of fortune that Brazil beat Italy 3-0, but Brazil did put at least 3 goals past everyone in their group so why should Italy have been any different? The USA brought the game right down Egypt’s throat with intense play that led to a much-deserved 3-0 victory from the Americans. It just so happened that these games occurred on the last day of the group stage and that the Americans decided that instead of rolling over and exiting the tournament with their tails between their legs it would be better to launch an onslaught into Egyptian territory and have Guissippe Rossi watch them take on Spain in the semi-finals from the comfort of his own home.

I said last week that regardless of the score, Spain is a much more talented team than the USA. The US players all know that; but being talented doesn’t give you a free ride to the Confederations Cup Final. Thankfully for the spectators, Spain did not take this match lightly and gave us all a heart pounding game.

They came at the USA with their usual bag of tricks. Clever ball movement, fantastic shots, and great touches all looked to be too easy for the Spaniards. What didn’t look easy was finding a way inside the American box and creating a golden scoring opportunity. Spain couldn’t find their venom today, and the frustrated faces of David Villa and Fernando Torres told the story of two world class striker who couldn’t create a way to break down the American defenders and fire their team into the finals. That task proved to be just beyond them and that’s in no small part due to the world-class performances of Oguche Onyewu and Jay DeMerit, who seems to have stolen Carlos Bocanegra’s center-back spot.

What makes this victory so sweet for the US players and fans is that Spain did not underestimate the US Men’s National Team. Instead they played with all the vigor and pressure of a world cup final and it wasn’t enough to win. Although Spain is the more skilled and more decorated side, they could not play their way through the beating hearts of the US players who left nothing on the field. The US team did not win because Spain thought this game would be a walk in the park; they won because they were the better team on the pitch.

This game came down to why the US wins all their international “upsets;” they played harder than the other team and the goals came as a result of that. Congratulations lads, you played your hearts out and beat the best team in the world. Even the naysayers have to realize now the when the U.S. plays their game with that kind of intensity and character they can go toe-to-toe with the best teams in the world. Raise your glass and have a toast if you are a U.S. soccer fan, today was a great day for the team, the sport, and the country.

- Tim Conley

Going into Spain

A few thoughts about the U.S. Men's National team going into their biggest game since 2006.

What a day for the U.S. Men’s National team. At the beginning of the match the commentators weren’t even entertaining the notion of the U.S. making it into the semi-finals of the Confederation’s Cup, but now the most unlikely of results has catapulted the U.S. into the final four of the tournament. Unfortunately, changes must be made if the U.S. wants to walk off the field with their heads held high after their match with Spain on Wednesday.

Bradley must have gotten the right message through to his players this morning because they applied smart pressure all game. When the Egyptians played Brazil they were able to dance around with triangle passing while the inept Brazilians hurled themselves into hopeless tackles. In the U.S. team’s opening matches they were unable to provide much pressure because they were playing with 10 men most of the time. The way they went about defending the Egyptian attack and putting pressure on the ball led to dozens of bad passes and turnovers for us. They didn’t lunge towards the ball and they didn’t make foolish slide tackles; instead they played smart, organized football and were able to control the game because of it.

This progression must be carried through into the Spain game, because international refs have a track record of red-carding U.S. players for any hard tackles they make. Let us not forget the mystery red card in the last world cup against Italy where the players on the field had no idea who had been carded or why. You can bet that David Villa, Fernando Torres, and half a dozen other Spanish players will be sure to punish the Americans for lunging tackles or for giving them too much room to work with. By applying smart pressure and resisting the urge to throw themselves at the ball, the U.S. team will be able to control the Spain game more and avoid falling victim to the impeccable footwork of the Spaniards. This is lesson one; apply constant pressure without over committing to tackles.

Beyond that the U.S. needs to do a few things if the they want to walk off the field with their heads held high after their match with Spain on Wednesday.

Keep Donovan on the left wing.

In several qualifying games Bradley would stick Donovan right behind Jozy as a supporting forward. This takes Landon out of his element; if he is constantly receiving the ball with his back to goal, he cannot make the long penetrating runs that create opportunities for the U.S. team. Keep him on the wing where he can receive balls on the counter attack and charge at defenders. He has the pace to cut into the middle and open up play, or carry the ball down the touchline and serve one into the box. Either way, Landon should not be positioned in the middle of the field because it takes him out of his element and denies the U.S. one of their strongest weapons: the pace, fearlessness, and ability of Landon Donovan when he charges forward on the ball.

Take Clint Dempsey off the wing.

He has spent the last three games neglecting his defensive responsibilities and has been bailed out by fantastic performances by Jonathon Spector. He is a creative attacker, but Spector won’t be able to defend alone with David Silva and David Villa coming at him while Clint jogs ten yards behind them. Clint did well to score a goal against Egypt when he was playing up front, but his lack of enthusiasm makes me question whether or not he even wants to wear the shirt. Bob Bradley needs to introduce U.S. National Team Clint Dempsey to Fulham Clint Dempsey.

Don't start Charlie Davies.

I know, I know, he scored a goal. Big whoop. He has the right attitude for the team; that much is for sure. But his touch is terrible, he has no vision, and single handedly killed three or four promising looking U.S. attacks against Egypt. My Romanian soccer coach in middle school used to put me, a natural defender, at striker when his forwards weren’t performing. He would say, “Look at Tim, he has no skill, but he try!” Such is the case with Charlie Davies, he has little skill, but he tries. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Connor Casey has skill and chemistry when he is paired with Jozy, but he doesn’t seem to want to play. He hasn’t been applying the pressure that our strikers need to when we don’t have the ball. What about trying Freddy Adu again? I know he hasn't played regularly lately but we need another creative spark to play off Jozy.

Use two strikers at all times.

It seems Bob Bradley finally got the idea for a striking pair going into the Egyptian game. Altidore is coming along great as a player, but you can’t ask a 19 year old to collect long balls all game with no outlet for support. You can see him getting overwhelmed by defenders quickly in games where we play the Altidore/Donovan supporting forward connection. Keep a pair of strikers on the field as long as we have 11 men so that we can attack with authority.

Stop kicking the long ball.

The U.S. attempted more long balls this tournament than any other team. They also succeeded with fewer long balls than any other team. Sure, every once and a while we get a good one in from Feilhaber and Jozy gets a run at goal, but all it says to the international competition is that we aren’t confident enough to run at defenders and move the ball up the field with smart passing and creative runs. Nothing kills a team spirit more than dumping the ball back to the other team the moment we get possession. You can’t win games by sitting back, absorbing pressure, and hoping that a Hail Mary ball leads to a goal. We proved against Egypt that our passing game is there, it exists, and we can use it as long as we are confident. Guzan in the goal distributing the ball may have been a big factor in that today; hopefully, Howard will take a tip from the youngster on building from the back.

Find someone to pair with Michael Bradley, fast.

I doubt that Ricardo Clark is much more than place filler until Bob Bradley finds a central midfielder that can be as influential as his own son is. Bradley goes hard into every tackle (which sometimes gets him into trouble), distributes the ball well, and is always getting forward. Perhaps the best characteristic the youngster has is that he is never afraid to have a shot. We’ve seen a number of chances come and go because players are afraid to be selfish and take a shot themselves. Bradley wants to score, and is always getting involved in forward play. When he sees a chance, he takes it.

If we can get someone to play next to him that’s half as ambitious as he is, we should be all right. We can’t have players that are as invisible as Ricardo Clark or as inconsistent as Sasha Kljestan. Torres is a possible option, but I haven’t seen enough of him to cement a place in the starting 11 in my mind. Benny Feilhaber is comfortable on the ball, he distributes it as well as anybody, and he is one of the most creative players on the U.S. squad. Creativity is something the U.S. squad can desperately lack at times. Maybe partner him with Michael Bradley in the middle and see what happens?

A few positives to take away:

The U.S. has more depth in their squad than a lot of people thought. Jay DeMerit has been a huge player defensively this tournament. A lot of nervous eyebrows were raised when Bocanegra went out injured, but DeMerit has been more than equal to the task of playing next to Onyewu.

Onyewu has also come into his own as a dominant central defender. In this tournament we have seen the very best out of him, and I hope he can carry this through into his future play. Spector has had a great tournament as well; all but shutting down his side of the field on the defensive end while making threatening attacking runs when his side have the ball. It will be difficult to swap him out when Hejduk is healthy again. Maybe switch him over to Bornstein’s side and have two very fast and talented wing backs? Bornstein has been nothing to write home about this tournament.

Closing thoughts:

Although the U.S. showed great improvement against Egypt they need to keep in mind that Spain is the best team in the world right now and aren't going to go belly-up the way the Pharoahs did. They need to run the legs out of Spain, keep possession of the ball, and take the Spaniards out of their game while playing theirs. Everyone is writing this game off as a 4-nil blowout, but it doesn’t have to be. For as long as I have watched the U.S. Men’s National Team they have been using heart, character, and work ethic to fill in for what they lack in raw talent.

Nothing can change the fact that Spain is going to be the more skilled team on the field. The U.S. team cannot develop dazzling foot skills and perfect chemistry overnight. What they can control is how hard they work, how well they keep their shape, and how they confident they are from the kick-off. They need to walk onto the field without fear and playing to win. If the U.S. squad comes out of the gate against Spain with their full effort, wearing their hearts on their sleeves, and leaving nothing on the field, then they can walk out of the Spain game proud of themselves with a country of fans behind them regardless of what the scoreboard says.

-Tim Conley

Just a little wave, that's all I ask

Most of us don't live in urban areas and rely on our cars to get from A to B. We use cars to get to the grocery store, to commute to work, and to run our weekend errands. And each of us knows of one, if not several, intersections that make driving even short distances a nuisance.

You know this intersection very well. This is that intersection with no stoplight where you need to turn left, and it is impossible to get your left hand turn. Maybe, perhaps once or twice a month the seas will part and we get to this intersection and rejoice as we skip the stop sign altogether and ease our way into the left lane without as much as a pause.

The rest of the time we sit here, sometimes for up to 15 minutes, waiting for the smallest gap in traffic to exploit and get on our way. Either that, or we rely on the good will of a fellow driver who stalls the traffic behind him and allows you to turn in front of him to spare you the torture of another 5 minutes grinding your teeth and gripping your steering wheel until your knuckles turn red.

What do we do when this Good Samaritan grants us passage? We look both ways, proceed into the intersection, look over our shoulder and give them the wave. It’s a simple and effortless of gratitude that tells this driver: “Oh my God, thank you so much. If I had to sit there another minute I’d have driven my car into a tree. Then you came along and freed me from this traffic purgatory and potentially saved the life of every passenger in my car. Thank you good sir, whoever you may be.”

It’s a universally understood motion. Everybody knows the wave. It justifies our letting in the frustrated driver stuck at the most notorious intersection in town. It verifies that we did a good deed; we helped out our fellow man out of an awful situation, and we can then continue on our day feeling a little better about ourselves.

This random act of kindness works well for both parties. The generous driver feels better about himself and the frustrated driver gets to make it to work on time. So why, I ask, do some people not reciprocate the random act of kindness with the wave?

The other day I was driving down the road and past the death intersection and noticed a pause in oncoming traffic. I saw a driver stuck at the stop sign trying to turn left into my lane and I saw the opportunity to make somebody’s day. I slowed to a crawl and created a sizable gap between my car and the car in front of me, and then I motioned for the driver at the stop sign to turn in front of me.

Upon doing this, my mind underwent the following thought process:

“I am such a good person, I feel like patting myself on the back. Look, there he is entering the intersection because of me. He sure is lucky that I came along and rescued him from that horrible left turn. I – wait a minute, did he forget to wave? MOTHER FUCKER!

How dare he? What nerve! Who does he think he is? How the hell can he not recognize me for my great act of unthinkable kindness? He didn’t even look over. No wave, not even a nod. This douche bag is just going to go on driving like nothing even happened. But something DID happen. I ought to ram my minivan right up the ass of his little Saab two door. What kind of a little bitch forty-year-old man drives a two door Saab anyway? Must be a prick.”

That shitbag had me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. I couldn’t believe he could be so rude. I mean honestly, how hard is it to take four fingers off your steering wheel and raise them up in thanks to the people who help us out?

All I ask is for people to reach into their hearts and empathize with those who do good deeds for us, and give the wave. Just a little wave, that’s all I ask.