I may not know a lot--indeed, there are some, probably within the sound of my voice, possibly even you yourself, who would I say that I hardly know anything, and that what little I do know is wrong--but by damn I know my rights. I know, from my assiduous study of television crime dramas, that I have the right to remain silent, a right, not incidentally, that I wish most people I meet on a daily basis would avail themselves of far more frequently, and the right to an attorney should I need one. (Which is quite comforting, actually, given my new business idea: MethLabCorp.) (Shhh…don't tell anyone. I don't want anyone to steal the idea.) I know that I have the right to assemble, a right that comes in quite handy when ordering from Ikea, and the right to free speech (hey, you get what you pay for, you know?) (I am, as always, just sayin') and to redress my grievances, which I do, generally in Barbie clothes.

            But, as the libertarians tell us, we have many rights not spoken of in the Constitution or in a document that I might have actually read, like the TV Guide. For example:

            You have the right to speak so loudly on the bus that I cannot read my book but am forced to listen to your inane, narcissistic and borderline psychotic phone conversation, especially if you have the kind of cut-through-my-skull-like-a-buzzsaw Midwestern voice that can really fill a moving bus as if that roaring vehicle had the acoustics of an opera hall and even more especially if you have the kind of lack of shame that allows you to talk about how you and your boyfriend had sex in the broom closet at work. And thanks for sharing that, by the way, with me and the whole fucking bus; the Franciscan nun over there, I think, really enjoyed it immensely. Also, I didn't really need my ears, and now that I've burned them off with acid, I'm much more aerodynamic.

            You have the right to be a cheapskate motherfucker. Why, no, business dude on an expense account, that waitress--yes, her, the one with three kids at home--doesn't need your tip. She's actually an eccentric heiress working on her feet ten hours a day for a lark. The fact that she had the kitchen recook your fucking steak because there was a hint of pink in it--no, really, well-done is the way to go, asshole, if, you know, you hate steak and want to make the ghost of the cow it came from weep--not once, not twice, but three fucking times--three!--and didn't wipe her ass with it is your right, isn't it? (Didn't wipe her ass with it as far as you know, anyway. That's her right.) There's no need to leave her 20%; 10 will do just fine. If you gave her more, she'd just waste it on food and housing. Not like you, huh, cheapskate motherfucker? How nice for you that you've figured out how to hire a hooker on an expense account. Reimbursed as office supplies, you say? Brilliant.

            You have the right to drive your make-the-Indian-cry mongo-mobile around heavily-trafficked downtown corners at breakneck speed; we pedestrians will just have to shift for ourselves. What are our little lives compared to the magnificence that is you doing 60 around the corner at Washington and Franklin? And on balance it was wise of you not to have slowed down to see if you'd hit any of us--hell, you'd have felt  the bump--because first, you'd have had to interrupt your cell-phone conversation and second, we peevish pedestrians might have been selfish enough to want to beat you to fucking death, resuscitate you, and run you over with your own SUV to kill you again.

            You have the right to stand in the middle of the sidewalk holding a fratboy-dipshit convention with your pals, while the rest of us are using--ah, silly me, attempting to use--that very selfsame sidewalk for its intended purpose, walking. After all, your tax dollars paid for those sidewalks, did they not? (Actually, no, because in all likelihood you live in the suburbs; my tax dollars did though. Can I get a refund?) Of course, I am going to walking-shoulder-block you into the path of that oncoming Mack truck; will it stop in time to avoid splatting you like a bug on its grille? That's what makes exercising your rights so very exciting.

            You have the right to repeatedly bump me with your fucking shopping cart in the supermarket checkout. No, really, it's fine; I am in no sense a human being, despite my having two legs and no feathers. Please feel free to keep nudging me with your cart. When I snap and six burly policemen have to pry open my mouth, which will be clamped around your throat, with the Jaws Of Life (unlike my own Jaws Of Death), you have the right to say, "I don't know why he attacked me! I wasn't doing anything!" (Um, not that that happened or anything. I am speaking hypothetically here.) (For one thing, it was only five cops.)

            You have the right to own a pit bull and walk it down my very crowded city block. You have the right to laugh as it jumps and snaps at me on its chain. You have the right to know that I am clutching my pepper spray, and should any part of your pit bull's anatomy contact any part of mine, I will first spray his eyes, and then yours. Frankly, I would like to avoid spraying him and go directly to the part where I spray you with pepper spray, because he's a dumb animal, and it's not his fault he's interested in clamping onto my balls and not letting go, or is in a position to do so; it's yours. But, practically speaking, it will have to be the dog, then you. However, in your case, after I've sprayed you, I will point your dumbfuck blinded ass towards that construction site, the one with the deep pit full of nice sharp rebars sticking up out of the ground, and give you a shove. Think of it as evolution in action.

            You have the right to come into a movie late, insist that my family and I move down for you, talk loudly to your companion idiot, revealing several upcoming plot points (no, really, knowing what's coming only heightens my enjoyment of a thriller; my insistence on not having spoilers is just a neurotic weakness of mine), and not only not silence your cell phone's ringer, but actually take a call in the middle of the fucking movie. That none of us in that theater gently but firmly removed the cell phone from your fingers and smashed it to flinders is a tribute to the fabled politeness of Midwesterners. (Though we certainly had a right…)

            And of course, as a nation, we have a right to use more oil per person by far than any other nation, we have a right to make war on abstract nouns while killing, torturing and illegally imprisoning very concrete people, we have a right to deny healthcare to 45 million people and call the President a Nazi (really?) because he wants to get those people healthcare--and none of these rights, or any of the ones I mentioned earlier, come with any attendant responsibilities. Truly our liberties are a gift, though, sadly, not the kind that can be returned for cash, or even store credit from Ikea.