(Note: adage approved by MultiGAP)

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All my life, I’ve heard people say, “It takes all kinds.” Way too many people. I wish It would come take them, too.

“It takes all kinds.” What a dulling, defeatist statement. When you see some juvenile thug at the mall yelling at his goth-eyed girl, “It takes all kinds” is not the appropriate response. Mace is the appropriate response. This is also the kind of comment a closet bigot makes when they’re trying to prove how tolerant they are. Besides, if It really kept taking all kinds, soon there’d be no kinds left, and there’d be no people around to buy my books. Okay, bad example.

Another weird expression is “To each his own,” although we’re not allowed to say “his” anymore, according to the Multiple Gender Acceptance Police (MultiGAP). I guess high schoolers will soon be grumbling about having to study American Herstory.

As best I can tell, “To each his own” is a polite way of saying, “Seriously? You think that’s attractive?” Prime examples of “To each his own” are beauty and fashion, two of the most subjective topics among humans since David “justified” Bathsheba. For example, I’m told that in some cultures it’s considered attractive to have space between your front teeth. But in many parts of the U.S., a dental condition like that would immediately conjure up images of Burt Reynolds and banjos.

Very subjective, beauty. Amongst the treasures I received in last week’s spam was an email with the subject “Booty Pop,” which would be a good name for a band, or nickname for a grandfather. (In case you didn’t already know, booty is street slang for buttocks, but more fun to say. It takes all kinds.)

According to the email, Booty Pop is “the hottest new butt enhancement cream out there,” a claim with horrifying implications: if Booty Pop is the hottest, and the newest, this means the discerning shopper already had several options when choosing a backside enhancement solution. Apparently, I’ve missed that aisle at the pharmacy. Thankfully.

The email continued its pitch: Your bigger rear-end dreams are no longer just wishful thinking! Now, a guy like me, who’s more or less through growing and is still single, can hardly claim to be an expert on females. So it came as a bit of a surprise to discover that there are women dying to enlarge the southern view of themselves when heading north. Lots of the women I’ve known are still trying to figure out how to survive on a half-carrot a week. I guess it takes all kinds.

Beauty. Hard to pin down. Another example: more than once during my life, I’ve driven past yards where the homeowner had cut tires in half, painted them white, and then lined them up along the driveway. That’s some seriously subjective beauty. To each his own.

Besides, it doesn’t take all kinds. Cannibals. Not necessary. Ruthless, third-world dictators. Cut it out. Whoever invented English peas. Move along. In fact, I can think of lots of “kinds” I could do without:

• Car salesmen on TV who apparently think we’re all deaf
• Lying politicians, which is redundant
• Marginally productive sales agents who stand in the hallway at work practicing their golf swing
• Consumers who hear “FREE! YOU JUST PAY A SEPARATE FEE!” and still think it’s free
• Film fanatics who insist there are real-world inconsistencies in the timeline of Star Wars movies
• Television evangelists who live in houses bigger than my high school
• Coworkers who schedule a meeting just to discuss what to talk about at an upcoming meeting
• Neighbors who think your yard is their dog’s personal bathroom
• Professional agitators who think niggardly is a racial slur.
• People whose cell-phone ringtones are all eleven verses of some throbbing song by some angry grunge band, like I Eat Glass by The Canker Sores
• Whoever they hired to dress Hillary
• Guys on TV (they’re always named Nick) who challenge my manhood because I don’t own any tactical sunglasses, or a watering hose that can survive being run over by a bulldozer
• Anybody at a buffet with more than fourteen vertical inches of food on their plate
• Beachgoers who can’t grasp the inverse relationship between Body Mass Index and spandex
• Social media thorns whose entire emotional range consists of five goofy smiley faces
• Members of Congress who vote on nuclear issues, but can’t pronounce it
• Deposed African princes who keep threatening to wire me fifty million dollars
• Telemarketing tarts whose voices are so chipper they sound like some first-semester med student deviated their septum. Twice.

But then, who am I to judge? I’m just a simple, single guy whose primary accomplishment in life has been managing to stay out of prison. (To be fair, a couple of weekends, it was hit or miss.) I really shouldn’t posit an opinion about a person, simply because they’re in line in front of me, ordering four Big Macs with large fries.

And a Diet Coke.

I guess it takes all kinds. But if Big-Mac-By-The-Bucket-Boy cuts me off on the freeway because he’s distracted with his ketchup, there’ll be one less kind.