Pond scum.

Many times we have heard of people referred to as pond scum. Maybe we've referred to someone as pond scum, in fact. But what exactly is this pond scum? Let's have a look. 

Eewwwww!

Merriam-Webster defines pond scum as:

1. any of various algae (especially spirogyra) or cyanobacteria 2. a mass of tangled filaments of algae or cyanobacteria in stagnant waters

Sounds even worse than it looks, actually.

So if you're going to hit someone with a name like pond scum, they'd better be pretty bad, right? But not bad in a violent, vicious way; bad in a low way, like sneaky, or gross, or tangled in themselves like filaments of cyanobacteria in stagnant water.* Who could possibly be this disgusting?

I have some suggestions!

• Guys who play the radio at the beach---loudly
• Guys who drop a brick in the can and won't wash their hands
• Guys who shoot up the shoulder to avoid traffic, or blast straight through the turning lane to avoid a busy intersection, and think they're smarter than everyone else
• Guys who think every interaction with any female is an opportunity to hit on them**
• Perfectly healthy guys who think they're entitled to freeload in their parents' basement until they're, like, fifty
• Bosses who like to make arbitrary rules or even fire people to make themselves feel powerful
• Most teenagers, to some degree***
• Former politicians who become massively wealthy lobbyists
• Present politicians
• Anyone who works in the movie industry

That's just a warm-up, I'm sure. Feel free to add suggestions to the Pond Scum list. It will help idenify more characteristics of the genus.

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*Pond scum are not actively evil, like people who set fire to bums; such people are more like cancer than merely gross bacteria. 

**NB: Special level of hell for creeps who engage in Thirteenth Stepping; you know who you are.

***Fortunately, this proves to be a temporary condition. Usually.