I wholeheartedly support this rant.
- purplehorseshoe, who would really like to find a decent pair of NORMAL shorts for a reasonably price. what happened to them all?
STFU.
They’re small, they’ll only drink a little.
I would like to pit the “First Look” programmers and the movie theaters that show it before the movie previews start. Now they have an app that goes along with the “First Look” program that provides “extra exclusive content”…which only encourages smart phone use in the theater.
I normally use the self-checkout at my favorite grocery store, but the other day I had enough items in my cart that I decided to go through a regular checkstand. I found myself behind a woman with a massive load of groceries (no biggie, I wasn’t in any hurry), which she unloaded onto the conveyor belt.
And then, and only then … she took out her food stamp card (EBT or whatever it’s called), handed it to the checker, and asked her to check the balance before she started ringing anything up. As you might expect, the balance wasn’t nearly enough to cover the load of groceries she had. The checker asked, “Would you still like to get this stuff?” The lady shook her head, said, “No”, and then walked away, pushing her empty cart out of the store.
So on behalf of myself and the people in line behind me who all had to wait through the whole balance-checking process (which took more than five minutes for some reason), and on behalf of the checker who had to load all your crap into a cart and the two courtesy clerks who got the job of re-shelving it all (taking them away from their primary job of bagging groceries and helping customers to their car with them): Lady, I Pit you. I understand that you were probably embarrassed. But I related this incident to a coworker who, it turned out, had experience with those food stamp cards, and he said, “There’s no excuse for that. There’s a phone number right on the card you can call to find out your balance before you go shopping.” Gah.
Also, on a completely different topic:
Hey Drivers! When it’s raining or snowing, turn your fucking headlights on. I don’t care that it’s 2:00 in the afternoon. There’s wet stuff coming down, the rear window of my car is wet, my external mirrors are wet, and if your headlights aren’t on, your car is right next to invisible. Especially if your car is white or silver/gray.
The LittlestGoth is 7 weeks old and showing signs of colic. For the past three nights right at 10 he starts fussing-crying-screaming for no reason. Food and burps do not settle him. Sometimes the pacifier helps, sometimes music or singing helps (he especially likes the Welsh(?) battle hymn Men of Harlech, as sung in the movie Zulu. No, I can’t explain it, but whatever works.) Mostly one of us has to walk and bounce him. This lasts anywhere from 1 to 3 hours.
And for whatever reason this particular brand of crying really sets my husband on edge. So I end up doing most of the bouncing, even though I’ve been home with the baby and 3 year old all day and could use a break. I don’t blame either of them, it is what it is, but gods am I tired.
Anyone know where I can get a rocking chair STAT? I think it’d help the soothing.
Not a rocking chair, but if you have a desk chair, try that. Some will rock, but my little one likes to swivel, and I get to sit for a little while.
And I sympathize with the “tired, but what are you gonna do?” Our small ones are 2 and three weeks. Mr. M pulled a muscle in his chest the weekend before Littlest Matata was born - bad enough that I sent him next door to ER after baby and I were settled in at the hospital. So even aside from the fact that I’m nursing, he physically can’t help with too much baby stuff right now. Sometimes I’m so tired that I just want to sit down and cry, but that’s not going to help, right? (I guess whining on the Dope doesn’t help much, either, but it doesn’t make my nose drippy and my eyes swell…)
Fuck you, random chance! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! Last Friday I got a parking ticket at work (I work at a university) for a stupid, stupid reason. To wit, you have to buy a little permit with however many hours of parking you want on it, and then the machine prints out a receipt that you put in the car to show that you paid. However, sometimes the receipts get a bit stuck in the machine, and what happened is that I took the receipt of the guy who paid before me, since I didn’t look to make sure there were no others in the little mouth thing of the printer which is hard to see directly. So, this receipt that I take has fewer hours on it than I had actually paid for, so I got a parking ticket for expired time, even though I had actually paid for the proper amount.
Then, it fucking happened again yesterday. Not the same thing of course, but apparently after I had put the receipt on the dashboard, when I was closing the door, I generated a draft that flipped the receipt upside down, since there is no way I would have left it like that. Which led to another fucking unearned parking ticket. So, now I’m out a surprisingly large amount of money, and I haven’t even done anything wrong. I hate that. I hate that. I hate that. I feel like contesting the parking tickets if only to ask for that the money I already paid for parking be applied to damn tickets. Fuck!
Sometimes I really do think that if I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.
Fuck you, writer of this article:
I was acquainted with that woman in high school - hung around the same people and partied together as high-school kids do. We have many friends in common. It is a *complete mystery *as to how she went from a happy wife and doting mom to being found dead in her car trunk along with her baby, also dead.
You really think her devastated husband, family and friends need to hear that she possibly killed herself and her adorable baby boy due to “post-partum depression”? What the fuck were you thinking when you wrote this article? And to creep her Facebook page so egregiously - talk about an invasion of privacy, you lowlife. Yes her privacy settings weren’t set. Yes this article was written before her husband posted on her page that the media DOES NOT have consent to use it’s content. I don’t care. You reported status updates and comments that you had to freakin’ dig for. You took perfectly normal “tired new mom” comments and turned them into possible motives for murder/suicide. Un-freakin-believable. Learn some boundaries and compassion. Better still, stick to the facts and leave out your speculation.
Fucking neighbors.
I live in a gated place with a rather. . . how do you say? . . . active HOA (ie: there are many old people trolling around the neighborhood with clipboards, writing people up for the most minor of infractions). Yet this? This goes unresolved.
A few months ago, some people moved in a few doors down from me. I’m fairly certain that there are at least seven adults living in this house, based on the sheer number of cars these folks have. Naturally, their cars wont all fit in their driveway, nor can they park in front of their own house (they live on the rounded part of a small cul de sac), so instead, these douchecraft carriers line our VERY narrow street with their excess vehicles. And to top it off, they don’t legally park: their tires are NEVER on gutter and there’s always an 8 inch + gap between their tires and the curb, thus further narrowing the narrow street. This in itself is an annoyance, as our street is so narrow that their lining of the streets causes the rest of us to often have to do three point turns to get in and out of our driveways (if we even can).
But now, they’ve started blocking in our driveways. Parking so poorly, it overhangs into my little driveway so much that I can’t even get my ONE car into my two car drive way. Last night, I almost slammed into their hooptie trying to my own driveway in the dark.
Because I’ve complained to the HOA and they haven’t done anything yet— AND this is the third time this week this particular car has blocked in my driveway, I left a note on their windshield that said, “Hi, If you are going to park in front of our houses and not yours, can you please have the courtesy to not block in our driveways? It would be unfortunate if your car ended up getting hit or had to be towed. Thank you.”
A few hours later, I heard her and her friends outside calling me “a fucking cunt” and other fun things. This morning, as I was leaving, she and her friend happened to be leaving at the same time- they stopped and stared me down. I’d say those girls can’t be a day over 20. Good lord.
Anyway, and just so I don’t look like a whiny jerk: every single other neighbor (so, 6 of us total on this bend in the street) has complained to the HOA about these folks too, to no avail. My nextdoor neighbor said that three times, her trash hasn’t been picked up because these folks park so close to the can that the city wont pick it up. Another missed a doctor’s appointment because he couldn’t get out of his driveway because he was blocked in.
Rawr.
There is a bunch of asphalt or tar stuck to my car tire and I have no idea how to clean it off.
My glasses broke and had to go get them fixed half an hour ago.
I am all out of Diet Mountain Dew.
I think I maybe need the AC in my car looked at.
The cats are barfy today.
I have to clean the bathrooms and i hate cleaning the bathroom. Where’s the self cleaning bathroom, motherfuckers?!?!
There is also a dead squirrel in my yard. Not sure how to dispose of it, do i bury it or what?
my mp3 player needs reprogramming.
I wouldn’t have bothered with the note, I’d have called the cops or a tow truck. Or called the cops to get the car ticketed, and if the cops didn’t have it towed, I’d have called a towing service.
Ug. I get occasional half-squirrels in my yard, thanks to the hawk that hangs out in the pine tree. I usually use a long-handled implement like a rake to put it in a trash bag. Wearing long sleeves and gloves, I tie off the bag and put it in the trash. I’m more worried about fleas than squirrel guts.
These days, my yard-scraps bin claims to take food scraps, including meat, so I might be tempted to fling the little carcass in there, if it was the day before pick-up.
Thank you, DiosaBellissima, for my new favourite word.
This isn’t a HOA issue anymore, it’s flat-out illegal to block a driveway (even partially). Call the cops next time. You might also consult with the police or someone who is familiar with the by-laws in your town… many cities prohibit more than 1 or 2 unrelated adults sharing the same dwelling.
The police once told me that because it’s a gated community and technically a private road, there’s nothing they can do. I don’t know if I buy that, but that’s all I can do.
And if I call a towing service, don’t I have to pay for it? I’ve been trying to clarify all this with the HOA and they’ve been less than helpful. You see, at first, they were all gung ho about helping and even drafted an amendment to our rules, basically saying you can’t park in front of someone else’s house for more than 2 days. But one neighbor who lives on a different block, threw a huge fit. You see, he uses his garage for junk (so, no cars), has he and his wife’s two cars parked in the driveway, then parks his WORK TRUCK between his house and his neighbors. He literally ran around with a petition throughout the neighborhood, telling us that the HOA was trying to take away our CONSTITUTIONAL rights. Seriously. I just. . . I can’t.
I’d normally agree with you, but see what they told me the last time up above here. Now, is that the truth or was it just lazy officers? No idea.
My thing is: the HOA once sent me a threatening letter over a bucket in my flower bed. No, really, let me explain. It’s Friday night and I’m being a total badass, mopping my kitchen at 9 PM. I finish, take the 5 gallon bucket out back (it’s a shared space off my patio), dump the water onto the grass, then set the bucket upside down on my patio to dry. I wake up the next morning at 5 AM and the first thing I do as I’m waiting for my tea to brew is go get the bucket. The wind had blown the bucket into my own flower bed, so I picked it up, dusted it off, and stuck it back inside. In the eight hours that bucket was outside, the HOA saw-- because come Monday, I had a letter in my mailbox from them, threatening that if I don’t remove “WHITE BUCKET FROM FLOWERBED” immediately, I’d get a $500 fine.
Yet these assbags can park all over the fucking place. I’m about to start a neighborhood revolt over this shit.
I’m here to help! Feel free to use the whole scale of douche: douchebag, douchesuitcase, douche 18 wheeler, douchecraft carrier, and douche space station.
I think I’ve seen it in other rants of hers. But she does have a way with combining douche with other words.
I’m pretty sure that the cops are giving you a load of BS, but IANAL.
I’m pretty sure that if you call a towing service for something like a blocked driveway, the owner of the car has to pay the towing fee AND storage fee, not the person who calls to get the vehicle towed. You might want to call up a few towing companies and ask about this, because I Am Not A Towing Company, either.
When my husband and I went househunting about 18 months ago, we both made lists of what we wanted and didn’t want in a house. #1 on both our lists was “No HOA”, and your troubles just confirm that we were right. I’ve heard that in some parts of the country, you really can’t find any place that isn’t covered by a HOA. But man…it sounds like you have some real winners in your HOA.
This should be spelled out in your HOA’s documents somewhere. Check the by-laws, but I believe that if they (not the city) maintain the streets themselves, then it’s a private street. I believe that means that officers can’t ticket for bad parking jobs, but it might still mean they can ticket for blocking a driveway.
Does your community have a relevant committee that might address this?
I’d call the non emergency line Diosa and have a chat from there, just to double check (doesn’t hurt right? Worst they can do is confirm what you were told before.)
ETA: Sorry for the wall o text, it’s hard to tell on my phone sometimes.
I hate parking wars. When I lived in my old place we had assigned parking and I kept going round after round with the parking authority and the housing company to deal with the parking until I finally gave up. (Parking authority always had excuses and I would go to the housing company to get it rectified and a new excuse came up… First I couldn’t prove I had assigned parking (got a letter from housing), then I could prove it was my stall (despite the fact that the plug was tied into the breaker in my house, so got numbers painted on the stalls), then finally it ended up the signs faced the wrong way so how could anyone know that it was reserved parking (the signs faced the main entry to the parking but not the back way that no one used) but the housing wouldn’t have them turned or another added on the back of them and I said fuck you, I’m done and started kicking the shit out of any car that dared to park in my assigned stall (okay, not really because I didn’t want to be swarmed by a bunch of teens but I was really really tempted to because they would do that sort of shit to other cars when they weren’t happy, including mine once and I gave them the what for because I was too pissed to be scared).
Now my friend and neighbour is currently going at it with half the neighborhood (or so it seems) and I do think she is overreacting because it doesn’t effect her, she just doesn’t want the neighbours parked in front of her house because she hates them (the back alley is another matter).
Good luck with yours though Diosa.
I had a rant but I forget now, perhaps my rant was because I’m so tired this week I forget things and am going crazy. I’ll be happy when my body adjusts to the time change finally.
Contact your local fire department and tell them that you are concerned that the narrowing of the streets because of the poor parking may prevent the FD trucks from responding to an emergency.
That’s what galvanized my condo association into cracking down on jerk parking. FD contacted condo association with stern threats, and action was taken forthwith.