Crisis of Contentment

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I was going to tell you all about the… children at BoRics this last weekend. They were in getting their hair done for Prom. At least half of them were. There were four of them, two boys and two girls. The boys weren’t in to have their hair cut because they had that stubble-cut that’s all the rage these days. So unless they were going to get it all shaved off and then have their heads buffed up, I don’t think they were there to get a haircut. Although I’m not sure they knew exactly where they were. One of the boys had one of those cell phones with the walkie-talkie features. I know because he was yelling at it and making it go blee-deep! a lot. He said “we’re at the salon so (name of one of the girls that I just couldn’t be bothered to remember) can get her hair done!” He thought he was in a salon. It was BoRics! I guess when he goes to McDonald’s he thinks he’s in a restaurant. And I think he was the Brain Trust of the group.

The other boy was talking about how much beer he drank the other night and how drunk he was. I think he was going on and on and on and on about playing darts with the other drunk boy’s butt with beer bottles. Or something. I should have taken notes. The girls were sitting in the barber chairs across from each other just yappin’ away. They never SHUT UP! “Blah, blah, blah, I slept until my dad called to wake me up. Blah, blah, he told me to clean up my room. Blah, blah, blah, they have paint cans all over the living room! Blah, blah, blah, paint my bathroom. Blah, blah, blah.” I really couldn’t tell when one of the girls was talking and when the other one started in. I don’t think it really mattered because I don’t think they were even listening to themselves. Not just listening to the other girl, but actually themselves. I’m not 100% sure they were even aware they were talking, it could have just been a reflex on their part. (I think the hair-cutting lady showed great restraint in not plunging her hair-cutting scissors into any of the children’s ears to shut them up. But hair-cutting scissors are expensive and it might have come out of her check.) But they talked a lot. They didn’t say much, but there was a lot of talking. When I was leaving, one of them said something about “spiking it” and I think she was talking to her hair-cutting lady. About her hair. For the Prom. Daddy’s little angel. He should buy her a house. Oh wait, she said he was. I think.

As I left the Idiot Boys were standing around a Porsche 911 smoking and listening to a song on the radio. It was about someone happy his girlfriend really liked his tractor. I don’t think it was a novelty song per se. As I left after I got my hair cut, they made me think of that old saying “Children are our future.” Only, if this is our future, we’re f… screwed.

But I’m not going to talk about that after all. I’m going yap away about something more important. I’m going to talk about me. The thing is: I’m having a crisis. On the whole, it’s not too bad since my crisis is: I don’t want nuthin’. Nothing! Can you imagine? I was at the sports toy store (I had to pick up a bike rack for the car) and I was browsing around (they had all their camping toys out so you could kit up for Spring) and I didn’t find anything I wanted. I don’t need anything, but there was nothing I wanted! Since it was just me out, I decided to stop at the bookstore to browse. You know what? I couldn’t find anything I wanted. In a bookstore! I thought about going to the record shop, but before I pulled out onto the street I said “eh” and went on home. Sports toy store, nothing. Bookstore, nothing. I couldn’t even be bothered to go to the record shop. The hardware store? I’m in the middle of a project now (dog fence to keep half the yard kid friendly) and while I went to pick up supplies I stuck to the list. In a hardware store! I couldn’t find anything cool I just wanted! I couldn’t find anything cool I just wanted in a hardware store! (I think maybe this needs “!!!”)

What’s wrong with me? I’m content with my stuff! I feel like a bad American. The worst thing is, Father’s Day is coming up and if I can’t give out gift ideas I’ll be labeled “Hard to Shop For”. I’ll turn into my Dad! But I have one gift idea held back. I want… no, I need a plastic owl. That would keep those pesky birds off my deck and pooping all over the place! I was going to say I need a power washer to clean off the house, but the Little woman wants that, so it’s off my list.

My name is Rue DeDay and I’m content with my stuff. I’m so embarrassed.
-Rue.

2

Ahh. The terrible feeling of “Nah, not really.” I hate that feeling. I used to go into various stores and get that same feeling. Turns out I was shopping in the wrong stores. So I switched from Wal-Mart to Target, and from the dollar store to Lowe’s and Home Depot. What an amazing change! Lots of stuff I want! :slight_smile:

You gotta change up things. Mix it up a bit. It helps.

3

Rue maybe now’s the time you get thosepink flamingos. You have denied yourself long enough. Father’s Day is coming up. You deserve them. Heck, get the little woman the power washer she wants for Mother’s Day and maybe she’ll get you the pink flamingos we know you want for Father’s Day.

I didn’t get to go fest FairyChatMom away this weekend because of a stupid cold. See, I had the sniffles for a couple days last week but I kept thinking it’s just sinus. Friday night I started feeling like hell (or should I say heck since it is the MMP). Saturday morning I was all achy/feverish/coughy/sneezy. So instead of having a good old time, I stayed (mostly) in bed and took lots of Benadryl and drank lots of liquids and groused around because I got sick and didn’t get to go have any fun at all. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

And you are right, the girls didn’t have a clue what one was saying to the other or even what they were saying in general. Teen aged girls go all auto pilot with talking and never know what’s coming out or being said. And the song was probably “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” by, I think, Tim McGraw. Not a bad song btw.

-swampbear (with a cold but at work like the solid upstanding dedicated citizen I am)

4

Wow, you sound just like my husband talking about boat junk.

For years and years, we’d go into West Marine or Boat US or any of a number of boat stuff consignment stores or boat flea markets, looking for nautical stuff that we didn’t have, ergo, stuff that we needed. Then all of a sudden, there came a day when we walked in and looked and wandered the aisles multiple times, and saw nothing that we needed or wanted. My poor sweetie, didn’t know what to do.

So now he’s trying to convince me that we don’t need a house and instead we should buy and live aboard a 50’ trawler.

But I know that won’t happen, because every time we go into Home Depot or Lowes, he goes to the power tool department and rubs up against the table saws and bandsaws. He is such a guy…

My kid gets her prom hair done this coming Saturday - I know I’m not going to be anywhere around that salon that day - or any haircutting place, for that matter. But I don’t have to, as I got a really really short cut when I was in MD last week.

So, Rue, what kind of 'do did you get?

5

Not to worry, Rue, you were simply contaminated by the invisible brain suckers that everybody knows infest teenagers. It should wear off if you stay away from malls and MTV.

6

Yes it is.

And I have my flamingoes. The classic set. The one with its head up I named “Cecil” and the one looking down is named “Ed”. I’m not sure where I got the names, they just came to me.

I got the fastest haircut they had Snickers. But with my hair, I just go with “shorter” rather than “style”. It works for me.

To be fair to the children, they weren’t the stupidest kids ever. Close, but not quite. I wasn’t worried they teethed on lead paint chips, but NASA won’t be scouting them either.

7

PLASTIC OWL?!?!?!?!

Rue, I am crushed and hurt. Don’t give in to a <shudder> PLASTIC OWL! Hold out for a real one. Demand one. It’s your right and duty as an American to have a real owl in your yard.

Not only will we keep you up all night with the incessant hooting and hollering (you ought to hear the ruckus my cousins the Barred Owls make when they start yammering, especially in breeding season, and I don’t even have to mention my other cousins the Barn Owls - they love to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, even if you don’t have any hair on the back of your neck [which actially is a ‘mane’ if you have hair on the back of your neck, while hair on your head is a ‘tress’ or a ‘lock’ or a ‘hank’ but I am losing mine, although at FairyChatMom’s FestAway, I was pleased to see that it seems to be growing in rather nicely], and speaking of me and my kind, we are actually kind of quiet, we just toot and whinney all night), we do a great number on the mice and the mole crickets.

Miole crickets. Not just for fishing anymore.

8

I keep going in to bookstores, glancing at the selection and thinking, “I should study my Constitutional Law instead of reading the latest Sheri Tepper,” sighing, and then heading home. Happened twice last week. I think going to bookstores is a habit of mine, not something I really do consciously.

I hate shopping anyway.

I especially hate having my hair done.

I particularly hate songs about tractors.

I love owls though :slight_smile: Try to get one that has real feathers, might work better.

9

Oh, yes, Rue de Day you need the plastic owl! I got one last year, with a bobble head that moves in the wind and glowy yellow eyes. It spent the winter sitting in my dinig room window, startling folks who came to the back door and lending just the right Harry Potter touch to the decor. Soon, it will go back to work in the tomato patch.

I work with teenagers almost every day. I worry that they might be sucking my brain cells away just by being close to me, but the tinfoil beanie is just so unfashionable that I can’t wear it regularly. I sometimes fear for the future when these kids will be running the world, then I meet a few really smart and funny kids and I have false hope again.

screech-owl I’d love to lure a real owl, any tips?

10

I know that “eh” feeling.

A year and a half or so ago I got all excited because a babies-R-us was opening up nearby! Nearby around these parts is a half hour away but when the other store was an hour away - well this was half the trip! And it was near other places that I liked to go to so I didn’t have to set up a special 3 hour block just to go to the babies-R-us.

So we pack into the van (all the geek parents have a van right?) and head to the grand opening celebration. We gawk at all the stuff and get a balloon for the munchkin and push our carriage through the store. And we realize… we don’t need anything. Anything at all! Nothing. WE OUTGREW THE BABIES-R-US! There was nothing there for us. All the clothes were too small. We had all the equipment. Bottles hit the trash can long ago. I get my diapers at walmart. No need for baby food. We had a metric ton of tub toys. I cried.

The only logical thing to do was have another baby. So we did and all is well for now with a boy I need the blue versions of everything in the store that I previously had only in pink :slight_smile:

11

What’s a BoRics? Since I don’t know this am I precluded from working at NASA? Or do I have to have a radio phone to make my career failure at NASA a lock?

12

Now welby we’ve had the BoRics discussion before. You need to keep up with this stuff cause you never know when there will be a MMP pop quiz. BoRics is this place where Rue gets his hair cut. It’s run by two straight guys (Bo and Rick. Straight guys cutting hair :eek: ) who hang out in the back drinking beer when they don’t have customers. The beauty of a BoRics haircut is you never know what it’s gonna come out like since you never know how much beer has been consumed between customers.

What? That’s how I remember it.

13

Sounds like the student beauty school where I used to go to get my hair done in my budget/cheapass days, except the students were sober (I hope). A couple of them turned out to be quite inept, and were ‘encouraged’ to take up another profession for which they were better suited (I think one actually used to work at NASA but wanted a career change - honey, after my bangs were angled by you, lemme tell you, do the world a favor and go back to being a rocket scientist), but it wasn’t usually something that the teacher couldn’t fix with minimal effort.

14

I cut my girlfriend’s hair. Twice. Actually, I just trimmed her bangs. It seems that I did a pretty good job the first time, so when the necessity for bang-trimming rolled around again I was allowed to take another whack at it. I was relieved of this responsibility for all eternity immediately thereafter, because it didn’t come out quite up to her expectations. See, the second time she tilted her head forward a little and I didn’t notice, so I trimmed off a little too much.

Okay, I’ll be honest. Replace “trimmed off a little too much” with “chopped 'em completely off.” This fun little episode resulted in three developments:

a) Minor hearing loss on my part,

b) When everything grew back in she changed her hairstyle to one not involving bangs, and

c) I’m not allowed to even touch a pair of scissors when we’re in the house at the same time.

15

[screeching halt]

[ul]
[li] Trees are a good thing, even the dead ones (shore them up if they seem to want to fall over). Lots of other critters besides owls are cavity nesters (bluebirds and kestrels come to mind at the moment).[/li][li] Trees are still a good thing. Perches and roosts, doncha know. Ever go to someone’s house and there aren’t enough chairs? Just like that for owls and others birds where there aren’t enough trees. Birds will sit on the roof if need be; I don’t think your friends would care for you sitting on their roof, or next time bring your own chairs.[/li][li] Barns are good, especially if you want Barn Owls. They like large old buildings, especially ones full of vermin and rodents. Besides, where else can you see those really neat “See Rock City” signs anymore?[/li][li] No trees? Nest boxes are a good substitute for some species. Screech-Owls and Barn Owls will use wooden nest boxes. Great Horned Owls will just be the ever-lovin’ snot out of a Bald Eagle and take over the eagle’s nest.[/li][li] Food is good - mice, rats, squirrels, snakes, insects, smaller birds. Sigh, and yes, Great Horned Owls do eat an occasional pet dog or cat, as well as raccoons and skunks. Keep nearby your pets when you are outside.[/li][li] A source of water is always good. To drink and splash around in. (Clean water is better.) Barred Owls like to hang around river edges - lots of lovely, tasty fish there, doncha know.[/li][li] Pesticides. Not tasty. Use as few as possible, if any at all. And please, please, please, read the label directions carefully and follow them![/li][li] Contact a local wildlife rehabilitator to see if your area might be a candidate for a released animal. Many birds of prey are very territorial, and in fact, most of our injured BOPs were from territorial disputes. Releasing an animal back where it was injured is the norm, but sometimes we had to move a critter to a different location so it wouldn’t come back again with the same injuries.[/li][li] Your bird feeder may end up as a buffet bar for hawks and owls. That happens. The ones who cannot fly quickly enough, or are too sick to fly will likely be the ones picked off first - this happens, and stronger genes are passed on to the next generation of songbirds and squirrels. IIRC from my library, only about 20-30% of predator attacks are successful. Imagine going to a restaurant, and the server only brings 20% of what you ordered, if s/he bothers to bring it at all.[/li][li] Contact a local chapter of several conservation organizations - Sierra Club or National Audubon Society, to name a couple. There’s lots of info out there, not only on identification, but also habitat, breeding info, food preferences, and the like.[/li][li] Personal favorite book - North American Owls: Biology and Natural History by Paul A. Johnsgard (Smithsonian Institution). Not just dry facts (although there is quite a bit of technical stuff), but also sections on comparative behavior, as well as Old and New World legends.[/li][/ul]

Most owls are, well, night-owls. A couple of them, such as the Burrowing Owl (found in Florida, the southwest US, and western Canada) are crepuscular (active primarily at dawn and dusk. You might even end up pulling in a couple of hawks during the day.

Thank you for listening. We now return you to your regular MMP, already in progress.

[/screeching halt]

16

Hmmmm, I sense a conspiracy here. When I visited the BoRics website, they said they had “300 locations” in the US and Canada. But when I clicked on “gift Cards” it said the cards were good at “800 locations”. So where are these secret 500 locations? Does the purchase of a gift card help you open a portal located between the Mailboxes Etc and the Ming Wah Buffet?

17

Weird… I was just musing about this unhealthy lack of illcontentedness myself Saturday as I strolled through Home Depot and Lowes. I went in to get a water filter for the fridge and left with, sadly, just a water filter for the fridge. Freaked my wife out, it did. That had never happened before.

Then I went to the plant store, they’d just received a large shipment of all sorts of beautiful stuff, and I left with a $1.49 fern. Freaked my daughter out, it did. That had never happened before.

Then I went into the golf store. Turns out I’m gonna be okay.

18

kittenblue before you pursue the BoRics location nearest you, you need to ask yourself:

“Do I really want a couple of straight guys named Bo and Ric who swill beer between haircuts to touch my hair?” Well, do ya? :smiley:

19

My daughter will be having her prom hair done this Friday, but I think she’s having a friend do it. Of course, the last time she had a friend do her hair for a dance that friend ended up getting pregnant that weekend, but I don’t think that had anything to do with the hair.

Sorry about the “content with your stuff” thing. I’ve had that for a while. It’s not much fun, but it sure is easier on the budget. Of course, every once in a while it goes into remission, usually when I get close to fabric store.

And the song, just in case you wanted to know, which I think you probably didn’t, but I can’t resist anyway, is by Kenny Chesney. I like it, but then I’m weird that way.

20

Thanks, screech-owl, for the info. I live in the boonies & we have a kestrel who hunts in our yard and a red-tailed hawk who cruises by sometimes. A screech-owl lives somewhere near because we can hear it at night. I already have everything an owl could want except nest boxes.

On the wanting stuff thing: I always feel wierd when I walk out of a large store without buying anything. There is no means of exit other than through the checkouts and I feel like the store clerks are thinking “Hello? It’s Home Depot, you couldn’t find a *single thing * you needed? Why did you bother to come here?”

I need to get rid of about half the junk I’ve already got.