Februbitchy Rantuary - February's Mini-Rants Thread!

The BBQ Pit
161

Helpful, but I’ll probably forget it again. Not your fault, just I can’t seem to keep it in my head.

Cat Whisperer, I’ve watched a couple episodes of that show (and reading her blog for awhile). It would drive me crazy to be the parents. Hovering over their children at all times, no time for yourself. I don’t let mister run all over the place alone but he plays in the backyard, crosses the street to play with over kids, I’m trying to get him to learn to ride his bike and he even uses knives! (A recurring theme seems to be no knives! No bikes! Must be under my direct supervision AT ALL TIMES.. I only freak out if he A doesn’t answer when I yell for him and B doesn’t say where he is going as in I expect him to be in the backyard unless he tells me he’s crossing the street). That headspace must be a very lonely and scary world, and I know if I don’t fight it I too could be like that being the child of a worrywart and with those tendencies.

162

**One:**I pit myself for being so nice and setting a precedent. My downstairs neighbor is very sick, terminally ill with a brain tumor. So I told him, call me if you need anything.

But now I am cranky with this perimenopausal pre-PMS and I think if he calls me one more time to tell me the TV remote isn’t working I will take it and use it as a blunt force instrument to put him out of his misery. Really, if it doesn’t work the first time you probably are failing to aim it at the correct device and please try again before you pick up the phone. If it keeps sending you to channel 31 when you are trying to access channel 310, it’s probably your aim again and you should try again, I promise neither the TV or the remote is “broken”.

Or let one of the health professionals that you are paying to help out 24/7 give it shot. Usually by the time I get downstairs you have resolved the issue by trying again and if not, usually all I do is move whatever object has been placed in front of the cable box. You do not “need my technical genius” for this. And really, you are not always aware of what time it is no matter how much you claim to be and you have woken me 4 times this week, once to complain that you couldn’t find the Super Bowl on CNBC…when your health care aide had been watching it in the other room and could have clued you in that it had been over for hours on a different channel.

And I would be happy to complain to the building about the workman downstairs starting at 5AM but I am fairly sure that they aren’t…they are starting at a normal time and you just don’t know what time it is.

And while I don’t mind sitting with you every evening to keep you company, I cringe when you pick up the phone as soon as you see me come in because I know I will spend the next hour watching you misdial numbers and complain that there is something wrong with your phone because you get an out of service message, or repeatedly call someone that isn’t home and expect me to “help” you get through to them by trying the call from different phones ad nauseum. On the same note, I am very sorry but if you sent someone I don’t know a message on Facebook and they didn’t respond my “technical genuis” can’t help you.

And I feel shallow and petty for even venting about this.

Two I watched Meredith Viera interview Mimi Alford about her affair with JFK last night…really Merry, are you such a suburban prude that you can’t comprehend that it can be FUN to do something BAD ???

You just kept trying to push Alford into “admitting” she’d been raped because you just couldn’t conceive of ANYONE consenting to sex in the circumstances Alford described, not realizing that this was a reflection of your own tight-assedness Alford kept saying it was consensual and she was “mesmerized” by the “glamour”, etc…god, I’d wish she’d come right out and said …“Shut-up you stuffy old bag, I was young and I had fun being a bad girl”. Instead, Meredith seemed determined that Alford was going to come out of the interview as a victim regardless of how she went into it.

163

Don’t feel too guilty, Ann - you’re doing about 90% more things than I would probably be willing to do for a neighbour (especially one that has 24/7 help). That perimenopausal PMS is a bitch, too - I had to go on medication for it before I drove my car over someone.

Watching “Bubble Wrap Kids” when the parents get challenged to let their kids do age-appropriate things, you realize that these parents are actually disordered - our society is kind of approving of their disorder, but it is still pathological to have a panic attack at the thought of your 11 year old crossing the street on his own.

164

This has been a long time coming, and it’s trivial as hell, but:

I pit many or most of the people that attend conferences and conventions in San Francisco’s Moscone Center.

I work about 2 blocks away (we were here first, for what that’s worth!). Every few weeks, or more often, we are treated to blobs of wandering people who are all absorbed in their events, or on the phone while walking, or talking together in groups, or dragging their huge briefcases behind them on wheels, so that they take up the space of 3 people, and the result is people wandering through intersections more or less ignoring the traffic lights, when they do decide to wait for the light there are so many of them that they block up the sidewalk corners so no-one can get through in the other direction, and in general make getting from 5th St to 2nd St somewhere between a headache and a nightmare.

I don’t care that they fill up all the local restaurants at lunchtime; I don’t care that they take up all the bench spots in the park nearby (our weather right now is in the 60’s so it’s nice out). I just wish they would be not so oblivious to the fact that there are local people around here who need to get from point A to point B. Wake up, look up, and save your deep convos until you reach your hotel, coffee shop or restaurant.

Thanks ever so,
Roddy

165

I agree, it sounds to me like you are going above and beyond what being a good neighbor is. I wish I had a neighbor like you.

166

My husband is two weeks into giving up tobacco. His computer (new in December) has decided to be difficult. I am ready to smash them both with a sledgehammer…

167

Smashing him with the computer might be more economical, but I’m not sure whether it would be as satsfying.

168

I’m so jacked up by the new job offer/acceptance today and related anxiety that I cannot get to sleep.

169

That’s a nice pain in the arse to have though.

170

Until your last paragraph, I was going to ask “Oh, so you were the guy muttering about ‘fucking conference attendees eating in my favorite deli. They should all go away’.” We did. And told our colleagues to as well.

Re the deep convos, sometimes those walks between points A and B are the only damn time we can have that conversation with that particular person – it certainly happened to me while at the Moscone Center…

171

Going to conferences can be tough. When I am there, the only time I get to accomplish what I am there for (basically schmoozing customers and getting ‘face time’) are on breaks or between events. You spend about 20 hours a day doing this in an attempt to make them all feel special.

I will try not to get in your way but those ‘in-between’ conversations are critical.

172

As someone who works in Chicago (popular tourist and conference location) and attends conferences, elsewhere, I can sympathize. Just don’t block the sidewalks and doorways while you’re engrossed in whatever it is you’re doing that’s important.

This also goes to anyone, local or not, with a smartphone who stops right wherever they are to type or talk - either keep moving or “pull over” out of the way of passersby.

173

There doesn’t seem to be a way to get a good grip on the tower that would allow me to get in some satisfying smashing. Unfortunately. (Now that he has done a complete reformat/reinstall, our internet service has decided to go down. He is using very creative combinations of rude words. I’m outside. Thank Og that he’s working all weekend!)

174

Seconded. Just like you wouldn’t stop your car in the middle of the freeway, don’t stop and stand in the middle of a mall walkway or sidewalk. There’s this thing in the world called “other people” (I know, that’s a surprise to the mall talkers).

175

Here you go, Lacunae. Not quite as satisfying as bashing the real computer, but it might help.

[NB: flash game, kinda]

176

ok, people, if you ask someone from a company to call you back, for fuck’s sake, ANSWER YOUR DAMN PHONE.

177

The other day my son and I went to the grocery store, and as we were walking in, the woman that he was behind stopped right in the doorway. He bumped into her and he told her that he was sorry. I’m so tired of idiots like her acting like idiots, so I said, “Oh, don’t apologize- everybody knows that if you’re going through a doorway and you just stop in it, that you could get bumped into.” Oh boy, she did not like that. She called me nasty names and flipped me off and fucked with me throughout the store until we left. I offered to step outside with her, but she didn’t want to do that. :rolleyes:

178

And if you ask a private party to call you back, LEAVE A DAMN PHONE NUMBER. I just listened to a message on the answerphone. “Hi, I’m calling about your house for sale, can you give me a call back?” Yeah, we would…if you’d left a number.

179

You’re a pathetic luddite, dad. Go on the Daily News website, use the search function and go read all the stupid articles you want over there about the damned superbowl. My husband forgot to send you a paper copy of the newspaper because he works full time and watches our kids in his spare time. He also, unlike you, does his fair share of the housework. You are retired. Stop whining that busy people expect you to learn to use the net.

Given the fact that my idiot brother is 37, has never moved out of the house, goes from menial job to menial job while attempting to flirt with 15 year old girls instead of women his own age you were not a good parent. You were quite frankly a lousy parent who did not protect me from my mom’s physical or verbal abuse, abuse you still refuse to admit to today.

So shove the attempted guilt trip up your rear.

180

Dear Landlord: I’m pretty sure that an 8% increase in my rent, after a nearly 6% increase last year, falls somewhere between “Ludicrous” and “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU”. I’ll be down for a visit on Monday to discuss it.

And OK, so I get a 57% pay increase with this new job. I just didn’t expect that the health insurance would cost me 100% more.

Seems like I get offered more money and suddenly everyone wants a major chunk of it.