Everyday this idiot comes into this bagel place I go to. He orders different things depending on his mood. But it always, and I mean ALWAYS, starts like this:
“Bagel with cream cheese please”
At which point the long suffering bagel minion has to go through the whole “What type of bagel? What type of cream cheese? Any other toppings?” rigamarole.
Every. fucking. time.
I, on the other hand, have only had vision symptoms. For years. No headaches, just a slowly-expanding area of black and white polygons that’d persist for a few minutes. So I never had a clue it might be migraine-related (friends who have migraines are debilitated with pain, with no visual cues).
I assumed it was something wrong in my brain, something pressing on an optic nerve.
Finally, one day I heard the term “migraine aura”. So I googled it. The first image was a perfect match for what I’d been seeing for a decade or so!
I was so relieved, and couldn’t stop saying “It’s nahhht a tumor!” [/arnold voice]
Hey, it works for the customer. I used to go to this salad place, and I would give them the entire order up front (large spinach salad, with chicken, for here, no walnuts.) Every time, the person helping me had to ask me at least one of those things again, sometimes two or three. I’ve had salads come out with no chicken, with walnuts, to go instead of eat in, and so on. So it may be something that this customer has found works for him in a variety of places, even where it isn’t necessary.
This place can handle orders of any complexity and they never get it wrong. That’s the reason I go there. He hears the orders fly right up until it’s his turn (he’s not zoned out, I’ve been watching). Then it’s:
“Bagel with cream cheese please”
“What kind of bagel?”
“Sesame”
“Toasted?”
“Yes please”
“What kind of cream cheese?”
“Herb and Garlic”
And he answers quickly too. So he knows what he wants, he just orders weird. Instead of saying “Toasted sesame bagel with herb & garlic cream cheese”, he goes through the steps. I dunno, maybe he has OCD or something. But dammit, it wastes at least 5 precious seconds!
I made a big batch of my mom’s favorite tea this weekend. I always store it in one of those glass pitchers designed for narrow refrigerators. She was stirring the tea this morning (sediment often collects on the bottom of the pitcher), and discovered a stress crack in the side of the pitcher in a very catastrophic manner. 
Huge mess! She said the tea smelled good though.
The housemate is really trying, with my encouragement and any help I can offer, to get the help she needs to support herself and her child. She has applied for Social Security disability (lung cancer plus heart attack,) child support modification, veteran’s benefits, etc. This is a good thing. It takes time and patience, though, to wade through the bureaucracy, and I understand that. I also understand losing patience with the whole rigmarole. I do.
What I don’t get? Walking into a bureaucratic office, acting like an ass, and then getting pissed because the office drones treated you just like you treated them. Bonus points for coming home and having a giant, teary meltdown. I have only her side of the story, but I know she got sarcastic and snippy, and then angry when folks weren’t bending over backwards to help her.
Also? I wish she’d internalize when I tell her that, if she doesn’t have enough gas to get to an appointment, to please tell me so. It’s a damn sight cheaper for me to gas up her vehicle than for me to get a gas can, load up kids, drive the giant Mommy-mobile to wherever she’s stranded, empty the jerry can into her tank, follow her to the nearest gas station, and THEN gas up her vehicle! (“I don’t want to be any trouble.” Yeah. Because that’s so much less trouble than just fueling her up in the first place.) And please, let Boy 2.0 take a peek around the car to do minor maintenance stuff. He’d far prefer to air up your tires and change the air filter and tighten the battery cables here at home than be called out at O’ Stupid Thirty to go change a tire by the side of a busy highway. “I don’t want to be any trouble…” Blech.
Pfft. People who say they don’t want to be any trouble are usually the biggest pains in the arse.
I have 4 people plus me driving out to the boondocks to watch the meteor shower tomorrow night. All but one are communicating with me. One friend hasn’t posted on FB since Sunday and he’s not responding to my text either. There’s a whole mess of FB messages I have no idea whether he’s read. Useful stuff, like what to bring and who’s coming and exactly where we’re going! Plus he lives closest to me so I plan to pick him up first, but he hadn’t sent me his address yet.
Oh, there’s a post from him on FB a half an hour ago. But still no responses to the meteor shower messages. Grr.
Seems I resort to sending a lot of IF/IF NOT emails at work (or texts to friends):
“If you’re coming, lemme know by 9 am tomorrow and I’ll give you a ride to the meteor show. If I don’t hear from you by then, I’ll plan to head straight there. Hope you can come!”
Grumbling about my own indecisiveness. Got a decision to make at work that shouldn’t be as difficult as some part of my alleged brain insists on making it.
:eek:
FIVE SECONDS???!!!???
I may be jumping the gun, but I hereby award thee the prize for the mini-est mini-rant of the month.
Holy hell Amazon. I was kind of hoping things would go tits up, but I meant it literally this time.
Any of you out there with little kids know how they can kind of impact on your time. It’s not over the top, and there’s still plenty of mommy-daddy time to go around—just not as much as there used to be. So when there’s something special in the offing, a non-holiday, no particular reason getaway dalliance, it’s kind of a very small Very Big Deal.
With that in mind (unable to get it off my mind, really), I did a bit of weekend shopping and put together a couple really nice outfits. They arrive, and I furtively slip into the guest room to open up the boxes and tuck them away until I can put together a nicer looking layout.
Among other things were two pairs of stockings. Lacetop delights that after trying out a number of other brands and styles, fit her perfectly.
Enter Amazon. Oh, Amazon.
They sent the wrong size. And not just the wrong size, the plus size.
Now guys, look. If you’re buying lingerie, you better know the size. It’s just a thing, you know, an unwritten rule of life. Know not to talk in the restroom. Nod up for friends; down for strangers. Know the difference between a corset and a bustier, and know her lingerie sizes. (knowing shirt/skirt/dress/pants/shoe/etc. is optional)
Too big or too small both have their problems. Not end of the world problems (this is a mini-rant after all), but still. It’s distantly insulting to not know her size in the first place (and especially after twelve years). But to hand her something that’s two sizes too big? “Hey honey, I noticed you’ve been goin’ at the doughnuts lately. I was going to say something, but thought I’d try and be subtle first.”
Way to go, Amazon.
They’ll sort it out, I’m sure (shipping happens). But still. There was more than just garters and stockings, and half an outfit is better than no outfit (well, depending on circumstances), but still. And it’s not like she’d get actually mad for getting the wrong size, or even actually insulted. But still… curse you Amazon the Platypus!
Since you know what he wants, why not just not ask him and make it?
Then assume he isn’t going and quit bending over backwards to accommodate him.
Geez, I used to have a friend who would consistently be late, non-communicative and straight out LIE about where he was on the phone when people called to see if he was showing up or not. We solved this by simply leaving ON TIME and if he showed up, great, if he wasn’t there in time, he could go fuck himself, because the rest of us weren’t missing part of a movie or being late for something because of his passive-aggressive control techniques.
Yeah, he whined and threw fits. Again, “Go fuck yourself. Show up on time or we’re leaving without you.”
Had another friend who never returned calls because “I hate the phone”. Ok, fine. But no part of that requires me to fucking track you down or continue going out of my way to see if you still want to go to that thing you said you wanted to go to. I’m going. If you want to go, or hell, if you want to keep me as a friend, you’re going to have to make the effort to communicate.
While I was annoyed, I wasn’t pissed or anything. He has to take breaks sometimes due to mental health, and I understand that. The last two days were a bit inopportune for me though. And the thing is that normally he’s responsible and reliable and on time, which is why I was getting frustrated. Anyway, I woke up to a new post in the FB message thread, so I know he read it, and a fully informative text with an apology. All’s well and I’ll be picking him up at 11:35pm.
Because the last time I tried to jump the counter at the bagel shop it was all “Hey, what are you doing?” and “Oh my god, stop touching that!” and “You have the right to remain silent.”. No thanks.
Different sort of creamed cheese I imagine.
Damn. I just found out that one of my friends had a stroke and in no longer able to write (her profession was as an editor) she is losing the use of her legs.
Another friend is losing her pet to old age.
Getting old sucks.
I am starting to notice a pattern in one of my coworkers that is getting frustrating. On several occasions now he has offered, nay, insisted that he would do something for/instead of me and then failed to do it in a timely manner. I know that he is trying to be helpful, but projects falling behind schedule because he didn’t do something when he said he would is not helpful! The worst is that several times he was in control of the information needed to complete the task and wouldn’t relinquish it (because it was supposedly no problem), so I couldn’t just do it myself even if I wanted to. Dude, just let me do it!
Oh, my goodness adhemar. I’m so sorry for your friend.
Earlier I fell* and scraped both elbows up but good. I apparently usually have this rather dainty persona, but right now I look like a complete tomboy. Went “splat” across my whole front, so I have a bit of road rash on my thigh as well as both forearms AND banged up my ribs a bit. Have reluctantly both coughed and sneezed since then; that shit hurts!
I’m quite graceful and rarely hurt myself, but when I do, boy howdy I make up for lost time.
*Got pulled off-balance by a dog on his leash. SQUIRREL!!
A while back I started having ocular migraines. I see colored spots that start in one eye and then cause tunnel vision. I was positive that I had a brain tumor or cancer or something horrible. I sure do understand how scared you were.
You have a dog now? Cool! You got pulled over by a dog, not cool. Are you getting the “look” from strangers? You know, the one that says that they think that you have an abusive SO who tossed you around?
I used to have a big cat that liked to sleep on my headboard. One night, he fell off the headboard and landed on my nose. The next morning, I had a black eye and scratches all over my face. The whispers while I was in the grocery store put me on my “what do I have in the pantry” diet until I healed.
