Glad to hear it, and it’s so very true: “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,the more joy you can contain.”
But humanity isn’t all horrible (just most of it!). Years ago I was going out to lunch with some co-workers and stopped at an ATM to get some cash. Being in a hurry, I left without one rather important item – the actual cash. After we got back from lunch someone came to my office and said that they were waiting to use the ATM and saw me leave, and then saw the cash sitting there, so they presumed it was mine, and gave it to me.
I guess the appropriate mantra is: there are good people in the world, but don’t trust anyone. My mother was naive about financial stuff, but she was so incredibly paranoid and suspicious of everyone that she was never scammed. She rejected scammers, the pitches of bank officials, and every species of financial advisor with equal suspicion and disdain.
A few xmases ago my gf’s brother’s wife was talking to a woman at her church who was forlorn about not having money to buy her daughter a gift for xmas.
She “lent” the woman her credit card, telling her she could spend $50-$75 dollars on a gift. Of course the woman maxed out the card and was never seen again.
I gave up on presses. If I want to make spritz cookies, I just roll the dough out and use cutters. I know the more delicate cookies are prettier, but I have no patience with it.
I feel your pain. We were defrauded out of about $16,000 from our checking account and had to go through all of that misery. We did get our money back, but the checking account remains closed forever. In fact, in light of the fact that our credit card with this place has been compromised at least five times now, we’re in the process of closing our account completely, an account that we’ve had there for 30 years. I read in the NYT that it’s a simple matter to go online and find someone who will sell you information to allow you to steal from people’s accounts. People steal checks out of the mail, or postal employees do it at the post office and then sell them. It’s best to keep a minimum amount in any checking account, and the bulk of the cash in savings, then transfer between the two only when you need to write a check.
OK, I’m convinced to disable THAT feature. I keep such a tight rein on our finances, the odds of us overdrafting are virtually nil - unless someone steals our money, in which case, I’ll happily eat the fee to avoid losing everything I have.
I almost never use mine, in fact, I stopped using Venmo because my bank started charging credit card transactions through Venmo as a cash advance, and there was no way in hell I was giving them my bank account info. My husband told me that there are many fewer protections for bank accounts than there are credit cards in the case of fraud. Which is weird to me, but okay.
The next time I head up to the attic I guess I’ll bring down Mom’s old cookie press (or “Cooky Press” according to its box). There’s nothing really wrong with it, other than the paint flaking off of the knob, which is the main reason it was retired. I really have been pleased with the results I got from piping the dough; the cookies have held together nicely so far.
My car went tits up, she won’t leave the driveway and at 217,000 miles and 17 years on her it’s time to put a bullet in her. And honestly after a few days of not driving her I feel like I’ve gotten out of an abusive relationship that I can only now see. So looking for a newer used midsized SUV should be fun!
It’s not. I hate it. There are no good options and everyone of them is 150% blue book or more.
Meantime my wife is driving everyone around, work sucks and I would rather be doing anything else but looking for a car with my free time. I am trying to keep the eyes on the prize, a future family road trip with the kids this summer in a new set of wheels.
And then people are freaking out because we are not having enough kids. Helllooooo I never wanted kids but even if I did I am not bringing them into a dystopian hellhole where we are warming the planet and sticking our fingers in our ears and going lalalala. World is bad enough, we don’t need more humans to muck it up.
Power’s out. Wind, rain, whatever… blah, blah. We have a generator. I’m really not suffering. I even have my internet up and running and half the house has power. But it’s messing with my holiday schedule. The oven doesn’t work. And COOKIES! Gah!
Sorry. Totally first world problem here but after all the so not “Mini-Rants” (my heart is breaking for some of you) I thought I’d bitch about something really mini.
Sounds like my mother’s old press. She also had a hand-cranked cast iron grinder that she clamped to the basement steps. My job was to reduce dried bread into stuffing with that thing.
This is correct, but in this case I believe you are then covered the same as any other credit card transactions, where you can contest the charges and recoup your losses. So you are protected, just in a different way. (At least that’s how I understand it.)
Once, back in the 1980’s, my shoulder bag was stolen at a mall food court in NYC. I immediately freaked out, there wasn’t much cash in there but all my ID, credits cards and bank cards were in the wallet in the bag, along with a paper plane ticket —— remember those?
I made it back to my office, intending on borrowing a little cash while I went through the painful process of getting bank and ID cards replaced without ID.
Then I got a strange phone call. It was from the security desk at an office building located near the place where my bag was stolen. They said someone had dropped off an envelope at their lost and found with my name on it.
I went to this office building and they handed me a large envelope with one of my business cards (which had been in my wallet) clipped to the outside.
Inside, I found all my ID, credit cards and bank cards, plus the plane ticket and some other papers that looked like they might be important (even though they weren’t).
So I guess they were mostly after my nice leather shoulder bag, and even though I was annoyed as fuck I was glad someone had the decency to give back the stuff that was hard to replace.
I did check the cards to make sure they hadn’t been used, but remember this happened a long time ago, before identity theft was a thing.
While I am wholly in support of people having exactly the number of children they want, including zero, I always figured I’d raise my kid to be part of the solution. The world can always use more good people. I wouldn’t be opposed to economic incentives to procreate because the effects of climate change would be exacerbated by a shortage of people to take care of the people most in need.
Yeah, there are people like that. When my ex and I got married, and had no intention to have children, we had to put up with a number of relatives who tried to convince us otherwise. Repeatedly. They seemed convinced that if they nagged us enough, we’d break down and have kids. We didn’t cave, and never had kids. But they felt they somehow had a say in such a personal decision of ours.
Yeah, I lived this reality for 37 years, had a kid, and immediately learned that people will comment on your reproductive choices for as long as you live. If you have zero, you need to have one. If you have one, you need to have more. If you have three or more, you need to stop having kids.
The way to put a stop to this is to just ignore it.
When my husband got his snip, his own surgeon asked him, “Who will your son play with?”
(snarky answer: nobody. He’s just not that into people.)
My husband was tempted to reply, “Oh, he’s not allowed to play with other kids.”
Excellent summary! I don’t have the same experience as you, but I do recall my sister getting that sort of thing.
Which is what we did. We never got such a thing from my father (my mother was long dead when my ex and I got married, so her views on the topic didn’t exist), because Dad was reasonable enough to accept our decision; but we got it from cousins and such at family gatherings. We’d change the subject, or find a reason to get away from the conversation (“Oh look, I guess we need another couple of drinks, excuse us; we’re heading for the bar”) or something else that stopped the “When are you going to have kids?” line of questioning.
Wow have you lived under some kind of rock! I hope this was sarcasm. It was constant from the age of 20 to 40. I knew I was childfree at age 17 but everyone told me that was too young to decide but I have never wavered. I work in a lot of child focused environments. I love kids! They are awesome and smart and clever. But I don’t want any and all children should be wanted. Even at 40 I got people saying I could do IVF.
When we hit 40 it slowed down significantly for me but my husband started getting asked.
The job I am in currently is the first place I have been respected for my choice from moment 1.
My greataunt, whom I loved very much, told me to my face once that women who didn’t have children weren’t real women. So news flash that one! I am not a real woman.
But then we’re just passing the buck. Here, kiddo, it’s your shitty world now, fix it.
My wife’s dad’s parents had two children. My wife’s aunt and her dad. Her aunt never had kids. Her dad only had one child, my wife. My wife had no children.
That means that my wife was the only descendant. So, she was the only chance for the family line to continue. That’s a lot of pressure.
Now, when I started a relationship with my wife, I made it clear that I wasn’t looking to have more kids, but wasn’t closed off to the idea. And she wasn’t really firm on having a kid either. When later we found out that it would be risky for her to be pregnant I thought that would be the end of it, but apparently not. I think family pressure had something to do with it. Sure enough, the pregnancy was very problematic and my wife’s life was at risk during childbirth, but both she and our daughter came through it fine in the end.
I wasn’t resentful though. It’s a big thing for a family line to die out and I’m glad it’s continuing for them.
Had to beat sitting with several brown paper grocery bags breaking up dried bread by hand. I buy dry, plain, pre broken bread from the local grocery. I hated doing that.
It was constant from the age of 20 to 40. I knew I was childfree at age 17 but everyone told me that was too young to decide but I have never wavered. I work in a lot of child focused environments. I love kids! They are awesome and smart and clever. But I don’t want any and all children should be wanted. Even at 40 I got people saying I could do IVF.