WTF, FedEx!?! I paid for 2 day shipping for live stuff for my aquariums. The company I bought from shipped on the day they said they were going to, and it was showing as on the truck for delivery yesterday by 8 pm.
9pm, no package. We had a tiny bit of rain, no extreme weather.
Today it shows back at the facility an hour away, and delivery on Monday by 8 pm.
So. Not. Pleased.
My dumb ass juuuuust placed an Amazon order for the remainder of my Xmas shopping … and THEN remembered the gift card/Amazon credit, which had spurred the shopping spree in the first place.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Live animals delayed in shipping? That’s fucked even if they are just guppies or mollusks.
The number of mask wearers here who leave their noses sticking out is ridiculous.
It makes me feel stabby when I see this. I’m a glasses wearer so I know the struggle, but, somehow, I fucking manage.
My minor minor rant is that I have to go back to the doctor’s office and pee in a cup again because the first sample I gave never made it to the lab for some reason and so they couldn’t do the tests they wanted. The thing that irritated me the most about it was the comment on my chart. They said I was unable to void. And I’m like, no, I gave a sample, you just didn’t keep track of it!
Prolly done so they could bill insurance a 2nd time for ‘sample collection’. Heaven forbid they not profit from their screw up.
I found a neat custom sticker site, and I thought it would be a sweet idea if I ordered replacements for some very ragged stickers on my mom’s Jeep. I realized that I hadn’t received any updates since I placed the order early last month, so I dropped the seller an email… And it bounced. Huh. I had completed the purchase through PayPal, so I initiated a seller contact request there. While waiting for a response, I kept looking around online, and eventually found the seller’s Facebook page…which was loaded with comments about the seller’s tendency to take money and never send the product.
Well, fuck.
I’ve escalated the issue with PayPal, with documentation about what I’ve found. It’s only $9, but I can’t believe I fell for something like this. 
I wouldn’t say it was your fault. You tried to do something great for your mom. Someone else’s sleaziness doesn’t undercut that. Smart people get scammed all the time…
Unless the site said “We are Slovenia Graphical Artists. What you want most of life? You want poster of Unicorn Jesus, you send us lots money we printing you poster of Unicorn Jesus. You want yo mama Jeep stickers, we sending you yo mama Jeep stickers, honest.”
Update: PayPal refunded the money and closed the case. Nice!
It really looked like a nice small business website. The checkout even ran off Shopify…in fact, I can still view my order details. I wasn’t suspicious of a thing until the emails started bouncing.
I’ve been looking for a place to indulge in a mini-rant about this.
Women presenters on screen who smile constantly.
I’ve been attending Zoom classes, workshops, presentations of one sort or another like most of us. I “attend” a half-hour Zoom class every day hosted by multiple recurring presenters. Almost without exception, the women presenters have great huge smiles glued to their faces the whole time. No matter what the topic is. Makes me nuts. Yeah, they were probably raised to be nice girls and told that a smile makes people like you or makes you pretty (How about a smile? Can I have a smile??)-- blahblahblah. The male presenters usually have a more natural expression, although there is one guy whose face is locked in a Joker-esque rictus throughout his entire presentation. Geez Louise, people. It’s okay not to smile. Especially these days, alright?
This is closely related to another rant: the smile accompanied by the nervous laughter. This is not Zoom, but IRL. I have women friends who smile and giggle while they are telling you of a diagnosis of cancer or the death of a beloved pet-- or even a parent! I know it’s a nervous thing… still makes me nuts. I have one male friend who does this.
Carry on.
I live on a nice quiet 1950s suburban street. All the houses are red brick with the exception of mine and one other which are pale yellow brick. A few months ago, my neighbor across the street died and her house was sold. Apparently, it was bought by flippers who today painted the brick a blue/gray color. It’s absolutely hideous! It looks so out of place. Why on earth would you do that to a perfectly nice red brick house? Uggh.
My Facebook (yes, I’m old, shut up!) and twitter pages are full of advertisements for blankets, t-shirts, and pillows with sayings that are supposed to be good?, but just suck rocks. I’m sure you’ve seen them. An oversized blanket that says shit like:
“To my wife: the day I met you I found my missing piece. You complete me and make me a better person… blah blah blah, more garbage blah.” Seriously, they’re quoting a fucking movie from the mid 90’s.
Or a Tshirt that says:
“Yes, I’m a spoiled husband but not yours. I am the property of an AWESOME WIFE (idiotic all-caps included) She’s a bit crazy and scares me sometimes … blah blah blah, more glurge … blah my wife is so tough”
How emotionally stunted do you have to be to need to buy a blanket with the most trite, contrived and appallingly boring sentiments for your significant other? My morning just getting out of the shower “I love you, hon” to my wife carries a ton more real, true, and heartfelt sentiment than a dozens of those idiotic blankets.
And how nice for you that your wife is crazy and scares you. Proclaiming it for all the world to see is certainly a sign of a healthy, long term relationship. Make sure the whole world knows how mentally unstable your significant other is!
Oh my god I hate these. And the font schemes are just terrible.
The shifting fonts happen on the shirts. I’m pretty sure "Trite, Contrived and Appallingly Boring Blankets and “Strong women must be crazy!” T shirts were one of the Biblical plagues of the Bible.
Have we moved past the giant cursive words on walls trend yet? I’m also still seeing ads for oversized chunky knit blankets and throws (if you’re not familiar, think about grandma’s crocheted blanket if the yarn was the diameter of a broom handle). Are these things actually warm?
I had a coworker like this once. Her boss was a raging asshole who would blow his top at the tiniest problem, and she was a meek little older lady, so I understand how her nervous habit sort of stuck in place. It was always off-putting to get a phone call from her alerting me of some problem though…“The vendor just let me know that the critical part needed for the urgent repair isn’t being manufactured anymore, and there are no more in stock anywhere in the country! Oooooooo-hoo-hoo-hoo!”
I had a throw with the thick open weave that I bought in a thrift store many years ago. That sucker was heavy! I used it during the winter on the bed and the weight of it made the covers surround me like a cocoon and kept me very warm.
my rant is : fuck christmas and all the bullshit that comes with it …and fuck the landlord family whos inability to get along is making us move right after Christmas for making a barley tolerable situation worse … and fuck dickthead relatives who only come around when they need shit … but ask them for help …
I’m a little freaked out right now.
I had a friend sort of disappear last year. I was moving from NYC to NC last fall, my NY apartment was being renovated and I was going back and forth every two or three weeks.
This friend of mine was the office manager where I worked. She had been there 30+ years. She was a highly efficient and organized type, alway stylish dressed and impeccably groomed. And she was mentally stable, she had never been diagnosed with anxiety or depression and didn’t take any psychiatric meds.
She was also a gossip, highly judgmental and had a way of instigating interpersonal conflicts. Frankly, she was a total bitch more often than not at work. Outside of work, she was fun and I forgave a lot of her personality defects because of her work with animal rescues. She was usually fostering a half dozen or so animals and spent her weekends picking up and delivering pets. She was tireless in her commitment to animal rescue, which is what makes this story so disturbing.
After one of my trips to NY, probably almost exactly a year ago, I went to my old office and she wasn’t there. All I could get out of anyone was that she stopped coming to work ( although I suspect there may have been some sort of dispute, no one would fill me in.) I tried calling a few times with no response. Now she was mostly a work friend, although we went out socially and even vacationed together a few times. But we didn’t have a common social circle. I’d met her family members a few times but couldn’t remember their last names. But I knew that even though she lived alone she had a family she was close with.
Yesterday, after a conversation with a mutual friend, I was thinking about her and I dropped her name into a search engine and OH MY GOD.
She was arrested a few months ago. For animal cruelty. She was boarded up inside her house with 4 badly neglected dogs and 4 dead ones. Neighbors complained to the police about the smell, she wouldn’t let them in but they got a warrant and entered found the animals and arrested her,
And that’s all I know, from a 3 paragraph article picked up by several local news outlets. It’s definitely her, they published the address. And a photo of a neglected animal accompanied the story, and I recognized the dog as one she took to work with her most days.
I can’t wrap my head around it. Did something catastrophic happen that caused her to lose herself completely? Does she have a brain tumor or something? My God, how can someone live in a house filled with dead dogs? A year ago she was fine. What the fuck happened? Is 2020 just a bizarre dream and can I please wake up soon?
Serious mental illness overcame her. It has all of markings of it. Very sad for all, including the animals.
Oh my god… I am also totally freaked out by this. I am so, so sorry. Everything about this is disturbing down to the marrow of my bones… Lord… major league hugs, my friend. I’m going to go and hug my dog and two cats right now. 
I’m so sorry, that’s terrible. It does sound like some sort of acute onset of mental illness.