It's May! It's May! The merry month of mini-rants!

The BBQ Pit
261

First of all, congratulations. Well done!

Secondly: Remember that they are the people who made those choices, not you. It hurts, but you now know where you stand with them. Don’t chase after them, don’t try to convince them otherwise. Just know that they are both shallow and less than kind and in the long run, probably not the people you want in your life. This isn’t to say that you should chase them away, but rather, you should just move forward with your life knowing that they all will fall away, one by one, as you go where YOU are going in life.

262

Student Driver, congratulations! It hardly bears repeating that you have done well, but you have.

All the best for grad school. If you need pointers at any time, just send me a pm.

263

My dad is a very generous guy, and he really likes to be generous. But he has a habit of offering something very generous to me and then when I accept, changing the offer at the last moment.

Most recent example: After I found out I was pregnant I started looking out for a new car to replace Birdman’s broken car. Dad mentioned he was looking to upgrade his Prius and I mentioned that if he did so I’d like to buy the old one. Once I told him I was pregnant he got all excited and offered to just give us the old Prius once he got a new one. I was all for that, unfortunately a couple weeks later new Priuss got very difficult to come by, what with Japan getting all disastered. After that, my dad made a different offer–since he wouldn’t be getting a new car soon he would just give us some money to get a new car. Great! This is all awesome!

Now keep in mind that up to this point it’s all been his idea to straight up give us the car/money, all I did was mention I’d buy his old one off him.

Anyway, last week we got Birdman’s broken car towed to the shop to see if it was worth fixing enough to sell. It was really, really, not worth fixing, so I made a deal with one of the mechanics to take it off our hands for $200. I called Dad to let him know we weren’t going to be getting any trade money for the broken car and to ask how much he was offering to give us to get a replacement. He said $10,000. Awesome, I said! Very Generous!

This weekend I found a great little car on Craigs List that was being sold for $10,000 obo. Great! I told Dad about it and then Birdman and I went to visit it. It drove great and the owner offered to take it in to the service shop with us tomorrow to get it checked out. It all sounded like this was the car for us, so I called my dad to let him know.

Me: “Hey Dad, the car is great and I think we’ll offer him $9000 for it and see how it goes. Is that cool with you, or do you need some time to cover that?”
Him: “No, I don’t need any time, I can cover it now. So how much were you thinking about putting toward the car?”
Me: “Um, me? Well, we don’t have any money until we sell the house…? I guess when we have the equity we could give you some back?”
Him: “Ok, how about I cover the car and you can give me $2000 when you sell the house.”
Me: “Ok, yeah, that sounds good…K, I’ll let you know how the inspection goes…”

So yeah. We aren’t getting $10,000 we’re getting more like $7500, depending on how much the owner sells it for. Which is fine, and very generous of Dad…but it’s not what he offered in the first place. If he had said “Hey, how about I offer to help you buy a car, I’ll cover 80% up to $10,000” or something, then I could have planned it out. I would have waited until after we had the house sold to have the equity squared away, or I would have gotten a little loan from the bank, or something. I am grateful for his help, but I wish he would be a little less generous in his initial offer so I can know what to reasonably expect from him.

I also have no idea how to handle this next time he decides to be generous with us. It has happened over and over in my life, but I keep taking him at his word and then being disappointed when he doesn’t keep it, but then feeling like I have no legs to stand on to be disappointed.

264

Points up at what you said. This is why I divorced my family. Its hard to do, you feel like the worst person in the world because they are family and we are expected to be there for family no matter what. ** phouka**, please reread what you typed. My panic attacts stopped after I finally left them.

To Student Driver, good on you. Runs around tossing glitterly stuff around. You totally rock!!! Who needs depressing people to rain on your parade? You rock, and God made maths hard to weed out the idiots who don’t understand the beauty.

265

I can only add my support to what Phouka has already said.

Now for my bitch of the day. I have purchased a new television and go online to register it for warranty. This is after doing contortions to get the model number and serial number of course to make it simple.

Simple? Hah. I cannot just register it, I need to set up an account first. Then, even though I unchecked the box saying they could send me promotional material, they present me with a screen asking how I wanted to be contacted for “promotional material”.

Then finally, in the drop down menu for the product, my television model is naturally not listed. I assume because it is a new model. Hardly says much for their professionalism.

266

You know what? Your relatives are idiots, and if I’d been within 3 hours driving distance of where you were graduating and had known about it early enough, I would have come to cheer you on. What you’ve done is bloody awesome.

Hrmph. Some people, is all I can say.

267

I wondered about this too, except I wasn’t having panic attacks but I was having serious stress related issues. Deciding that I was done with the drama that is my family made a BIG difference!

268

So mini, but seriously - The PIT. One T.

Fucking tards.

269

Student Driver, I’m in awe of you. Seriously. I’m not educated, and I’ve got more excuses than you could shake a stick at, but you overcame mighty obstacles and did it anyway. You are amazing.

270

Both Mom and Middlebro have these notions that I should sell my flat (about 120km away from them, in a small village that’s a tourist location and which, as a “county seat” equivalent has many more services than its size warrants) and move with her/to a flat in the town where they live.

I understand that Middlebro recently started to rant about that to Littlebro and Littlebro’s answer was “why the fuck should she? :dubious:” I’ve told Littlebro I owe him a tapas lunch.

I wouldn’t have been able to get degrees in either Philosophy or Mathematics - and you went and got both! I for onesup[/sup] am tremendously impressed and wish you the best.

1: well, four or five, but who’s counting.

271

You’ve mentioned this before…do you mind if I ask why they think you should do that? Is it about being a single woman living alone, or is it more about providing a live-in servant for your mother?

272

I am not your fucking sweetie, sweetheart, or baby. I am a professional adult working for your insurance company. I don’t sound 12, so don’t fucking refer to me with 12-year-old honorifics.

It’s not funny when you laugh at your employee falling in the freezer and getting hurt, either. Bitch. Stone cold awkward phone silence ensues while I let you cackle by yourself. Get bent, you sadistic fuck.

273

Attention slow drivers on the interstate/turnpike:

During construction, trucks are required to stay in the left lane regardless of their speed here in the great state of Pennsylvania.

We know you like driving slowly. That’s perfectly fine. Stay in the slow lane all you want. However, BECAUSE there is a massive big rig to your left, it never actually occurs to you that he is there due to following the law. You are also lawful, but you’re still being a prick. Turn the cruise off for a whole 5 seconds and speed up/slow down so people can pass. Thanks.

These assholes will just sit in the slow lane and be completely oblivious to anything around them. “What?! There’s a passing lane for a reason!” Not right now, shithead.

274

My mother wants a live-in servant and Middlebro’s wife wants a built-in baby-sitter.

275

Well, obviously, then, you should go ahead and do it! All of your education and your international career thus far were only the preliminary stages of your taking the final step to become: the Live-In Daughter! What better prelude to spending most of the rest of our life as an unpaid slave?

Sorry…my sarcasm gland surged…

ETA: Has anyone ever told you your family has some huge brass?

276

Potentially good news on my dental insurance situation -

Here at my job an email from the HR vice-president was received a few minutes ago, announcing a mid-year open enrollment is going to be done to switch medical and dental insurance from Aetna to Cigna.

Obviously I still need to talk to my dentist’s insurance specialist, but now will ask her if they accept Cigna.

277

Weather forecast, quit raising my expectations then reality dashing them. If it’s going to be cloudy, windy and cold all day, I can deal with that - just don’t get my hopes up with warm, sunny forecast. Jerks.

278

Dear potential study subject: I understand most people assume that “research” automatically means “big pharma and/or government pays for everything!” so I can see why you might be confused. I’m not sure if you understood from the consent form that this study is unique in the world, being performed on an old generic medication, and so there is no Big Pharma company to put the money up because there’s no patent to profit off of. There’s no government funding because money is tight, too tight to be given for a “proof of concept” one-clinic study.

The wording in the consent form says that your insurance may not pay for all of these tests just because hey, insurance companies aren’t under our control. These tests are considered “standard of care” for your illness, and Medicare specifically approved all tests for payment - insurance companies follow their example in what they’ll pay, almost always.

Medicare didn’t approve paying for the medication, so we scrounged up a grant to cover the costs. And really, that’s all it’ll cover is that medication for our study subjects.

So I get your concerns. I just don’t get the attitude, and why you sneeringly compared your experience decades ago at another hospital in another study to now. Times are tough, and I’m sure that other study had lots of money from Big Pharma or the Feds or a very generous donor. We don’t.

We’ve tried to explain this to you; please talk to your insurance now. And please, don’t treat a research study like a way to get free healthcare - there should be a whole lot of other concerns first before you think about costs.

279

There, there, sweetheart. pats head It’ll be okay.

280

My mom’s having eye surgery. Eyes suck. >:[