# July is the longest month for mini-rants **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 1, 2015, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957 "2015-07-01T15:05:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2015, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/281 "2015-07-16T20:05:02Z")
> [@Cinnamon\_Imp](#): > > What the fuck are you talking about? Her post clearly shows she is replying to the post she quotes, post 249 from THIS thread. > > Are you new here? Do you not know how the quote function works, and that that little blue arrow in her quoted text takes you to the post she’s replying to? [Simma down now!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP1TWcILbcg) ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2015, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/282 "2015-07-16T21:35:01Z")
Fuck my sinuses. I’ve been out of it all day what with the pressure and the pain and the vertigo and the feeling like I’m going to be sick without being sick. ---
**Author:** ![Toxgoddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Toxgoddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxgoddess)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2015, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/283 "2015-07-16T22:28:37Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > Jeez, **Toxgoddess** , that is several metric tons of shit to have land on you all in a few days. ☹ I don’t even know what to say that won’t sound incredibly trite, but for what it’s worth, you have my sympathy and your friends and family have my best wishes that something happens to help. > [@overlyverbose](#): > > That fucking sucks. I’m sorry. Thanks. I appreciate the kind words. I am going to go look at the latest pictures from NASA, a genuine triumph, to cheer myself up. ---
**Author:** ![a35362](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2015, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/284 "2015-07-16T22:28:58Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > This is probably from people taking their cup of coffee or tea back to finish later, with a spoon in the cup. That’s why spoons, but not forks or knives. It’s kind of inevitable, so you have to deal with it. > > One possibility: Announce a contest, to deal with _The Mystery of the Vanished Spoons_. Ask everyone to search & find (don’t say ‘return’) our missing spoons, and turn them in at afternoon break, with a prize for whomever finds the most spoons. Announce it at breakfast, for that afternoon (so nobody can hoard extra spoons each day to win this – even old people have cheaters). Have some colorful posters to put up around the building, special patches for your staff to wear, etc. – make it a big deal. > > That afternoon, have a staffer count turned-in spoons and post on a bulletin board the names & numbers, then make a big hoopla of announcer the runners-up and the winner, and having them come forward to get their prize. And the prize? – go to Goodwill, and get some fancy spoon, quite different from the ones you use. Maybe those ones with colored ceramic handles, blue for the first place winner, red for runner-up, etc. mayber your janitor is there with an engraving tool to inscribe their name on the spoon. That becomes their special personal spoon, and your staff makes sure to set that one at the place where they normally sit every day. (Or maybe it’s easier that they use it today, then take it home to keep in their own apartment.) > > End result is that you got lots of spoons back, for little cost, nobody is upset by accusations of taking spoons, and the residents had something exciting for that day, and to talk about for more days. > > Note – you might have to do it again 6 months later. Ha ha ha – this made me smile. Thanks. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/285 "2015-07-17T00:24:13Z")
(((( **Toxgoddess** )))) Sorry that you’ve had so much bad news. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/286 "2015-07-17T01:11:11Z")
My poor sweet eldest child is in pain from her new braces. She’s sitting my lap and moaning softly. Frick. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/287 "2015-07-17T02:07:30Z")
> [@Kimballkid](#): > > Click Start then Control Panel then System and it will tell you if it is 32 or 64 bit. Huh. 64-bit. Not what I would have expected from a machine from Goodwill, but, okay. ---
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/288 "2015-07-17T02:20:09Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > Eight hundred bucks out of pocket for my daughter’s braces today. I’m trying to be grateful we don’t have to pay the entire four thousand it really costs . . . That sucks. And now for my braces story. I had to pay mine all out of pocket because insurance wouldn’t cover any of it. They said it was because it was ‘congenital’ and ‘was there before I got the insurance’. Plus I had to get an implant on top of it because I was missing a tooth that I never knew about because I never had it and the teeth just grew together normally. Between the implant and the braces, it ended up costing me about $7,000 out of pocket. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/289 "2015-07-17T03:21:33Z")
Just got a call from my surgeon’s office this morning. It seems that the small patch of ringworm on the back of my left thigh is enough to have the surgeon cancel my right hip replacement that had been scheduled for next Monday. I got a call from a nurse navigator yesterday, and she was the first person to ask me if I had any skin rashes. I’d have thought somebody would have asked about that somewhat earlier in the process, like before scheduling the surgery. :smack: **Toxgoddess** , I don’t want to come off as perfunctory about it, but I’m really sorry that you and your friends and loved ones are having to deal with such a shit-ton of life-threatening crap. It really puts my problems into perspective. {hugs}\* \*(not sure of the appropriate number of those braces that goes into one of those) ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/290 "2015-07-17T03:35:14Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I always tell the story of when, in my twenties, I got a coldcall solicitation…from some guy who was selling tombstones! I actually felt bad for that guy. What a shitty job. In his defense, people are dying to get one. ---
**Author:** ![Lacunae\_Matata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lacunae\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lacunae_Matata)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/291 "2015-07-17T04:00:54Z")
Not quite as bad as tombstones, but several years ago, I kept getting calls from folks wanting to sell me a septic tank. Not exactly the sort of thing that one buys on the spur of the moment, or needs a reminder of, eh? Toxgoddess, I hope things lighten up for you. What a horrible series of events! {{{Hugs}}} Very tiny rant: my mother and my aunt are having “milestone” birthdays this week - Ma is 65, Auntie is 80 - so we’re having a party for them on Saturday. I’m the baker in the family, mostly, so I volunteered to make cakes. I don’t do “pretty” baking, or fancy, but tasty, so I planned to fix two or three sheet cakes of various flavors. Ma has taken over the planning, and decided the cupcakes would be so much nicer, because she has a cupcake tree to serve with. So, instead of 10 minutes of active time per cake, and having the oven on for about 1.5 hours, I get to spend a total of about 3 hours active time, with the oven on for at least three hours. Because, apparently, sheet cakes are “so hard to serve.” I originally volunteered to make ice cream, too, but I’m buying it instead, because the cupcakes will take so much time. I guess I’ll save the peach ice cream for my own birthday next weekend! ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/292 "2015-07-17T04:42:31Z")
Bake the sheet cakes, get square baking cups. Cut the cakes and put into baking cups. As long as the icing seals the edge of the cup to the cake, it won’t dry out. My rant: I started a weight loss endeavor about three months ago. Mostly just food logging and figuring out my issues, because overeating even healthy food is a problem. I have to work out my food issues as well as get moving. I’ve started using MyFitnessPal and a wearable activity tracker. It’s a process for me, and I’m getting baby steps closer to making real progress. Yay me. The ranty part? Co-worker and I get into a conversation about it since I really like the tracker and was showing it to him. Then he tells me he’s simply switched to mostly vegetables and lost 6 inches in the last 6 weeks. It’s so simple! Yeah, fuck off dude. Just. Fuck. Off. ---
**Author:** ![Lacunae\_Matata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lacunae\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lacunae_Matata)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/293 "2015-07-17T08:17:48Z")
> [@SeaDragonTattoo](#): > > Bake the sheet cakes, get square baking cups. Cut the cakes and put into baking cups. As long as the icing seals the edge of the cup to the cake, it won’t dry out. Oh NOW you mention this, now that I have all of the baking done! (Actually, I don’t think Ma’s cupcake server will accommodate square cakes, but I’m doing this next time - with kids in school, there’s always a next time, and it’s a sight easier to bake, frost, and cut a sheet cake than to do a couple of dozen individuals.) But we have strawberry cheesecake cupcakes, red velvet, and chocolate peanut butter. And Girl 2.0 loves to decorate, so I’ll let her fill and frost tomorrow. And I still have time to cool the house before the sun rises. > [@](#): > > My rant: I started a weight loss endeavor about three months ago. Mostly just food logging and figuring out my issues, because overeating even healthy food is a problem. I have to work out my food issues as well as get moving. I’ve started using MyFitnessPal and a wearable activity tracker. It’s a process for me, and I’m getting baby steps closer to making real progress. Yay me. The ranty part? Co-worker and I get into a conversation about it since I really like the tracker and was showing it to him. Then he tells me he’s simply switched to mostly vegetables and lost 6 inches in the last 6 weeks. It’s so simple! Yeah, fuck off dude. Just. Fuck. Off. It’s okay to kill people like this. And concealing a body burns lots of calories, if you do it right. ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/294 "2015-07-17T08:49:58Z")
**sticks imaginary face into imaginary (but real) pile of amazing cupcakes** Oops, sorry, were you needing those?? **wipes frosting off eyebrows** _(briefly considers hiding a body in the trunk of an abandoned car down the street.)_ Thanks, all I needed was permission! ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/295 "2015-07-17T10:22:47Z")
> [@Toxgoddess](#): > > I posted this earlier, apparently unnoticed. Found out in the last couple days uncle has pancreatic cancer which has spread to the brain, father’s initial neurological diagnosis indicates dementia, cousin has breast cancer in both breasts and refused masectomy. Friend’s biopsy went well but no results yet. Somebody please call me and tell me about someone who isn’t dying. I think my nephews aren’t. Sorry about the loadup of crap. ---
**Author:** ![Lacunae\_Matata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lacunae\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lacunae_Matata)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/296 "2015-07-17T13:41:58Z")
Another friend hidden on Facebook after she started sharing links to antivaccine idiocy. Between these idiots, and the friends/family who have been hidden due to political buffoonery, my Facebook feed will soon be nothing but game requests and pictures of cats… ---
**Author:** ![eclectic\_wench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac91a4/32.png) [@eclectic\_wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eclectic_wench)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/297 "2015-07-17T14:03:44Z")
Toxgoddess, I’m so, so sorry. > [@keturah](#): > > Check your couch and chairs under the cushions and in the seams. We don’t eat on our couches but cutlery still ends up there. Kids do mysterious things… Dang. That’s an excellent idea and I had high hopes (I can definitely see some complicated pretend game involving an imaginary picnic on the sofa) but nope, nothing. If two kids worked together really well, could they \*dematerialise \*cutlery? ---
**Author:** ![Lacunae\_Matata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lacunae\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lacunae_Matata)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/298 "2015-07-17T14:17:12Z")
In the past 2-3 years, I’ve bought approximately 3.21^24 spoons. We currently own about 6. I’m pretty sure that the little girls throw them into the trash can when I’m not looking. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/299 "2015-07-17T14:41:14Z")
> [@Kimballkid](#): > > That sucks. > > And now for my braces story. I had to pay mine all out of pocket because insurance wouldn’t cover any of it. They said it was because it was ‘congenital’ and ‘was there before I got the insurance’. Plus I had to get an implant on top of it because I was missing a tooth that I never knew about because I never had it and the teeth just grew together normally. Between the implant and the braces, it ended up costing me about $7,000 out of pocket. That seems all kind of fucked up - everyone I know who needed braces was because of ‘congenital’ issues; I mean, isn’t that the point? Your teeth grow in crooked, and you use braces to fix that? Now, the pre-existing condition thing is maybe supportable. I guess they think your previous insurance should have handled that? I remember a story (joke? comic?) about a woman with braces, and some kids are discussing her and one says “you’d think her parents were have remembered”. ---
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957/300 "2015-07-17T15:47:51Z")
I think they meant the missing tooth was congenital thus the implant wasn’t covered. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-is-the-longest-month-for-mini-rants/723957.md?page=16)