I don’t know - maybe the kinds of coats you were talking about were too long for mini rants.
Well, this at least got taken care of. Now my workstation has been moved to a folding table. In the walkway. Next to the breakroom. Everybody walks past, because that’s where the bathrooms are. And nobody drums their fingers on the table, because there’s no clear space to do it on (tv, monitor, pc, console stack, vcr, two keyboards, cord pile, notepad).
When I win I lose. And when I lose, boy do I.
Dear Surgeon
when you operate on my son and I am told that there will be one incision in his bellybutton to do the stoma, two incisions worst case scenario, I am really not pleased to come home and change his dressings to discover three incisions.
Everyone told me you were a really gifted surgeon and I know there were issues about creating the stoma (no, the registrar didn’t give me details but when the operation took 1 1/2 hours instead of 30 minutes and he came out of theatre on IV morphine, I realise that it wasn’t straightforward) but honestly it would have been nice if someone had told me he had three holes instead of two.
Dear Mr Primaflora, please stop using lots and lots of micropore tape to anchor the foley catheter. We just have to pull it off 3 times a day and he’s not coping. I am going to throw up next time he is weeping and begging us to stop.
Personally I prefer the number 77, you get eight more. wink wink 
Do you have a separate electric meter? If not, go buy a couple radiant heaters and plug them in and run them 24 hours a day on high, if you want. And the next time you pay your rent, include copies of your sales slips for the heaters and deduct the cost from what you pay.
ccwaterback, if you want to make it up to your friend, tell her about the Gilman scholarship. It’s specifically for students with high financial need who want to study abroad. They will pay up to $5,000 for program and living expenses. Your friend should also check out civic organizations. I know that the Rotary Club gives out scholarships for study abroad, as does the American Association of University Women. There are resources available; she just has to look for them.
Dear Careerbuilder: It’s fine with me to send a confirming email when I post a resume via your service. Really, it’s completely cool. But headlining your response “SUCCESS!” is so lame. For the record, all I did was email a resume. It’s ridiculously stupid to call that a success, as if I should be dancing around the computer and high-fiving myself. I actually sent out a resume! Whoo-ha! This is like a farmer doing a victory dance every time he plants a seed in a furrow. Really, get some kind of sense of scale here. Perhaps you could head it with something more accurate, like “ATTEMPT!”
Dear Three-Guy Mariachi Band on the 1 train:
If I wanted a Mexican concert, I would walk into a concert hall and pay for it. Besides, all the non-Spanish people on the train feel left out. And your trumpet cannot compete with the noise of an R-46 in a 90-year-old tunnel. Stop trying.
The whole post made me sad, but this part made me cry… 
I really hope your son gets better.
My mini-rants:
Number ONE: There is NO SUCH THING AS “REVERSE RACISM”! Do you have ANY idea how STUPID you sound when you say this type of shit?
Two: PINK FLOYD IS NOT A “DRUG BAND”! I could give you the EXACT link to the interview where it was SAID by one of the members that Pink Floyd
was NOT a drug-oriented band". You also sound stupid. And you’re full of shit, too.
Three: Do NOT say you like Pink Floyd, and then when I ask you what song you like, say “Oh, that one that goes ‘We don’t need no education’”
Four: (sort of related to three) When somebody says “Have you heard Another Brick in the Wall by Korn?” AARGH.
Five: PINK FLOYD IS NOT “HE”. it’s A GROUP.
Drives me fuckin’ mad.
“Comfortably Numb” isn’t about drugs? Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.
Dear Human in the car in front of me waiting in the left-turn lane:
You should probably be aware that while you wait there at the red light, there’s a good chance (better than average, I would say) that it will turn green. Please be prepared for this. Your eyes should look forward, and your car should be in gear. This wil help cars in back of you get to where they are going.
Thank you.
I never said that they didn’t write/sing about drugs.
(Although it’s felt like a lot more than two cents lately…)
Here’s to pitting both myself and my former best friend.
To me for the e-mail I sent him a month before he moved out of the state, in which I expressed my anger at feeling like I was being pushed further and further away in preparation for the move.
To him for not returning any of the voice mails, e-mails or text messages I’ve sent in the following year.
Friends for ten years, thrown out the window on a single e-mail that, having re-read it, was not worth over a year of silence. At the very least, have the decency to tell me you’re angry and to fuck off…a decade of friendship entitles a little closure…
He’s doing great today! In Mr P’s defence, he was trying to keep the catheters from falling about and hurting K even further but he got entirely too enthusiastic with the tape.
The operation he had will improve his quality of life enormously.
I don’t have any rants today. Oh wait yes I do. To the special ed teacher of my friend’s son. You suck. You really suck. Threatening a kid with an IQ of 70 with calling the police and charging him with assault when he loses it and not putting anything in place to help the poor guy cope with the transition to high school sucks.
Okay, here’s a mini-rant.
I hate, freakin’ hate the instructions that come with most assembly-required furniture.
My apartment is somewhat newish to me, and I’ve just finished setting it up so it’s comfy. But, damn, if I had had to put together one more thing with diagrams where I couldn’t even tell which screw they were telling me to use…
GRRRR!
They write and sing about drugs, but they’re not a drug band. You’ve lost me in the subtle nuances here.
I would call a “drug band” one that has songs glorifying drug use, or that seems to be stoned when writing and performing their songs. Pink Floyd doesn’t really fit that description.
They have a song aout drugs - true
They have several songs about war as well
they several songs about conformity in soceity too.
They have a song about money.
They have a song about time.
They have a lot of song that I have not attempted to parse the meaning of
why would they be a drug band and not a anti-war band?
why would they be a drug band, and not an anti-conformity band?
why would they be a drug band and not a money band?
why would they be a drug band, and not an time band?
one song does not define a band. (unless it’s a one hit wonder)
that’s how that sentance should have read
Rant the First: This Thursday night, I left town for a couple of days to see the guy I’m dating. Whoo!
So, Thursday afternoon, what happens? I get a paper assigned, due today (ha!) at 2:00 p.m. It’s now 4:15 pm. Is that paper done? No, of course not. It’s written out on notebook paper, but it needs to be typed in and sent. My lazy butt came home on midnight and needed some serious sleep. So I didn’t get up again until 5:30 am to start working. And I have to teach at 10:30, with some prep before that. And then it’s almost totally solid work until 6:30 at night. So, right. It’s not done, and it’s not gonna get done for at least the next several hours. No, I am not pleased about this, at the very least because this is not the first late paper I’ve submitted for this course. It’s not like I really need the credit, and my GPA is pretty solidly good, so I can afford to do lousy in the course, but still…it pisses me off. I need to get some self-discipline and get my rear end in gear.
Rant the Second: The chicken and dumplings I got from the nearest school cafeteria are crap. Over half the container–half the frickin’ container!!–is a bunch of starchy liquidy gooey slop. There were occasional lumps of fatty starch and protein thrown in there for sustenance. I am deeply, horribly disappointed. Not to mention hungry. And now I have to go teach again.
Rant the Third: I have angry students (mostly yipping pre-meds) waiting for their tests to come back. In order for me to give them their tests back, I have to grade them all first. The last of the makeups happened last week. I have one student who has a make-up. We piddling regular old TAs don’t administer make-ups. The head TA does. SO WHY DON’T I HAVE MY STUDENT’S EXAM TO GRADE YET?! I mean, it’s only my throat he’s going to jump down in about 10 minutes when I tell him that I don’t have his exam and don’t know when I’ll have it graded. Geez–how hard can this be? Administer the exam and then give the exam to me so I can grade it…or at least tell the student that I’ll have it graded soon.
Rant the Fourth: How did I get so old?! When did this happen? Why do my students seem so absurdly young to me? And why do they seem so clueless? Am I on my way to becoming one of those cranks who yells, “You kids keep offa my lawn!” ?