::Frantically highlights date on calendar a fortnight hence.::
I hate this! We have a very nice fabric store, but it’s so expensive I can’t even afford enough fabric to make a pair of undies. JoAnn has fabric that’s cheap and ugly. If I find a nice color, it’s going to have some ugly embroidery. Don’t even get me started on the discount fabric section. I don’t understand why it’s so hard to make fabric that’s not ugly. It really wouldn’t cost any more to make fabric that you might actually not be ashamed to wear.
I’ve pretty much had it with Scrabble opponents who feel the need to announce the fact that they have no vowels. Lately I’ve taken to saying the words “Who cares?” when they do this.
The sequence of events that follow is fairly predictable: A stare of indignation from my opponent, followed by a fake apology and expression of sympathy from me, with an assurance that I’m sure things will improve for them soon, followed by some sort of expletive from my opponent, followed by a couple of helpful suggestions from me (“maybe you can play off a vowel on the board, or exchange some of your letters for new ones?”), often followed by another expletive from my opponent, and finally me saying “Just trying to be helpful…”
When the above scenario takes place, I feel like a medic doing something unpleasant, but completely necessary, such as setting a bone or giving a small child an injection. The injection analogy is closer to the truth since it’s much like an immunization, as it seems to permanently cure the patient of this affliction.
I’d ask whether you’re my sister-in-law, except that she’s not speaking to me for the past two years… (Long story, but she’ll soon be my ex-sis-in-law.)
This probably qualifies for its own rant/pit thread/whatever… but I wish my grandmother would quit tormenting me*. She just called to remind me that, had I ever managed to kill my own self dead, that my baby sister probably wouldn’t have committed suicide 11 years ago today. I love my grandmother, but I sure as hell don’t like her. She’s an evil, toxic, mean old woman. Who is currently rewriting and editing her own version of her life, in hopes of attaining heaven. I have no real belief in heaven/hell/final reward/etc., but I kind of hope these things exist so that the evil old wench gets what she deserves.
And I do wish that my family would quit reminding me that the good sister died, and that I’m just a poor substitute. (Middle kid syndrome personified… that’s me!)
*Eleven years. Grandmother can’t remember what she ate for lunch or her own cell phone number, but By God, the woman can call me every May 31 to remind me that my baby sister died, and that worthless me is still alive. Because it’s really not painful enough without the reminder?
Have you ever wondered what sort of things she said to your sister before she died? Next year switch off your phone on the 31st of May.
I realize this is late, but isn’t Memorial Day supposed to be for remembering the dead? When did it become Veteran’s Day in May?
My guess is that it’s because a much smaller percentage of Americans nowadays have had a close family member lost in war. Here are the numbers for American soldiers killed in various wars:
Civil War (1861-1865) 623,026
World War 1 (1917-1918) 116,708
World War 2 (1941-1945) 407,316
Korean War (1950-1953) 36,914
Vietnam War (1964-1973) 58,169
El Salvador (1980-1992) 20
Beirut (1982-1984) 266
Persian Gulf Support (1987-1988) 39
Invasion of Grenada (1983) 19
Invasion of Panama (1989) 40
Persian Gulf War (1991) 269
Somalia (1992-1993) 43
Bosnia 1995 12
Afghanistan (2002-2009) 686+
Iraqi (2003-2009) 4,299+
Not to trivialize the deaths of the soldiers in those wars, but the sheer numbers matter. I’d bet it was a rare family that didn’t lose at least at least one close relative/friend in the Civil War, WWI, and WWII group. The numbers drop by at least half for Korea and Vietnam but still, probably a majority of families were impacted directly.
But that war ended 35 years ago. (Wow, has it really been that long???)
The death rate in the wars since then are of entirely different magnitude. Their families hurt just as much, there simply aren’t that many of them.
So I think it’s natural that, if you don’t have a particular person’s death to think about on Memorial Day, your thoughts go to all those who served rather than the “anonymous to your” ones who died.
My argument is that that’s exactly the reason we set aside a day to remember those people.
Veterans already have a day, and with absolutely no dog in this fight, I simply resent at an abstract level the co-opting of a holiday that has a clearly-defined purpose.
over at my best friend’s house. She asked me to stay the night.
about half an hour after I got her, she launched into an hours-long temper tantrum. Full-on. Like running outside screaming her head off, wailing and crying, throwing things, and so on. The cause is a whole long story, but also annoying. Maybe for another post. Maybe its own thread.
Being over at a friend’s house when they throw a temper tantrum is awkward and embarrassing when you’re 5. It’s just fucking ridiculous when you’re 18 (and she’s 20). For the first hour and a half or so of said tantrum, I kept myself occupied looking after her two-year-old son while her parents tried to calm her down (I gave it a shot initially but the kid was getting upset, so I took him to another room and let them deal with her), but then he had to go to bed and we hit the really awkward part wherein I had nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs and try not to look as uncomfortable/horrified as I was in order to not make her parents feel bad.
She’s done now and laying on the couch (where I’m supposed to sleep) with a lot of snotty tissues all around her on the couch and floor and reading aloud a cracked.com list I’ve already read and giggling at all the dick jokes.