Probably much the same in tropical and many subtropical areas, too. And with global warming, a growing geography. Yeah, I get that. The image of Santa in shorts and a T-shirt, in a bullock cart pulled by a team of sweaty mules – it just ain’t the same!
While I have sympathy for your pain, I’m glad to hear your wife is still recovering.
The problem with doing that at my store is that sometimes the register decides to randomly end the transaction when the card is in the machine but before the cashier hits the “payment” button - meaning I can be mid-stream in ringing it up, not all the coupons are in the system and BAM! a receipt gets spit out because the machine thinks we’re done.
I may be here frequently given how more and more people are leaving the seasonal cheer at home.
This. It doesn’t help that I was born and raised in the States. It just doesn’t feel like Christmas if it’s hot and sunny, damnit!:smack:
Ah, well, I’ll get over it. Or deal with it, anyway.
Not that I don’t feel your pain, but would you REALLY want to give QVC another chance to screw up, possibly leaving you tree-less at a time when it’s too late to recover?
How’d ya like to stay up late like the islanders do
And wait for Santa to sail in with your presents in a canoe?
— Christmas Island (1946)
This morning on a busy road with one lane in each direction, as I was coming up to Dunkin’ Donuts on the right, the guy in front of me just stopped.
He stopped to let the woman in oncoming traffic make a left turn into DD.
I gave him a quick tap of the horn, not a full-on honk. I imagine he is mystified as to why I tapped my horn at all.
Problem number 1: You elected to let someone cut in front of another person in line. You blocked me so she could cut in front. Not a big deal, but a breach of etiquette.
Problem number 2 (the real problem): You ceded your right of way. This is the big one. Right of way rules are the cornerstone of orderly traffic, and when you give up your right of way, the other person does not have certainty of what to do.
She could have waited, oblivious, until you finally gave up waiting, and then turned just as you started going again. She could have passed through only to get clobbered by another car sneaking up from behind you on the shoulder (as often happens when a car is stopped for a left turn). Don’t give up the right of way.
The place where giving up the right of way drives [sic] me the nutsiest is with traffic circles/rotaries/roundabouts. We only have a few here, but two of them are part of my regular route. People don’t understand them. Some doofus IN the circle will stop and wave me in when I’m sitting in one of the feeder lanes waiting to merge. I always wave furiously at him/her to go one, while shouting quietly to myself: “No, no, no! YOU have the right of way, you bonehead!”
Story told before:
once they’d gotten used enough to us to decide that the fast-talking, loud Spaniards didn’t bite, my Costa Rican clients explained that many of them had at some point worked making Christmas decorations, and could we explain to them how big sheep are? And what is snow like?
Ordered an item from Amazon. Chose “do not deliver on Saturday”. The courier tried to deliver on Saturday :smack:. Yeah buddy, I marked “do not deliver on Saturday” because, guess what, there’s nobody in my office on Saturdays!
At least they did deliver it to the right place (the small office building up the hill) and not the evident place (the big factory at the foot of the hill with huge signs all around).
Thanks! It was not quite as horrible as I thought. I only messed up once, but I covered. It was obvious, but not too glaring.
I think my husband recorded it, so I’ll see if I can sync my phone & google account to link the video. Thanks, everyone, for all the encouragement!
Rant-wise, I think my daughter broke her ankle. Again. She just got out of a cast for a broken arm on November 16th. When she broke her arm, she’d been out of a cast for 10 days for a broken finger. And before that, she’d broken her ankle and yet another finger. So if she’s re-broken her ankle, this will be the 5th break this year.
After break #4, our orthopedist had her blood tested for vitamin deficiencies and diagnosed her with having my grace.
I realize that the normal reaction to your child having a broken bone would be sympathy and tenderness. And I do feel that, but at the same time, when she told me last night, I was hard-pressed not to mutter, “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” I may or may not have rolled my eyes just a little bit while carrying her inside to ice said ankle.
Given that the orthopedist can’t fit her in until late afternoon anyway, I slapped her boot on from the last break and sent her to school with the intention of taking her to the after-hours ortho clinic. I may ask for a punch card.
And to the OP… pilling the cat is not something I really planned on getting good at.
But our orange tabby is sick and needs multiple pills, so my wife and I are developing this talent. Twice a day I do the “happy dance” while saying “We get to pill the cat! We get to pill the cat!” in a very upbeat “nyah nyah” manner. And he usually takes it like a champ.
I think that being an orange tabby has a lot to do with it–tabbies are awesome cats, some of the most mellow.
This is still an unpleasant process because I don’t want him to die. He’s around 16, and his best friend Roxy passed away at 16 two months ago. It’s too soon to have another kitty funeral. My wife would be very very sad.
Related: a recent episode on an urban highway with two lanes of traffic in either direction.
I was traveling in the right lane during a time of day when traffic was busy but still moving pretty well. Wile E. Coyote, Sooper-Genius in the left lane just ahead of me slowed to allow someone to make a left turn in front of him from one of the businesses on the other side of the highway, thus crossing three lanes of traffic and emerging dead ahead in my lane, from where I just avoided ramming him by emergency braking. No way I could see him until he suddenly appeared in front of me.
A pox on the Good Samarashitheads that enable this behavior.
Here’s a hearty “up your ass” to that Republican from Texas who got the feds to pay his $84,000 sexual harassment settlement. That bastard should have paid that, not the US taxpayer. Should have made that bastard write the check with his wife and parents sitting by his side.
So, to Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.) Up your ass you shithead.
I reverse my bitching about Amazon and once again give them kudos for customer service. After I complained about my shipment screwup on Friday, they fixed whatever problem it was over the weekend and promised priority shipment. It was either shipped or at least handed over to the postal system as a priority package Sunday night, and I received it this afternoon, which I record for posterity is Monday. So it arrived same business day as it was shipped, no charge, no Amazon Prime. I might sign up for Prime as I’ve heard that it’s a good deal, though I’m not sure I’d use all those extras like the streaming services.
I did just read that he’s going to pay it back, but it was on my tablet and now I can’t find the link.
OMG, I’m cry-laughing now. Who the fuck drew what looks like a cock and balls on our driveway in sidewalk chalk? Goddammit.
It must’ve been either my daughter or the neighborhood kids two doors down. My daughter doesn’t generally think that way and the kids two doors down are middle school boys. That said, I wouldn’t put anything past her.
There is a giant dong on my driveway. A GIANT DONG.
On the flip side, I pretty much never need anything shipped in a hurry, and the main reason I signed up for Prime was in fact the streaming services (and the books).
Now for my rant, which is exactly a rant but a something - at work I have occassionally, after either I or a customer drop something, make a quip about “food so fresh it’s still moving”. Well, today a customer handed me a bag and it was actually moving!
Fresh lobster. Live fresh lobsters. I guess they finally got the water tank in the fish department fixed…
I realize this information is mostly relevant to those of us who know our closest airport better than our sofa, but one thing I like about Amazon Prime’s streaming is that - it works abroad! The stuff I have available varies by country, but I’m fine with that. Many of the things not available abroad are from Spanish public TV; I can get it from their own website, it’s just a little less convenient.
One curious inconvenient is that if I’ve downloaded something, there’s the risk that the first time my tablet connects to internet abroad it will decide that some of the downloaded stuff isn’t available. But hey, you can download stuff to the tablet: it’s nice for those intercontinental flights.
A mini rant about our shrinking newspapers, but not for the reasons you might expect. Our daily paper is now so insubstantial that it literally blew away in a gust of wind. It was kind of breezy around here yesterday, and when I went out to get the paper it was nowhere to be found. Taking a closer look a little later, I found it under a pile of leaves against the curb across the street.
This is actually something of an anti-rant. I’ve been job-hunting, and one of the things that’s been annoying me have been the multiple contacts from the same companies for positions with a particular employer. Said employer has no interest in me, as I have no experience documenting medical devices or in a GMP environment. Today I asked one of them to add that information to my files in their system, and the recruiter called back to let me know he was doing that. He also asked me my hourly rates.
Someone listened. Amazing.
I am just FULL of rants lately. Here is today’s rant du jour.
One of my son’s friends found out yesterday that there is no Santa Claus. One of the older boys at his bus stop let the cat out of the bag. His mom posted on Facebook, just absolutely pissed about how devastated her son was when he came home.
And I get that. I honestly do. It’s a dick move to take that away from a kid, even if you’re another kid. But the kid is also 12. He’s almost a teenager and he was bound to find out sometime. Regardless, the mom is pissed and lashing out on facebook and not getting the comments she wanted/expected.
One person even posted that they never allowed their kids to believe in Santa because, you know, Jesus. Anyway, I normally have a love/hate relationship with facebook trainwrecks, but this one is too ugly even for me. Who knew Santa was so polarizing.