< Cough > PETCO < Cough > They sell mice-skinned toys filled with catnip.
EDIT: almost typed ‘tots’. Krampus indeed…
Not really a rant just one of the interesting moments you get to have with an autistic kid.
Our youngest is now 15, and autistic. One of the facets of his autism is he can get stressed very quickly and go from calm to a nuclear non thinking rage machine very quickly. We have been working a lot with him, mostly the work of my wonderful wife , and he is way better at controlling himself these days.
He has also found swearing as a way to express himself and picked up a couple of colorful expressions that he uses.
He also loves to play on the Playstation with his older brother, but due to to way he cant handle stress well, he will get irritable if his brother doesn’t do exactly what he wanted or lose, which means his older brother doesn’t want to play with him as getting yelled at is not a lot of fun. Anyway that’s also something we work at and older son is being as helpful as he can( I get it’s not easy for older son either)
Anyway today he played Cuphead for a while with his brother , no drama was heard and he came outside to me when I was chatting with a neighbor. I asked how it the game went and he loudly and proudly announced to all
" It went great, I didnt yell at him or call him a fucknuggle once!"
Yay… progress?
Progress, indeed! 
to all!
“Fucknuggle”?
If I can remember this, it could become a favored “colorful metaphor” when the situation calls for it.
Not sure where he picked it up from, a movie somewhere. The first time he used it he was angry at Mrs Mollusc and yelled " I dont want to do that you fucknuggle!". We tried very hard not to break out laughing at the absurdity of it all.*
It is along the lines of when he discovered fun things to do with himself he would announce he was off to his room to do , well a literal description or what he was about to do.
After much coaching he was down to " I am off to do that thing I am not supposed to say out loud" which has also happened with company around.
We are now at when we ask what are his plans for the afternoon we may get " you wouldn’t find it interesting ".
*there is no point telling him when he is angry what he can and cant say or getting annoyed over his behavior or threating etc it doesn’t work, you just have to plan B your way to a solution to the current actual cause of his stress, then work with him on his reactions to things later when calm and he can hear you.
Thanks for sharing your happy story. My son had some of those characteristics as a youngster (and still has, to some extent) – a perfectionist, easily annoyed at anyone who interferes with his quest for perfection, and easily triggered to anger by personal criticism. Unfortunately I tend to lack diplomacy when criticizing – snark and sarcasm come to me so naturally that it’s hard to suppress – so Wife used to regard the two of us as a sort of explosive mixture of nitroglycerine bound to detonate. Fortunately she was the eminently practical, level-headed spousal unit. But he’s mellowed considerably. We have lots of good times together. Sounds like progress on your end, too! 
I’m going to use this at work.
“I didn’t call him a ‘fucknuggle’ not even once! Where’s my raise, plz?!?” { sticks out palm }
When I make chicken stock, once it’s cooled, I remove the fat, and pour what remains thru my colander into a deep pan. Guess who forgot the pan under the colander today. Hope the septic tank enjoys my stock.
I think we’ve all done that at least once! (Okay, maybe more than once)
I once forgot the inner pot when setting up a roast in the Instant Pot. Amazing how big a mess two cups of liquid made running over the meat, through the device, and all over the counter.
I ran out of saline wound wash for my leg wound, so went to CVS to get more. They sell a 7.1 oz. bottle for $10.29. Really? $10.29 for 7 oz. of salt water?
Nope, I got instructions for making it from my doctor. Over $10 cheaper than CVS.
Did you think salt water is some abundant resource covering most of the planet?! That’s absurd! Mixing water and salt together is a time-consuming and expensive process deserving of immense compensation.
I am phobic of rodents, dead or not. I have found that if I put a paper towel over the carcass, I can scoop it into a plastic bag and then toss that into the garbage bag.
If only there was a way to get dead mice to mix up and bottle saline solution…
Same here. That’s almost exactly what I did (but used a broom to scoop)! Luckily, it was a small mouse. For some reason, it also helps mentally to wear heavy shoes and gloves, even if I’m not using my hands.
She’s brought home moles before, but those don’t freak me out - maybe because my daughter used to have one as a pet. Also, the cat hasn’t ever injured one of the moles.
Not a big problem so much as one that makes me want to roll my eyes HARD
I work in a shelter that has dogs and cats. Some of the people lean hard one way or the other on dogs vs cats. Most don’t. And I don’t, so I sometimes forget how SUPER SUPER CAREFUL you have to be to make everything perfectly even. God, it’s like having little children and having to count out noodles so that one doesn’t get more than the other.
You make a brochure, you have to count the number of dog photos and the number of cat photos and make sure they’re equal or someone WILL complain. Ditto flyers, print items, newsletters, etc. It DOES NOT MATTER if, say, you have a dog who needs extensive surgery and want to have a fundraiser for him, but don’t have a cat with a similar need. You’d better find or invent one so that you can put up a cat fundraiser for people who not only can’t bring themselves to donate to a dog, but will take every opportunity to whine about how the focus is always on the dogs and the cats never get anything.
It’s just so stupid and petty.
Anyway, tonight, it’s a whole thread of people throwing a fit because I put up a picture of a blanket you can get at Walmart that we use in the dog kennels and asked people to donate that blanket for the dogs. Which obviously means that I hate cats or don’t care about them or, at very least, forget about them… and not, say, that that specific style of blanket is too large and heavy to be of much use in the cat areas. But people are carrying on about how maybe they should choose to donate to a shelter that doesn’t forget about its cats and it’s soooo sad how dogs are always the focus and cats get none of the attention and so on.
In case you think they might have a point, the post above it was a profile of a cat. And above that one, an advent calendar entry featuring a cat. The one below it was a donation request for cat toys. And just below that, a cute photo of a cat lounging on my laptop. There’s a cat in the current cover photo. The cats are very much not an afterthought or underrepresented. jfc. Some people need to find a hobby that doesn’t involve taking offense at animal shelters trying to take care of their animals.
When I renewed my passport in 2011 I was rushing to beat the click. I paid the extra $60 for expedited service, etc.
It’s ten years later and I’m doing the same damn thing. I started the process over a year ago, but COVID made me wait. But I waited too long.
At the post office yesterday I paid $27.10 postage to guarantee 48 hour delivery. To Philadelphia, a five hour drive. It seems like it should make it in 24 hours with just a stamp?!
There’s a fire in my neighborhood. 
I just saw it on Twitter. I heard a lot of sirens a little while ago, and I was wondering what that was all about. The street is blocked, but I don’t need to go anywhere for a while. I hope nobody got hurt and there’s not too much damage.
Ahhh, but even in the past, any time a form, a letter, or even a birthday card NEEDED to be somewhere on a specific day, it’d take a week.
But if it was a newspaper clipping from my mom about the dangers of humidifiers (note: we’ve never had a humidifier), it’d get here the next day.
Fucking scammers preying on the elderly.
MIL checked the bank the other day - and found a 600 dollar charge from “Amazon”. There was some phone number associated with the transaction.
She called that number - and they promised to refund the 600 bucks.
Then they actually refunded considerably MORE than that, followed by an emailed request that she remit the overage to them via gift card. The email became out and out threatening, saying if she did not do so, they would completely “seize control” of both her checking and savings accounts.
Thank heaven she checked with us. She told us that she did change the account’s password - but I said that was not enough as clearly the scammers had the ability to withdraw money, and it wasn’t by logging in as her. I told her she needs to call the bank YESTERDAY. She hadn’t rushed to do anything right away, and she’s known of the issue for well over 24 hours at this point.
We’re not sure if she needs to report it to the police, or if the bank will.
These are the same in-laws who got a tax refund check out of the blue (another fraud attempt) and really, really, really, really, really, really wanted to deposit that check - as we were literally YELLING at FIL to not do so. We told MIL to write VOID on it to keep him from attempting it. Which she did - but then, unfortunately, she tore it up and threw it out, meaning she destroyed evidence that could help them if the IRS ever comes after them for that money.