Schlep Timbre (September Mini-Rants)

I don’t know. I think a lot of the builders in the area just toss whoever into the dump trucks. I often see them driving in the middle of the road, because they’re afraid of the drop off on either side.

kayaker had just got done saying that his gf embarrassed him by getting braces.

One of them mentioned something his wife did that embarrassed him. I laughed and said, “You think that’s embarrassing, my gf just got braces”.

(bolding mine)
Although he likely didn’t mean it like that.

I usually stick an oven mitt over it.

Can you still buy them at the counter? That’s where I get them.

It was after hours. The counter was closed.

Also, 56 cents to mail a freaking postcard? And we have to mail 200 of them. That’s $112. I told my wife she needs to be a little more careful about what kind of volunteer work she signs up for.

Ah. Our post offices don’t keep the lobbies open after hours anymore.

Thanks offered to her and you for doing this, though!

I’m mailing letters at 73 cents each. Somehow I missed the memo about how much postage has increased in the last couple years. The last time I bought stamps they were 15 cents cheaper!

Part of getting old is having firmly embedded ideas of how much things should cost, and then getting sticker shock when we see how much they do cost nowadays.

Yeah, I’m doing postcards also. I look at the cost as cheap mental health care for me.

I know, right? My wife and I used to joke about how out of touch her mom was with how much things cost, but now I’m starting to understand. I figured postcard postage would be maybe 25 or 30 cents, not over 50!

A few years back I had to mail a few things. I went to the post office and asked for 4 stamps, handing over a dollar bill. Wow, I was shocked.

A stamp is “un timbre” in French, coincidentally.

A single stamp is $1.15 CAD (for domestic mail), or $0.99 each if you buy a booklet of 10 (or more? I just get one booklet at a time). Stamp pricing is “permanent” so at least if you’ve bought it, you can use it later even if the price went up for new purchases.

My rant right now is that I’m exhausted. Insomnia has been BAD this week and I’m really struggling with it. At least it’s Friday but we have a busy weekend ahead and I’m not sure how I’ll manage some of it if I’m this tired.

That’s how our ‘forever’ stamps work, which is why I didn’t know how much our postage had increased. I will finish using up the ones that cost me 58 cents and start using the more expensive ones on this batch of letters. I should probably buy a bunch more stamps now if the rates are going to keep increasing this quickly.

Two weekends ago we had a heavy rain for the first time all summer. I happened to be in the hallway during a particularly hard downpour when I heard pings coming from the attic. I pulled the stairs down and saw that rain was running down the bricks on the south side of the chimney, some drops bouncing off duct work next to it. On Monday I started making calls. I got someone to come out that Wednesday and he said he would send an estimate within a few days. He told me he didn’t see any damage in the attic and not to worry. Another company set up an appointment for Wednesday of this week. Another said he would let me know a date to come but I haven’t heard back from him. Two companies didn’t return my calls. Just the usual when trying to get home repairs done.

Tuesday I got the estimate from the first company and it was a doozy. $1250 to basically tear off everything around the chimney and replace it. Any wood decking needed would be an additional cost. It seemed a bit over the top since the roof is only three years old. I haven’t responded.

The guys who came out Wednesday were from the company that put the roof on. They thought it was a simple fix. They said they could do it and replace a shingle they found with a hole in it from a limb (I have extra shingles). They could do it now for $125 and clear all the leaves off the roof while they were at it. I knew we were expecting heavy rain today from Helene so I figured what the hell. If they fixed it, great, if not at least I got the shingle replaced and the valleys of the roof cleared. It was worth a shot.

It started raining early this morning and when I got up and looked in the attic, of course, it didn’t work. I made more calls and someone is coming tomorrow. I’m waiting on one other to call with a date. I hate how long it takes to get home repairs done. I’m not a patient person (see the above jumping the gun). The next couple weeks look good weather-wise so hopefully I can get this done before another rain. And it doesn’t cost over a thousand dollars.

I remember when a first-class letter stamp for an ordinary personal or business envelope was 5¢. If it’s now $1.15 it sounds like it just might have exceeded the rate of inflation! :smiley:

I tried to order some stuff from Walmart last night. I hate that fucking place but the stuff I wanted was either discontinued or in some varieties hard to get from local stores and even Amazon.

As I went through checkout and entered my credit card number, the Edge browser popped up a little window asking if I wanted to save my CC information “to make ordering easier next time”. I selected whatever option was closest to “fuck you, I don’t want to make my payments ‘easier’ by spreading my CC information all over the place, and with any luck there won’t be a next time”.

Then I hit “next”. And the glorious Walmart app declared “failed to save credit card information” and went no further.

This was either grossly incompetent software design or blatantly aggressive salesmanship. Or both. The fuckers need to bill my credit card, not save it.

The action I took was the closest possible to checking the box that says “fuck you, you just lost an order, and lost a customer, though I always hated you anyway.”

We were discussing Walmart last night. I haven’t purchased anything there in many years, preferring to order from Amazon. My gf bought a dozen oil change pans from Walmart last year. I drilled 1/8 inch holes in the pans for her, making them totally useless for changing oil.

Why ?

They are used for dog training purposes, specifically NoseWork. Each pan has one hole.

So the dogs can breathe?