I went to a thrift store the other day to get some cheap used housewares for a craft project.
While there, I HAD to use the restroom. There was no way I could have held it long enough to make it home.
And the restroom was the third worst I’ve seen in the past 4 months (I have two other specific examples in mind, both involved visible feces - this one lacked that which was the only thing in its favor).
The room smelled of urine.
There were pee-soaked paper towels on the toilet seat. There were pee-soaked paper towels on the floor in front of the toilet. There was other liquid (presumably pee) spattering the floor where the towels didn’t cover it. There was a wad of gum on the toilet just behind one of the hinges.
There was a massive pile of shredded toilet tissue next to the toilet - though that, I can’t blame on “people is pigs” because the dispenser was one of those that has multiple large rolls in a single holder, with the end result that NONE of the rollls would dispense ANYTHING (I wound up having to shred it myself to do what I needed to do).
I had to grab a wad of paper towels to get the pee-soaked towels off the seat so I could use it (waiting was not an option, just trust me). I’ve never had to force myself to use such a nasty bathroom before, but I had no choice.
Really, people? Do people REALLY think this is acceptable? Do people treat their home bathrooms like that? UGH!!!
A few years ago at JazzFest in NOLA, I was in line to use a porta-potty. There were maybe 25 porta-pottys lined up, each with a line of 15-20 people waiting to use it. Except for one, that had no line, right by the one I was waiting for.
Every so often someone who really had to go would walk up to the one without a line and peek in. Each time the person “EEEKED”, let go of the door, and ran off. People saw others look in and freak, yet they’d still hazard a glance, thinking maybe they could tolerate whatever was going on there. :eek:
::::shudder::::
I’ve used porta-potties maybe twice in my life.
They suffer from the horrifying combination of
hundreds of people needing to use them, usually quite urgently
no water supply - so every interior surface has been touched by someone’s hand that has been in contact with their smelly bits, with no way to wash them
people are generally a bit more lax about taking care of a public restroom (though not, in general, to the extent that a pig would take a look and go “duuuuuude, NOT cool”), and
If mishaps happen, you really have no way to clean up the area where the splatter happened, what with the lack of water and impatient people pounding on the door.
If the bathroom the other day had been as bad as one I saw in April (on a college campus, need I say more?) the choice between forcing myself to use the bathroom, and crapping my pants, would have been less clearcut.
I was really mad at my husband. But I forgave him easily as he didn’t know the extent of what was going on. How could he have? I’m annoyed that I do more of the hard, hands-on stuff but I’m also the bigger control freak in this relationship. I’m sure we will find a new balance at some point.
Back to mini-rants - I am sad because my grandfather is in the hospital and is likely not going to leave alive. He has alzheimers and decided it would be a good idea to take the trash out unassisted. He fell in the driveway and broke his hip. At some point after that, he also had a heart attack and his kidneys stopped working for some reason. He’s on a ventilator now, in a bunch of pain, sedated and we are in a holding pattern. My mother thinks this is it but my aunts and my grandmother seem to think there’s hope. They’ve tried getting him off the vent like 5 times now. They do breathing trials every day, where they put him in CPAP (I think) mode and see how he breathes on his own. I saw him on Sunday during one of these trials and he looked horrible. My heart hurts for him. So, I am sad.
Most days my backpack contains
A full sized laptop
Power adapter for above
A wireless access point ( I frequently set up temporary networks for the sole purpose of connecting my computer to equipment.)
Cables. Lots of cables. It varies day by day, I only take what I might need for the work I’m doing that day. But I have a couple of different configurations of serial cables. Different lengths of CAT5, ranging from 3 ft to 100ft. Electrical extension cords.
Tools. Wire cutters, strippers, a multi-screwdriver and a good voltmeter.
A bag of misc screws and connectors
Whatever spare parts I think I might need that day.
A sweater
My lunch
A bottle of water
A bottle of iced tea
Kindle
Cell phone
Wallet
And I actually “curate” this every day, they may be days when I’m fairly certain I won’t need the voltmeter, for example, so I’ll leave it at home. But it’s still lots of stuff that I have to drag around every day. If I’m working at the same location for more than one day I’ll leave stuff, but that hasn’t happened lately.
I may be getting usernames mixed up, but - are you the one whose daughter was diagnosed as autistic recently? The behavior sounds like stuff that happened with both of mine (who are both on the spectrum). How old is she?
We didn’t go to the super-fun park for many months because my daughter ran away from me last time we were there (she was six and I was also dealing with her two-year-old little brother so I couldn’t chase her very well). And that was the reason I gave her every time she asked to go, which was repeatedly.
We finally tried again a year later, and she ran from me again. We didn’t go back. Some environments are just too stimulating, I think, even though they are also fun. (Both kids did take the bus there this week by themselves - they are fifteen and eleven now. And they had a great time. She will eventually mature out of it, but it might take longer than you think.) I feel a little bad for the brother who didn’t get to enjoy the park when he was little because his sister couldn’t be trusted there, but that was just the way things were. He got to do other fun stuff.
Was just in Nevada last week. On Rt 95 between Tonopah and Hawthorn are 3 rest areas. We stopped in one on the way north and the water pressure was barely a trickle. On the way south, we stopped again, absoutely NO water at all to flush or wash hands … but the sprinkler watered LAWN was absolutely verdant … personally I would have preferred to have WATER for flushing and washing hands, but maybe I am strange.
So sorry, Alzheimer’s is an absolutely horrible condition. I honestly have to say let him pass in peace, it will never get better until they make some sort of medical breakthrough. I know I would not want my husk of a body tortured by medical processes if I were in the same situation.
On I-287 in New York, there used to be a rest area with a building labeled WHITE PLAINS. (It was well past any exits for White Plains…go figure.) In 2003 or so, my family stopped here for a potty break while on a road trip. As we were parking, I noticed an impressive collection of porta-potties outside the building. Why in the world would they need so many porta-potties at a seemingly permanent rest stop?
Two steps into the ladies’ room, I understood why. The stench was like a solid wall; it was the most putrid raw sewage you can imagine, left to stew in a warm, moist area. I never made it further into the restroom to find out what was reeking with such unholy power. Every porta-potty I’ve visited since that encounter has been tolerable by comparison. My mother, who actually went into that festering hellhole and peed, insists to this day that porta-potties are far more traumatizing.
The other day someone drove off without paying for gas.
While I was standing there telling him to go inside and pay for it.
While the manager was on the PA warning him to come inside and pay for it.
While FIVE police officers were in our store.
He sped off, blowing through two stop signs.
He got about 3 miles before they caught up to him.
He has multiple previous felony convictions and is only in his 20’s.
Apparently has a history of drive-offs too.
He decided to be mouthy with the cops.
Told them when they arrested him, and the judge at his bail hearing, that it was all their fault he drove off, that they were harassing him, that he paid for the gas, that I was harassing him by coming out to the pump to tell him he needed to pay for it, etc.
I’ll be slightly amused if his attorney decides to call me in to the trial.
They’ve been rolling out the new design of Twitter for desktop over the last few months, and I finally got it today. I think almost everyone will have it by now.
It’s horrible. Not only is it ugly in that “desperately trying to be contemporary” way redesigns so often start out like before we get used to them, but it’s cluttered, it’s moved features around, it’s taken useful features away, and is clearly just trying to continue the tabletisation of the desktop environment, meaning it would work great if it was tiny and you scroll with your thumbs, but is utterly nightmarish if it is large and scrolled using a keyboard and mouse.
In the last design, I had all the features I hated removed and additional handy features added via scripts, and now those don’t work anymore and it’s become disastrous “cool for short-attention-span millennials” bullshit.
I have temporarily rolled it back by using a User-Agent Switcher app, but I imagine even that won’t help for long.
Fingers crossed enterprising userscript developers swoop in and help fix some of the worst of it.
I’m old enough to remember the rest stops along the interstate highways, when they were new, back in the '50s. There would be nothing but an out house, with a wooden board and holes to pee/crap into. The stench and the flies were unbelievable. And the only way to wash your hands was a hand pump.
Nobody stopped at these places unless they really had to go, badly.
I had an employee who was screwing up far too often and just didn’t care. Yesterday she fucked up something that added hours of work to my day and I wasn’t happy about it. I’ve been tempted to fire her, but I’ve never fired anyone and wanted to keep my record going. So, I told her she fucked up, I wasn’t happy, and I asked that she pay more attention.
She quit without notice, and without leaving her keys. I changed the code for the alarm system and told everyone I would be calling a locksmith to re-key the doors. A friend of the woman who quit asked me why I needed a locksmith, wouldn’t it be cheaper to do it myself? I explained that money was no object; by quitting without returning her keys she was responsible for the cost of re-keying (in the employee manual) and I’d just take the money from her final paycheck. I’ve never had to do that before.
Last night I got a call from the security service that monitors my alarm. The police were on site with someone who entered the building and could not stop the alarm. The cop was just driving by and saw the lights strobing and heard the alarm whingeing. I drove over and a state cop told me the woman in the back seat of his car said she was an employee. I told him she was not, then I told him the details. I’m waiting today to hear from the cops about what I need to do next.
Possibly just returning her keys and too embarrassed to do that when I was there. Maybe taking cash, there was $4500 waiting for me to take it to the bank. But, who knows.
The cop last night was ready to just drop it. He told me that I might have to testify in court if things proceeded, and I told him I would be happy to testify.
It was often more pleasant to stop there, but instead of using the outhouse, walk a short ways into the trees to pee. Then come back and use the pump to wash your hands (and dry them on your pants, cause no paper towels). Sometimes you’d see several guys at various trees along the trail. But at least it provided a place to pull safely out of traffic & off the road.
