# Turning the minirants up to 11ber **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 2, 2018, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879 "2018-11-02T06:18:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![DummyGladHands](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@DummyGladHands](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DummyGladHands)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/161 "2018-11-24T16:47:37Z")
> [@overlyverbose](#): > > My mini-rant: I am the hunted and if people don’t stop talking to me and touching me I will personally build a soundproof closet to put them in, stuff them in, lock it and throw away the key. > > Here’s my (too long and lame) tale of woe. Thanksgiving is over, I slip off for some quiet time after having spent about 4 hours cooking. The kids find me and drape themselves across me and immediately begin talking, asking questions about the ebook I’m reading, which isn’t appropriate for them, so I turn it off. I’m sitting there, casting about for a nice way to express my desire to be alone and my son starts playing with my hair, my daughter starts rubbing my face and breathing her nasty post-Thanksgiving breath into my nostrils and both are talking incessantly. > > I explain that I’m getting stressed and could really use some personal space and that it helps me recharge and I’m going to get seriously cranky in a few minutes if I don’t get to chill for a bit on my own. “Personal space” to them means move about 3 feet away and start yelling at each other. Well, fuck a duck. > > I pick up some crochet work I’d been doing and start doing that. After all, it’s not a screen they can be distracted by, nothing particularly interesting to them. Yet my 12-year old son wanders over and starts watching, my 9 year old daughter perches her tiny butt on the arm of my chair, gets handsy with the work in my hands and BOTH start talking at me, telling on each other for whatever they’d been doing to annoy each other. > > I tell them firmly I need space and call my husband for backup because I am about to snap like a damn rubber band. He helpfully walks in, throws himself down on the couch next to me and immediately begins asking question after question about crocheting. When he starts picking at my sweater, asking whether it’s crocheted or knitted (it’s commercially produced so I have no fucking idea), I smile and go to the bathroom, taking my ebook with me. About 1-2 minutes later while I’m brushing my teeth and reading (I wrongfully thought, “Ahh, quiet. Sweet, sweet silence.”) when my husband knocks on the door to ask me how to clean the roasting pan. For what it’s worth, you clean the damn pan like you clean any other pan, it’s just larger and you have to dump any chunks into the trash before you wash it. The kids test the door knob because it’s fucking hilarious and start arguing because someone pushed someone else. > > Fast forward a few more hours of this later. Finally, the kids are in bed, so I walk into the bedroom (alone!), shut the door and lay down with my ebook. My husband walks in, throws himself down on the bed, nudges my book out of the way with his (unshowered) head, starts kissing me then wants to talk about the stock market. Probably the reason we were taught as kids, along with toilet training, that we could never ever ever ever enter our parents bedroom ---
**Author:** ![ENugent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/4af34b/32.png) [@ENugent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ENugent)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/162 "2018-11-24T17:42:11Z")
> [@kayT](#): > > I’m so sorry; hope things turned out ok. The emergency vet thinks he probably has a brain tumor. ☹ He wasn’t walking very well right after the seizure, but that seems to be OK this morning. We confined him to the laundry room last night to keep him from trying to jump on things before he was stable again, but he seems to be walking OK this morning. Our vet is away for Thanksgiving, but has been IMing with me about him. At least he came home last night. I suspect that we will all take our time to say goodbye and then put him down in the next couple of weeks. ☹ ☹ ☹ ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/163 "2018-11-24T19:16:18Z")
Oh I’m so sorry about your kitty. It’s always hard to say goodbye and even harder in this season. I know you gave him a great life, and just know that there are bunches of us here on SDMB who are sending you our sympathy. Give the kitty all the treats he can eat and a cuddle from me. ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/164 "2018-11-24T19:44:06Z")
I live a two hour plane ride away from my mother, and when I visit her she tends to try too hard to be hospitable. I try to be a grateful son and bear it, but not always successfully. Later on ( long after the greetings and “catching up” chatting ) I’ll be sitting on her couch, upright, feet on the floor, enjoying whatever I’m reading and she’ll see me, and this happens: - Her: Come on, relax! Put your feet up - Me: No, I’m fine - Her: Get comfortable! - Me: I am comfortable - Her: You don’t know how to relax. - Me: What do you mean? I prefer to sit this way. I’m comfortable - Her: How can you be comfortable that way? Why can’t you just relax? - Me: I am comfortable, and I am relaxing…but I gotta say this debate is making me less and less relaxed. If I were to sprawl out on the couch lying down, I’d be doing something I DO NOT feel like doing. Or, when getting ready to go to turn in: - Her: Are you warm enough? - Me: Oh yes, fine. - Her: I’ll get you some more blankets. - Me: No no no. You know me…I have thick blood. I get hot easy and I like it cool. - Her: Really…it’s no trouble - Me: PLEASE! I’m fine! - Her: Here, here’s the remote, watch some TV. - Me: Nah…I’m gonna turn in - Her: You mean you don’t watch TV in bed? - Me: No. Never. Don’t even keep one in the bedroom. Don’t want to. - Her: ( incredulous ) Hhhhmmmm. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/165 "2018-11-25T03:38:47Z")
A friend of my aunt had to evacuate her home near Paradise because of the Camp Fire. She came home to find that her house had been spared, but it had been looted of all of her valuables. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/166 "2018-11-25T08:21:23Z")
> [@BrickBat](#): > > I live a two hour plane ride away from my mother, and when I visit her she tends to try too hard to be hospitable. … The Bros and I have been known to ask Mom (and, less frequently, each other) "we’ve known each other for _how long_?"when one of us is having trouble processing something that the questioner has done for decades. ---
**Author:** ![road\_lobo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d78d45/32.png) [@road\_lobo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/road_lobo)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/167 "2018-11-25T08:46:35Z")
> [@garygnu](#): > > At my wife **mrs.gnu** ’s one year review at her job as payroll coordinator, she was given a $2/hour raise. The people in HR threw a fit and convinced the CEO to overrule it down to $1. Shitty, but worse is that the same day that CEO gave her a Thanksgiving basket of food for “working long hard hours” and “being under financial stress.” > > Fortunately, after a week (and her boss fighting back a little), the original raise was restored. > > I promise the CEO wasn’t Mr. Shirley from _Christmas Vacation_ or Michael Scott or Bill Lumbergh. I’m glad the raise was restored. This sort of thing weighs on my mind. Every day there’s a new reason to be embarassed to be a human being. ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/168 "2018-11-25T12:31:00Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > A friend of my aunt had to evacuate her home near Paradise because of the Camp Fire. She came home to find that her house had been spared, but it had been looted of all of her valuables. ☹ :mad: I hate people. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/169 "2018-11-25T15:35:26Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > A friend of my aunt had to evacuate her home near Paradise because of the Camp Fire. She came home to find that her house had been spared, but it had been looted of all of her valuables. This level of arseholism is exceptional. ---
**Author:** ![eenerms](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cdc98d/32.png) [@eenerms](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eenerms)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/170 "2018-11-25T23:30:09Z")
So “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” is racist now? ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/171 "2018-11-26T03:19:09Z")
> [@eenerms](#): > > So “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” is racist now? Context? ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/172 "2018-11-26T03:25:52Z")
> [@eenerms](#): > > So “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” is racist now? “Charlie Brown Thanksgiving SO UNFAIR. Great Pumpkin presented as Fake News. Just because LARGE & ORANGE. That. Is. Racism!" ---
**Author:** ![eenerms](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cdc98d/32.png) [@eenerms](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eenerms)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/173 "2018-11-26T03:48:03Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Context? Franklin ( kid of color)had to sit on lawn chair during Thanksgiving. Oh yeah off to the side. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/174 "2018-11-26T06:53:43Z")
Where the hell did that 1st come up? ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/175 "2018-11-26T08:40:41Z")
My house has a low, easily climbable wall. Because it is over 100 years old, local zoning laws prevent me from raising it. I have security “beams” that sound the alarm but due to position they can’t cover where we park. Recently I caught a very hung-over homeless guy asleep in my wife’s car. She had not locked it. He’d obviously decided to rob us but fell asleep on the job. I chased him out, he won some small change from the ashtray that we use for parking, but that’s all. But then he came back. And my wife had not locked the car again (this is becoming something of a theme) and this time, he got a pair of expensive trail running shoes. He triggered our alarm as he tried to go further into the garden, so he did not manage to steal my wife’s insanely expensive yoga mat, which also came out the car, (who knew yoga mats could get expensive? **I** knew.) which he left behind after he vaulted the wall. And he came again. And who forgot to lock her car? And, this morning, again, and guess whose wife didn’t lock the car? Let me not mention my disappointment at my two large dogs, for whom a soft bed in a warm place is clearly preferred to doing some sort of guard dogging. Anyway. Judging from his clothes and the fact that he passed out during his first robbery, it’s clear that this guy is not an expert in the thievery business. But he has worked out that my wife’s car is a soft target. I would like him to stop, and given that he’s been back now 4 times, I would like him to be stopped in a fucking unpleasant way. I would, also, despite my incredible anger that my wife has not learnt something of a lesson here, to remain married, because in every area aside from “locking cars” she is the perfect companion for me. This puts me in a quandary, because I would very much like to do things that are illegal to this fine gentleman, but if I do so I may be placed in jail; which in turn would probably lead to divorce. Right now my second best plan (the first best plan is illegal, so I can’t post it here) is to glue razor blades smeared with raw chicken (to assist with infection) on the parts of the wall where he habitually climbs. Or I could try to remind my wife to LOCK THE FUCKING CAR. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/176 "2018-11-26T09:03:16Z")
1. Speak to your dealership about getting auto locks for your doors. Your car might have that feature but you can turn them on or off. Well, check the car manual, first, I suppose. 1a. If it’s not possible to turn on auto locking for your wife’s car, get a spare key fob and hang it by the door you let the dogs out for their bedtime whiz. Make it your own habit to press the lock feature before you and your dogs repair for your beauty sleep. This will be 100% more effective than nagging your wife. 1. Look into getting web cams with cloud backup to cover the place where you park. When you get a good headshot of the dude take it to the cops. 2. It might be worth signing up for a month of service from a web cam that’s monitored by a security system that can send in the mounties if they spot the guy. Shouldn’t take long. He’s obviously made your spot his fishing hole. 3. Consider getting a garage, preferably one with auto locking door. 4. Fill the car with skunks. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/177 "2018-11-26T09:09:00Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > 1. Fill the car with skunks. I will look very closely into this; however, I’m not sure how easy it would be to obtain the sufficient number of skunks (I’m estimating 4 to 6 for a sedan-size car?) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Vorlon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@The\_Vorlon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Vorlon)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/178 "2018-11-26T11:34:14Z")
> [@scudsucker](#): > > I will look very closely into this; however, I’m not sure how easy it would be to obtain the sufficient number of skunks (I’m estimating 4 to 6 for a sedan-size car?) One might do it, if said weapon just woke up from a all winter nap and was, shall we say, fully charged… ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/179 "2018-11-26T14:46:14Z")
I live in a country that has no skunks, so if I am going to import any I am going to import enough to do the job. I’d estimate the volume of the interior of the car to be around 7 cubic metres. I’m basing my estimate on 0.8 to 1.3 skunks per cubic metre. I’m not sure what the going rate is for skunks is these days: perhaps I could get a deal on Etsy Note: I have never met a skunk in person so my estimate may be inaccurate. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879/180 "2018-11-26T14:59:15Z")
> [@scudsucker](#): > > I will look very closely into this; however, I’m not sure how easy it would be to obtain the sufficient number of skunks (I’m estimating 4 to 6 for a sedan-size car?) 1 will do. Trust me. However, skunks don’t like to spray in confined spaces. More likely, what’ll happen is the skunk will freak out, run out of the car, and then spray, necessitating the guy to shut himself in the car to avoid most of the foulness. 😃 Perhaps a better plan is needed… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turning-the-minirants-up-to-11ber/823879.md?page=10)