In one of my visits to the US last year, a woman was taken out of the line because she was wearing a period pad. Gave me flashbacks to that first flight, Barcelona to Dublin, and one of my classmates being taken to a side room by two customs agents so she could show them that yes, what she had in her crotch was an extra-large pad and not two kilos of drugs; just the color she’d gone should have been a clear indication of the nature of her “contraband”.
My son lost his shit tonight. He’s autistic and sometimes that’s the way it goes. This was a spectacular shit-show, so I’ll share it. I arrived home today, after chaperoning my daughter’s field trip. My son was very upset that I had been gone all day. Strike 1. I asked him to take his pills, and we skipped right over any remaining strikes and went right into detonation. He told me to kill myself. He blockaded doors. He texted vile things to me. He took water and poured it all over my side of the bed; not just on the bedding, but on the foam topper. He even lifted the topper and poured water on the mattress.
Fuck. My. Life.
And now it’s back at the same distribution center where it was on Halloween.
Is this the point where the parent in us has to remind them exactly how much they are worth as a deduction? At one point, Jr’s room lacked a door for a year. I figured that was easier than cleaning the woodchipper before I returned it. Did you discuss swapping beds with him?
I went away for vacation a few weeks ago. The day before my flight I received an e-mail regarding enhanced security screening. Apparently I had to be prepared to remove all food items and any electronics larger than my phone from my carry-on for screening.
I got to the airport and the line for screening was long. And it wasn’t moving. At all. Not for a long time. No one was moving past the scanners. Even though I got there really early I was beginning to get concerned.
Then it began to move. Not at marathon speed, but damn fast for an airport security line. I got to the scanner and I was instructed to leave my shoes on, and to leave EVERYTHING inside my carry-on.
Although they weren’t publicizing the reason for this temporary policy change ( and the preceding long delay) it was obvious that there were no gray plastic bins. At All. At JFK Airport. I wonder what happened to all of them. Theft or bad planning?
And on my way back - I confess, I was the idiot that forgot I had a bottle of water in my backpack. And I thought I saw actual fear on the face of the TSA agent as she told me to keep my hands in plain sight while she searched my pack. Luckily the scary water was soon taken away and rendered harmless. And I was grateful that there was literally no line ( yes, no one ahead of me or behind me ) so no one observed this and I didn’t inconvenience anyone. And I got my own 3 seat row to myself. I guess a lot of people don’t return from the Bahamas at noon on Saturday. Which was kind of why I picked a flight then.
Elementary school teachers dress up as Mexican caricatures and also as a border wall.
How fucking backwards can a school be if all the teachers participated in the racist farce?
Toyota is replacing the frame of my truck due to a recall thingy. So that’s good. What sucks is they’ve had it since Wednesday, it’s now Saturday and they haven’t finished it yet. They gave me a loaner, which is nice, but I can’t take my dog in it. And I’m getting on a plane at 10 on Monday and need to get my dog to the kennel…
Take an Uber to the vet. They have to take “service animals”.
Speaking of which, when I see this thread I read it as “turning the minirants up to Uber”. Am I the only one?
See, the Mexican thing, for Mardi Gras or suchlike, pchsa. But for Halloween? Do those teachers think sarapes will give you smallpox?
Fuck. I’m pretty sure I caught a norovirus, been taking 4 trips an hour to the bathroom all day.
I’m already a never-Buick customer because of a long association with dull vehicles for the sluggish elderly.
But it also occurs to me that “Buick” sounds like the noise people make right before they throw up.
There’s a solution for that: the agent should say “I’ll take the next person in line while you search for your documents”.
And if you are the next person in line, you should suggest it to the agent.
Went to a Starbucks today (for tea, not coffee) and they were playing Xmas carols. Chirpy, syrupy Xmas carols. I can deal with the holiday cups and the pumpkin-spice everything, but I can’t tune out the damned carols! I was at the same one on Thursday, and they had their regular crap music. Much better than Xmas carols!
I suspect this is an individual store thing, so I will go to a different Starbucks next time to test this, and boycott the offending one for the rest of the season. If that doesn’t work, I’ll have to work harder and try to find a Peet’s.
My airplane rant: I flew recently from Portland PDX to SFO and they were quite relaxed at the security line. I saw some people going through with shoes, and some without.
Me: do I have to take my shoes off?
TSA agent: only if they’ll set off the scanner.
How the hell am I supposed to know that until I wear them through and set off the scanner, or don’t? I don’t think there’s any metal in my sneakers, but what do I know? Am I an expert in shoe construction (hint: no, I am not)? So I took them off anyway. And they had zero seats at the other end of the line to put them back on. Bastards.
We texted a pic of our new Encore to the kids. Son replies “So you bought a Buick…to drive to bingo?”
My wife, not up on American culture, was confused. We had to explain Buick’s rep.
What’s up with the NFL dressing up their coaches like GI Joe this weekend? I thought Suck The Military’s Dick Day was next week.
I wish there was a way to tell my DVR to ignore certain programs in slots outside of prime time. I told you that I only want new episodes; no way in hell is any of that 11-hour “Outrageous Acts of Science” marathon new!
Maybe you shouldn’t have set it to “Record anything outrageous”…
Yeah, I told mine to record new episodes of Who’s Line - I now have a metric shitload of those. I’m slowly going through and marking them watched (so they don’t come back) and deleting them.
I look through the recording schedule every so often and cancel episodes that I don’t want.
That new Science Channel show about the possible historic origins of mythical beasts is another big culprit. Evidently, every new episode is preceded by all previous episodes, which aren’t marked as repeats so the DVR thinks they’re new and wants to record them. After deciding the series isn’t interesting enough to bother with all that, I simply canceled recording any of it.
We’ve had contractors working on a massive renovation in our condo for the past five weeks. Originally envisioned as a ten-day kitchen renovation, it spread to the dining room, hallway and two closets in series of jumps that required a lot of things to be moved three times (once by the contractors themselves). As a result, no central planning to keep livable space occurred – people piled things up willy-nilly in entrances and anywhere there was space, like the parts of the house we need to live in. Over and over we had to move stuff to have some living space for five weeks.
My personal space for chilling at the computer was especially sought-after, because I remorselessly kept it clear and usable. Every day or two I would come home to find contractor bags, plywood, lead pipes, and other crap – some of it old filthy stuff pulled out during demolition – set on my chair or keyboard or computer desk, or walling it off from usability. They managed to smash at least one of my desk decorations, which I didn’t notice until after they’d been paid and left.
My lovely spouse also saw my personal space as “hey, free dump!” during this period.
I am cranky.