Where's the damn mini-rant thread when you need it?

The BBQ Pit
1

I’m pissed off.

This woman I’ve been friends with for years, and has been living in another state for a couple of years, instant messaged me on Thursday. She and her hubby (and another couple) are coming to town! They’ll arrive late Friday. They’ll be busy Saturday day, and maybe we could get together and karaoke somewhere Saturday night? And they’re leaving early Sunday morning. (Driving from Missouri to Houston.)

So I look up a likely place to meet, verified with a friend that it’s pretty good (a TexMex bar/grill that has karaoke that night!) and tell her about it. I give her my cell number, she gives me hers, and she says “she’ll run it by the troops.”

So Saturday afternoon, I’m waiting for her to call, and I get nothing. No, “sorry but we can’t make it.” Nothing. Around five o’clock I start scrambling for dinner makings. I still sort of expected to hear from her all evening - maybe they didn’t want to eat there or something.

No fucking phone call!! Fine, maybe she lost my number. No fucking e-mail, either! Ok, she doesn’t have access to a computer.

Now she’s presumably home, and still nothing.

Bitch. That’s just rude.

2

If she had to leave early Sunday morning, exactly how late did she think she’d be out with you singing karaoke on Saturday night? That sounds like poor planning on her part.

Seems a bit odd. I’d follow up and make sure nothing happened. Then see what her explanation is, and then proceed accordingly.

3

My daycare provider told me last Friday that she can’t take my due-in-December baby after all. That means I have to go through the whole process of finding good daycare all over again, for 2 kids this time. I can’t really pit her because it’s not her fault she is full, and she is wonderful so it’s no suprise she is in high demand. But now I either have to move my 3 year old out of a place he loves and has been at since he was 12 weeks old, or keep him there and find a place just for the baby, and I don’t want to drive all over dropping kids off at different places.

Crap. If I had the disposition for it I would quit my job and start my own daycare. Seems like everyone I know is going through the same issues right now.

4

In the past two weeks:

My Pelvic Affiliate’s dad had a cancerous kidney removed
Her pain-in-the-ass brother was in town telling everyone they need to live their lives like he lives his (sorry, dude. You’re a friggin’ mess)
Had to shell out for two new tires for P.A’s car
Got 2 teeth pulled (I still need to have two more pulled before I can get dentures. Dentures! At 38 years old! Whispering Pines Trailer Park, here I come…)
My P.A. broke her toe and can barely walk and can’t teach dance at the moment; this on top of Lyme disease, yeast all over (infections even in her ears), bad menstrual cramps and mental illness
My car died, so I spent $400 for a new alternator (which kept burning out) and I just found out that the wiring is all fried ('nother $1000)
They’re restructuring at work, our desks will probably have to move into a conference room (or possibly the cafeteria) for a month or so, and we’re getting PCs to do all of our graphics on :rolleyes:

On the bright side, this past two weeks is over. Now on to the next two.

5

Damn, Swampwolf, that’s a sucky two weeks!

6

True, but you know what? I’m not stuck in a mine somewhere, and I’m not the homeless woman a friend of mine knows who walked 45 miles in North Florida heat to get dentures to replace the ones that were stolen from her at the shelter.
So it ain’t all bad, put into perspective. But thanks for the sympathy. It’s nice to be able to bitch and be heard.

7

One tiny rant, coming up!

My beloved aunt, with whom I used to spend every weekend as a child, has moved far away and I rarely get to see her or her husband any more. To date, I haven’t seen her in well over a year.

She’s in town, and promised me and my husband an entire day to hang out. As her husband put it, ‘‘The visit wouldn’t be complete without getting to see you guys.’’

My husband doesn’t get out of work until 5pm that day, and now she’s telling me they have to leave my house at 7pm* that day to watch So You Think You Can Dance? Are you fucking kidding me? Husband only gets to see you for an hour because you have a fucking TV SHOW to catch?

That really blows.

*We’re not talking old and wrinkly relatives, here. We’re talking young, active college students who could easily stay 'til 10pm to catch some good times with me and the hubby. Lame.

8

Reasons such as these are why I don’t do rants. No matter how bad I think I have it, I don’t. I hope those guys are still stuck in that mine, by the way.

9

I almost started this thread last night at work.

Ahem. Attention, fellow members of my community. See all the big flashing lights in the sky? Hear all the big boomy noises? See the tree branches moving and tossing madly through the air?

It’s called a thunderstorm, shitwit. With high winds. And what happens every time we get a thunderstorm with high winds? Take your time and think about it. I’ll wait.

Well, no I fucking well won’t.

The power goes out, dumbass, it goes out 3 or 4 times a summer when storms move through, and unless you just moved to this state 5 minutes ago you damn well know it, so why the holy blue FUCK did we take no less than 30 911 calls in 2 hours last night from people wanting to know why their power was out (you got a window, moron? Open it!), and is anyone going to be fixing it (no, we’ve decided to convert the entire county to Amish), and how soon will they have it back on, and do I have a different number to the electric company because the number they have keeps ringing busy (maybe because the electric company is now fielding calls from every shithead in the county complaining about how they’re missing “America’s Greatest Surviving Dance Idol”, maybe, ya think?) and what are they supposed to dooooo???

(And it’s the same fucking story every single time we have a power outage anywhere, no matter what time of day or night. You’d think after 6 years I’d be used to it. But we were busy as hell last night even without all the de-electrified dinkwhackers calling in every two minutes, and it got old fast.)

Don’t even get me started on the people who call 911 when their toilet backs up.

10

Hey Jefferson County Sheriffs office! When you call somebody about their background check, don’t start your message with “Mr. Optimist, your fingerprints were rejected by the FBI.” Start with “We need to you to come in and re-do your fingerprints” and add explanations about the FBI having problems after.

Jeez. Running through my mind was every traffic violation I’ve committed - “Are they really cracking down on people with busted headlights?”, “Did I pay that ticket for expired plates that time?”, “Oh crap, what if I needed to pay import duty tax stuff on that flash disk I ordered from overseas? Treasury is after me, I bet!”

11

Airlines, is it really sush a difficult concept that there are two sizable airports in town, and most of us don’t give a fuck which one we have to use to get us to our destination? Make the search engine able to handle two airports.

Orbitz can do this, although you have to tell it specifically to do so after a message pops up, “WARNING There are 2 Airports in Houston!” No shit, search them both. And for the one guy that has a grudge against Hobby, tough shit, just ignore the results that come back for the particular airport you have vowed to never set foot in again.

12

(Background. I am an admin and work for two executives. I am responsible for, like, everything. Fellow admins will relate.)

Are you kidding me? I’m talking to the network tech trying to figure out why our sole network printer/copier machine isn’t working and you come up and wave a document in my face??? You want I should pat you on the head and give you a cookie??? I’ll be with you in a minute!

No, really, are you kidding??? Five minutes later I’m talking to the network tech in front of the whirring/banging/clanging network printer and you’re calling my name. Calling my name. Calling my name. CALLING MY NAME. “Can you shut my door?”

I’M TALKING TO THE NETWORK TECH ABOUT WHY OUR SOLE NETWORK PRINTER IS NOT WORKING. ARE YOU A TODDLER??? ARE YOU UNABLE TO WAIT YOUR TURN??? ARE YOU UNABLE TO WALK AROUND YOUR GODDAMN DESK AND SHUT YOUR OWN GODDAMN DOOR??? You could have walked over and shut it and walked back your desk and sat down and then got up again, walked around your desk and opened it and do the circuit a second time in the time you were sitting on your ass bleating at me when I clearly couldn’t hear you and shut. your. own. god. damn. DOOOOOOOOOOOR! Grow the fuck up!

13

Same agency… Hey! Next time you assholes say that the ambulance is okay to come into the scene, there better by God be some actual deputies there! Tell this “we determined it was safe over the phone talking to the guy who doesn’t speak English” shit to the large & gathering crowd between me and my patient. :mad:

14

Fuck cancer.

My friend was diagnosed with ovarian cancer on July 4th. She died this morning.

Fuck cancer.

She was 51 years old.

Fuck cancer.

15

Word…FUCK,

My SIL diagnosed with inoperable prancreatic cancer…age 49. Gave her two months tops!

Fuck it!

16

“And where is my coffee, I always have coffee with my cookie.”

17

In Spain there’s these “homebuyer’s accounts,” where you save money toward, well, buying a house, and this gets you a pretty nice tax discount. But the accounts are only good for so long.

Mine was reaching the end of its life, so I needed to buy or hand a sizable chunk of money to the gumnit. I’d started it before my work life went nuts - I was a lab assistant (weekend and vacations shift), now I’m a consultant getting most offers for out-of-country. After some hemming and hawing and having got a job in the town where I was born (my family live 90km away), I plunked it down into a flat in a village nearby, up in the mountains. It’s got a good resale value and can be rented out, either to permanent renters or in the summer. The job didn’t last; the boss-woman had done her best to get a group of Ideas People (and she did obtain it), when what she actually wants is yes-people; I got an offer for a very-highly-paid position in Switzerland and took it. The main reason wasn’t the money, though, it was getting out from under that boss.

I’d set one of the bedrooms aside for Mom and let her choose the decorations there. I also put up stuff she’d bought for me and which isn’t necessarily something I would have spent a penny on. For example, there is a woodcut artist in my home town who does fantasy and geometry stuff because she likes it (and I love that stuff), local landscapes because people like my Mom buy them for their children (I don’t like them); guess which ones Mom bought… oh wait, I already told you!

I’ve been here in “the hereabouts of Switzerland” since last November. A friend is flat-sitting for me; he gets a place he can afford on his tiny salary (less than minimum wage because he’s “on practice”), I get to know that if my pipes burst someone will call a plumber. Yesterday I was on the phone with Mom and she says
“I know I’m mad with you about something but don’t remember what… oh yes! The Village flat!”
“What about it?”
“Well, I helped you decorate it”
“… So?”
“So, I thought you were going to stay there forever! You know, I helped you!” (right, remind me again why I’m never buying a flat in Barcelona? Oh yes that’s right, because I’d need the fucking Nacionales to keep you out of it! I give you a piece of my space and you’re angry that you don’t have it all - thanks, Momma, I love you too but not right now)
…
After counting to ten and taking a deep breath, I answered “that’s funny, I hadn’t expected that particular job to last more than a couple years at most and as you well know, there aren’t many jobs in my line in that area.”

But I still want to throw the fucking woodcuts at her head. Followed by the washing machine in her flat (which is my hand-me-down), her computer (again a hand-me-down, from me to bro to her) and, dunnow… those curtains and €600 glasses on which she spent money she’d borrowed for plumbing?

18

Wow. SnakesCatsLady and eenerms win the thread for those. Fuck cancer, indeed. :frowning:

My post is so utterly insignifcant in comparison. But still…

Fuck the ignorant and surly replacement bus drivers.

You see, part of the trolley is out of service. It’s a pain in the ass, but I understand that the tracks need routine maintenance. So they are running shuttle busses. The bus stops are usually a block or three away from the trolley stops, so most people have to walk a little extra. Once again, a pain in the ass but understandable.

What is not understandable is how fucking ignorant the bus drivers are, and how jerkish they are about it. Case in point:

The other day a bus stopped at a traffic light. A girl asked to get off. The bus driver told her that this was not a stop. I didn’t hear the full conversation, but it ended with the girl slumping in a seat and and whispering “Fucking asshole!” The bus driver sort of mentioned to me “Beaconsfield? Never heard of it.”

I would have said something, but I was busy picking my jaw off the floor. Never heard of it? Is that a fucking joke? Yeah, I know it’s a new stop, having been established in the past… Well, more than 27 years ago, at least. I’d bet this asshole’s entire lifetime salary and pension that Beaconsfield has been around for at least a decade, and probably many, before the disappointed young lady was even born. “Never heard of it”? It takes a special kind of diabolical effort to achieve that level of ignorance.

19

My utility used to be like this (the “high winds” only needed to be in the range of 20 mph for the power to go out), until enough people bitched to the public utility commission and the power co. got its act together, somewhat.

Trust me, there are lots of places where the power doesn’t go out every single time there’s a thunderstorm.

20

We should have an thread for assistant’s tiny rants. Here’s my current favorite:

My boss persists in walking past my office, going into his office, shutting (and half the time locking) his door, immediately picking up the phone and calling me to ask me to come into his office so he can tell me something. FUCKING QUIT THAT! Just tell me when you walk by my goddamn desk!

While we’re at it, you can also abandon the following practice:

Step 1) Think of task to give me
Step 3) Inquire as to how well I’m progressing on said task

Clever readers will note the absence Step 2) - namely, actually telling me about the task I am to perform. Getting pissy with me because I failed to do something that you failed to request me to do is just pissing me off, buddy. It doesn’t actually help get things accomplished.