# Winter's a-coming! Season of Death Mini-Rants **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 18, 2010, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833 "2010-09-18T09:03:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 31
**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:** [October 19, 2010, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/601 "2010-10-19T21:08:47Z")
> [@Time\_Stranger](#): > > My mom bought a new house in Nov 2009. She has not yet moved in or even begun selling her old house, even though she cannot afford two mortgages. In March, her brothers and I took off a whole week to help her move, but when we showed up she had not packed anything, and then decided she wasn’t ready. She has pulled this “I’m going to move this weekend!” and then “oh, no, I’m not, but thanks for driving hours for nothing” several times since, so people have stopped offering to help her. Every time I drive down for a weekend she just complains about how much stuff she has to do, but then won’t actually let me help with any of it. > > She took off the last week to finally move, and she even claimed to have hired real movers. Of course, a week later, nothing much has happened. I don’t really know what else to do. She is not infirm or feeble, and she really doesn’t have that much stuff if she would just actually dedicate some time to accomplish it. I’m tired of hearing her complain about money woes when it’s completely avoidable if she would just move already! It’s just weird. Inertia is a powerful force. But for almost a _year?!?!_ Sounds like she’s scared of … something. Letting go of the past? ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/602 "2010-10-19T21:53:47Z")
Holy Fucking Crap! Today I stopped by my sister’s house after a walk in the woods (2,000 acre regional park trails), where my mother nannies my sister’s kids. My mother was reading a book and casually mentioned in reference to the book (whose title I didn’t get) that her father was a member of the [Hitler Youth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Youth). :eek: Ok, mom is 72, I’m 48, and this is the first I’ve heard of this. Her father died when she was 15, long before I was born, and honestly, I’ve never heard too many details about him or his life. Still… :eek: Alright, so I look up the Hitler Youth and see they operated from 1922 to 1945, and were pretty much the German version of the Boy Scouts for Germans of the Nazi political pursuation. Hell, after 1936 it was compulsory, so ALL Germans between the ages of 10 and 18 in that time period were in the Hitler Youth. But my mother was born here in the USA in 1938, the second child (brother born in 1936, I believe), so clearly grandpa came over before WWII began, and was a part of it over there before it was compulsory. Wow. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/603 "2010-10-19T23:07:35Z")
> [@Time\_Stranger](#): > > She took off the last week to finally move, and she even claimed to have hired real movers. Of course, a week later, nothing much has happened. I don’t really know what else to do. She is not infirm or feeble, and she really doesn’t have that much stuff if she would just actually dedicate some time to accomplish it. I’m tired of hearing her complain about money woes when it’s completely avoidable if she would just move already! It’s just weird. That honestly sounds like you’re dealing with a mental issue. Have you talked to her about life in general to see if she’s suffering from some significant depression or the like? ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/604 "2010-10-19T23:09:05Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Alright, so I look up the Hitler Youth and see they operated from 1922 to 1945, and were pretty much the German version of the Boy Scouts for Germans of the Nazi political pursuation. Hell, after 1936 it was compulsory, so ALL Germans between the ages of 10 and 18 in that time period were in the Hitler Youth. Pope Benedict was a member when he was young. A lot of people like to point this out and claim he was a Nazi, but as you say it was compulsory, and was much like the Boy Scouts of the time, so you can’t really pin anything on the kids ideologically. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/605 "2010-10-19T23:23:31Z")
> [@Time\_Stranger](#): > > She took off the last week to finally move, and she even claimed to have hired real movers. Of course, a week later, nothing much has happened. I don’t really know what else to do. She is not infirm or feeble, and she really doesn’t have that much stuff if she would just actually dedicate some time to accomplish it. I’m tired of hearing her complain about money woes when it’s completely avoidable if she would just move already! It’s just weird. Hey, the new place is already paid for. Move into it yourself. The elimination of your current housing costs might just make up for any extra commuting expenses. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/606 "2010-10-20T01:40:39Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Hey, the new place is already paid for. Move into it yourself. The elimination of your current housing costs might just make up for any extra commuting expenses. 😃 That’s not actually the worst idea ever - somebody in the family bringing an idea to her that they’d like to rent the place from her might spur her to actually move into it, or someone gets a good place to live for cheap (I’d suggest they pay rent). Win/win! I took my flat tire in to get fixed today, and the guy told me that the repair wouldn’t be covered under the tire insurance that I bought with the tires because I had run on it when it was flat. I disputed this (mostly politely - I may have called the insurance useless at one point) and said I had changed the tire as soon as I noticed it was flat, but he told me that I had driven on it, the insurance doesn’t cover that, and too bad for you. I get a call from him later saying that he had gone and looked at the tire himself, and found that it was indeed repairable and not driven on, so my insurance does cover the repair. On the one hand, yay free repair, on the other hand, female customers don’t care for being talked to like they’re stupid incompetents who don’t know what a flat tire feels like. I think he just cost himself a set of four tires that my husband will NOT be buying there now. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/607 "2010-10-20T02:35:53Z")
> [@Ace309](#): > > Man, fuck discrete time with a red hot poker. > > Why the fuck do we have to model everything using difference equations? Continuous time and differential equations are so much more intuitive. Do your students know calculus? If not, that’s perhaps your answer. Discrete time really is a headache. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/608 "2010-10-20T02:41:10Z")
This is probably the worst pit rant ever, but here goes… I’m fucking sick of sunny weather! With the exception of about 12 days total, it’s been sunny here in Dallas since the beginning of June! At least it’s not hot now, but this sunny weather is getting monotonous as hell. Give me some thunderstorms, rain and overcast! Anything to break up the weather! ---
**Author:** ![moejoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@moejoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moejoe)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/609 "2010-10-20T03:13:45Z")
Gosh coworker, really? Your adorable granddaughter says fish sticks but pronounces it fith thicks? That is just as FASCINATING as the other three hundred quirky things she says that you’ve shared with me today. Good thing I don’t have any actual work to do today. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/610 "2010-10-20T03:18:41Z")
> [@bump](#): > > This is probably the worst pit rant ever, but here goes… > > I’m fucking sick of sunny weather! With the exception of about 12 days total, it’s been sunny here in Dallas since the beginning of June! At least it’s not hot now, but this sunny weather is getting monotonous as hell. Give me some thunderstorms, rain and overcast! Anything to break up the weather! We had all of that today - I’d send it to you but I think it’s heading north… ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/611 "2010-10-20T05:50:23Z")
> [@](#): > > Forgot part of my corporate-drone rant: my office is apparently doing a little contest: decorate your office door. Halloween or autumn harvest theme, depending on your level of godlessness. Yay. Now I gotta go shill out dough for some crappy little art supplies. Am seriously considering scotch-taping a couple of dead leaves to my door and leaving it at that. Get one package of that fake spiderweb stuff. Get the smallest package possible. Now get some spiders. Use only a pinch of the fake spiderweb stuff, and stretch, stretch, stretch it. The wispier it is, the better it looks. I always used cellophane tape when I decorated our clothing store…it wasn’t a small store by any means, and I always had cobwebbing left over, even after I put it all over the display windows and every other surface I could find. I bought a dozen or so of those cheap plastic spider rings and cut off the ring portion. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/612 "2010-10-20T14:18:29Z")
Nah, just go out in your garage, basement, etc and find the biggest, baddest living spiders and release them in the office. Then roll your eyes and go “pfft. _Plastic_ spiders???” ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/613 "2010-10-20T14:27:00Z")
Hey mousies, the Jackmannii home is not your approved winter quarters! First I find a mouse corpse in the garage (the creature apparently fell into a plant pot and couldn’t climb out :(). Then I see one behind the TV set in the living room, very much alive and once detected, racing under the furniture. A few minutes later I’m scouting out places to put traps and sense movement. There at eye level a foot or so away, sits a mouse _on my bookshelf_, resting happily on a copy of Jan Harold Brunvand’s _The Baby Train_, goggling at me with its big black eyes (no, this is not an urban legend). While I’m wondering if there’s any way I can dispose of it quickly, it leaps up to the next shelf and hides behind a copy of the Physician’s Drug Reference. Bad move (this is a large, heavy book). I pound the book against the back of the shelf a couple of times. End of mouse. Now there are traps set all over the house and garage. When the Labrador pup comes home from boot camp there should be lots of fun. ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/614 "2010-10-20T14:48:32Z")
Our cat was making a racket in the middle of the night a few days ago. On investigation, she was batting around a dead SQUIRREL. A full sized gray squirrel! Pretty impressive kill for a fifteen year old cat whose usual prey is crickets. ---
**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:** [October 20, 2010, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/615 "2010-10-20T15:56:11Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Nah, just go out in your garage, basement, etc and find the biggest, baddest living spiders and release them in the office. Then roll your eyes and go “pfft. _Plastic_ spiders???” I believe we may have a winner. Hey, **Jack,** can I borrow some of those mice, too? ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/616 "2010-10-20T17:15:33Z")
> [@PeskiPiksi](#): > > Win, win, win! Except, apparently, for the sore ass. > [@niblet\_head](#): > > I take an Ambien, no dice. Same pattern. From my vicarious experience through friends and family with insomnia: 1.) Are you ensuring that you’re getting the brand medication and not a generic, if the brand used to work for you before? 2.) If the brand has never worked for you, have you tried switching to another? > [@moejoe](#): > > Your adorable granddaughter says fish sticks but pronounces it fith thicks? That is just as FASCINATING as the other three hundred quirky things she says that you’ve shared with me today. The only possible way to fight back is to constantly mishear her as vaguely plausible but highly inappropriate things. And act shocked and appalled. “Fith thits?!” :eek: > [@Jackmannii](#): > > fell into a plant pot and couldn’t climb out Read as “pot plant.” Was much more hilarious. > [@](#): > > I pound the book against the back of the shelf a couple of times. End of mouse. So now you have mouse guts all over your book and the shelf? Hoorah? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Dante](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dante/32/9673_2.png) [@Dante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/617 "2010-10-20T20:12:36Z")
Damn cell phone provider just changed their hardware upgrade option from 24 to 30 months. Just when I was looking forward to getting a shiny new toy. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/618 "2010-10-20T21:20:53Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Hey mousies, the Jackmannii home is not your approved winter quarters! > > First I find a mouse corpse in the garage (the creature apparently fell into a plant pot and couldn’t climb out :(). Then I see one behind the TV set in the living room, very much alive and once detected, racing under the furniture. That’s why God made cats. A few weeks ago I was on a long tedious conference call in my home office (a.k.a. the dining room) when I noticed all three of our cats prowling in my general area, on high alert. Something was clearly amiss in the cat world. My wife came downstairs and also began watching the feline patrol. Sure enough, they had found a small mouse and were working out the best attack strategy. It was much more entertaining than the meeting. Two weeks later my wife put our parrot’s cage outside so he could enjoy some fresh air. I was in another meeting when I heard the kids shout “There’s a squirrel in Tito’s cage!” The joys of working at home. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/619 "2010-10-20T21:47:36Z")
> [@Dante](#): > > Damn cell phone provider just changed their hardware upgrade option from 24 to 30 months. Just when I was looking forward to getting a shiny new toy. I don’t think they can change the length of your contract after it’s been signed. Presumably, you could look to see what they have available for off-contract plans (usually much cheaper) and then buy a shiny new phone (or an equally shiny but cheaper used or refurbished one) on your own. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833/620 "2010-10-20T22:08:33Z")
Oh sure they can. What you going to do? Sue them? I looked and I see it is Rogers who just changed that. One of the worst providers in the world. I had to call Rogers once on behalf of a customer. I was transferred 7 times in 20 minutes before I gave up. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833.md?page=30) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winters-a-coming-season-of-death-mini-rants/554833.md?page=32)