<upon hearing multiple utterences of the word mat…matt…ma…mmmmmaaa…mattr…
oh to frell with it, MATTRESS, MacTech goes and puts a bucket over his head>
*I love my answering machine,
I love my answering machine;
It keeps the people I know away from me.
Do you wanna go to dinner?
Should we meet somewhere at eight?
Only if I can take my answering machine.*
I’m getting my wedding dress made by a dressmaker. This is because I’m short and funny shaped, so it would cost a hell of a lot more to buy one off the rack and have it altered. I’ve looked into it.
Suddenly everyone is telling me about how their mother/sister/neice/cousin/friend/whatever managed to pick up a dress off the rack for ALMOST NOTHING that FIT LIKE A GLOVE and how I’m throwing money away by having my dress made for me.
Or how their friend had a wedding for 2000 people on a shoestring budget, or how their friend spent a fortune on a tiny, intimate, one-of-a-kind wedding. Apparently because we’ve chosen a traditional wedding with 100 guests and a realisitc budget there’s something wrong with us.
I worked with this guy who always had to actually have THE best fill-in-the-blank. Not just for bragging rights (I’ve known several of those). And not always the most expensive. Anything he had had to be upgraded the minute anything better came out…so one day his former college room mate (we were a small company, nepitism-were-us) clues me in:
If you wanted anthing “J” had, all you had to do was offhandedly mention that a new model had come out. “Hey, “J” You have a fill-in-the-blank…do you think that your model X is better than the widgetco model Y that just came out?” “J” would immediatly spring into emergency research mode to determine if it might be better. Odds are, it would be better, and the old model would immediatly be offered for sale at pennies on the dollar.
I tried it, it worked. I decided I wasn’t happy with myself being that manipulative, so I didn’t do it again.
I work in a casual-dress office. One of my coworkers, K, came in one day wearing jeans and a plain black T-shirt. He must have been calling attention to his new clothes, because I heard Coworker A say “nice T-shirt, K.”
Coworker K stopped dead in his tracks. “It’s a Hugo Boss shirt,” he informed A.
Coworker A wasn’t fazed by this revelation. “I hate to break it to you, but it’s a T-shirt.”
“It’s a Hugo Boss shirt! My fiancee paid $60 for it!”
Coworker A looked somewhat amused. “Well it’s a very nice T-shirt, and I’m sure it’s very comfortable, but --”
Coworker K just stomped off, grumbling that Coworker A didn’t know what she was talking about. Coworker A and I had a good laugh when he left.
Oh, believe me, the wedding boards are all about either how someone had fifty guests for $200,000 and each guest had a handmade crystal reproduction of the groom’s penis that cost $10,000 apiece
OR
How someone spent $15 on a wedding with 300 guests and a sit down dinner of filet mignon, and how everyone said it was the most beautiful wedding they’d ever seen and the decorations were stunning although she got them at Party City for $7.50 and how STUPID it is to spend more than $20 for a wedding.
I feel your pain, as one of those more realistic-budgeted brides (well, it was a little above the average, but that’s because my parents insisted on a full bar…).
And I have a friend who has to top you with everything you do, but NEGATIVELY.
I was upset one day, having gone to the doctor and having been told that my chances of pregnancy were lowered, and that I would need to have surgery before I could get pregnant, and even that wouldn’t guarantee anything - so yes, I was very upset. I told her, and instead of telling me she was sorry or comforting me, I got “Well, you’re lucky, at least you’re married. No one will EVER love me or want to marry me. At least you GOT married.”.
I didn’t speak to her for a couple of months after that, and it still really, really bothers me.
E.
Elza B- I am so sorry that you had to put up with that kind of behaviour from someone you considered a friend. You needed hugs and comfort, not oneupmanship and self pity.
Although I’m not sure what your current situation is, may I wish you good fortune and happiness for your future, and that everything you hope for is realised.
Thanks:) - actually, it now looks a little more positive - I’m still scheduled for surgery in the fall, provided I’m not pregnant by then. I saw another doc who was a little more optimistic, and has said that while the surgery may help, based upon family history and my own medical history, he thinks I should be able to get pregnant without the surgery. So I hope he’s right.
And I hope your wedding goes beautifully! I don’t blame you for having a dress made - I wish I had done the same since I’m short and oddly shaped. Besides, having one made means you get exactly what you want. Good luck to both you and your future husband!
E.
See this thread. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=322799 Ask Mother Dare_devil007, she’ll know.
Don’t know my coding yet, but see the thread in MPSIMS, re: My parents never cease to surprise me. :eek:
Mattress firmness should be selected based on the body position you typically sleep in. The idea is to support the body such that the spine is aligned while sleeping, without having to rely on the nervous system and musculature to take care of this alignment. Your body will always maintain spinal alignment while you sleep, but if you are properly supported by your mattress, you relieve your body of the necessity for continuous muscle contraction.
In general, if you sleep on your back, you want a firm mattress, and a soft pillow. If you sleep on your side, you want a softer mattress but a firm pillow to keep your neck in line with your spine.
Pshsh, you guys think *you *got it bad? You should meet some of the people I know . . . 
Here are some typical remarks made by Miss Tiny and Delicate who works in our office.
*
“An extra pound wouldn’t even show on you bigger girls but I’m just so tiny that one extra pound means none of my clothes fit any more!”
“I’m sure cosmetics and soaps from the drugstore are just fine for all of you but my skin is just so sensitive that I have to have expensive things from department stores.”
“Everyone else who works here is so big and healthy that having a little cold isn’t a big deal. It’s just that I’m so tiny and fragile that even the sniffles send me to bed for a week.”
“I wish I could buy my sheets at J. C. Penny and Sears like you all do. Sheets like that are much too scratchy for me because I’m so delicate. I require really high thread counts to be comfortable.”
“I really like how you girls can wear cheap costume jewelry. I’m so tiny and delicate that things like that look ridiculous on me and cheap metals give me hives. I have to have all my jewelry custom made from gold in an itty bitty size for my itty bitty body.”
“You don’t know how lucky you are that you can wear big flat shoes like those! I’m so tiny I just have to wear high heels. And my feet are so little they get tired really fast. I just can’t be on them as much as you girls who wear big sizes.”*
Mark my words. Someday someone is going to plant a big flat shoe in her tiny delicate rear. It just might be me.
My last boyfriend was like this- anything I revealed about myself, he had to one-up. You have a good joke about rabbits? Well, he has a BETTER joke about rabbits. You think your friends are sketchy? Well, HIS friends are MORE sketchy. You have unhealthy eating habits? Well, last week he went an entire two days on nothing but a jar of olive paste! You’re a tactile person? Well, HE’s a MORE tactile person! You read a book about Russia? HE’S read MORE and BETTER books about Russia! Ad infinitum.
The best exchange, however, was this:
normal discussion
Me: Yeah, I guess I can be a competitive person…
Him: I’M a REALLY competitive person. I don’t know anyone more competitive than me!
No joke- he was SERIOUSLY starting a competition about who was more competitive! And he didn’t realize it! At that point, all I could do was crack up. The irony was lost on him…
Love your user name, too!
I just had this happen to me last week while I was reading this thread! I was telling someone about something awful my mom did when I was young, and thye came back with “You don’t know bad parents…mine were really bad.” :rolleyes: Um, I know she wasn’t physically/sexually abused, actually very similar to my experience, so I always commiserated with her, the least she could do is commiserate back.
It’s my IRC handle… 
Has been since 1999 at the latest.
le sigh
I don’t know if it’s snobbery or oneupmanship, but I thought about this thread yesterday when hubby was on the phone with a friend. We’ve had a couple nights of severe weather, high winds, heavy rain.
“My rain gauge showed 3 inches.”
“Well, my rain gauge showed 3.5, and my yard is a lake.”
“I lost a bunch of shingles off the garage roof.”
“Hell, that’s nothin’, the wind took the paint off mine.”
And so on. These two only live a block apart.
If it hasn’t been done already, please, please, please put a pair of Barbie high heels on her desk and tell us of her reaction. Maybe even put them in a cute little box with a teensy bow with a teeny-tiny card stating how you hope they help her poor little feet. 
“Well, my cat is 50% Persian, 50% Siamese, and 50% Himalayan!”
[
But I have to ask: Why would somebody have this attitude about their frickin’ mattress? And is there anything weirder than that to be snooty about?
[/QUOTE]
Freud, man. It’s all about the firm mattress .