Pet Peeves: Aka Things That Make You Go "Gah!"

[JTMacc99]

I can do basic plumbing and electrical. I changed a toilet out because I was bored once (and because the old one was the $20 builders special) for example. 

It is definitely worth learning how to do stuff, and YouTube is amazing in this respect.  I recommend giving small stuff a try and working on your skills.

But those basic skills aren't going to help me with the way my washing machine keeps making the "unbalanced load" beeping two or three times each time I start a new load, or with the way my 16 year old refrigerator is making a nasty buzzing sound for a few seconds whenever it kicks on, or the water on the ground around the furnace. 

For those problems, I need to work on my saving money in the bank skills, which are as important as any other when it comes to owning a home. Shit breaks, and isn't cheap to replace. Sigh. 

Edited January 3, 2017 by JTMacc99

[BookWoman56]

I have a newly discovered very specific peeve: lack of pricing info on websites for preschool/daycare websites. Through a combination of circumstances, I need to find a daycare center very quickly for a 4-year-old. Using a search engine brings up numerous centers fairly close to where I live. However, not a single one lists tuition costs. They have a ton of info about their activities and so forth, but make it so you have to call them to find out prices or in some cases, go take a freaking tour before they will give you prices. Although price is obviously not the only criterion to consider when choosing daycare, there's no point in a parent/guardian who can't afford $200/week having to call/tour a center to find out that it is out of his/her price range. Given that the range of prices is fairly large (of the ones I've talked to so far, one charges $144/week, another $188/week, and apparently there's one out there for $110/week), it would be extremely helpful for these places to list their prices. If the prices change, then update them. I've tried going to a couple of sites that supposedly compare daycare centers, and they've turned out to be essentially clickbait. I just don't understand the reasoning behind not listing the prices. It would be much easier to be able to filter the results according to location and price, then go look at 2-3 to see which one would work the best. As it stands, I will most likely have to spend hours on the phone to get basic pricing info and whether they have space available.

[Quof]

There's a national chain gym in Canada that does the same. They refuse to publish their price (even locally, to allow for differences across the country).  And they won't tell you the price when you ask on the phone, or even if you just walk in. You have to meet with a Membership Specialist and take a tour first.  It's rumoured that no 2 people in the entire country pay the same price. And there are lots of complaints of shonky automatic bank withdrawals, to the point that people close their accounts or even change banks to make it stop.

[theredhead77]

@Quof that sounds like 24 Hour Fitness in the States.

[Quof]

I once wanted to pay in full for my yearly membership, because I knew I would use it (back when I was young and disciplined), and surely it would be the cheapest option?  For whatever reason, it was cheaper to make 26 biweekly payments, so I said sure, put it on my credit card.  They asked for my banking information.  I refused. Why did they need banking information when I was giving them a credit card? If the payment is declined, just don't let me come in anymore.   Nope, they needed a voided cheque.   That was the last time I darkened the door.

[zxy556575]

Danged NBC is in a slap fight with stupid DirecTV and is withholding their signal.

Out of 62 shows on my DVR season pass, only two are on NBC (Tonight Show and Seth Meyers). I can easily catch them online but am determined to be annoyed on principal.

Edited January 3, 2017 by lordonia

[bubbls]

I'm sure this is a common pet peeve, but why don't cable companies offer a pay-by-the-channel option? I don't watch 90% of the channels we pay for, and I don't want to pay more for the two extra channels I think I'd enjoy. And my other pet peeve is the channel list they included. It's arranged numerically. In other words, if I want to find the channel number of Nat Geo I'm just out of luck unless I'm willing to scan all 3,567,251 channel numbers on the list. It should be arranged alphabetically so I can go to the appropriate letter section. I might watch more channels if I could actually find them. 

Edited January 3, 2017 by bubbls

[AgentRXS]

Quote

I'm sure this is a common pet peeve, but why don't cable companies offer a pay-by-the-channel option? I don't watch 90% of the channels we pay for, and I don't want to pay more for the two extra channels I think I'd enjoy.

Whenever I have it out with Comcast (one of my favorite pastimes-NOT), I always mention this to the rep. All I really care about is having AMC and HBO. Netflix and Hulu can take care of the rest.  And half of the channels in my package are numerous 24/7 sports channels are Spanish-language channels, neither of which I want or need.

My ex was heavily into sports programming but even he thinks that round the clock sports coverage is excessive. Who created the need for such programming?

[BookWoman56]

4 hours ago, Quof said:

There's a national chain gym in Canada that does the same. They refuse to publish their price (even locally, to allow for differences across the country).  And they won't tell you the price when you ask on the phone, or even if you just walk in. You have to meet with a Membership Specialist and take a tour first.  It's rumoured that no 2 people in the entire country pay the same price. And there are lots of complaints of shonky automatic bank withdrawals, to the point that people close their accounts or even change banks to make it stop.

Many years ago, I signed up for a gym membership along with a friend/colleague so we could go work out after work. Because I was not sure how long this would last, I opted for a month-to-month contract that could be cancelled with one month's notice. For a few months we did go to the gym, and then work schedules got crazy, etc., so I cancelled my membership according to the stipulations in the contract I had signed. Then the following month they still debited my checking account. When I called them, they made excuses and said it would not happen again. Of course it did. I went to my bank to see if there was a way I could stop payment on that particular transaction. The bank rep was kind enough to tell me that based on the experiences of other customers, the best thing I could do was close my existing bank account and re-open another account. She said many customers had experienced several months of being charged with an automatic draft long after they had cancelled their contracts. I don't remember the name of the chain, but I don't think they're in business any more.

I have been giving serious thought lately to getting another gym membership (both for ease of access to varied exercise equipment and because I tend to self-isolate so need something to force myself out of the house), but I am still a little leery of the idea because of that bad experience. If I do, I'm definitely going to check out reviews to make sure that it doesn't have the same kind of reputation for that nonsense.

[JTMacc99]

7 hours ago, bubbls said:

I'm sure this is a common pet peeve, but why don't cable companies offer a pay-by-the-channel option? I don't watch 90% of the channels we pay for, and I don't want to pay more for the two extra channels I think I'd enjoy. And my other pet peeve is the channel list they included. It's arranged numerically. In other words, if I want to find the channel number of Nat Geo I'm just out of luck unless I'm willing to scan all 3,567,251 channel numbers on the list. It should be arranged alphabetically so I can go to the appropriate letter section. I might watch more channels if I could actually find them. 

I am a cable tv person. When I get a minute today, I will explain some of how it works, and who is to blame for what, and what I think the future holds for us. 

[zxy556575]

35 minutes ago, JTMacc99 said:

When I get a minute today, I will explain some of how it works, and who is to blame for what, and what I think the future holds for us. 

It's going to be more expensive, isn't it.

[Lizzing]

8 hours ago, bubbls said:

And my other pet peeve is the channel list they included. It's arranged numerically. In other words, if I want to find the channel number of Nat Geo I'm just out of luck unless I'm willing to scan all 3,567,251 channel numbers on the list. It should be arranged alphabetically so I can go to the appropriate letter section. I might watch more channels if I could actually find them. 

With all the capabilities of the DVR, you'd think there could be at least an option to search for channels.  I can reverse engineer if I'm looking for a specific show, but sometimes I actually want to see what The Weather Channel is showing, and it always takes me a while to find that particular one since I might use it 2 times a year.  And gods help me if I'm at my parents' house: they've got UVerse and their ordering of channels is the most unintuitive.  Why there are approximately 4 million PPV sports channels amidst the standard midlevel cablers (your HGTV, TLC, E!, AMC, and the like) I will never understand.

[JTMacc99]

12 hours ago, bubbls said:

 

I'm sure this is a common pet peeve, but why don't cable companies offer a pay-by-the-channel option? I don't watch 90% of the channels we pay for, and I don't want to pay more for the two extra channels I think I'd enjoy.

 

This one is related to the very core of how television works.  Cable and Satellite companies are very much NOT ALLOWED to sell you just the channels you want. The companies that produce and own the content put in their contracts that (for example) Comcast will be allowed to carry ESPN and ESPN 2 for a fee of $6.50 per subscriber per month, AND it will be in a minimum of 85% of the customers who purchase a video service from Comcast.  

By doing that, Disney assures that ESPN is in every basic cable package (it also does the same thing with Disney, ABC, and a few other of it's flagship networks) and therefore it collects $6.50 per month from the 90 million homes with basic cable in the USA.  In other words, $7 billion a year. Assume ESPN does about the same amount of advertising dollars and you can see why Disney has NO INTEREST in letting us opt out of paying them for ESPN every month.  They'd have to get something like 30 million customers to willingly pay them $30 a month just to break even from the money they collect under the current system.

Your cable company, even the awful Comcast that @AgentRXS talks to far too often, would be just fine charging you a service fee that they keep and letting you pick and choose which networks you want to send your money to each month. Right now they're just the bill collector for Disney whether or not you consume their products.

As for how the channels are arranged in your lineup, there are a few things that go into that. Again, some networks insist that they be placed in certain ranges of the lineup, so that's part of it. There is also a "it's always been there, and customers hate it when we move them, so leave it there" factor.  And I think there are some old technology things that probably don't exist any more that contributed to how the channels got dropped into their lineups.  When I visit my parents, who have the same cable company for the last 30 years, Food Network is STILL on channel 29, where it has been since day one.  It just gets left there, because it has always been there.

4 hours ago, lordonia said:

It's going to be more expensive, isn't it.

Not necessarily. The cable networks (ESPN, AMC, FOX News, TNT and so on) tend to increase the amount you pay to them monthly about an average of 8%-9% per year.  The broadcast networks, which used to allow themselves to be carried for free but changed their minds in the late 2000s, are in the process of catching up and they are increasing the amount you pay them by about 20% per year for the last 5 years.  So as long as the current Pay TV system stays as it is, you will continue to pay more.  

However, there has been a slow erosion of the total number of homes that take basic cable.  It's nowhere near as fast as people like to think cord cutting is happening, but it is happening.  (Also, cord cutters tend to come back into the pay TV ecosystem when they have kids and settle down. Not all of them, but enough.) So the TV networks are aware that they'll need to figure out a way to still make the same amount of money they make today in a world where people are just content with streaming video even if they have to wait until the show hits Netflix.  

One thing that could happen is Disney and Turner and Fox and so on keep riding out the current system as long as possible, and as they loose recurring revenue from cable customers, they just charge Netflix a lot more for the rights to their shows. So if enough of us cut the cord and just pay Comcast for internet service, we'll end up making it up to the networks by paying more for Netflix.  Still, this should be a lower overall bill for us for a long time.

Another thing that could happen is that the networks figure out a way to carefully balance a way to let people pay to stream some of their programs while not accidentally accelerating the number of cord cutters they are also losing as paying customers.  They haven't yet, but I'm sure they're trying to make the math work.

There are bunch of other things that could happen, but I've droned on long enough.  I'll now open the session for Q&A. Heh.

[annzeepark914]

Has there been a policy change regarding refunds/credits at Amazon?  I just found out that I have a "gift card" and they used some of that "gift card" to pay for my recently ordered Ina Garten cookbook.  What happened to crediting one's Visa?  Maybe I was out to lunch when they made some announcement about this but sheesh!  I don't like this (but then, I buy stuff via amazon so it's not like that gift card's balance is going to be sitting there forever, but still...)

[Lisin]

14 minutes ago, annzeepark914 said:

Has there been a policy change regarding refunds/credits at Amazon?  I just found out that I have a "gift card" and they used some of that "gift card" to pay for my recently ordered Ina Garten cookbook.  What happened to crediting one's Visa?  Maybe I was out to lunch when they made some announcement about this but sheesh!  I don't like this (but then, I buy stuff via amazon so it's not like that gift card's balance is going to be sitting there forever, but still...)

There has, maybe, but it happened a long time ago. When you load a gift card onto your account (or if you're given a credit for some reason) it always just gets applied to whatever you buy next. And they screw that up sometimes in your favor. For example, that class action Kindle thing gave me like $300 or something (I read a LOT) and it explicitly stated it was only for books and it had to be used by March of this year, so I bought a few books (like maybe $50 worth) but then I had to buy a physical thing, I think it was a shelf for our office, anyway that thing cost like $120 and I bought it and then after the fact realized they had used my settlement money to pay for it. On the one hand I was sad that I didn't have that $$ for "Free" books, but on the other hand I was like "sweet! Free shelf!" so it worked out. But yeah. Basically any credit you have they just apply to your cart. I don't think there's a way to change it. 

ETA: For returns/credits though they've always just credited my payment choice, so if I used my Visa they credited my Visa, not my Amazon account. 

[annzeepark914]

@Lisin:  But I never received a gift card from anyone.  They just dumped what should have been a credit on my Visa into this gift card!  Very weird.

[Jaded]

When you get to the final page to complete your Amazon order there should be a change option on the right in the Payment Method area. Click on "Change" and there should be a box to uncheck so your GC balance isn't used on that order. Unless it's one of those Amazon credits where that option isn't available.

I had a pet peeve that brought me here but I forgot what is was because I got distracted thinking about Amazon's PITA ways. So my peeve now is I hate when I forget things because it makes me feel stupid.

[DeLurker]

I'm tremendously flighty today so all my thoughts are fleeting.  I hate days like this because productivity grinds to a halt.

[Lisin]

1 hour ago, annzeepark914 said:

@Lisin:  But I never received a gift card from anyone.  They just dumped what should have been a credit on my Visa into this gift card!  Very weird.

Oh yeah, that's very weird indeed! I'd chat with them and ask them if it happened again, but yeah, like you said it's not like it won't get used! Or at least that's how I'd see it. 

[rcc]

3 hours ago, annzeepark914 said:

Has there been a policy change regarding refunds/credits at Amazon?  I just found out that I have a "gift card" and they used some of that "gift card" to pay for my recently ordered Ina Garten cookbook.  What happened to crediting one's Visa?  Maybe I was out to lunch when they made some announcement about this but sheesh!  I don't like this (but then, I buy stuff via amazon so it's not like that gift card's balance is going to be sitting there forever, but still...)

I noticed that last week too when I ordered.

I ordered 3 items. Two were from Amazon, the other was from an outside vendor. Free shipping from Amazon but the outside vendor item had a shipping and handling fee of 5.00. They used my "gift card"  or points or credit against that fee. So no shipping and handling for any of the order. New way of doing business I guess.

Edited January 3, 2017 by rcc

[JTMacc99]

On 1/2/2017 at 10:41 PM, lordonia said:

Danged NBC is in a slap fight with stupid DirecTV and is withholding their signal.

Out of 62 shows on my DVR season pass, only two are on NBC (Tonight Show and Seth Meyers). I can easily catch them online but am determined to be annoyed on principal.

Lots of blackouts to ring in the new year.  

This is from that article, and it does a better job of putting some numbers to what I was talking about above:

When blackouts finally end, consumers get their programming back, but at a higher cost:

SNL Kagan also projects that over time over 50%of affiliates’ retransmission payments will go to
the networks.

SNL Kagan data shows that retrans fees are the fastest rising part of programming costs

According to an ATVA analysis of publicly available industry data and SNL Kagan data, fees have grown an astonishing 22,400% [no, that’s not a typo] since 2005 and more troubling, have seen 40% annual increases over the last 3 years.

All of that money just gets tacked on to our cable bills.  

[auntlada]

If you have felt sick to your stomach for two months (which I doubt, but whatever), call your doctor and quit telling all your coworkers about how sick you are.

[Quof]

I once worked with a woman who was having a difficult menopause.  God, I knew more about the state of her uterus than I did about my own.  TMI, lady.

[DeLurker]

The ex was always the sickest person ever if he caught a bug going around.  He would never do anything sensible like go to a doctor though.

Eventually when he would be going on how he has been feeling poorly for so long and nothing helps, I would wonder out loud if it was something more serious.  If he was complaining about chronic nausea (which usually meant he could only eat certain foods - say pad thai - everything else made him worse), I would wonder if he had an intestinal parasite.  If he had a headache* for days, I would wonder if he had a tumor. 

He seemed to recover remarkably fast after my musing.

* I have true sympathy for people who suffer from intense headaches or migraines, but his tended to ease up almost instantly after his buddy called and wanted to go mountain biking or watch a game on tv.  Curiously, they rebounded almost as soon as he got home from one of these activities.

If they are continuing to come to work, just say that they really need to see a doctor if it is that bad because it might be contagious and you want to give them a head's up before you go talk to a supervisor or HR about you concerns of chronic exposure to an unknown health matter because they keep coming to work.

Edited January 4, 2017 by DeLurker
Unintended double posting. Guess I really really hold this against the ex.

[auntlada]

If it had been nausea for two months, we'd have heard about it before now.

[bubbls]

Regarding my cable channel list, I was referring to the piece of paper they gave us with all the channels listed out. IF it was in alpha order I could look in the N section for Nat Geo and see its channel number next to it since I don't know what channel it's on. But noooooo it's arranged numerically so to find, for instance, Nat Geo's channel number I'd have to KNOW THE CHANNEL NUMBER (caps are due to frustration). It makes no sense to me. Who comes up with these plans?? 

[Angeltoes]

Is it possible to go to your cable provider's web page, copy the channel listing, put it into a Word document, and then sort it alphabetically?

[DeLurker]

I think mine has a way to set up favorites, so only the channels I am interested in show up.  Theoretically I think it does this because I never actually tried.

[zxy556575]

7 hours ago, auntlada said:

If you have felt sick to your stomach for two months (which I doubt, but whatever), call your doctor and quit telling all your coworkers about how sick you are.

It's TMI and intrusive, right? Crying wolf also comes into play.

I'm not in the best of health but don't much talk about it IRL because, boring. Then somehow I get painted as "private," which pffft. I'll blab anything to anyone, but they have to ask first. (And honestly, living in a retirement community, nobody wants to open those floodgates.)

[auntlada]

19 minutes ago, lordonia said:

It's TMI and intrusive, right? Crying wolf also comes into play.

I'm not in the best of health but don't much talk about it IRL because, boring. Then somehow I get painted as "private," which pffft. I'll blab anything to anyone, but they have to ask first. (And honestly, living in a retirement community, nobody wants to open those floodgates.)

Oh, this particular co-worker is one of the worst for crying wolf. Something is always wrong, and if anyone else mentions anything -- illness, tiredness, whatever -- even in passing, she has it worse. Her stories are always better/worse than yours, and she always has to tell everyone.

[backformore]

2 hours ago, DeLurker said:

I think mine has a way to set up favorites, so only the channels I am interested in show up.  Theoretically I think it does this because I never actually tried.

Yeah, mine keeps switching to show ALL of the music stations, and it takes me forever to remember how to collapse them.  

[BooksRule]

My cable company offers me the 'favorites' option, so I went though and saved the channels that I even remotely watch.  That helped me to avoid having to run through the entire channel lineup to see what channel I wanted to watch, and also because they used to group the 'adult' channels together right in the middle of the channel lineup.  I hated to be scrolling through and see those icky titles for the adult movies.  Now, those have been removed so it's better, but I still like my favorites channel listing (except for the once or twice when I've had to swap out the cable box and then had to go back and re-save all of them).  Pet peeve:  When I've just about memorized the channels that I frequently watch that are on my favorites list and then the cable company 'upgrades' and totally renumbers all of the channels.  This was several months ago, and I'm just now beginning to remember a few of them without having to scroll through the list.  (The one good thing about the upgrade is that they did add several new channels and added the HD version of some others that I was already receiving.) 

[Maharincess]

Well damn. I had a menopause question/complaint I was going to throw at some of the women my age here but I guess it'll be TMI so I won't ask. 

[auntlada]

10 minutes ago, Maharincess said:

Well damn. I had a menopause question/complaint I was going to throw at some of the women my age here but I guess it'll be TMI so I won't ask. 

Try this topic in health and wellness.

[Maharincess]

33 minutes ago, auntlada said:

Try this topic in health and wellness.

Eh.  I don't "know" those people so it's OK I don't need to ask/complain. Thanks though. 

[DeLurker]

Then just post it under a spoiler flag so those  who want to shy away can. And write No Boys Allowed.

[Moose135]

1 hour ago, DeLurker said:

And write No Boys Allowed.

Like that will stop us...just like putting up a "wet paint" sign. ;-)

[JTMacc99]

10 hours ago, stewedsquash said:

And there you go, getting in my head. When I was thinking about asking something my thought was "would it be sexist to ask the men to cover their ears? To offer brain bleach to them?" haha

Honestly, and I don't think I'm much different than any other man, I see yellow police tape in my head around the topic that "Women's Health Issues". I don't know what happens inside of that tape, but I am assuming that I don't want to know.

[bubbls]

21 hours ago, Angeltoes said:

Is it possible to go to your cable provider's web page, copy the channel listing, put it into a Word document, and then sort it alphabetically?

Probably and that's a great idea!! I'll take a look. 

[topanga]

17 hours ago, auntlada said:

Oh, this particular co-worker is one of the worst for crying wolf. Something is always wrong, and if anyone else mentions anything -- illness, tiredness, whatever -- even in passing, she has it worse. Her stories are always better/worse than yours, and she always has to tell everyone.

Sounds like she has an Oprah complex. I love Oprah, but sometimes her interviews are grating. No matter what someone has been through, she's been through it worse. Her childhood, her dieting issues, her success issues, hair issues, friendship issues, etc. Even when she talks to parents, she somehow finds a way to relate their struggles to the challenges she faces with her dogs or Stedman. And hers are always tougher. Really, Oprah?

 

1 hour ago, JTMacc99 said:

Honestly, and I don't think I'm much different than any other man, I see yellow police tape in my head around the topic that "Women's Health Issues". I don't know what happens inside of that tape, but I am assuming that I don't want to know.

What is it with men and their aversion to women's health? Periods, specifically? (I'm asking the room, not you specifically, JTMacc99).  None of us would be here if our mothers hadn't bled once a month. Now that's TMI, I know.  But even brand new feminine products give some men the heebie-jeebies. My son's high school had a donation drive to collect feminine products for local homeless shelters and domestic violence shelters. I shopped for the stuff but made my son carry the opaque bag into the school to place in the bin outside the main office. You'd think I had asked him to crawl through a tunnel of raw sewage. He was actually grossed out by the thought of holding a bag of adhesive cotton. I just don't get it. I reminded him that one day he will probably have to purchase feminine products for his wife or girlfriend, but he just laughed at me. 

[JTMacc99]

1 hour ago, topanga said:

What is it with men and their aversion to women's health? Periods, specifically? (I'm asking the room, not you specifically, JTMacc99).

Understood that you aren't asking me specifically, and I'm not sure I can answer for the room.

But that's never stopped me before... My statement was actually just about respecting the discussion here, and not avoiding the topic in general. I wouldn't read through that forum because I'm assuming that I would have nothing to offer, and possibly that people wouldn't want me there.  

I have a couple pre-teens, the older one is a boy and has been through the puberty talk and official health class discussion. My daughter will get the run down later this year.  It seems as though men's aversion starts in fifth grade, where the boys come out of their official training chuckling and saying penis a lot. (A LOT), but they notice that the girls seem to come out of their training much differently.  They aren't sure what the hell happened in the girls room, but it must have been awful.  

So lets see if my inner wise-ass can sum up the man's view as we go through life:

1st grade: Girls are yucky. Not sure why, but they are.

5th grade: Girls are interesting, but something happens to them during puberty that sounds really yucky.

7th grade through mid-twenties or later: Just tell me when it's happening. Other than that, I'm comfortable with sticking with my fifth grade knowledge of things.

Married through around fifty: It is what it is. (Although some never shake off the fifth grader.)

Fifty+: You think that's bad, did I tell you about my prostate exam?

[DeLurker]

1 hour ago, JTMacc99 said:

Fifty+: You think that's bad, did I tell you about my prostate exam?

I'll see your prostrate* and raise you the annual gynecological exam and mammogram.

 

* Ewww!  Yet simultaneously giggling like a fiend.

[Quof]

For the record, I am a female.

I don't want to hear about anyone's uterus. I also don't want to hear about their bowel, bladder, or any other bodily organ that emits substances.  These are things that are discussed with one's health care providers or intimates, not with the world at large, and not in places where people who don't want to hear about them have no choice but to hear you talk about them.  When in a restaurant, I shouldn't have to listen to the woman at the next table discussing gynecology. 

[DisneyBoy]

I can't stand the "Once I was ____ years old" song that seems to play on a loop on every radio station. Shut up. You are annoying. Why does everyone like this song? It's like Christmas shoes....I can't stand it.

[auntlada]

1 hour ago, DisneyBoy said:

I can't stand the "Once I was ____ years old" song that seems to play on a loop on every radio station. Shut up. You are annoying. Why does everyone like this song? It's like Christmas shoes....I can't stand it.

I'm not familiar with that song. I flip stations a lot if a song I don't know or don't like comes on.

But what I really came to say: When the temperature is in the low 20s and the wind chill is in the teens or lower, it doesn't make you a better person to say, "It's not that cold out," and to go outside with no hat or gloves while you laugh at my parka, hat, gloves and scarf. In my mind, it just makes you dumb. (My annoying co-worker also doesn't have a winter coat, so she was very cold today. She said she tried to buy a coat last month, but the stores were all out of coats. I asked her how long she's lived here -- two years -- and suggested that maybe she should have bought a coat last year.)

[zxy556575]

12 hours ago, topanga said:

You'd think I had asked him to crawl through a tunnel of raw sewage. He was actually grossed out by the thought of holding a bag of adhesive cotton.

Haha! Too funny. In her new Netflix standup special, Jen Kirkman has a bit about periods and the male reaction to same.

7 hours ago, auntlada said:

But what I really came to say: When the temperature is in the low 20s and the wind chill is in the teens or lower, it doesn't make you a better person to say, "It's not that cold out," and to go outside with no hat or gloves while you laugh at my parka, hat, gloves and scarf. In my mind, it just makes you dumb.

Raising my hand! I don't make spontaneous remarks but people do ask me, "Aren't you cold?!" Well no, or else I would have put on a coat. For me it's some kind of fevered metabolism (husband used to call me the furnace), adding excess adipose tissue over the years, and hot flashes (SO HOT).

Edited January 6, 2017 by lordonia

[auntlada]

As long as you don't talk about my layers, @lordonia, I won't talk about your lack of layers. I mostly think that sort of thing about people I see shivering while wearing a light jacket with no hat or gloves -- and people who try to tell me it's not cold when all the weather people are handing out wind chill warnings. Excess adipose tissue has added no actual warmth for me, and I have no hot flashes and don't expect any since my mother never had them.

[zxy556575]

Bought some pre-packaged salad kits today. Comment from the bagger: "What's with all the rabbit food?"

I stood there like a mook not knowing what to say and the cashier jumped in to add she bought them as well.

Bagger: "My wife and I don't eat salad."

Thank you and good day. Awkward and witless conversation complete.

[TattleTeeny]

Quote

Bagger: "My wife and I don't eat salad."

Haha! Ironically, he's probably also a person who says to a vegan, "But what do you eat then?!" upon finding out that it's not meat, eggs, or dairy!

[ABay]

I might be wrong, and I've had some wine so the likelihood is high (like me), but I thought the TMI referred to by the OP way upthread was specific to the context of a co-worker more or less forcing a captive audience to hear about overly personal things they had no interest in? As opposed to things posted here--or the more apt Chit Chat thread--where others can scroll on by or use the ignore function.