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

[MrSmith]

On 11/21/2017 at 0:48 AM, backformore said:

I agree.  I had read about the incidence of brain injury in football long ago, and I didn't let my kids play.  I told them they could play any other sport.  One son still gives me a hard time about it.  I HATE watching football. I cringe when players crash into each other, I get nervous when they tackle.  I won't watch. 

My mother tried to force me to play football in high school. I refused. I would never bring the paper home she needed to sign so I could play. With all this coming out about CTE, I feel even smarter for refusing.

[TattleTeeny]

17 hours ago, Katy M said:

Great now you're making me feel even worse.

My cat died a couple of months ago.  The next week a friend of mine asked if I could foster a cat for a while.  I said sure, but after a couple of weeks realized it was just too soon to have another cat in the house.  After 3 weeks of begging I've finally gotten her to agree to take the cat back later today, but I feel like the most selfish person on the planet and now you're yelling at me.  Sigh.

Oh, Katy, I get it--the inner battle over "replacing" a pet...which is not what you were doing (I'm sure you know that, just as I knew that when my new kittens happened not too long after my previous cat passed). I try to ask myself in this kind of situation, "Am I judging myself more harshly than I'd judge a friend who did the same thing?" (in this case, having a new cat soon after a loss--and in that case, I'd tell my friend to go for it; you have a home to give, go ahead and give it if that's what you would like to do). And the answer is always the same: yup, I am. It's fine that you accepted that it was too soon, especially when you were able to make sure he will be adequately cared for first; you don't need the stress after losing a pet, and the new cat probably needs more than you can give him at the moment anyway. Recognizing that is better than not, man.

The problem with being a super-devoted pet owner, I think, is that the pain of losses are so magnified, sometimes almost to the point of sheer neuroses.

Edited December 11, 2017 by TattleTeeny

[MrSmith]

18 hours ago, Katy M said:

Great now you're making me feel even worse.

My cat died a couple of months ago.  The next week a friend of mine asked if I could foster a cat for a while.  I said sure, but after a couple of weeks realized it was just too soon to have another cat in the house.  After 3 weeks of begging I've finally gotten her to agree to take the cat back later today, but I feel like the most selfish person on the planet and now you're yelling at me.  Sigh.

You shouldn't feel like this. Your situation is completely different. It's also understandable. If your friend can't empathize, then they suck.

[MargeGunderson]

18 hours ago, theredhead77 said:

Amazon has window punches for $10

Added to my wish list! I like to be prepared. 

[Hanahope]

sucks that some theives in my neighborhood have been using those window punches to break into cars to steal whatever they find.

[ratgirlagogo]

18 hours ago, bilgistic said:

I, too, have plunging-into-water terror! I blame the mothman movie that starred Richard Gere.

Mine is the original Carnival of Souls, and of course Chappaquiddick (the actual event, not a movie).

[janestclair]

I have never liked driving over bridges, especially if they're long and take a while to get across.  Living in NJ, this can be a problem.  To get to the city, I prefer to take the tunnel. The lower level of a bridge like the GWB doesn't bother me as much, so I don't think it's a fear of plunging into the water, though it probably will be now!   

Speaking of the city, I'm glad I wasn't in Port Authority today.  Scary.  I was there once years and years ago when there was a suspicious package, and even though nothing happened it was still unsettling to see a large number of armed officers directing people out onto the street.  Of course the moron I was with wanted to see what was going on because she's not too bright.  You get far away, and then you find out, unless you want to get caught up in whatever is happening.  

Edited December 12, 2017 by janestclair

[ratgirlagogo]

2 minutes ago, janestclair said:

Speaking of the city, I'm glad I wasn't in Port Authority today. 

I got up, peed, took a shower, my usual weekday routine. Then I turned on the TV, and decided right away to call out from work.  It turned out to be not much but bombs on the subway scare the shit out of me.

[Random Noise]

10 hours ago, MrSmith said:

I play video games (typically I only have time to play a single game well). However, I make sure to spend time socializing with people at holidays. I suppose it helps that I like my wife's family and the holidays are the only times I really get to see them. So playing a video game is comparatively less attractive than spending a day (or two, when I'm lucky) getting to catch up with my in-laws.

Back in the early '80s most of those games came on a floppy disk that you had to boot the computer from. What I found much more entertaining than the actual game itself was the methods used to copy protect the disks. Over the course of time I would extract the binary image off the disk, reverse engineer the disk I/O calls and recode the works into a DOS compatible program.

Haven't done that stuff in years, but I can still look at a hex dump and disassemble a lot of the opcodes from memory.

[Random Noise]

3 hours ago, MargeGunderson said:

Added to my wish list! I like to be prepared. 

Probably the most useful thing you can get are Super Scissors. Paramedics typically use them to cut off seatbelts or heavy clothing, but they're strong enough to cut the metal on a car door. When she was still alive, my mother used to use mine to trim her plants in the yard.

[Quof]

Oh my God, you are all suggesting things for the Paranoids Car Kit.   My mother, for whom disaster lurks around every corner, would love these things.  I once bought her a set of three small rechargeable lights that plug in, and come on when the power goes out.  She asked where I got them, because she wanted to get another set to have one in every room.  It would be tragic to be in the guestroom when the power goes out and have to walk all the way to the master bedroom in the dark.  Bad things might happen.

[Random Noise]

[DeLurker]

3 hours ago, Quof said:

 My mother, for whom disaster lurks around every corner, would love these things. 

My brother usually has one stocking stuffer for his kids (and anyone else who gets a stocking)  of some car related emergency tool - the window punch and safety belt cutter have made it into the stocking before.

I got these Sunbeam  LED power failure/nightlght/flashlights at Costco earlier this year - they plug into the outlet, the nightlight is a soft blue, a motion detector setting is a brighter blue and a flashlight.  The whole unit is probably smaller than the average cellphone.  We use it a LOT.  Especially if we take the dog out for a walk after dark (our area has no sidewalks except along the higher use areas)  They were about $18 at Costco for a set of three.

My brother and mom ended up buying some after seeing mine, although the ones they bought have more colors.

[Qoass]

Can anyone explain to me why English muffins come in a box with no lid that is then stuffed into a plastic bag? Once I've eaten the first two muffins, it's such a pain in the neck to get the rest out so I end up dumping them all out and chucking the cardboard away then sticking the rest back in the bag as you would bagels. Such a waste of both paper and energy.

[Moose135]

1 hour ago, Qoass said:

I end up dumping them all out and chucking the cardboard away then sticking the rest back in the bag as you would bagels

What a maroon - 50 years of struggling with English muffin packages, and I never thought of doing that.  Thank you, you've changed my life, @Qoass!

[Fairfax]

I get the store brand of English muffins at Grocery Outlet for 99 cents & they come in a plastic bag, no box.  I think they're just as good as the more expensive brands.

[Petunia13]

2 hours ago, Qoass said:

Can anyone explain to me why English muffins come in a box with no lid that is then stuffed into a plastic bag? Once I've eaten the first two muffins, it's such a pain in the neck to get the rest out so I end up dumping them all out and chucking the cardboard away then sticking the rest back in the bag as you would bagels. Such a waste of both paper and energy.

There are brands that come with them stacked in a bag like sliced bread or many bagel styles not a box I think it Sara Lee and Katz. But you could always remove the box and simply store them in the bag or a ziploc. Thomas also makes english muffin bread that comes sliced and bagged. 

[MrSmith]

17 hours ago, Random Noise said:

Back in the early '80s most of those games came on a floppy disk that you had to boot the computer from. What I found much more entertaining than the actual game itself was the methods used to copy protect the disks. Over the course of time I would extract the binary image off the disk, reverse engineer the disk I/O calls and recode the works into a DOS compatible program.

Haven't done that stuff in years, but I can still look at a hex dump and disassemble a lot of the opcodes from memory.

This is pretty impressive! I never really got to do much on computers in the 80's. My father was learning still himself and wouldn't let us kids touch it for fear we'd break it.

[backformore]

4 hours ago, Qoass said:

Can anyone explain to me why English muffins come in a box with no lid that is then stuffed into a plastic bag? Once I've eaten the first two muffins, it's such a pain in the neck to get the rest out so I end up dumping them all out and chucking the cardboard away then sticking the rest back in the bag as you would bagels. Such a waste of both paper and energy.

Yeah, each time we open a bag/box of English muffins, the rest go in a particular plastic container, that is exactly the right size for the box minus one muffin.  

I agree that it's ridiculous.  the brand I buy doesn't even come in a plastic bag, just a plastic wrapper that you can't close up. 

[Petunia13]

If you look at them even in box freshly placed on the shelf many have thumb prints on the top of the middle or outer one. That's from the people loading them onto the roll carts when bringing them in how they grab them. 

[backformore]

My pet peeve is bell peppers, and I think I may have mentioned this once before.  I don't digest them right, It's not uncommon, it has to do with lacking a certain enzyme.   it drives me crazy that so many frozen dinners add diced peppers for color - either green or red.  Basically, when I eat peppers, I burp for hours, and I can't get the taste to go away. 

So, we went to a restaurant the other day, I ordered a salad/flatbread special.  And the flatbread had what I thought were tomatoes, but no, they were red peppers.  I looked again at the menu, which described the dish as being caramelized onions, steak, pesto, mozzarella, and hot  chili sauce.  I pointed it out to the waitress, but was too hungry to get something else, so I just picked off the peppers and ate it.   But WHY would they add an ingredient not listed on the menu to a dish?

my other pet peeve is that at a nice restaurant and winery, one without a kids menu, people feel free to bring toddlers and babies, ask for high chairs and booster seats, get upset at the server when there are no booster seats, and all the high chairs are being used.  This is a place which has a wine aerator brought to the table to serve the perfect glass of wine, has a specialty cocktail and wine  list that's as long as the food menu.  It's clearly NOT a kid-friendly restaurant - burgers are over $10, and full-sized, there are no crayons/coloring placemats, etc.   It's a date night or special occasion place, not a family restaurant.  I don't hate kids, (I've raised a couple ) but I do think that families with small children should either go to an appropriate restaurant for kids, or get a sitter so they can go out somewhere fancy.   Toddlers wreck the ambiance for other people trying to enjoy drinks and a meal. 

I have no problem introducing a kid of 8 or older, to a nicer restaurant, if the child is interested in fancier food and knows how to behave.  But babies and toddlers don't belong at nice restaurants! 

[Bastet]

I probably mentioned this the last time it came up, but oh well:  One of my only times watching What Would You Do? was an episode where the set-up is a couple has brought their baby to a fancy restaurant, the baby starts crying, neither of the parents take the little banshee outside, and a customer complains.  What would I do?  Nod in appreciation to the complaining customer, and tell management they can either a) do their job by telling the parents to act like reasonable human beings and remove the crying kid, or b) comp my meal.

But most of the customers they featured thought the complaining customer was the one being rude.  Huh?  She's not at Chuck E. Cheese, she's at a high-end steakhouse.  Parents have no business bringing a baby to that restaurant to begin with (if they can afford to eat there, they can afford a damn sitter for the night), and, once they did, they had an obligation for one of them to get up and take the kid outside until it stopped crying and could thus be there without disrupting everyone else's meal.

[bmasters9]

16 minutes ago, Bastet said:

But most of the customers they featured thought the complaining customer was the one being rude.  

So basically, a lot of those customers felt that it wasn't rudeness for that baby to carry on like that, but that it was for that one customer to not put up with it and to say something about it?! Unreal!

[BookWoman56]

@Bastet, your experience is similar to mine in terms of where a tv show's participants are given a situation and asked to make a choice, while the audience speculates about what the choice will be, and then I as an audience member am horrified at the choice that the participant(s) make.  In the situation you described, yes, it's clearly incumbent on the parents to either not bring their kid or else take the kid outside when crying. If I want dinner with a side of crying kids, I will go to a family-themed restaurant. If I go to a more upscale place, I expect to be able to eat in peace. 

This is the reason I cannot watch any of the house hunter or similar shows, because invariably the couple or person making the choice seems to make a decision that completely contradicts their previously stated criteria, while I have mentally selected the one that aligns quite well with their stated preferences.  It mostly goes like this:

• Couple: We want a 4-bedroom house with a large kitchen, hardwood floors, and fenced yard, within easy commuting distance of our jobs.
• Realtor/host: House A has 3 bedrooms, a large kitchen, all carpet, unfenced yard, moderate commuting distance. House B has 4 bedrooms, large kitchen, tile and hardwood floors, fenced yard, and minimal commuting distance. House C has 3 bedrooms, insanely small kitchen painted pink with purple polka dots, worn and torn carpet throughout, unfenced back yard the size of a postage stamp, and long commuting distance, but has a nice chandelier in the dining room.  
• Me: Obviously House B is the logical choice. 
• Couple: We'll take House C because we fell in love with the chandelier.
• Me: WTF? That house has none of the things you said you wanted. 

I could only go through so many iterations of that scenario before I had to bail on those shows. 

Edited December 12, 2017 by BookWoman56

[bilgistic]

Supposedly, those shows are staged, and the participants already own the house. The others are a house on the market and one owned by a friend.

Pet peeve of the day: I got out of the apartment and rewarded myself with pancakes for doing so. The server will not stop talking to me no matter what I do. I'm looking at my phone, reading PTV. Taking my lactaid pill. Looking longingly at my pancakes. Please, please, let me be!

[peacheslatour]

2 minutes ago, bilgistic said:

Supposedly, those shows are staged, and the participants already own the house. The others are a house on the market and one owned by a friend.

Pet peeve of the day: I got out of the apartment and rewarded myself with pancakes for doing so. The server will not stop talking to me no matter what I do. I'm looking at my phone, reading PTV. Taking my lactaid pill. Looking longingly at my pancakes. Please, please, let me be!

My dad and I meet for lunch every Friday at the same restaurant and every time the manager comes over to talk to us the minute our plates are on the table. He's even gone so far as to slide into the booth with us. I'm as nice as I can possibly be to him because that restaurant is basically adult day care for my dad, but who does that?

[JTMacc99]

1 hour ago, BookWoman56 said:

This is the reason I cannot watch any of the house hunter or similar shows, because invariably the couple or person making the choice seems to make a decision that completely contradicts their previously stated criteria, while I have mentally selected the one that aligns quite well with their stated preferences. 

There are a whole lot of very funny memes about House Hunters. My favorite two varieties are: 

Husband: I'm a freelance hamster trainer

Wife: And I tune harmonicas part time

Husband: Our budget is $1.2 million

And this one:

[Picture of a someone crying] I really like this $500,000 house.

But it has carpets instead of wood floors.

 

House Hunters is an excellent show for those of us who enjoy getting a little annoyed once in a while. There's also this:

Edited December 12, 2017 by JTMacc99

[emma675]

I have a friend who had friends who were on the House Hunters show and they had already bought their house before the show even filmed. The producers found two other houses for them to "look at" and instructed them to find something wrong with each house (including their own!) and made sure to have them harp on certain "musts". They said they had a good time doing it, but it was all pretty much totally staged.

[bilgistic]

The paint complaint drives me to drink. It's as if there are no...paint stores!

[BookWoman56]

Right, no paint stores or else in their half-million or more budget, there's not $2-3K to hire someone to repaint the entire interior.  There's plenty of money for other items such as upscale hardware for the kitchen cabinets, but not for painting. 

The pet peeve I'm currently experiencing has to do with people who go into a profession/career that requires certain skills or activities, and then bitch and moan about having to have those skills or perform those activities. Example: If you're an instructional designer, you will most likely have to write a lot. You write design plans, you write assessments, you write lessons/training materials, etc. If you're a proposal specialist, you write responses to RFPs. Nobody forced you into those fields, so please stop whinging to me about how much time you have to spend writing stuff, how much you hate writing, and what a bad writer you are. By the time I was 20, I realized that I hated doing retail sales as part of my part-time job while attending college. I hated the job as a whole, I hated having to interact with customers and convince them to buy crap they didn't really need, and I pretty much sucked at it. That's one of the roughly gazillion reasons I chose a career path that was not doing retail sales.  It doesn't seem as if it should be that difficult to choose a career that does not consist of doing stuff you already know you despise doing.

[Angeltoes]

My peeve for today is brought to you by our friends at UPS.  We ordered a trampoline for our grandkids' Christmas present from BJs (because one big gift seemed like the easiest  way to get Christmas shopping done this year...hohoho).   Last Thursday I tracked the order and it clearly said there were two boxes and that the order was in Jacksonville (we're in Central Florida) and should be here in two days.  On Friday, I track it again to see how it's doing and now it's in VIRGINIA, which is the wrong direction and delivery date was changed to 12/13.  It hung out in Virginia for a few days (probably enjoying the snow that we don't get) and then sauntered down to Georgia.  This afternoon Mr. Angeltoes yelled from the other room,"The trampoline is here."  I ran out there and saw ONE box, which clearly said on it in big letters "box 2 of 2"  I asked where the other box was and Mr. Angeltoes (who does not look up from his computer game) says"What other box?"  I said,"There should be two.  Look, it even says 2 of 2."  He shrugs and says,"That's all he gave me.  Call them."  I checked the UPS site and it said the order was completely delivered.  I called BJs (who, might I say, have never been less than professional, courteous and helpful when I need to call them) and they contacted UPS.  UPS said they did have the other box but it got sent on a different route and we should have it with a WEEK.  If this continues, Mimi and Papa are going to show up for Christmas with half a trampoline.

[peacheslatour]

Trampolines scare me to death. When I was in high school a girl on our gymnastics teams fell and broke her neck. Sorry.

[DeLurker]

English Muffin peeve:  I liked Trader Joe's sourdough English muffins until they changed the recipe or something.  It is no longer even acceptable in an emergency.  Trader Joe's has seldom disappointed me, but this was like a kick to the guts.

[Random Noise]

2 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

My dad and I meet for lunch every Friday at the same restaurant and every time the manager comes over to talk to us the minute our plates are on the table. He's even gone so far as to slide into the booth with us. I'm as nice as I can possibly be to him because that restaurant is basically adult day care for my dad, but who does that?

That really depends on where you live. In smaller communities something like that is not at all uncommon, especially if you're a regular customer. There's a local restaurant owned by a Vietnamese family that my mother used to frequent. On her birthday they would bring a cake to her table with additional plates for her friends, or at Christmas they would give her gift certificates for a free dinner every month, or similar things like that.

We also tend to do other things you would probably find equally bizarre, such as if a neighbor is in the hospital or away for several days, someone will go over and mow their lawn or shovel snow off the walkway.

As much as I loved living near Seattle (Woodinville), I appreciate small town living even more.

[Quof]

Quote

Trampolines scare me to death. When I was in high school a girl on our gymnastics teams fell and broke her neck. Sorry.

Don't be sorry. The American Academy of Pediatrics "strongly discourages" their use.  

[backformore]

36 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

Trampolines scare me to death. When I was in high school a girl on our gymnastics teams fell and broke her neck. Sorry.

I saw a 20/20 show on trampolines years back, it terrified me.

All the warnings, like one kid at a time, are there for a reason. Make the kids heed the warnings.

[theredhead77]

5 hours ago, backformore said:

My pet peeve is bell peppers, and I think I may have mentioned this once before.  I don't digest them right, It's not uncommon, it has to do with lacking a certain enzyme.   it drives me crazy that so many frozen dinners add diced peppers for color - either green or red.  Basically, when I eat peppers, I burp for hours, and I can't get the taste to go away. 

I don't have an intolerance or allergy but I hate cooked bell peppers and am constantly picking them out of frozen meals.

[Random Noise]

2 hours ago, BookWoman56 said:

That's one of the roughly gazillion reasons I chose a career path that was not doing retail sales.  It doesn't seem as if it should be that difficult to choose a career that does not consist of doing stuff you already know you despise doing.

Most people, it seems, would rather stay at their job and complain rather than take the incentive of learning whatever job skills are necessary for a more enjoyable career. If they do change jobs, it's usually the same damn thing but at another place. It's like a friend of mine when I order something at a restaurant, he'll tell the waitress "I'll have the same thing ... but on a different plate."

I did a disaster management course once. It was for managing high casualty incidents such as plane crashes, explosions, and such. Working in emergency services, several of us had the opportunity to take the course at no cost and completion of the course meant a pay increase as well. Only two of us took the course. The others didn't take it because it crimped on their personal time and they thought they should be paid if they took it.

The saying holds true, "you're the author of your own fate."

[Mindthinkr]

2 hours ago, Random Noise said:

That really depends on where you live. In smaller communities something like that is not at all uncommon, especially if you're a regular customer. There's a local restaurant owned by a Vietnamese family that my mother used to frequent. On her birthday they would bring a cake to her table with additional plates for her friends, or at Christmas they would give her gift certificates for a free dinner every month, or similar things like that.

We also tend to do other things you would probably find equally bizarre, such as if a neighbor is in the hospital or away for several days, someone will go over and mow their lawn or shovel snow off the walkway.

As much as I loved living near Seattle (Woodinville), I appreciate small town living even more.

This reminds me of where I just moved to. There are about 30 homes in my neighborhood. This is a friendly place where we have block parties every other month, weekly beach nights and cocktail parties galore.  About 10 days ago a mass email was sent. Our 99 yr old Pearl Harbor survivor had a car accident (yes, he was still driving at 99 but they took his license after this one) and hurt his shoulder. His daughter would have stepped in but she was traveling to a different state (other than her own) to have cancer surgery. So we were all asked to pitch in. Woman shopped and took over meals. Men walked his dog and drove him to his MD appointments. There are so many of us that I, for instance, only have to cook once per week. I've heard tales of the other ways that these people have banded together. I'm so grateful to be here. Hmmm...the realist in me asks how long is it going to last!! 

Edited December 13, 2017 by Mindthinkr
Stupid Mistakes

[AgentRXS]

3 hours ago, theredhead77 said:

I don't have an intolerance or allergy but I hate cooked bell peppers and am constantly picking them out of frozen meals.

I like yellow and orange bell peppers but I can't stand the green or red ones. The green ones especially, I tend to get a headache after eating them for some reason.  It annoys me that in a bag of pre-sliced peppers, it always seems to be filled with mostly red ones, so I don't even bother getting it because I'd throw away most of the bag.

Edited December 13, 2017 by AgentRXS

[ratgirlagogo]

6 hours ago, BookWoman56 said:

That's one of the roughly gazillion reasons I chose a career path that was not doing retail sales. It doesn't seem as if it should be that difficult to choose a career that does not consist of doing stuff you already know you despise doing.

That's true, but I think an awful lot of people do retail as more of a J-O-B that they hope is temporary and not a career.  

 

5 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

Trampolines scare me to death. When I was in high school a girl on our gymnastics teams fell and broke her neck. Sorry.

When I was in high school a sophomore on the football team broke his neck in a practice scrimmage, a C5 spinal injury that left him paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of his life  At fifteen years old.  So the school took the obvious step of eliminating the gymnastics program (which I was in - I loved the trampoline!)  and the diving program, neither of which had EVER injured a student.  And of course they poured even more money into the fucking football team,  hiring two additional coaches for the fucking football team.  I hate football.

[Sandman87]

Yeah, my college screwed our fencing team out of the funding we needed to compete at the national level because they wanted more money for our crappy, game-losing football team.

On 12/11/2017 at 4:47 PM, Random Noise said:

Back in the early '80s most of those games came on a floppy disk that you had to boot the computer from. What I found much more entertaining than the actual game itself was the methods used to copy protect the disks

The one that annoyed me the most was the code wheel that came with the SSI "Gold Box" D&D licensed games. The program would put up two "runes" and a number, and you'd have to align the runes on the inner and outer wheel, then type in the word that appeared in the windows that matched the number. Yeah, fiddling with an external gimmick for a minute or two when I just wanted to play the damned game.

[Random Noise]

3 hours ago, Sandman87 said:

The one that annoyed me the most was the code wheel that came with the SSI "Gold Box" D&D licensed games. The program would put up two "runes" and a number, and you'd have to align the runes on the inner and outer wheel, then type in the word that appeared in the windows that matched the number. Yeah, fiddling with an external gimmick for a minute or two when I just wanted to play the damned game.

Yep. Those and the "what is the first word on page 4 of the booklet that came with your game," type stuff.

The funny part of it was they would put in elaborate schemes to validate your response to the question and then a simple valid/invalid test once it was completed. So you'd have something like:
CALL  (call to validation scheme)
JNZ  (jump if invalid answer given)
JMP  (jump to actual game code)

Then a simple hack would fix that annoyance:
CALL (call to validation scheme)
NOP (no operation)
NOP (no operation)
JMP (jump to actual game code)

A simple two byte patch to the game totally undid all that garbage of code wheels and stuff. I did find a nice surprise in one game though, embedded in the code was a message "If you're reading this, we're hiring!"

[Random Noise]

6 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

And of course they poured even more money into the fucking football team,  hiring two additional coaches for the fucking football team.  I hate football.

The game I hated worst of all was dodge-ball. Being an American growing up outside the U.S., especially during the Vietnam era wasn't all that great, and dodge-ball was the perfect opportunity to pelt the shit out of the stupid Yank. I always came home with bruises that would last for days.

If one of the balls was laying on the gym floor, the teacher would haul back and boot it as hard as he could in my direction. I fixed that problem one day though. Before class one morning, I took one of the balls and let the air out, then filled it with water and strategically left it in the middle of the gym floor. The teacher came walking in, spotted the ball on the floor, hauled back and ...

I'm not sure exactly what happened to him, but he wore a cast on his foot for the remainder of the year. And that, my friends, is what's called American ingenuity.

[peacheslatour]

10 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

That's true, but I think an awful lot of people do retail as more of a J-O-B that they hope is temporary and not a career.  

 

When I was in high school a sophomore on the football team broke his neck in a practice scrimmage, a C5 spinal injury that left him paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of his life  At fifteen years old.  So the school took the obvious step of eliminating the gymnastics program (which I was in - I loved the trampoline!)  and the diving program, neither of which had EVER injured a student.  And of course they poured even more money into the fucking football team,  hiring two additional coaches for the fucking football team.  I hate football.

Yep. I was in gymnastics when it happened to my team mate. She also was paralyzed from the neck down. They didn't eliminate the gymnastics program but they did remove trampolines from every school in the district. I liked the tramp too but after that I wouldn't get back up on one for anything.

[Hanahope]

My kids are always begging for us to buy a trampoline.  Fortunately, our backyard really doesn't have the space for one, with the shed, my laundry lines, the grill and our patio furniture.  I do try and take them to Get Air now and again to get the jumping out of their systems.

I had my own delivery issue.  I had ordered two laptop bags for my daughters through Amazon a month ago, but one was bought from and fullfilled by a third party (because that was the one she put on the wish list).   The first one came right away (good ole prime shipping).  The second, through the third party, would take a little longer.  That's fine, Christmas is still weeks away.  I was checking the status of orders last week (Dec. 6), and noticed that the missing laptop bag was noted as "delivered on Nov. 24."  I didn't recall getting it at all.  I checked the date, it was the day after Thanksgiving.  I didn't get it at my work, and my family said no packages were delivered that day.  I take a second look at the tracking and it says it was delivered to Kentucky.  I don't live in Kentucky.

So I send the third party an email through Amazon that I did not get the package, it was misdelivered.  They quickly respond saying that they actually realized that back on Dec. 1 and sent a new one out on Dec. 2 and I should get it soon.  Well, it would have been nice if they had told me this.  I guess they were hoping I wouldn't notice the 'delivered" status on Amazon before I actually got the replacement. 

Well, the replacement did show up last night, yay!

I have come to learn that Amazon is not necessarily the best or cheapest place to get items.  My husband loves board games and put several on his list, through a link to Cool Stuff, Inc.  I had bought a couple gifts early on from Amazon, but yesterday decided to buy a couple more, plus get something for my in-laws to give him (as they are coming from France).  I checked out the games he listed on Cool Stuff and compared the prices to Amazon.  Amazon was $5-10 more on every game.  Now Cool Stuff would charge shipping, $5, unless I ordered $100 worth of games.  So if I ordered 2 games from Cool Stuff, I'd still save money, even with shipping costs.  And with 3 games, I went over $100, so free shipping, and saved a good $25 from using Amazon.  Now maybe it'll take an extra couple of days to get the items, but that's fine.

So definitely worth checking places other than Amazon.

[Mountainair]

We gifted the kids a trampoline a few Christmases ago and have luckily had no injuries. I try to watch them like a hawk while they are on it and if they have friends over I am very dillegent about the number of kids on it at a time. There is one friend in particular that I don’t even allow them to use it when he is over which thankfully has been a few months now. His parents strike me as the sue happy type and I’m not playing that game!

Back to the SUV discussion earlier- I bought my first car- a 4 door Honda Accord well before having children and did not purchase my second car until baby #3 was due. There was no way to comfortably fit 3 car seats/booster seats in the back seat of the accord so we needed to upgrade. But that accord saw our family of four through many long road trips. I went the mini van route because I could just see my kids flinging the car door open and gashing someone else’s car in the parking lot, not to mention little fingers getting slammed in the door. 

[Qoass]

Thought of y'all when ordering from LL Bean today. It told me I could have regular shipping for free and I'd get my package on Monday the 18th. Or I could pay extra for express shipping and get my package on Monday the 18th. Decisions, decisions.

[MargeGunderson]

18 hours ago, Random Noise said:

The saying holds true, "you're the author of your own fate."

And its corollary, “you’re the architect of your own misery.” 

[backformore]

Quote

We gifted the kids a trampoline a few Christmases ago and have luckily had no injuries. I try to watch them like a hawk while they are on it and if they have friends over I am very dillegent about the number of kids on it at a time. There is one friend in particular that I don’t even allow them to use it when he is over which thankfully has been a few months now. His parents strike me as the sue happy type and I’m not playing that game!

Keep in mind, though, that if a kid gets injured, it's not always the parents choice to sue. If they seek medical treatment, and it's reported that an injury took place on your property, their medical insurance company will try to collect from your home owners insurance company.

A friend of mine found out that her home owners insurance company wanted an updated policy to exclude any claims made for trampoline related injuries, so she took hers down. Obviously, it varies by location and insurance company.