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

[BlueSkies]

There's something I have to I'll just say do tomorrow afternoon that's stressing me.  Well actually it's probably stressing me more than I realize.  When that happens I already feel myself subtly feeling crankier.  

[JustHereForFood]

I need to vent about something from another site and I don't want to get backlash there, so this may seem random since I haven't seen such behavior here. But, it's what this thread is for, so please bear with me or feel free to skip.

I love fanfiction. I really do, I love reading it and I have began writing one for myself. It's a great hobby and a way to bring fandom together, be creative, get representation that is lacking in the mainstream media.

But my God, do I hate real-person-fanfiction. I don't mind it with historical people (after all, most of historical fiction is real-person-fanfiction to some extent), because those people are long dead and can't be hurt by it. If there is an afterlife where they are so bored that they watch us in present times and know we have some wrong takes about what really happened, it sucks but hopefully it's more like a source of amusement for them. But with living people? No, just no. It's disrespectful to those people and invasion of their privacy. I understand that celebrities probably don't go googling themselves on the internet if they want to keep their sanity, but I can't imagine if some of them or their family members saw what gets written about them.

AO3 of course allows it, because they allow basically everything, even some pretty horrible stuff on the basis that it's all fiction, but I wish they would ban RPF. If someone feels the need to speculate about real people, I get it, I do it too sometimes, but I keep it to myself in my head. There is this idea now that fans are entitled to say anything and if you don't like it, just don't read it or block it, but I think that it's going too far. The freedom of expression should end when it interferes with a real person with real feelings and private life. One person's freedom ends where the other's begins.

OK, that's all, thanks for listening, I feel better now.

 

[Bastet]

54 minutes ago, JustHereForFood said:

But my God, do I hate real-person-fanfiction.

I only ever read fanfiction back in the X-Files heyday, but I remember there being Gillian Anderson/David Duchovny stories amidst all the tales of Mulder and Scully, and that really creeped me out.

[EtheltoTillie]

TIL there is something called real person fan fiction.  Yikes.

[ABay]

I recall RPF being big around the time of all the boy bands. Not my thing but I think perhaps performers project a persona when performing (awesome alliteration, amirite?) and that's all fans know and can write about.

I have the imagination of a tree frog, assuming tree fogs have no imagination, so I've never tried to write fan fic. In fact, I swore I'd shoot a "muse" rather than commit fan fic. People claiming their muse inspired them made my eyes roll and my gorge rise. But playing around with AI, I fell over Sudowrite and Novelcrafter and holy shit I can't stop. I'm not sure even AI can compensate for lack of imagination and zero writing ability but it's still fun to play with.

 

[Annber03]

35 minutes ago, ABay said:

I recall RPF being big around the time of all the boy bands. Not my thing but I think perhaps performers project a persona when performing (awesome alliteration, amirite?) and that's all fans know and can write about.

Yep, this is it, pretty much. I remember reading a bit of RPF back in the day when I was younger, and from what I remember, most RPF writers are basically focusing on the personas more than anything. And most of them absolutely frown upon and do not encourage RPF writers dragging the celebrities/their families into this in any way, shape, or form. People who do that are generally not looked upon favorably in fanfic circles. 

But yeah, people writing fantasy fics about hooking up or hanging out with, or shipping, their favorite celebriteis is nothing new. People have been doing that since before online fanfic sites were a thing. 

[annzeepark914]

On 4/26/2024 at 3:56 PM, Ancaster said:

Clumsiness.

I'm expecting a delivery and since I live on the fifth floor, I need to get notifications on my phone, which has unreliable coverage and sometimes goes to voice mail instead of ringing as a call.

My phone just pinged, so I leapt up in case it was the delivery guys leaving a message, not wanting to risk them leaving before I got downstairs.

Of course, my laptop shot off my lap, straight down onto my toe, which now hurts like hell, elevated or otherwise, won't bend and is bright red.

I'm used to my elbows and shins being bruised long after I've forgotten what I bumped, but now I have to worry about toes?

I'm not a medical professional but if I were you, I'd get this toe checked out (unless you can bend it, walk on it, and it's no longer bright red by tomorrow). You might want to soak it in Epsom salt & warm water tonight. I've recently recovered from a low grade foot fracture and painful toes (the chiropractor "fixed" the toes). Just a suggestion from another foot injury sufferer.

[Mindthinkr]

Sorry to change the subject, but my Pet Peeve right now is loaning a book and not getting it returned. I have a recipe in a cookbook that I loaned. Since it wasn’t returned either I look up a similar recipe online, or buy another copy of the book. It also has happened with other books. 
 

What do you do to help remind people to return your books? 

[annzeepark914]

1 hour ago, Mindthinkr said:

Sorry to change the subject, but my Pet Peeve right now is loaning a book and not getting it returned. I have a recipe in a cookbook that I loaned. Since it wasn’t returned either I look up a similar recipe online, or buy another copy of the book. It also has happened with other books. 
 

What do you do to help remind people to return your books? 

"Hey, (name of borrower) I desperately need my cookbook! I'm making such & such and just gotta have that recipe...plus a couple others. Can I come over tomorrow to pick it up?"

[Blergh]

9 hours ago, Mindthinkr said:

Sorry to change the subject, but my Pet Peeve right now is loaning a book and not getting it returned. I have a recipe in a cookbook that I loaned. Since it wasn’t returned either I look up a similar recipe online, or buy another copy of the book. It also has happened with other books. 
 

What do you do to help remind people to return your books? 

I tell the borrowers that if they don't return something ASAP after the time the time they'd initially agreed to, it will be the LAST thing beyond a cup of sugar that they'll get to borrow from me!

It usually gets them to return it and/or never ask to borrow anything from me again (the latter's fine by me- although inexplicably sometimes the former borrowers think that they're somehow guilt tripping me via not asking to borrow stuff- nah!).

[TattleTeeny]

10 hours ago, Mindthinkr said:

Sorry to change the subject, but my Pet Peeve right now is loaning a book and not getting it returned. I have a recipe in a cookbook that I loaned. Since it wasn’t returned either I look up a similar recipe online, or buy another copy of the book. It also has happened with other books. 
 

What do you do to help remind people to return your books? 

Honestly, I stopped sharing them. I found that some people assume that if you've read it, you don't want/need it anymore, as if that's for them to decide. Some people would pass a book along to someone else and one person I know, a former coworker who is fine and good in most other capacities, left a book of mine on a plane by mistake. She did apologize, but had no replacement book and no promise to get one for me (I would have said not to bother, but still).

Somehow the not returning of possessions is more peevish to me than the not returning of borrowed money. I kind of expect that money isn't going to be returned if the person who needs it is in a financial bind to begin with. And while I like to have my money to use when I want to, it usually doesn't have a specific purpose (or meaning) like some possessions do. 

Edited April 28 by TattleTeeny

[JustHereForFood]

I've always treated borrowed things with much more care than my own.

[TattleTeeny]

Me too. And I don't really borrow books because I tend to bend the spine and pages of my own; I don't want to accidentally/reflexively do it to someone else's.

[PRgal]

Re the book situation:  tell them you're a library and the borrower owes you $1 for each day it's not returned starting the day you call/text them with the notice.

[chitowngirl]

I lent a hardcover to my daughter. When it was returned, the book jacket was missing. I know she doesn’t like them and assumed she just took it off to read. SHE THREW IT AWAY!!! I calmly mentioned to her that it wasn’t hers to throw away and she’s lucky a) it wasn’t someone else’s book and b) that I love her very much 😊

[Ancaster]

20 hours ago, chitowngirl said:

I lent a hardcover to my daughter. When it was returned, the book jacket was missing. I know she doesn’t like them and assumed she just took it off to read. SHE THREW IT AWAY!!! I calmly mentioned to her that it wasn’t hers to throw away and she’s lucky a) it wasn’t someone else’s book and b) that I love her very much 😊

It's your daughter and you knew she doesn't like book jackets so I'm not sure why you didn't remove it. 

[chitowngirl]

1 hour ago, Ancaster said:

It's your daughter and you knew she doesn't like book jackets so I'm not sure why you didn't remove it. 

I didn’t think she’d throw it away!! And I didn’t know she hated them that much. 😆

Edited April 29 by chitowngirl

[Dimity]

35 minutes ago, chitowngirl said:

I didn’t think she’d throw it away!! And I didn’t know she hated them that much. 😆

Probably doesn't apply here but if this were a collectible book having the jacket intact would enhance the value.  And I disagree that you should have been the one to anticipate things.  You have every reason to expect to get something back in the same condition in which it was lent!  

[Ancaster]

I mentioned the death of someone who happened to be married to a former president.  Not allowed.

[TattleTeeny]

Here? Or some other place? 

I was in a FB group about funny thrift store finds and I got tossed out for saying that a figurine/statue thing looked like a recent former president. I neither said that I liked this person nor that I disliked him with a continuous raging furious fire, just that the item looked like him. 

Edited April 29 by TattleTeeny

[SoMuchTV]

22 minutes ago, Ancaster said:

I mentioned the death of someone who happened to be married to a former president.  Not allowed.

Just curious - was that before or after the recent "changing of the guards" (earlier this year)?  There was a new "politics policy" posted a few weeks ago, and I pm'd for clarification because I really couldn't tell what was different from the previous rules, and the response indicated (I hope it's okay to quote a pm here):
 

Quote

 

The idea is to make it a bit more lenient. What remains the same is that any politics discussion is supposed to originate with the show (I don't know if you're watching The Night Agent, but, the show should not be used to randomly draw parallels to current politics. Any parallels should be drawn only in relation to an episode) and discussion should not drift away from the show into a politics only discussion. However, if, in the course of that discussion, a poster were to mention their political leaning in a post that is otherwise show related and there wasn't any intent to discuss their personal politics, it would be okay.

As long as the above meme wouldn't be random but show-related and posted for the sake of posting a political figure and the intention isn't to start a politics discussion then yes, it would be okay.

 

But that seems to be related to what's happening in shows.  The example I asked about was a meme with a politician but in a non-political situation - think Bernie in his mittens at the Inauguration, photoshopped into various tv-show-related situations.  (That got slapped down in the old days.)  I don't know what the policy would be if you posted about politics-related person in say, Milestone Moments or something like that.

 

Edited April 29 by SoMuchTV

[peacheslatour]

I once said that many working people avail themselves of Medicaid. The horror! I got slapped good for that one.

[Bastet]

37 minutes ago, SoMuchTV said:

I don't know what the policy would be if you posted about politics-related person in say, Milestone Moments or something like that.

As of now, that's still only for celebrities in the entertainment industry (news about athletes goes in Sports, but there is no place for news about politicians or royals), but the recent note at the top of the forums home page says they'll be reviewing all the forum-specific rules and adjusting or removing them so there aren't so many pockets of the site with different/additional rules.  I cannot imagine they'll ever open the royals can of worms again, and when the politics sub-forum existed that turned into more moderation work than any site that's primarily about TV wanted to take on, thus it got shitcanned, so I don't know that even milestone news (got married or divorced, had a kid, died, etc.), which is not about their actions as a political figure, would ever wind up being allowed because of the discussion that tends to ensue, but stay tuned.

[SoMuchTV]

11 minutes ago, Bastet said:

As of now, that's still only for celebrities in the entertainment industry (news about athletes goes in Sports, but there is no place for news about politicians or royals), but the recent note at the top of the forums home page says they'll be reviewing all the forum-specific rules and adjusting or removing them so there aren't so many pockets of the site with different/additional rules.  I cannot imagine they'll ever open the royals can of worms again, and when the politics sub-forum existed that turned into more moderation work than any site that's primarily about TV wanted to take on, thus it got shitcanned, so I don't know that even milestone news (got married or divorced, had a kid, died, etc.), which is not about their actions as a political figure, would ever wind up being allowed because of the discussion that tends to ensue, but stay tuned.

Haha, I’m remembering when Bob Dole died (2021, I think) someone posted about it in Celebrity Deaths, and despite their mention of his extensive television career (check his Wikipedia!) it got taken down pretty quickly.  

[Dimity]

My peeve today are adults who don't know basic stuff.  I'm sorry but if you went through high school and university you should know that the reason we had a World War II was because there was a World War I and you really should know when it was fought.  I am not expecting exact dates but to have no idea that the world was at war in 1917?  Peeved.

[Annber03]

57 minutes ago, Dimity said:

My peeve today are adults who don't know basic stuff.  I'm sorry but if you went through high school and university you should know that the reason we had a World War II was because there was a World War I and you really should know when it was fought.  I am not expecting exact dates but to have no idea that the world was at war in 1917?  Peeved.

When I worked at our local bookstore, we would often shelve books in the history section, and at our store, we would organize the U.S. history section by time period/the wars in question (and then go alphabetical in each specific section).

One of my coworkers, who was a good number of years older than me (I was in my late 20s at the time), couldn't always remember what wars happened when and would often have to ask about that when she was responsble for shelving that section. She would've been old enough to be alive when some of these wars took place, or would've learned about them in history class, and she still didn't know. 

[Kimboweena]

8 hours ago, TattleTeeny said:

I was in a FB group about funny thrift store finds and I got tossed out for saying that a figurine/statue thing looked like a recent former president.

Just today, I had a FB post removed. It is an Art Deco page.  I posted a pic of a light that a lady on House Hunters called Art Deco.  I didn't think it was, so asked on that page what they thought.  Got over 200 replies, then today a notification that the post was removed, and given a warning that group rules were broken.  Reason given: Your post doesn't meet with the groups standards of posting only Art Deco or Deco related subjects.

SMH, so I can't post a pic to ask if something is Art Deco or not?  Crazy!

[Yeah No]

On 4/25/2024 at 5:02 PM, kristen111 said:

On 4/21/2024 at 3:41 PM, annzeepark914 said:

Isn't there a drug one can take for frequent nighttime urination? 

Probably, but I’m very sensitive to many drugs and creams.  Can’t even take vitamins.  My Mother was the same.🤷‍♂️

I'm like you although I can take vitamins.  I was prescribed that medication for urinary urgency and had weird side effects so forget that.  So now I take AZO for that issue which is mostly pumpkin seed extract if you can believe that.  It works pretty well but it does get expensive.

[Yeah No]

6 hours ago, Dimity said:

My peeve today are adults who don't know basic stuff.  I'm sorry but if you went through high school and university you should know that the reason we had a World War II was because there was a World War I and you really should know when it was fought.  I am not expecting exact dates but to have no idea that the world was at war in 1917?  Peeved.

That's a peeve of mine too, and it seems like there are more people like that all the time.  There's a whole genre of YouTube videos in which comics and others stand on busy streets with microphones and ask passers by some very basic questions (even more basic than yours above) about history, current events and geography.  My husband plays them for me every now and then and the ignorance is astounding. 

[Mindthinkr]

3 hours ago, Yeah No said:

That's a peeve of mine too, and it seems like there are more people like that all the time.  There's a whole genre of YouTube videos in which comics and others stand on busy streets with microphones and ask passers by some very basic questions (even more basic than yours above) about history, current events and geography.  My husband plays them for me every now and then and the ignorance is astounding. 

I seem to remember that Jay Leno did a segment something like this. It was called Jay Walking. I was often surprised at lots of their wrong answers. 

[Yeah No]

2 hours ago, Mindthinkr said:

I seem to remember that Jay Leno did a segment something like this. It was called Jay Walking. I was often surprised at lots of their wrong answers. 

Yeah, I think Jay started it and that's where the others got the idea and ran with it on YouTube.

Here's a YouTube search that turns up a whole slew of them.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=asking+people+simple+questions

My favorite question is "In what year did the war of 1812 begin?"  LOL  You can't make this stuff up!

If I didn't laugh I'd cry, seriously!

 

[EtheltoTillie]

Today's peeve:  I blame only myself.

I ordered two bags of Peet's coffee from Amazon, and I mistakenly ordered whole beans instead of ground.   Grr.

Since I own a grinder (not used in years), I'll suffer through the next few weeks of grinding instead of trying to return the order. 

[RealHousewife]

9 minutes ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Today's peeve:  I blame only myself.

I ordered two bags of Peet's coffee from Amazon, and I mistakenly ordered whole beans instead of ground.   Grr.

Since I own a grinder (not used in years), I'll suffer through the next few weeks of grinding instead of trying to return the order. 

I’m sorry! I’ve done that shopping in the store too, easy mistake. 

My pet peeve is the fact the only glyphosate-free instant oatmeal I can find in any store around me is sugary. I want a plain one! Oatmeal is so easy to add flavor to in a healthy way. 

[TattleTeeny]

UGH, I cannot deal with Petco's dinosaur of a glitch-ridden website. It is 2024, fucking get it together. It frequently asks you to log in when you already are, it lets you add items to the cart then later tells you they're OOS (but not all at once, mind you -- individually), it takes 15 seconds to update a number from 3 cans to 4 (again one by one). Ugh. But OK, the little "time passing" graphic is pretty cute -- not worth it, but cute.

OH! They also stopped supplying bags without mentioning it on the site; I went in last time and they literally gave me a pile of loose cans and a 25-pound bag of litter to carry. I do not care if they make me buy new reusable bags if I forget, but that was not an option, apparently. 

And yes, I know I can go into the store and do the shopping myself, but I prefer to do a pickup -- a service that they offer and that I feel perfectly justified in attempting to utilize. But lately, I do feel liek actually going in and shopping might be faster!

[EtheltoTillie]

I agree something's up with Petco's database.  I go in there occasionally to buy treats, toys or leashes.  They have never been able to access my account for bonus points.  I gave up. 

I also order my dog food from Amazon.  Petco doesn't have our brand.

Further Amazon peeve!  I ordered a dress, and they sent the wrong size.  I'm returning it for a refund.  Not even bothering with an exchange.  At least I was able to drop it at the UPS store on my corner with no repackaging. 

Edited April 30 by EtheltoTillie

[peacheslatour]

I've only ever used Chewy for any pet care stuff. Never had any problems. There is a house, one street over that has the same house number as we do but the street name is different. They get a lot of our deliveries and we get theirs. We just run them over to each other's houses. The only time I had any problem with a Chewy delivery was when the driver kept taking our stuff to the wrong house. Chewy replaced the items at no cost, even though it wasn't their fault.

[Bastet]

2 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

Chewy replaced the items at no cost, even though it wasn't their fault.

They're terrific about that.  I've never encountered a company with such consistently great customer service.  I was really worried with the Petco buyout that such a high standard would fade, but it's been years now and nothing has changed.  I still buy my cat's food from a local "Mom & Pop" pet supply store -- except for when Chewy has a great offer (like get a $30 gift card when you spend $100, which they've been doing more frequently lately).  Her litter I get from Costco.  I shop local as much as I can, but some deals are too good to pass up.

[JustHereForFood]

12 hours ago, Yeah No said:

That's a peeve of mine too, and it seems like there are more people like that all the time.  There's a whole genre of YouTube videos in which comics and others stand on busy streets with microphones and ask passers by some very basic questions (even more basic than yours above) about history, current events and geography.  My husband plays them for me every now and then and the ignorance is astounding. 

We used to have a TV show like that and I was always soothing myself thinking they must be selecting the most outrageous answers to make it more interesting. Now, I'm not so sure and find it very possible that people really are that stupid.

[TattleTeeny]

The bees swarming my balcony are peeving me today. I’m still out here reading, trying to shake off this stopped day’s myriad other peeves, but oh my goodness. There must be a hive or nest somewhere, but I can’t see one. 

I don’t want to kill or hurt them, but I want them gone. Has anyone had success with any kind of repeller that won’t hurt them or birds? 

[Angeltoes]

Two youngsters at my work (in their early thirties, I'm guessing, but I'm 64 so they look like junior high kids to me) were discussing the OJ Simpson trial today as if they'd just found out about it.  

"It was HUGE, Dude, HUGE.  Everybody was watching it.  My parents said they rushed home from work every day to watch it.  And, get this, there was this glove and the court wanted to see if it was his and they made him try it on in the courtroom."  Dude says,"No way!" and the other one says,"Way, Dude, right there in the courtroom."

Then I did the math in my head and realized that trial was almost thirty years ago and I'm officially old.

[kristen111]

7 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

I agree something's up with Petco's database.  I go in there occasionally to buy treats, toys or leashes.  They have never been able to access my account for bonus points.  I gave up. 

I also order my dog food from Amazon.  Petco doesn't have our brand.

Further Amazon peeve!  I ordered a dress, and they sent the wrong size.  I'm returning it for a refund.  Not even bothering with an exchange.  At least I was able to drop it at the UPS store on my corner with no repackaging. 

Amazon Prime is addictive.  I’ve gotten something everyday this past week.  Sometimes, I even get a delivery the same day.  Loving this.

[Dimity]

Another peeve, somewhat history related - I am totally and completely sympathetic to young people starting out and how hard it is for them in today's economic market - but if one more person under the age of 40 tells me "your generation was so lucky" I may start screaming and I do not guarantee I will stop.  No generation was lucky.  

 

[PRgal]

1 minute ago, Dimity said:

Another peeve, somewhat history related - I am totally and completely sympathetic to young people starting out and how hard it is for them in today's economic market - but if one more person under the age of 40 tells me "your generation was so lucky" I may start screaming and I do not guarantee I will stop.  No generation was lucky.  

 

I don't know how old you are, but if you ask my parents (boomers), they WILL openly admit that they were lucky.  They and their immigrant peers.  But it was just a small cohort of people who came at the right time and had the right education.  

[Dimity]

1 minute ago, PRgal said:

But it was just a small cohort of people who came at the right time and had the right education.  

I think where my generation was lucky is that when we were going through school it didn't cost an arm and a leg!  Most of my friends graduated with minimal student debt.  And that's a big lucky in my book!  But that said my generation lost older brothers in Vietnam and family members died of cancer and other diseases that today are infinitely more curable.  On the other hand this generation is dealing with a load of crap that we couldn't even have imagined when we were kids!

[Yeah No]

51 minutes ago, Dimity said:

I think where my generation was lucky is that when we were going through school it didn't cost an arm and a leg!  Most of my friends graduated with minimal student debt.  And that's a big lucky in my book!  But that said my generation lost older brothers in Vietnam and family members died of cancer and other diseases that today are infinitely more curable.  On the other hand this generation is dealing with a load of crap that we couldn't even have imagined when we were kids!

Unfortunately given my personal circumstances I can imagine what the young generation is going through today.  Not everyone from the Boomer generation was that lucky.  I figured it out and in today's money I graduated from college with $40,000 worth of student loan debt.  And I lived in NYC working in higher ed. where the salaries sucked and it took half my income to pay my rent in the Bronx, which was full of crack addicts and homeless.  I graduated college to double digit inflation, double digit interest rates, plus it was not easy to get a job for a lot of reasons not the least of which is that I was born a little too late. The Boomers between 5 and 10 years older than me had gotten all the good jobs by the time I came along and employers got pickier and wouldn't hire you with just a liberal arts degree like they used to do.  Suddenly in the '80s they all wanted Business Administration or other more technical degrees.  When the older Boomers were looking to buy houses they were still affordable and at lower interest rates.  I couldn't afford to even buy a condo. until my mid '30s and I had to look out of state and wait until the savings and loan crisis when real estate prices fell to do it.  And even then it was a struggle.

[Dimity]

4 minutes ago, Yeah No said:

I graduated college to double digit inflation, double digit interest rates, plus it was not easy to get a job for a lot of reasons not the least of which is that I was born a little too late.

Are you my twin?  This is what happened for my husband and I when we graduated (minus the student debt).  Employers who were waiting on campus with job offers in hand  just a few years before we graduated were nowhere to be seen when we got our diplomas! When we bought our first house the interest rate on the mortgage was 12 and 2/3s % and we were glad to get that 2/3s!

Edited May 1 by Dimity

[Yeah No]

3 minutes ago, Dimity said:

Are you my twin?  This is what happened for my husband and I when we graduated (minus the student debt).  Employers who were waiting on campus with job offers in hand  just a few years before we graduated were nowhere to be seen when we got our diplomas! When we bought our first house the interest rate on the mortgage was 12 and 2/3s % and we were glad to get that 2/3s!

I must be, lol.  But I think it wasn't an uncommon situation for people born in that certain age bracket.  I remember my classmates saying to forget getting a good job in education, forget the gov't, the arts, etc., there was no opportunity.  Suddenly everything was either business, computer science, law or medicine.  Too bad I wasn't motivated toward any of them.

I married my husband right after I graduated college.  He never went to college.  He found out several years ago why he didn't do so well in school - he is a dyslexic and never knew it.  And back when we were young if you didn't have a college degree forget getting hired in any decent career unless you had certain abilities, which he didn't.  He wasn't a construction type or a sales type.  The fact that we have what we have now, (which still isn't that much but it's still a lot better than how we started out) is by sheer determination and some luck. 

I remember those crazy interest rates.  My husband and I often recall the real estate agents that wouldn't even allow us to make an appointment unless we could show some proof that we could afford a mortgage.  It was brutal out there.  By the time the savings and loan crisis happened and interest rates fell we thought our 7.5% mortgage was cheap, LOL.  Suddenly those same real estate agents were enticing us in with baked goods and coffee, LOL.  The condo. we bought in Fairfield County, CT was 30% cheaper than the same units went for in the first phase that was built before the crisis.  That's the only way we could afford one.  We figured we deserved a bit of luck for having lived through the '80s in the Bronx.  The stories I tell shock people from CT, LOL.  They can't believe some of the crap we lived through.  We can laugh about it now!

[JustHereForFood]

14 hours ago, Dimity said:

Another peeve, somewhat history related - I am totally and completely sympathetic to young people starting out and how hard it is for them in today's economic market - but if one more person under the age of 40 tells me "your generation was so lucky" I may start screaming and I do not guarantee I will stop.  No generation was lucky.  

Lumping people by generations can be tricky. It might work for some cultural phenomenons that are specific for a certain period of time, but when it comes to economics there are obviously a lot of other differences that can matter more than the time period, like the background or individual economic situations. (and that is even before you factor in different countries)

[RealHousewife]

People throwing around someone being like a brother or sister to them. One day it will be true, and no one will believe you. 

[Ancaster]

.

 

Edited May 1 by Ancaster