I have absolutely no tolerance for children who misbehave in public.  I think my already nonexistent tolerance for the rantings of rugrats was pushed beyond its limits yesterday.  I had been suffering from a most nasty sinus infection topped off with stomach distress and Montezuma’s Revenge most of last week.  I had been consigned to bed all day Saturday and most of the day yesterday, so as I dragged my sorry carcass through Kroger’s the last thing I wanted to encounter were miscreant crumb-chompers. 

There were a little boy and little girl- I would say aged between 5 and 7 years (old enough to know how to behave in public, at least IMHO) prancing about and screaming for all they were worth all through the frozen foods in Kroger.  Combine this with still being halfways sick, and it’s crowded in the store to begin with being that it’s Welfare Day, (or more precisely the day after Welfare Day, but close enough) and I am  getting mildly agoraphobic (I don’t do crowds well) on top of just plain feeling crappy.  With each passing moment I was getting more and more pissed off that said children’s mother was nowhere to be seen, let alone actively retrieving and restraining them from their misbehavior.

Not that the 70’s were an idyllic time- but I would at that moment given anything to grab the little banchees and give them a fanny whacking worth screaming about.  I know my mother had done that with several of the neighborhood kids if she caught them misbehaving, then she would tell their mothers so they could continue the whacking at home.  Had I dared to act so improperly at that age my mother would have beat me to Kingdom Come long before my wailings would have reached the ears of bystanders.  Mom was a good Catholic mother- she wanted to make sure we got a good taste of the pangs of purgatory and the fires of hell right here on earth.  Back then there would have been no bleeding heart with Children’s Services number on speed dial.  There were no cell phones back then- and if there had been- the phone would have been used to call the child’s mother so she could give the child the beating he/she deserved for acting up in public, and another beating for having to be reprimanded by someone other than a parent or blood relative.

Of course today you dare not even give a verbal reprimand to a child not your own, and you have to be careful even with your own spawn lest they decide that you are “verbally abusing” them and damaging their gossamer-thin shell of self-esteem.  Then they tell the school counselors that they’re “abused” because you set boundaries on their behavior, and you end up in the principal’s office at the school trying to explain your methods of discipline to some bleeding heart psychologist who then gives you a lecture on positive parenting or some other line of crud.  Bullshit, I say.  Sometimes the only correction for the incorrigible is a fired-up fanny.

I still say keep the kids out of the store and let the dogs in.  My dogs know how to behave in public.  I wish that people with kids like that would be required to keep them on a leash so they didn’t disturb other people with their ranting and raving in the store.  They make leashes and harnesses for kids.  I know at times I had wanted to put Steve-o on one even though he knew his boundaries much better than the kids I encountered in Kroger’s.

Tires and testicles.  Looks like double trouble to me.  A man had to have come up with the truck nut craze.  If I subscribed to Freudian psychology (which for the most part I don’t) I would say guys who have to put balls on their trucks feel their own packages to be inadequate.  In my opinion it seems that guys who have to put balls on their trucks are more likely to keep their own balls in their wives’ purses.

How many women put coochie lips or boobs on their cars?  ‘Nuff said.

Jerry is down at the campground all weekend to help Bob.  I am grateful for the quiet and sanity especially after the incident with his truck.  I hope they all question him about the drunk bump.

If Jerry’s going to drink beer and act like an ass, I prefer him to be down there rather than pestering the hell out of me.  Upon leaving he mentioned taking bluegrass and country tapes.  I am glad not to have to endure his musical tastes as mean as that might sound.  He can get drunk to Willie Nelson all weekend, while I catch up on some much needed sleep and assorted recreational activities in peace.

I know Jerry feels bad because Bob has colon cancer and is facing surgery next week.  The pisser is that Jerry getting drunk is no help for Bob’s situation.  If Jerry wants to be a good friend perhaps staying sober and acting like an adult might be a better plan.

I should go to Cincinnati for my nephew’s birthday party Sunday but we shall see.  I am pretty worn out and fried.  It seems like it takes all my effort just to go to work and try to maintain.

I might also add, unwilling to produce documents to verify that he is indeed a native born citizen and therefore eligible to hold the office of President.  How arrogant can you get?  I have to show my driver’s license and sign all kinds of crap just to buy farking Claritin-D.  No, I am not buying Claritin-Ds because I’m running a meth lab.  I simply like breathing from time to time-as Borat might say, breathing is nice, but I still have to show my driver’s license and follow the rules if I want Claritin-Ds. Why does he think he’s above the rest of us plebes?  If you want to be President of the US, you should have the documentation to prove you are a natural born citizen.  If you aren’t able to prove that (or if you already know you were NOT born in this country) you are not eligible to run, let alone to be sworn in.  It’s in the Constitution, for those who might not be terribly familiar with that document.

Even Ted Kennedy pretended to be sorry when they found Mary Jo dead in his submerged Oldsmobile.   Even Teddy showed up with a neck brace and all, trying to feign innocence while he and everyone else knew he was guilty as hell.  Obama doesn’t even pretend to be remorseful or even willing to admit when he’s wrong.  He simply defies the law with a seething contempt, as if anyone would dare to thwart his almighty will.   This dude is bad news and the sooner he is out of office the better.

Ok, few things are guaranteed to piss me off more than Obama and his pomposity, but I have been too focused on politics lately.  So I decided to  troll through my vast collection of MP3’s to arrange some handy playlists for my new MP3 player (the 8GB Sansa Fuze.) So far I am delighted with it as it is more user friendly and has more storage than the old one.  Of course my music collection is rather dated- most of it is 1985 or older- and the artists range from Carly Simon to Metallica. I do have a few newer items but not too many.  I think Journey’s Revelation is the newest material I have (2008) so I am not entirely relegated to the 80’s.

Few things seem more disjointed to me than going from Metallica to Handel’s Messiah but it’s all on there and if I hit random I get some strange combos.

I need another road trip.  I also need to go get that wade pool from Kathy.  See what I mean about disjointed thoughts?

Maybe it’s mean of me to rub it in, but how damned dumb can you get?  I still can’t believe Jerry was dumb enough to attempt to wash his truck when he was too drunk to speak intelligibly.  Next time I go to my church group I will have to confiscate his keys.

There used to be a long standing joke with the guys at the Buick dealers. 

 “How did the Century get its name?” 

“It’s the average age of the drivers. ”

The sad thing about most jokes is that they are based on a grain of truth.  It seems every time I go up to Marion I see them everywhere- little old white-haired geezers driving Buick Centurys.  I know, geezers tend to like Camrys too, but then again so do cops.  I remember dealing with a lot of cops.  Among those cops who prefer Toyotas, it’s either Camrys or 4Runners. Go figure.

You know you’re in trouble when you go into a car dealership and there’s a defibrillator in the service waiting area.  Either the clientele is antique or the rates are outrageous, or maybe it’s how the geezers react to outrageous repair bills.  Then again, when you’re 85 you really don’t have much better to do than to languish in the Buick dealer’s customer lounge, swilling their day-old coffee and falling asleep in the plastic chairs while Oprah is blaring on the cheap 13 inch TV that is hanging from the wall.   It would stand to reason that the Grim Reaper will will find you regardless if you are falling asleep to Oprah at home, or at Smilin’ Bob’s Buick.   The only difference is that if you drop dead at the Buick dealer it makes them look bad, sort of like the other day when I saw an EMS truck parked in front of Wendy’s.  EMS drivers have to eat sometime, don’t they?  Or maybe some unfortunate geezer’s number came up just as they were diving in to a steaming cup of Wendy’s chili.  Either way no one really wants to equate Wendy’s with medical emergencies that require the EMS any more than the Buick dealers want anyone to equate sudden death with waiting in their service department.   I know when my number’s up I really hope to be asleep in my own bed.  The sad part is that I will probably die alone and no one will find me until my carcass has been stripped by my dogs and cats, but that’s a whole other subject.

I don’t believe in hanging around waiting for my car to get fixed.  I have no patience for that noise.  I’d rather drop it off and let them notify me when it’s done and when I can come and get it.  When I was a service director I never liked having customers wait on cars for a number of reasons.  First of all having someone wandering about waiting puts pressure on the tech to fix it fast which means he might not address possible upsell opportunities.  This is probably the best reason to put the customer in a rental car or give him/her a ride to work.  If the tech has it all day he is more likely to be more thorough in his assessment of possible upsells and the customer is more likely to approve upsells which means no rescheduling.  Why not get everything done while the car’s already on the rack?   I  also don’t have to worry about babysitting that person either as they troll about the showroom or worse, they come back to the shop to pester advisors or techs.  The worst thing a customer can do is keep coming back to the advisor every ten minutes asking, “is it done yet?”  Believe me, we want you out of that waiting room, sweetheart, and we will be the first to come and get you when it’s ready to go. 

I’m glad I don’t work in dealerships anymore.  There were fun things about it but I freely admit I can’t handle the stress.  I do miss the fact that I could get my car detailed for free and maintenance services done for the cost of parts and a 12 pack of brews though.  Techs are generally easily bribed with malt beverages. 

Which brings me back to Jerry’s dumb ass incident.  I wonder how much this little faux pas is going to cost him?  I still can’t believe he had the balls to blame me ostensibly because I wasn’t there to protect him from himself.   As if I can?  When he’s wasted the Drunk and Stupid has an evil life of its own.  You can’t tell him shit.  I was home when (in a booze fueled blaze of stupidity) he decided it was a good idea to start a fire in the fireplace with gasoline.  I refused to “help” him by getting the gas can for him so he did it himself. 

I know we all have our frailties- I could write a rather tawdry tome if I were to recall every stupid thing I’ve ever done, but come on.  53 going on two.  He might have gained himself some attention but I guarantee it’s not the kind of attention he wants!

Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.  If I knew to who I should attribute this pithy tidbit of wisdom I would, but since I don’t, I will simply acknowledge its simple truth and relevance. This being said, I know in the scheme of things my opinion has the impact and the gravitas of a popcorn fart.  This isn’t false humility, it’s reality.  I care what I think, but I’m probably the only one who does.

To say that I despise the corruption, graft and just plain wrong direction of the current government from the naked emperor on down is an understatement.  It seems so painfully obvious to me that Obama and company are in it simply for their own personal powergrabs- to undermine private industry and demonize it so that the government can take  over.  Socialism by farce is nothing new under the sun.  If I recall correctly, Adolf Hitler did the same thing.  

Whenever I hear of His Arrogance (Obama) wanting to lay down even more punitive taxation on private industry to fund his faux utopian programs,  I keep coming back to the state provision of  free bread and circuses that contributed to the downfall of the Roman Empire. The resources and wealth of the Empire were squandered in appeasing and entertaining the masses rather than providing for an infrastructure and a common defense.  Sound familiar?  Road-building and maintaining a military are the primary reasons for the existence of the federal government according to the Constitution.  The last time I checked, there was nothing in the Constitution that either provided for the establishment of a nanny state, or stated that the nanny state has to pay for some 70 year old impotent geezer to get a free pecker pump- but they do!

While Obama is playing footsie with dictators (behind closed doors and conveniently beyond the camera’s eye to boot) and sucking up to Muslim despots, our national defense languishes.  Soldiers in combat have to abide by ridiculous rules of engagement that give foreign terrorists more rights and advantages than the soldiers themselves.   Since when does the tail wag the dog?  Civil trials for terrorists who are NOT American citizens and whose nations of origin reject even the  humanitarian provisions of the Geneva Convention?  I think NOT. 

American citizens who were supposedly born under the protection of the Constitution end up having their rights usurped by a wanna be dictator in the Oval office and a Congress who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anything other than sucking up to the Obamanation himself and therefore preserving their own hides.   (until November that is, unless the Democrats can dig up enough dead people to vote them back in.)

Yes, this stuff pisses me off to no end.  I don’t hold Republicans blameless- they bent over and played the PC card to the wacked out left’s advantage, but there could be a blessing in disguise if enough people wake up.  If enough people demand to keep what they earn, if enough people have the courage to take care of themselves instead of expecting the government to be the all-knowing, all-powerful nanny, then perhaps we might get our country back.

So how many three year olds are still breast feeding?  Does the Ohio Department of Health think that I should still be breast feeding my almost 19 year old?  I hope not because he does seem to have a pathological preoccupation with boobs to begin with.

That would be more than a little creepy.  If they are old enough to ask for it they are old enough to eat a McDouble like everyone else.

I understand all too well the advantages of breast feeding an infant– if you’re poor, but not poor enough to have the government give you baby formula for free, breast feeding is the only way to go, at least until the kid gets teeth and can eat normal food like everyone else.  This seemed to work just fine for Steve-o for the first four months or so. (Not three years or however old the toddler is in the picture on the original billboard!)  It amazes me that other mammals seem to get the whole “these teats are here for nursing” bit just fine, but we humans seem to have a problem with it.  Animals also know when it’s time to wean.  Dogs cut off their pups as soon as they get teeth.  Makes sense to me.

Either new mothers are wigged out with the idea of a tiny human hanging off their nipple for fifteen minutes or so every other hour for four to six months, or they don’t make milk for whatever reason, or they just plain don’t want to bother.  For the life of me I can’t understand failing to breast feed your newborn if you are capable, even if your only goal in it is to save a ton of money.   Formula is incredibly expensive for those of us who have to actually pay cash for it.   Supposedly the kid gets sick less often which helps avoid constant doctor visits.   Even if you have a hard time abiding having the kid hanging on you all the time you can get a (n) (electric) breast pump and just milk yourself (doesn’t that sound creepy.. but it’s really not that bad) so someone else can feed the kid later.   I can say Steve-o was healthier than most infants although I don’t know if breast feeding was the sole reason for that.   If you actually just have the kid latch on and go at it, it also saves the hassle of sterilizing bottles and nipples.     You can breast feed discretely if you need to- just toss a blanket over and nobody sees anything.  It’s not rocket science, because newborns have the same rooting reflex that puppies, kittens, piglets, etc. have.  A newborn will figure out what to do with the teat- namely put it in his mouth and chew on it…apparently the male of the species never grows out of that reflex, but I digress.

It is a good thing that the government is encouraging breast feeding- it saves the taxpayers money after all and it’s a lot healthier for infants as long as their moms stay off crack and all that.  One disadvantage of breast feeding is that you do have to eat with some regard to health and you can’t be drunk and high the whole time.

I like that.

I know the feeling that I hope anyone stupid enough to have voted for Barack Obama is feeling in their deepest inner being right about now.

My first new car was the most stupid and ill-advised purchase I have ever made in my life.  At the time (January, 1990) I was driving a ’79 VW Rabbit that had issues- eight hundred dollars’ worth of issues that I had just resolved, and then the starter (another $150 worth) went south.  While Dad was waiting on the time and motivation to install said starter, I was stranded at my sister’s in Worthington with no ride.  So I got pissed and said to myself what the hell I might as well just buy a new car. 

The only new car in my price range with an air conditioner?  A metallic blue, 4 cylinder automatic Chevy Cavalier.  The Cavalier pictured above is not the car I had, but the only picture of a Cavalier that old I could find.  Mine was not a Z24, and it was a 1990 not a 1989 like the one pictured, but it was still a piece of shit.   Since I was working for a Chevy dealer at the time I thought well I probably should buy a GM vehicle (mistake #1) and might as well go with a four cylinder (mistake #2 unless it’s one of the four cylinder engines Toyota builds for GM) and don’t ya love the metallic blue paint (one of the blue and silver paint codes that were notorious for paint delamination all through the ’90’s.)

A week after I bought this piece of crap the clear coat started peeling off the hood.  So it was off to the body shop for a couple of days. The hood never matched the rest of the car again.  The interior trim was so badly fitted the dash vibration at idle would drive you nuts.  I had the techs look at it because it had such bad lifter noise (2.2 G) that it sounded like a freaking diesel.  The techs simply laughed and told me it was normal.  Oh, and did I say the oil drain plug was stripped at the factory so my first oil change was an oil and oil pan change?  I had this car maybe a week and already wanted my money pit VW back.  The VW at least could get out of its own way and it didn’t rattle like a freaking diesel.

To anyone who thought Barack Obama was a good deal- you got my old piece of shit ’90 Cavalier.  How do you like that sinking feeling of, “ah shit, I got hosed?” 

Of course I did NOT vote for Obama but Republicans don’t get a free pass either.  We have been too soft and not willing to tell it like it is for fear of offending someone.  Well, dammit, the emperor (or that’s what he likes to think he is) is naked- as well as being downright malicious and power-hungry.

I’ve never been anything close to an optimist in my life, but I continue to pray for a  backlash of common sense.

I have to say I am the least “emo” person I know.  I know pop music has always been a bit on the fru-fru side, but the stuff they’re playing on pop stations when they aren’t playing rap is almost more nauseating than rap if that is possible.  The new pop songs all sound alike- like techno soundtracks for  really poorly produced porn movies.

I detest three things about so-called “customer service” call lines: wading through a maze of endless “press this button for everything except what you need” menus, being put on eternal hold, and having to listen to the most abominable music imaginable all during the hold time.  No, I do not want to dance while I wait, nor do I want to visualize in my mind the porn movie that particular soundtrack was inspired by.  Silence is OK with me. Better yet,  just answer the damned phone in a reasonable amount of time.

I also don’t need to be reminded every thirty seconds that I only have to wait seven minutes longer to talk to someone in some foreign country who can neither speak nor comprehend the English language.

Then once I do get through to Jamal or Shupadingding or Sinderatpuriikman, or some other poor soul unfortunate enough to be living in some third world country and working for 25 cents a day, I’ll get to spend another seven minutes to get that person to put me on hold for another eternity as they attempt to hand me over to someone in this country who speaks English as a first language.  For all I care, send me to someone in England who speaks English as a first language. Or send me to someone in Japan- their English is usually better than most rednecks’.

Let me talk to someone who can actually help.  Screw your damned electronic mazes and foreign call center help who are not fluent in English to whom you pay starvation wages to offer downright shitty service- in every language other than English.  I want to get my issues resolved, but my desperation is tempered  depending on how long I want to stay on eternal hold being tortured by techno porn movie soundtrack music, how long I can stand fishing through vast menus of issues that don’t even address my concern, and being just bitchy enough to insist on talking to someone who can speak the language.  Just because they tell you to say your name is John doesn’t mean it is, Shalulapondarieki.

Maybe the worst thing about eternal hold is that endless void you seem to enter into.   You’re tied to the phone, afraid to escape the torture music for even a second lest they pick up and you aren’t right there so they hang up on you.  This is frustrating as hell.  Even if you have the Bluetooth and can move about freely (which is a vast improvement to being tied to a landline for hours) you are still getting blasted with the bad hold music and thirty second “you’re going to be on hold a long, long time” reminders.

Of course eternal hold is a good time to play a word game on the DS or better yet, to answer e-mail if you’re sitting at the computer.  It’s still a big time waster.

The saddest thing about  shitty customer service lines is they do nothing more than underscore the fact that particular business doesn’t give a rat’s ass about you.

I won’t name the worst offenders by name but I will say that health insurance companies are some of the worst, followed ironically by phone companies and cable companies and other utility companies.  They must figure that since they have you by the short hairs (a captive audience if you will) that you are just going to bend over and take it.  To a degree, we must.   This is why capitalism must be allowed to work.  A little healthy competition might improve customer service.  If you don’t like the foreigner who doesn’t understand why you’re pissed that your health claim was denied, then you should be able to find a provider who does care about your problems.  The problem is nobody cares because nobody has to compete for your business.

I’d like to tell them all to bite me, once I get through the maze, endure the techno porno music, get past the foreigners, and find someone who can understand English.

As far as I can tell, the closest I get to Celtic ancestry of any sort is that my great-grandfather’s name was Ferguson and he actually came from Scotland.  Most of my other relatives are either of English or German descent and have been in this country a very long time.   I can trace one line clear back to Virginia in the 1720’s for whatever that’s worth.

I don’t like to mock other ethnic groups.  Irish and Scots are not that far apart either culturally or genetically or geographically.  I will say most the people I know who are of Irish descent do like beer drinking and fighting.  The other caveat I will add is that I know even more people who aren’t Irish in the slightest who like beer drinking and fighting just as much if not more than their Irish friends.  So I can’t say that beer drinking and fighting are particular to just one ethnic group.  Even if you look at rednecks as a whole, not all rednecks are beer drinkers.  A lot of them prefer liquor.

In a way it’s a shame that someone took St. Patrick’s feast day- the guy who brought Christianity to Ireland- and made it a beer drinking holiday.  I am not defending the Catholic practice of praying to saints (I’ve always thought that way creepy and not quite a cool thing to do) but come on.  The purpose behind the holiday is to thank God for the life of a person who brought other people to faith.  I could understand celebrating Benny Hill’s birthday with a round of green beer or something like that, but St. Patrick wasn’t a funny guy.  He was doing serious business.  Benny Hill on the other hand, would have appreciated a pint and an off color joke.

It also kind of sucks that previously solemn holidays such as Memorial Day (instituted to honor departed American war veterans) and Independence Day have also turned into beer drinking holidays.   I really don’t think that getting drunk and stupid and getting torched by one’s propane grill trying to cook burgers does much to remember departed war veterans.  In a way it’s sort of irreverent and disrespectful.   Then again, people fish in the brook in the cemetery where my grandparents are buried.  I don’t think they would have minded the fishing.  They weren’t too thrilled with drunkards though.

That reminds me, on my upcoming French leave days, I need to do a few things on the sanity hit parade.  The random rural roadtrip with pictures is one of them.  I am just debating over which small town(s) to target.   The other is to pay a visit to the cemeteries, yes I want to take some pics of Victorian era monuments in the Marion Cemetery, but also to remember that infinite truth that I am dust.

There’s something about observing the hordes of the unwashed that convinces me that the condition of the world is in a constant downward spiral.  I try to avoid shopping malls- especially when they’re crowded, but I broke one of my unwritten rules Saturday and accompanied the kids to Easton.  The original plan was for us to watch Alice in Wonderland in 3D IMAX at 4:15.  Unfortunately Jerry was watching the basketball game (like I give a shit about the Big Ten Tournament or whatever it was) and by the time we made it to Easton to buy tickets (should have bought them ahead online, shame on me for not thinking to check that) the 4:15 was sold out.  So we spent the afternoon cruising about the shops and fighting the crowds.  Jerry and Steve-o had fun at the sleep number bed place trying out the mattress and getting the sales pitch.  Arguably if I was considering buying a new high faluting bed, that’s what I would want.   At least an air mattress can’t get those funky body holes that regular beds get over time.  I still don’t know if I believe that the innards of these mattresses can stand up to dog nails.  Then again, it’s unlikely I will ever get to find out.

In spite of myself I actually did enjoy the movie.  Usually I don’t like the fantasy genre all that well and I am generally not one to go all out for “kids’ movies.”  In spite of being based on a story most consider to be a kids’ fairy tale, this version of Alice in Wonderland would likely scare the bejeezus out of most kids younger than teens.  I enjoyed the special effects.  There weren’t any dead spots either.  It was hard parting with the $14 a pop for tickets but this was definitely a good movie and worth seeing in 3D IMAX .  I would have been pissed, however, to pay $14 each for tickets to watch a shitty flick.   Sometimes things work out OK though.

I witnessed many fashion dos and dont’s on this happy foray.  One fashion don’t I observed with muted horror is that it is unwise to wear fluorescent pink if your torso is larger than my car.   It is also unwise to wear pants with chains when you’re wearing your pants halfway down your ass to begin with.   They tend to fall down as you walk.  However I did see some HK stuff in Hot Topic that I wouldn’t mind wearing.

It’s only March and far too early to be duped into thinking it’s springtime (especially here in Central Ohio) even though the time has changed.  We have had snowstorms in April here so I am not quite ready to break out the summer attire any time soon.  The difficult thing about March in Ohio is that it can be 70 degrees or 15 degrees…within the span of the same day.  There is no planning for the weather other than to take the Murphy’s Law approach- assume you are going to freeze part of the day and fry when you’re not freezing.

I wonder if anyone has actually played naked Twister- but then there are things better left unknown.  

The only concession I would like to make to the wildly changing weather is I would like to get in a good road trip.  Alone, and preferably in out of the way rural areas where nobody goes.  I’d so like to take the camera and get some good pics of old architecture, monuments, funny redneck moments, etc.  Perhaps I should not mock the denizens of the trailer park (as I am not that far removed from them) but there are some things (like pizza and bait sold in the same fine establishment) that are too funny not to mock.