assorted rants

things that piss me off

Still Sucking Up Valuable Oxygen, the Beauty of a Lean Christmas, and Being the Stealth Cougar

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This morning I was reminded that God must have some purpose for me as I’m still sucking up valuable oxygen.  Perhaps it is to keep on depositing money in Steve-o’s account.   It’s always creepy to hear of a person near my own age with no known health issues to simply drop dead for what appears to be no reason.  In a way- though I’ve been warned I probably won’t make it to old age-it makes me wonder if I am going to end up one of those people who still have a mind but their body goes all to hell.  My great-grandmother (who died at age 94 and was more mentally sound than I am now until she had the stroke that killed her) had a plethora of bodily ailments- rheumatoid arthritis, heart issues, lung cancer (she was a hard core smoker for 40+ years,) breast cancer, you name it -but until the last two weeks of her life her mind was all there.  Then you have the old people whose bodies seem to hang in there just fine but their minds are gone and they turn crazy as a shithouse rat.  If I were prone to wagering, which I am generally not, I would say my body will go before my mind does.  I can’t say which is worse.  It would suck to lose your mind, but as they say, “ignorance is bliss.”  Some of the happiest people I’ve seen are mentally challenged, and I’ve seen some people with genuinely brilliant intellects who are emotional and spiritual shipwrecks.  Perhaps the wisest answer is to trust that God will get you through with the hand He deals you.  Now I know why I don’t play poker.

I am holding fast to my vow to avoid buying people a bunch of crap they don’t need and that I can’t afford.  I am enjoying the simplicity of my Charlie Brown disaster tree although I did take the time to fix the lights so that they all light and they blink when they’re supposed to, at least for now.  I will buy the nieces and nephews loads of candy- since they are still young enough to be able to enjoy it- and that will be about it.  Anyone who doesn’t like that is cordially invited to send Steve-o money to free my finances up so I can spend money on something other than him, taxes, insurance or scripts.

I have to admit I still enjoy the eye candy and I really don’t think the young dudes realize it.  I just look old enough to be your Mom.  I know, I’m harmless enough, but in a way it’s sort of depressing.  Most guys my age and older don’t offer much of an appealing visual.  There are some notable exceptions (Mike Rowe…) but what woman wouldn’t find him fine to look at?  I guess for safety’s sake I should only be looking at dudes from afar because I know just how easy I can be tempted should an opportunity arise.  The good thing is my frumpy looks and rather boring appearance are good for keeping me chaste if nothing else.  The bottom line is I don’t get offers, which is probably a good thing.  This old white chick is extremely low mileage, probably for the same reason Ford Edsels weren’t particularly popular.  Even though they ran, they were ugly and awkward and not terribly fun to drive.  Such is my fate.

I had the opportunity to embarrass the snot out of Jerry Saturday night.  One of his buddies from the shop wanted Jerry to procure him an Asian porno flick.  I’m not terribly impressed by porn- most of the time it’s just plain gross, the music is horrible and the plots are contrived- but what the hey, we were out on Morse Rd. anyway.  So I took him to the Lion’s Den.  The couple who manage the store were very gregarious, displaying toys and telling him which movies were on sale and so forth.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him turn such a bright shade of red.  I could tell he was trying to look away as I was casually perusing the “toy” section.  We got the movie and got out fairly quickly but I have to say I enjoyed seeing him so embarrassed.  He didn’t offer to buy me any toys while we were there, which was kind of lame, since nature has dealt him a rather crappy hand in that department.    Let’s just say for politeness sake I tolerate involuntary celibacy, but I don’t enjoy it.  I really shouldn’t blame nature for his ED either- beers don’t drink themselves and cigarettes don’t smoke themselves-and drinking and smoking both are linked to ED.  As I said, he could at least procure me some battery operated substitutes, but go figure. 

I am reminded of a medical joke: A little old man goes to the Dr. for a complete physical. The Dr. asks the little old man to show him his sex organs.  The little old man wiggles his index finger and sticks out his tongue. 

Perhaps he doesn’t want to enhance my fantasy life any more than I do on my own.  It’s truly not funny although I try my best to find humor in it, lest his ED problem become yet more fodder to feed my discontent and depression.  Living with Mr. High Maintenance would be a lot easier if we had any kind of a sex life.  It’s particularly frustrating that he refuses to seek medical help or to even to try alternative kinds of bedroom fun (i.e. toys,).  And he wonders why I sleep in a separate room, in my own bed.  Part of it is because I have to sleep on an incline due to my constantly draining sinuses- to keep me from drowning in my own snot- and that’s the official answer I give, but the real answer is I see little point in the inconvenience of sharing a bed (with a snoring smoker no less) unless there’s a some action going on every once in awhile. 

I have to move forward from this subject (I almost used the phrase “get off,” then thought better of it,) before I go from slight melancholy to full blown depression.

Suffice to say that for some reason the Good Lord is keeping  me breathing, even with my laundry list of  physical defects and medical issues, when others who appear perfectly healthy drop dead for no apparent cause.  No matter how much I may speculate and think it unfair that those who have so much to live for are taken out of the world in a seemingly untimely manner, and people like me who basically are just sucking up valuable oxygen and waiting to die linger on for no readily apparent reason, it’s not my judgment call.  Go figure.  I’m not in control and that’s a very good thing.  Ask not for whom the bell tolls.

Survival of the Mentally Fittest (or at least the craftiest) and Understanding Man Logic (or is that an oxymoron?)

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I learned to be covert at a very young age as a necessary survival mechanism.  I am hideously ill-coordinated, and I was a weak and sickly child to boot, so physical fighting was almost always a losing proposition for me.  Avoidance was always the best strategy to prevent as many beatings as possible.  I found lots of interesting places to hide- closets, high up in trees, behind furniture, etc.  There were many places I could go to see but remain unseen.  Keeping under the radar- or above the situation- kept me from beatings more than once, and as I got older, guaranteed me much juicy fodder for blackmail opportunities.  I caught my sisters engaging in all sorts of illicit activities that would have gotten them in loads of trouble had I chose to nark on them.  Usually I didn’t nark if they spared me a beating -or at least stayed out of my stuff.  Knowledge is power in more ways than one. 

Even though I am not living under the threat of continual physical beatings, I still enjoy making detached ivory tower observations.    In some ways this is a bittersweet pursuit because I am haunted by a number of old ghosts who live in my dreams, ghosts who I can’t help but to come face to face with when I am confronted with places from my past.  When I’ve been out of a particular sphere for a long time viewing the residuals as they appear today can be disquieting. 

Last night I had a rather noteworthy dream in that it was a new scene- nothing remotely connected with past places or events which alone was refreshing.  I enjoyed the old metal bridges (late 19th/early 20th century) that one seldom sees anymore even out in the hinterlands.  Better than that there was a lovely waterfall that had been created that flowed over an embankment paved with red bricks into a free flowing river where people were swimming (nobody in their right mind would actually do that in most Ohio rivers these days.)  I don’t know why the bridges and the river stuck in my mind.  The scenery itself was new but it’s an old theme.  One of my favorite places to hide out and smoke when I was in high school was by the Scioto River just outside of Green Camp.  Back then there was an abandoned railroad trestle (since demolished for the scrap metal) one could walk out and sit on, comfortably out of view.  In summer no one would find you if you parked behind the trees.  It was a lovely hideout.

Both of these bridges are long gone which is sad in a way but even I must admit they were dangerous to go wandering out on.  I remember driving over the first one, and it scared the hell out of me even in my little Subaru DL, the way it would creak and moan under its slight weight. That old iron bridge once spanned the Olentangy River.  Though I found its design and its dedication plaque intriguing, I generally tried to avoid actually driving over it.  The second is the railroad trestle where we used to sit and watch the river flow by.  One would not dare swim or wade in the Scioto River up in Marion County even today as it is polluted with creosote and Lord only knows what else, but it was peaceful to simply sit and observe the world going by- as long as there was enough of a breeze to keep the bugs off.  I wonder how many others wandered on those bridges- were they secluded places for lovers’ trysts or set aside for drunken toasts and late night rages against the dark?  How many trains passed over that majestic iron trestle carrying their loads of coal or grain or armaments- or bodies of the fallen dead?  If only the bridges could speak their secrets what stories they might have, yet they stood in somber silence until need or greed came to take their obsolescence away.

I can really get into a bit of a dark mood when my mind goes wandering in such directions.  I believe that we humans very seldom choose the best course we should take. It does disturb me that the past holds echoes of a future that could have been much brighter than today- a future that never was- either as a result of our insolence or ignorance or a combination of both. 

On a lighter note, I have been contemplating the great oxymoron that is man logic.  Last night I watched a show obviously geared toward twenty-something men called “Manswers,” in which puerile young men try to explain the secrets of the universe.  Yes, enlighten me on all the things I really need to know- such as the logistics of having sex while sky-diving.  Then it occurred to me that the probability of me enjoying either of those activities, together or separately is approximately the same as the probability of snow storms in hell.  Sky-diving is an activity that I highly doubt I could muster the courage to engage in.  Sex is an activity I would like to engage in but that nobody else (who qualifies and meets my standards) wants to muster up the courage to engage in with me.  I don’t think I’ll watch that show again.  It was too depressing the more I started thinking about it.

When Jerry loses something he expects me to find it.  If I lose something it is my own tough luck and my business to find it as it should be.  I just hate the double standard.  It also seems that Jerry needs to find whatever object he lost when I am sleeping, eating, “taking the Obamas to the pool,” or bathing, and he expects me to drop the activity at hand to find the item he lost.  Few things can bring me to a seething head of anger faster than having my activities interrupted so that I may go fix someone else’s negligence and/or stupidity, but this seems to be the story of my life. 

That’s depressing too.   I have enough problems without anyone else contributing to them.

Helpful Hints I’m Glad I Don’t Need, a Geezer-Friendly World, and I Just Need Some Cheese!

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Since I knew pretty much from the start that the illustrious Steve-o was going to be an only child, I gave my maternity clothes away as soon as I could fit back into regular clothes.   This is a good thing not only because the thought of enduring pregnancy and/or childbirth at my age (fortunately for me a moot point since the hysterectomy- yay!) is absolutely abominable, and because I can visualize Jerry as the “don’t” illustration in the instructional pic.  It’s fortunate I was not able to have any children with Jerry as he is worse than a toddler himself and he would have been absolutely no help.   I will grant that for some women a hysterectomy is a tragic event.  I have all the sympathy in the world for someone who has to have one because of cancer or trauma, or who has to have a hysterectomy in spite of wanting more children, or someone who ends up having to have a hysterectomy at a very young age.  But each individual is different, and for me the hysterectomy was one of the best things I’ve ever done to preserve my sanity and improve my health.  Had I known what I know now I’d have insisted on having it done 15 years ago or so as the repair work after my c-section was completely messed up (hindsight of course is 20/20)  rather than suffering through years of interminable miserable visits from “Aunt Flo” along with pretty much constant pelvic pain.  Also remembering hindsight is 20/20, I’d been better off had my c-section turned into a c-section and hysterectomy at the same time. Even if I had ever wanted to get pregnant again it would have been pretty much impossible given the way I was pieced back together after the c-section.  I spent 18 years in accumulating and intensifying misery and there are no words to describe my relief at not having to endure the pain and the infernal mess.  So for me- at age 40- the hysterectomy was a happy event.   I wasn’t using it any more anyway. 

I do have a lot of empathy for pregnant women though.  I would not want to have to deal with all that noise today- the expense, the car seat hassles, the late night squalling, all that.  I don’t know if it’s because I’m old or because I’ve been through it before or a combination of both, but kids are fine as long as they aren’t mine- and their parents exert some sort of discipline and control over them in public.  I absolutely despise people who let their rugrats scream all the way through Target or run around like they are being raised by wolves or something.  Perhaps that’s the problem right there.   Steve-o is at least past two major hurdles- he is potty trained and literate- but we need to work on the “gainfully employed” part of the adulthood equation.  All in due time I guess, but I really hate society and government’s cute little expectations that we should extend adolescence far beyond the teen years.  If  kid is supposed to be an adult at age 18, then why does the government think parents should pay for extended schooling and health insurance until they’re 26? What the hell is Congress smoking? Obama, granted, is a Marxist nut job, but come on!  When I was 26 I was working 12 hour days and trying to support my four year old son.  The government sure as hell didn’t help me with that- nor did I expect them to.

I do notice that more and more this is becoming  a geezer friendly world and it’s a bit disquieting.  Every time I turn around there’s all these commercials trying to entice seniors to change their Medicare coverage.  Now there’s even a delightful little device for those too lazy to wash their feet which I find hilarious.  I also get a catalog full of all kinds of medical and other notion type things marketed toward the over-sixty set. 

Somebody shoot me if I get too lazy to bother to wash my feet.  I may not be perfect- by a long shot- but I do take some pride in my personal hygiene.

Last night I had to make a run to Target to get some cheese.  I had forgotten I didn’t have enough cheddar cheese for both Jerry’s tacos and the taco dip I am taking to the luncheon tomorrow.  Normally I would have gotten it at Kroger’s but Kroger’s is out of my way on the way home from work.  Target has shredded cheddar cheese and is on the way.  So does WalMart, but the WalMart on Morse Rd. is not suitable for civilized people to enter at any time, (that place is a freak show from hell) let alone after dark and during the holidays.  So, knowing that all the department stores are dens of insanity this time of year, I bravely enter the Target store on my quest for cheese. 

While Target’s clientele does not contain nearly as much of the criminal and/or governmentally dependent crowd as WalMart’s, the crowd last night was by no means a pleasure.  I truly wish people would either teach their rugrats how to behave in public or leave them at home.  Duct taping their big yaps shut is also an option.  It seemed as if I were playing dodge-em all the way through Target.  Why do people think the store is a place to stand around and socialize or worse, talk on the phone?  I am capable of walking and talking on a cellphone. If someone as ill-coordinated as I can do it then anyone can do it, I assure you. 

Some helpful hints for parents of toddlers/preschoolers:

Do NOT give your three or four year old any package to carry through the parking lot.  He/she will only drop it and then start screaming and stomping his/her feet.  Worse yet, they may decide to roll around in the greasy parking lot slush which is going to be nine kinds of hell getting out of their hair and clothes.

Do NOT let your child munch on items you haven’t paid for yet. That is sending your child the wrong message.  If Sammy or Sadie is going to get the munchies bring something from home.  Better yet, teach them to wait until scheduled meal times so that others don’t have to watch your kids smear used Oreo cookie all over the cart handle.

Do bring LOTS of Kleenex.  Nothing is more gross than looking over and seeing someone’s rugrat smearing copious gobs of snot all over his/her face, the cart handle, the stuff in the cart, etc. and so on.  Control the snot.  Nobody needs that visual.

All I needed was some cheese.

Ah, the Bouquet of a Fine Whine, Canine Conditioning, and Some Pragmatic Coping Strategies

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Ok, the illustration is in French, but even with my very limited knowledge of francais from high school, I get the Alcohol Tree just fine.  Excessive use of alcohol screws one up royally and does a good bit of collateral damage at the same time.   Yeah, here’s my public service announcement for the day.  I haven’t gotten shitfaced since that legendary episode in 1993 when I found myself in a motel room bathtub- alone-  immersed in freezing cold water with a half-eaten Domino’s Pizza on the ledge.  Something about realizing what a total loser I was and that I’d have to go to work in a few hours wearing no makeup and yesterday’s clothes really put the damper on my drinking excursions. That’s probably a good thing because I was always a “forget it all” drunk, as in “how the hell did I get home last night?” or worse, “did I sleep with so-and-so?”   To my knowledge my conquest record while drunk is pretty much as lame as when I’m sober, which reassures me that I didn’t get any action I don’t remember.  Good thing I’m consistently pathetic in that pursuit as I would hated to have missed anything.  My drinking these days is limited to maybe a glass of wine every six months or so.  It lost its charm for me years ago.

Jerry, on the other hand, drinks enough for a freaking army all by himself.  This was my plight Thursday night into Friday morning (when I had to go in to work at 6:30, of course) – listening to him bouncing off the walls (literally) and blaring the local death metal station until 1AM or thereabouts.  At least it wasn’t the old-time country station, or I’d had to have sneaked downstairs to cut the breaker.  As long as I left the breaker for the furnace blower on it would have been OK.   I can tolerate death metal a lot better than Hank Williams Jr. or Willie Nelson, believe that.  I need to rig a kill switch for the stereo which I will do one of these days.   Saturday night was a most unnecessary drunk and stupid encore, though I got lucky in that he got too drunk to remember how to turn the stereo on.  I wish his so-called buddies would stop buying him twelve packs of beer, because he sees it as a challenge if there is more than one twelve pack in the house. 

Dogs on the other hand are far easier to condition.  As much as I hate to take a hard line with Sheena the water bottle is most effective.  Usually just the sight of the water bottle is enough to help her remember to choose to be a good dog.  It works really well to keep her out of the kitchen when I’m fixing food.  I know she has to learn better- hence the constant douching-  because having a dog trying to get her snoot into everything just isn’t conducive to being able to prepare meals.  I wish I had something like that for Jerry.  Maybe I should try the spray bottle on him and douche him a good one every time he picks up a damned beer can.  It’s a thought. I think Jerry would need something a bit stronger than water though- say vinegar, or Dave’s Insanity Sauce.  Yes, the dogs learn faster and with less effort.

Most of my dealing with drunk and stupid would fit into the “avoidance” category.  Usually out of sight with Jerry means out of mind, so if I hide in the corner of my room with the door closed and the light off he usually won’t go out of his way to pester me.  If he persists in annoying me then I have to ramp it up to “passive aggressive” repercussions.  One I’ve been toying with trying lately involves duct taping his ankles together.  I hate it when I think he’s passed out only to have him jump up and start raving and wandering again.  He usually does this after a quiet lull – and just when I think it’s safe to go to the bathroom he starts in because he sees me and then something deep in the reptilian part of his brain remembers he’s not annoying me so he needs to start in again.  I don’t mind being around Jerry when he’s sober, but it seems he only wants to hang on me like some twisted clingy alien when he’s drunk.  I absolutely detest that which is probably why he does it.

In his defense, Jerry has his good points, but they are nowhere to be found or even imagined when he’s shitfaced.  I know I have my vices so I probably shouldn’t be so critical.  But a word of advice for the drinking set- if you drink to excess, be assured that when you’re drunk you’re a dumb ass, and no one wants to be around you when you’re shitfaced.  Take it from someone who knows.

A Nouveau Body Hair Removal Solution, Overalls Wardrobe Malfunction, and Snitty Wankers

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Well, well. I guess I shouldn’t combine my loathing of superfluous body hair, intimate knowledge of what flashpoint fires do to hair, and something I saw on an episode of Dirty Jobs.  Maybe with a bit of modification to the cow torch pictured here I can burn it off.  I’d have never believed that cow udders grew hair, let alone that dairy farmers remove said unwanted udder hair with a freaking propane torch until I saw that episode of  Dirty Jobs.  Why didn’t I think about the torching option earlier to remove my own superfluous and unattractive body hair?   I know torching is effective not only from the carburetor adjusting incident (my eyebrows were completely gone for almost three days, which is a feat right there) but also from Jerry’s drunken fun adventure with Wild Turkey, gasoline and the fireplace.  Anyway, I think the only thing keeping me from the torching option is a natural fear of open flame, but it does work on the cows.  Maybe someone could modify the torch to a tiny butane flame (similar to a lighter) you could torch at least the unibrow and perhaps other unsightly hair on the facial area with.  Just a thought.

Oh, and it’s probably not a good idea to flame clip around your cat either. 

I am wondering about Jerry again this morning.  Here in beautiful Central Ohio winter has descended upon us with a ferocity we seldom see this early in December.  It was 13 degrees (yes, I’m American, so it’s Fahrenheit- I’m only good with metric measurements as they pertain to nuts and bolts and things that are installed on cars) this morning which is way too bloody cold even for me.  My hands freeze and crack and bleed when it’s that cold even when I wear gloves outside.  I have plenty of Aquaphor but I’m just not that anxious to get back to slathering it on and wearing my white cotton gloves all night.   Anyway it is apparently not a good idea to try to put on your Carhartts you bought last July at a garage sale when you’re “Weekend at Bernie’s” shitfaced at 11PM.  I think he just doesn’t have the dexterity in his hands and/or the ability to stay still long enough  to fasten the straps that hold the bib up.  I know he doesn’t have this ability when drunk.  Perhaps if he tries to don the overalls while sober it might work better for him.  I don’t think they are missing any pieces but I will double check them tonight.  I am not going to dress a grown man.  He will have to get by with long johns and a parka if he can’t figure the Carhartts out.  I can’t seem to get the scene from “A Christmas Story” out of my mind.  Every time I picture Jerry trying to get those Carhartts on I see Ralphie in the snow suit, unable to put his arms down.  It’s cute when a seven or eight year old kid is trapped in a snow suit, but downright pathetic to envision a 53 year old man being held hostage by a snow suit.  If it’s that damned cold, stay inside.  Whatever you wanted to do outside can wait.  Until it warms up.  Sometime in May.

I am not his mother and I am NOT dressing him.

Today has brought its share of snitty wankers.  I wonder if it’s the cold or just the overall depressing holiday season.  You go into a store and of course everyone is in there and they are in no hurry.  As Murphy’s Law would have it the one thing I need to purchase is behind the two old biddies yakking it up about their hemorrhoids and cold sores, I am already running behind, and when I finally retrieve the item I need and make my way to the line I get the “team member trainee.”  Take it from experience, anyplace that calls their employees anything other than employees- “associates,” “team members,” “support staff,” etc. is a shitty place to work for.  Avoid working for these places like the plague if you can.  It’s the same logic behind calling a turd “fecal matter.”  “Fecal matter” sounds more important and polite than “lump of shit,” but in the end it’s still going to be treated like a lump of shit.  Anyway, by the time I get through the line I’m running late and by then I’m feeling like Target should be paying me for training their help.   Usually I am very satisfied with Target, but it’s the holidays and all the stores suck right now.  I’m just glad the “team member trainee” spoke English as a first language.  Had she been foreign on top of being new and still learning (not her fault- and to her credit she did a good job for it being her first day) I’d probably blown my volatile, misanthropic, Type A personality, stack.

I don’t see me living to get old.  But then again, pissy, impatient old people were my age once. 

There.  Now I feel better.

One Pathetic Dude, Puppy Class for Adults, and Technology Tards

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Granted, mug shots are not generally the most flattering photos out there, as the Smoking Gun will attest (gotta love that site) but this dude got my attention because 1. he’s local, and 2. there’s just something particularly tacky about having one’s prized pit bulls tattooed on one’s neck.  If he was into dog fighting, I hope his fellow prisoners have just as dim a view of dog fighting as they do of child molestation.   There are responsible owners of pit bulls, but when one sees pit bulls connected with criminal elements I know it gets my wheels turning in a bad way.  The only things lower than a person who arranges and participates in dog fighting (in my humble opinion) are child molesters, rapists and serial killers. 

Yes I own dogs that are considered to be protection breeds, (i.e German Shepherd, Belgian Malinois) so yes I am very sensitive to those who would condemn a dog because of its breed rather than to condemn the idiots who mistreat and misuse dogs.  Condemning a dog for the owner’s negligence or ignorance is akin to blaming a car for running off the road rather than blaming the drunk driver controlling the car.   Dogs were bred for thousands of years to fulfill certain human purposes- some dogs to guard, some to herd (often guarding and herding are functions of the same breeds) some for hunting, such as spaniels, hounds and retrievers, and so on.  Yet the ultimate usefulness of a dog is determined by a number of factors, most primarily what his human handlers condition him/her to do.  I don’t agree with all of the common wisdom in dog handling- there are some nut jobs out there- but the primary function of the human in the human-dog relationship is to be the leader, the one who calls the shots- to be the alpha in the pack formation- especially when dealing with multiple dogs. 

Right now Sheena is bouncing back splendidly from surgery, but is proving to be a a bit of a behavioral challenge because she’s basically having to go through “puppy class” or basic obedience, as an adult.  She is in the process of learning what one would normally be teaching to 8-16 week old puppies.   She knows her name and can sit on command at this point.  Getting her attention is the hard part as she is easily distracted.  It’s a lot easier to teach a more malleable and much smaller 12 week old than it is to condition a strong-willed three year old who has acquired some bad habits (trash-digging, climbing on things including the coffee table, inappropriately taking food, etc.) along the way.   One thing that Sheena does get very well is house training- no bathroom  mistakes and that amazes me, though house training usually is not much of a problem for protection breeds, and it does help that she has two dogs in the house who are already conditioned and know the routine.  Few methods of conditioning dogs are more effective than having access to other dogs who have already learned the required behaviors.   They learn more quickly, and perhaps with some peer pressure to conform to the norms of the rest of the pack, from other dogs.  Canine social structure can be used to our advantage.

Sheena is attempting some power struggles with Clara (to be expected as Clara is the reigning queen bee) and I am having to reinforce Clara’s position by making Sheena work for every privilege she gets. Clara already knows the drill but Sheena can be strong willed and pushy, especially where food is involved.   Clara can be rather laissez-faire regarding food unless of course, someone else wants it.  Then she will make it clear that it’s HER food, and she will eat it at her leisure- one daintily and thoroughly chewed bite at a time.  Clara does not eat like a normal dog.  Lilo is extremely food motivated (Lilo the Inhaler, or her more infamous alter ego- the Food Ho) but even she knows better than to infringe on the Clara bowl- she learned a long time ago to leave Clara’s food alone at least until Clara’s done with it- but Sheena is having to learn and sometimes she has to learn the hard way.  Clara has rolled her a couple of times, but hasn’t hurt her doing it.  I would rather correct Sheena than allow Clara do to it because Clara’s correction won’t be as gentle as mine.  Clara also knows that I am above her in the pack hierarchy and I should be responsible for dishing out discipline. Sheena particularly dislikes the water bottle- but it is redirecting her from undesired behaviors without physically hurting her (we do not use physical discipline on our dogs.)   A blast of water in the face is enough to get her attention.  I know, I’m a mean mommy, but Sheena will learn to adapt to the established norms for dog behavior in our house. It’s just a bit more of a process when a dog is an adult vs. a puppy.  It’s easier to redirect a 20# 16 week old pup than a 70# three year old, but certainly not impossible.  Dogs learn from the moment of birth until the moment of death.  Heidi did remarkably well for us in spite of little to no socialization or conditioning for nine years.  Even senior dogs can be socialized with a little patience.   I have to remember this when Sheena signals her desire to go out at 5AM by lustily barking her way all through the house until I make it to the door.  I’m glad she’s good about her toileting activities- cleaning up a 70# dog’s bathroom mistake is NOT pleasant by any means, and she’s dropped some pretty huge almost Clara-sized loads outside- but I’m not really thrilled with her waking Jerry up that early.  I have confidence Sheena will learn.  Jerry, now there I wonder.

Jerry managed to annihilate his phone last night. It was already most distressed to begin with, but his attempts to take the back of it off with a screwdriver were its death knell. I had ordered him another one- a very simple phone with a big keypad- but it will probably not arrive until tonight or tomorrow which means he is without a phone and without the means to transfer his contact list (guess what I get to reload… manually) until it arrives.  I tried to show him how to use my phone (LG Rumor Touch) but without success.  The touch screen confused the hell out of him, (I didn’t even attempt to show him how to use the keyboard) and frankly expecting him to be able to use it was sort of cruel to a dude with both tremor disorder and presbyopia. 

I am not the most technologically savvy person in the world, and I freely admit it, but even I can figure out a touch screen cell phone and even how to get on the Internet with it and check my e-mail and all that.  Maybe if I had more time and patience but Jerry is a bit of what I call a technology tard.  Even worse was the poor guy who called Jerry wanting to know why the convertor box Jerry sold him for his TV didn’t work.  I was trying to explain to Jerry that the box has no way to pick up signal unless it is connected with the coax for the antenna going in to the box, then the coax from the box going into the TV.  Connecting the TV into the box without connecting the antenna to anything wasn’t going to work no matter what the poor kid did. 

The only thing worse than the garden variety technology tard is the Darwin-award candidate technology tard- say the guy who goes up on the roof to adjust a TV antenna or satellite dish in a thunderstorm.  So far Jerry has managed to keep all his fingers and toes for 53 years which in and of itself is an amazing feat considering some of the dumb stuff he’s done with power tools.  I don’t claim to be good with any kind of tool but I know my limitations and I also learned the cardinal rule of power tools: “Don’t Drink and Drill.”  I remember the visual quite vividly from Matt Groening’s “Life is Hell” comics.  I think it’s from “Work is Hell” but I’d have to dig through it.  Jerry on the other hand seems to have to be drunk to get motivated to use the power tools and that scares the hell out of me.

I should hide the drill battery.  Note to self.

Everything I Never Wanted, Speak English, and elysianhunter’s Wide World of Sports

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Ok, I am not a sports fan.  Even Dad, unlike the other 99% of heterosexual American males, does not care for sports- unless the word “motor” is in front of it.  Even then, Dad is picky about which motorsports he indulges in or bothers to watch.  NASCAR is too boring for him and I can understand this.  I don’t have the attention span nor the ability to consume vast quantities of alcohol that is required to enjoy NASCAR.  He likes the off road stuff with trucks or rally racing- the kind of motorsports that actually look like they’d be fun to do.  We all like playing with VW dune buggies and such.  But my very limited non-motor sports education consisted mostly of 1. what I learned in gym class before I was permanently excused from gym class due to heart valve damage from rheumatic fever, and 2. what I gleaned from watching my sisters play sports, and from going to high school football games to try to (very unsuccessfully) pick up guys.    Jerry had to explain to me that when the ref in football does that funky dance move- rolling his arms one around the other -it means “false start” (WTF?) rather than “travelling” like it does in basketball.  The only reason I know what it means in basketball is that my sister played basketball, and a basketball game actually moves quickly enough to hold my attention at least to some degree. Travelling is when you just run with the ball and fail to dribble it.  Personally I think just running with the ball is challenge enough, but I don’t make the rules.  Nobody would want me to make the rules.  I indulge in physical activity for its calorie-burning/aerobic exercise value, and then only because I have to.  Let’s not make it overly complicated for the chronically uncoordinated. 

I did not grow up in a normal American household where the males of the species can’t miss a single __________(enter sports team name here) game.  This was quite a foreign concept to me until I met Jerry and discovered that a good part of his life and energy are devoted to watching Ohio State football.   Barring Ohio State football he will watch any two teams play football, whether it be NFL or college or Canadian cross-dressers.  At first I resented his football jones, but now I see a 4 hour long football game much in the same way that a mother sees dropping off her toddler at Grandma’s for the afternoon.  Football is a lovely babysitter.  Especially when I can watch TruTV or Discovery Channel in the other room.  There must be something about drinking beer that makes football interesting because in my sobriety I find it incredibly slow moving and boring.  The minute things get interesting they stop the game, and there’s about 40 bazillion cryptic rules that one can break without realizing it.  Then there’s the funky little dances the refs do to tell everyone someone broke a rule.  I play hell trying to decipher that stuff.  I do know there’s an “unnecessary roughness” call which doesn’t make any sense to me at all.  As far as I’m concerned you can avoid roughness altogether by not playing football.   It’s as if there is an “unnecessary wetness” call in swimming.  Getting wet is just part of being in the pool, right?

Swimming is one sport I can say I enjoy- not in the competitive sense of course, but to me it’s the least offensive form of exercise.  Despite my extreme lack of coordination on land I am a strong swimmer and a fair diver- but I very seldom have access to a pool.  To be a regular swimmer here in Ohio you need access to an indoor pool, and I can’t afford the “Y” membership anymore, which sucks.  If I could afford one of those “endless pools” or indoor spas, I would find it delightful to get my daily exercise in rather than finding it a boring (albeit necessary) chore.  Of course I don’t see that happening unless I end up being on the receiving end of some kind of inheritance from rich relatives that I’m pretty sure I don’t have.   Of course, Bill Gates can always put me in his will, or maybe just spare me a million or two because he feels sorry for a pathetic old uncoordinated cougar like me.  This is not likely.  I can dream though, and the endless pool thing would be kick ass.

As far as sports go it seems some of them have more entertainment value than others.  I can’t for the life of me see how anyone would bother watching golf.  I can’t hit that damned dinky ball with a golf club even if I keep on swinging at it.  Granted it must take some talent to golf (which I readily admit I don’t possess) but it’s still boring to watch.  I may be a bit biased too from working at the Infiniti dealership and having to deal with travelling golfers. Every year during the Memorial Tournament I was stuck having to deal with all the pompous asses from Muirfield who would want their ill or poorly maintained Infinitis fixed NOW.  The Memorial Tournament always brought to my service department a rash of presumptious nouveau riche douche bags who claimed to be more important than the next guy because they have Connections.  Yeah, we know you golf.  We can tell by the bad pants and Hair Club for Men hair.  I really don’t give a rat’s ass you’re stranded and from Chicago.  In my humble opinion, you hould have scheduled your maintenance and had a safety inspection BEFORE you made an ill advised 500 mile road trip and ended up in my service department with bald tires and a busted radiator hose.   By the way, half of the world knows the owner of the joint, so don’t try that one to get ahead of the guy who scheduled his appointment a month ago.  Claiming a blood-brother relationship with the owner of the dealership (who likely doesn’t know you from Adam’s housecat in the first place), and a $1.49 will get you a Diet Dr. Pepper at BP.   Not everyone who golfs  is a pompous ass who hasn’t a clue about proper vehicle maintenance, but annoying individuals of that stripe seem to be overly represented among golfers.   So golf really isn’t my favorite sport.  Golf spelled backward is “flog.”  Watching someone (deserving of it of course) get flogged might be entertaining.  Watching golf is sort of like being a turd in the punchbowl, watching paint dry.

Baseball I really can’t say anything too bad about.  I actually enjoyed going to Clippers games.  Before I got rheumatic fever I played softball (the rec leagues where anyone who buys the T-shirt is allowed on the team) so I understand baseball rules relatively well.  Baseball is one of the very few games that is more interesting to watch than to play.  I understand it is really boring standing around way, way out in left field for half the game and warming the bench for the other half, but I royally sucked at softball and it was only fair that the girls who could actually play got to.

Hockey is another sport I don’t really understand but find vaguely intriguing.  There’s lots of fights.  It’s done on ice skates which puts the hazard factor right up there.  I’ve not been on skates (roller or ice) for a number of years which is too bad, because at one time I could skate at least with some proficiency, but I’m afraid of breaking stuff at my age.  I broke an arm just falling on the back porch last year and I really don’t want to repeat that one.

For the life of me though I don’t get it how so many people get into sports so heavily that their whole world revolves around what ______player or _______team is doing.  I’m just not that much of a voyeur. 

Another thing, besides the insane popularity of watching other people play sports, that I fail to understand, is why do other people think I need crap that I never expressed any desire of wanting, needing or even having room for?  Mom has the best of intentions but sometimes she buys just plain goofy little things I have no use for and no desire to possess.  For instance, buying a diabetic a set of cookie cutters is a tad bit sadistic, no?  I used to enjoy baking cookies and cakes and pies and pastries- when I could eat them too.  Might as well just spring for the cake decorating tips, candy thermometer and double boiler while you’re at it.  I’ll get right on fulfilling your pastry, cookie and other sugary snacky desires.  (insert sarcasm here)

Speaking of sarcasm, or should I truly be speaking of sadism, Jerry has found a new hobby in the evenings and is pursuing it with a veracity that I did not realize he could possess.  It seems ever since I switched the home phone over to Time Warner from AT&T some foreign jackoff keeps calling every single farking night to try to convince me to switch the phone back to AT&T.  Now it already pisses me off that they didn’t want to offer me the primo pricing until after I’d already switched to TW, instead of making the good offer one of the many times when I’d threatened to do it but didn’t.  It pisses me off even more that they want my business (?) but can’t seem to spring for sales help who speak English intelligibly and preferably as a first language.  I know plenty of college kids who speak at least intelligible English who would be willing to work for relatively cheap for a few hours a week.  (dammit Steve-o…get a freaking job…)  I don’t like to torment foreigners.  I prefer to ignore telemarketing calls altogether.  As far as I’m concerned, if I don’t recognize the number on the caller ID then I don’t bother picking it up.  Jerry on the other hand, takes great delight in messing with AT&T’s outsourced help.  Last night he answers the phone:

“Yes, this is Peggy.”

“I am selling Girl Scout Cookies.”

“Why am I talking to you if you aren’t buying any Girl Scout Cookies?”

I’m sure that Ringadingasumupoo (aka “My name is John”) has absolutely no idea what the fark a Girl Scout cookie is.  But Jerry will carry on this conversation to its frustrating conclusion.  The only thing I hope that AT&T might gather from this recorded phone call is that maybe outsourcing isn’t such a good idea, especially if Midwestern rednecks are utilizing their foreign help as cheap entertainment.  Personally I find torturing foreigners to be a bit sadistic.  They can’t help it they were born in places that aren’t fit for human habitation and they can’t help it that (most of the time) their grasp of the English language is tenuous at best.  It doesn’t reflect well on the parent companies who exploit these people to save a buck though.   Hire the poor college kids right here in this country.  I would almost think about answering telemarketing calls if I were guaranteed an intelligible voice (preferably complete with the Central Ohio Newscaster Accent that I find so easy to understand, or maybe even an nice, sexy Texas drawl… gotta love the Texans) on the other end of the line.

Embrace the Inner Cougar, More Holiday Humor, and So Behind the Times

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Ask not for whom the bell tolls…ahh, Metallica- I have to admit to being a bit of a metal head still.  Of course Metallica didn’t write the original poem nor do their lyrics mirror the original penned by John Donne as a meditation on death. Both are cool though.

John Donne
Meditation 17
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee…” 

Metallica- “For Whom the Bell Tolls”

“Make his fight on the hill in the early day
Constant chill deep inside
Shouting gun, on they run through the endless gray
On they fight, for they are right, yes, but who’s to say?
For a hill, men would kill. Why? They do not know
Stiffend wounds test their pride
Men of five, still alive through the raging glow
Gone insane from the pain that they surely know

For whom the bell tolls
Time marches on
For whom the bell tolls

Take a look to the sky just before you die
It’s the last time you will
Blackened roar, massive roar, fills the crumbling sky
Shattered goal fills his soul with a ruthless cry
Stranger now are his eyes to this mystery
He hears the silence so loud
Crack of dawn, all is gone except the will to be
Now they see what will be, blinded eyes to see

For whom the bell tolls
Time marches on
For whom the bell tolls”

Well aren’t I macabre today.  And here all I was really wanting to do today is explain why I’ve finally changed my avatar pic from the one I took four years ago.  I might as well face it- I had to stop wearing contacts a couple of years ago for three basic reasons- one they are too expensive,  two, they never really corrected my astigmatism completely, and three, while I’m not quite ready for bi-focals, I started to have a hard time seeing close up with my contacts in.   I never liked wearing glasses, especially back in the day when the lenses were actually made of glass and therefore were as thick and likely as heavy as coke bottle bottoms.  I tolerate wearing glasses now for two reasons apart from the obvious, which is, I am blind as a bat without some form of vision correction-one, the plastic lenses used today are lighter and the thickness can only really be seen from the sides, and two, I actually have better distance vision with glasses than I can get with contacts because my astigmatism as well as my myopia can be corrected.   And I can just take my glasses off when I want to do close-up work or read fine print and it all works out.  Just don’t ask me to go up or down a flight of stairs or do anything else that requires being able to see more than two feet in front of my face without glasses, because I can’t.

Laser surgery is out of the question for me also, one, because if I can’t afford contacts I sure as hell can’t afford laser surgery, and two, even if I could afford it, I have scars on my left cornea where I had metal shavings removed from my eye.  Those scars are in a place which makes the laser surgery impossible on my left eye.    Presumably I could have my right eye corrected via laser surgery but what would be the point?  I am so terribly nearsighted it would probably make me sick to try to see with one eye at 20/20 or better and the other at 20/400.  Then there’s the issue of the astigmatism that as far as I know can’t be fixed with laser surgery.  The way I see it, I can see now – 20/15 with glasses- so why not just leave it at that?  If something were to go wrong with laser surgery, I would be the Murphy’s Law case.   No thanks.  I like to be able to drive.

 Vanity aside- and I did enjoy being able to have bright blue eyes with contacts- I have to consider the practical applications.  I can’t afford contacts any more and I see better with glasses anyway.  It’s just hard to go back to glasses in one sense as I go back to my childhood and early teens and remember my thick, heavy glasses as just one more hindrance to my ability to fit in with the rest of humanity- or at least to avoid mockery.  Contacts opened up a new world for me in some ways, but they never made me beautiful and they never made me popular.  They did make my pictures a little less frumpy and made night driving a lot easier (at least until the plastic lenses with less glare came out) for a long time.  But at 41 it’s a bit easier for me to embrace the inner cougar and just deal with glasses.  I’ve already accepted the fact that sleeveless shirts and hipster pants are verboten for the cougar set (that doesn’t break my heart much) so I might as well come to terms with glasses and hope that I don’t end up with tri-focals like Dad.

It’s almost time for Tacky Christmas again- when I go around and take pictures of the most ridiculous and Griswoldian Christmas decorations I can find.  Usually the west end of Marion is a treasure trove of tackiness, and I will be sure to return there for this year’s foray.  Last year was sort of disappointing except for the Mooning-Homer Simpson-as-Santa.  Any holiday decoration that involves the act of mooning is noteworthy to me.    I have yet to see a repeat of what I consider to be the Holy Grail of  Tacky Christmas- some redneck in the west end of Marion took an old Budweiser drive-thru display with some bimbo in a bikini on it and wrapped lights and beer cans around it.   I didn’t have a digital camera at the time and therefore missed the pic of a lifetime.  The best Tacky Christmas picture I actually have is this one:

It looks like Santa just kicked Frosty’s butt and is giving him the one-finger salute, but if you look closely it’s an optical illusion.  A hilarious illusion, but an illusion just the same.  2008 was actually my best Tacky Christmas collection.   Last year my heart really wasn’t in it, having lost Grandma two weeks before Christmas.  I just couldn’t get into tacky displays when I had to deal with funerary things and with helping Mom and Dad with going through Grandma’s stuff. Necessary though it was,  this was not a good time.  This year I hope to have more enthusiasm for finding some really tacky stuff. It’s more fun when Steve-o drives so I can take the pics.  Maybe he will go this year if we take Hannah with us.  I just have way too much fun with this. 

I’m behind the times.  I freely admit it. It’s refreshing to refrain from being beholden to the latest trend.  I make my own trends.  If anyone doesn’t like it, screw ’em.  My opinion only matters to me anyway.  But I certainly would like to find the Bud Light cans with Cardboard Bimbo display again, just to show how funny tacky can be.

In-Laws, Outlaws, Tacky Christmas, and It’s That Time of Year

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Ah, the holidays.  Actually I shouldn’t be overly critical as there is not a whole lot between me and the hollers and/or trailer park, but it’s that time of year when I remember why I only visit the in-laws and even certain obnoxious blood relatives when it’s absolutely necessary. 

Every Thanksgiving it’s the same routine.  Before I make the obligatory road trip to Cincinnati to my oldest sister’s house so that I can eat a really big piece of Humble Pie- on fine china no less, I have to make the tribute visit to the in-laws, where I will sit on the floor and eat a small slice of white meat turkey (nobody in his family touches the white meat, which is fortuitous for me) off of a Dixie plate with a plastic fork while his sisters’ assorted kids attempt to throttle each other.   It’s culture shock on both ends of the spectrum.  Going to my sister’s reminds me who is one small step above white trash dumpster diver and who is driving a BMW, vacationing in Switzerland every year, eating off matching dishes ,and who doesn’t have to shop for both clothing and kitchen utensils at garage sales and thrift stores.  Frankly when I go to my in-laws I feel like I am going to be a drive-by victim down in the ‘hood, and when I go to my sister’s they might as well paint a big bright sign across the side of my lowly Yaris that reads: ATTENTION- TURD ENTERING THE PUNCHBOWL.

Everyone has family members who inspire mixed emotions.  Fortunately for me the most creepy of my relatives are departed- most notably Uncle Bob, who was my twin great-aunt’s husband and therefore not a blood relative.  Uncle Bob wasn’t really a bad guy but he really liked nudies.  His entire garage where Mom’s side of the family held their big reunions was covered in 1940’s nudie pinups.  This was shocking to a five year old who is being raised in a household where nudity was strictly limited to going to the bathroom and taking a bath.  Worse yet, Uncle Bob liked to drink beer.  Alcohol in any form was strictly forbidden in Mom and Dad’s house.  I think my Dad just about went through the ceiling when he looked over and there was my sister- who was maybe seven at the time- chugging a Budweiser.  How was she supposed to know that she wasn’t supposed to drink the Budweiser?  Especially since Uncle Bob gave it to her?

Then there was Aunt Frances.  Aunt Frances was the stereotypical Cat Lady.  She weighed about 400# and had at least thirty cats at any given time wandering in and out of her house.  I have no problem with cats, but if you’re going to have them, do something about their incessant breeding.  When she broke a hip and ended up in the nursing home she would complain and whine that nobody visited her, but when you did visit her she gave you hell about everything from pierced ears to perms (I shudder to think about the commentary she would give me on the subject of hair color) to “foreign” cars.  Never mind that my Dad made his living working on ‘foreign” cars.   I remember all too well going to pick her up for my sister’s graduation party.  She took one look at my Subaru and refused to even try to get in it, even though I had carted around many of my large friends in it without incident.  I had to go back home and get my Mom’s Ford (a 1977 LTD II, what a lovely ride…) to cart her large carcass in. 

I miss the relatives that are dead but were cool, especially my grandparents, and my great-grandmother.   The holidays now are just a reminder of how pathetic I am compared to my sister, how much I miss my grandparents, and how much I really want to try to avoid my in-laws.

She’s Back…Three Dogs Again After All, and Looking Forward to a Get Away (Sort Of)

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I should have not spoken so soon.  In a way I am pleasantly surprised, but I still scratch my head.  Sheena’s back.  It seems her potential new owner was scared off- after taking her to a vet for evaluation, heartworm test, shots, etc. because it’s likely Sheena has hip dysplasia.  I am not surprised by that as HD is extremely common in GSDs and many other large breeds (Lilo has HD and gets along quite fine) but she had difficulty navigating stairs.  In a split-level house that’s a concern, although I think in time she would have been acclimated to stairs soon enough.  Our dogs seldom have to navigate stairs, and we don’t want them in the basement cat area anyway. She has no problem getting on our beds and even up on the coffee table, but this is neither here nor there.  I don’t think she has any serious mobility issues but even mentioning possible HD can scare off some people.   In our household of misfits and basket cases HD has proven to be manageable (Heidi had HD also, and Kayla may have too- Clara is the only dog of ours so far that has good hips) as long as you don’t expect the dog to do agility or schutzhund and you keep the dog’s weight down.   We told the guy that if for any reason he didn’t want Sheena to bring her back to us, no questions asked.  He didn’t even want his $124 in vet expenses back which again was surprising, but at least he had some integrity about it.  There are still some good people out there, and I would be remiss if I didn’t admit the help there was much appreciated.

Other than postulating that Sheena likely has hip dysplasia, this particular vet estimated Sheena’s age at 18 months-3 years.  I had guessed 3-5 and still think the 3 year or so age range is accurate.  I was spot on at guessing her weight at 70#.  She weighed in at 70.5 although I think this vet is nuts in saying she’s 5# underweight.  I think her body condition is a healthy lean and with possible HD I will try to keep it that way.  At least we know Sheena doesn’t have heartworm  and she now has a rabies tag.  Two weeks from today she has her spay appointment at the spay clinic.  Our vet is scheduling surgeries in January and I really don’t want to wait that long because it would be my luck she would get in heat and I really don’t want to deal with heat.  I don’t want to try to keep every intact male dog in the greater Central Ohio area from descending upon our home.  I don’t want to deal with blood stained everything either. Sheena has had pups in the past but an HD dog should NEVER be bred regardless of lineage, and she’s a crossbreed anyway, that should NEVER be bred- so spay is the only way.   At least the spay clinic is close by so it will be easy to drop her off and pick her up even though I am nervous as hell about anyone other than our regular vet doing surgery on our dogs.

Clara and Lilo didn’t seem to be too rattled on Sheena’s return.  Sheena was rather worn out and seemed to be happy to be back with us.  She slept like a big white rock.  Now if I can just convince Fanny and Fluffy-Butt that it’s cool to come up from the basement.

Apparently Sheena is meant to be with us.  I told Jerry we aren’t going to subject her to any more interviews or potential alternative placements.  She’s had enough trauma and at this point she needs stability and routine if she’s going to become a stable and mentally healthy dog. 

This weekend I am going on the retreat with the church ladies which will definitely be fun.  I am speculating though that I may leave Saturday evening instead of Sunday morning so that I can get back home in time to give Jerry a break from having to play dog mom while I’m gone.  Clara and Lilo by themselves are easy but with Sheena in the mix it gets a bit more complicated.  Oh, well.  Some forms of complexity are better than others.

z

One of my pet peeves are people who are never available and don’t seem to know anything but are in high positions of control and make more money in a week than I’ll see in a lifetime.  I experienced this a lot in dealerships, especially ones in which the owner’s offspring were foisted off into management positions that they couldn’t pronounce let alone perform.   Nepotism sucks unless you have well connected relatives.   I guess one has to be a.) born into influence and affluence, and b.) too stupid to be able to do any actual work.  Sounds like our government, the school systems, etc. 

Why couldn’t Bill Gates have adopted me or something?