Category: Rants

[insert clever title here]

Leave a comment

my sweet little man and i went to walmart the other day to pick up a few things (yard waste bags were on sale 10 for $3.77!) … we were strolling through the baby/toddler section when i overheard a woman in another isle say, “i wish i had a little girl. it would be so much fun dressing her up and playing.” to which another voice replied, “me too, i really wish i had had a girl.” a few moments later 2 young girls walked around the corner, one with 2 boys in a double stroller and the other with a little guy about the same age as my son in her stroller.

my jaw dropped and my eyebrows raised. here were 2 women with (what appeared to be) healthy children, shopping and casually talking about how they wish they had daughters instead of sons. it took everything in me not to react to their conversation with my own two cents. really? you wish you had a daughter? do you know that there are thousands of people that are hoping, praying and doing everything they can just to have the opportunity to be a parent? families who spend their savings for a “chance” at having a family of their own?  women who have tried and suffered the loss of little one (be it in utero or still birth)? and so on.

you don’t want to be a teen parent? simple solution, don’t have sex. it’s the best birth control and it’s free. i know that may sound harsh but it’s honest. i remember being in high school and my parents & i having conversations about teen pregnancy and what it meant to raise a child. they gave me some good advice, which i intend to pass along to my son (when he’s old enough to worry about such things); if you’re ready to have sex, you need to be prepared to have a child of your own, because no birth control out there is 100% effective. there is a consequence to everything we do in life and we need to think about the outcome.  life is happening all around us whether we want it to or not!

alas, i kept my opinion to myself and leaned down to give my son a kiss on the forehead and a little squeeze. i never want him to think for a moment that i’m not happy with being a mother to a little boy. i can only hope that those two women we saw today have the sense to not talk such rubbish around their children when they’re old enough to understand what exactly it is their mothers are saying. urgh.

Advertisement

a little grocery store rant

Leave a comment

do not, i repeat DO NOT go to the grocery store on a Sunday, especially the one we go to. it was busier than i’ve ever seen it! urgh. and i hate that. being over-populated means less products on the shelves that we like to buy; and today, less zucchini. i love zucchini. slice it up thin with a little butter and pepper in the frying pan, YUM! well today i wanted to purchase said yumminess. walking down the aisle, i came upon the section where zucchini should have been, but in it’s place i saw green beans, and way too many of them. however, i noticed a woman standing there who had just placed a zucchini in her cart. i politely asked, excuse me, is that the last zucchini? she glared at me and said, rather rudely, i dunno. i said, ok, i was just curious if there was anymore. she ignored me. i said, well, i guess that was pointless asking you. she still ignored me. so then i thought outloud, wow, i wasn’t being rude asking you that question, and now you’re being kinda rude to me. i then turned to my son and said, that lady was pretty crusty, eh buddy? and we walked away. now, i realize that i didn’t need to say anything to her after she ignored me, but honestly, i’ve never had someone react like that when i asked a simple question. normally people are more than willing to converse, and sometimes even share a little too much. the other day i went to Costco and while standing in line, a couple behind me asked how my dog liked the weight control dogfood i had in my cart. we had a little conversation about it and went our separate ways. nice, polite, easy (i have a coonhound, by the way, who doesn’t get as much exercise as he should in the winter so weight control food is a must for our crazy dog). i guess that’s probably why i was so irked by the woman in the grocery store today. i can’t imagine being rude to someone who you don’t know, for no good reason, especially when it was just an innocent question about zucchinni. sheeeeeeeesh 😛

telemarketers, telemarketers, go away. don’t call back, EVER.

Leave a comment

GRRRRR. so i just got off the phone with Rogers. i called to inquire about blocking specific numbers from calling our home phone and the only option is to pay them $6/month to do so! apparently some other features come along with it, such as specific family ringtones, blocking private caller names, specific long distance rings, forwarding calls to another number etc etc BUT i don’t care about those. i just want to block the ignorant people who keep calling my house when i’m trying to put my son to bed. the first call was at 8:15pm tonight and the second was at 8:45pm! telemarketers should not be permitted to call after 7pm, ever. whether you have children or not, who wants to sit on the phone and sign up for services or do a survey (or whatever they’re calling about) when you likely are tired from a long day and would like to unwind and enjoy that at that exact moment, you have no responsibilities, nothing to cook or clean, nothing to do but to sit your ass and reeeeeelax (ok, so there’ll always be laundry and cleaning to do, but really those can wait). every evening, especially when my hubby is on afternoon shift, i look forward to the small amount of “me” time that i get after my son goes to bed. if someone disturbs that time by calling to ask me to take a survey or to tell me that my computer has a virus i’m going to lose it on them (and by the way, we have a MAC so telling me that my PC has a virus is a bad excuse for calling). you’d think that a company like Rogers, who has hundreds of thousands of customers and makes millions a year would be able to offer a simple feature of blocking callers without it costing me $40/year. i know it doesn’t sound like much, but every time i add another feature to our bill that’s more money we have to fork out, to a company who likely could survive without my $6/month. what’s even more infuriating is that when i tried to call said numbers back i wasn’t able to speak to anyone, surprise surprise. i discovered that the one number, upon Googling it, is from somewhere in Quebec, and apparently the person at extension 200 is unavailable and i am to leave them a message. i did just that, more than a few times over the last few weeks too. and it wasn’t a pleasant message, and i don’t care. when i phoned the other number a recorded message came on thanking me for calling Greenwich Associates and explained that they’re just calling to do a survey and not sell me anything, and that they look forward to talking to me in the future. unfortunately there wasn’t an option to leave a message for them; if so, they wouldn’t have been looking forward to any future phone calls from me asking them to not call me at 9pm, ever. while i understand that telemarketers have a job, and that said job is phoning people to sell services, take surveys and inquire as to recent customer experiences, it’s still shitty for those of us on the receiving end. i had a telemarketing job like that once, it lasted for half a day of training and then one shift and i quit. it just wasn’t worth it. i felt like an asshole calling people to ask them to take a survey about carpets, and then calling them back later to tell them that they’d won a free gift basket for completing the survey. the gift basket was a ploy to get a vacuum salesman in the door to try and sell them a $2,000 vacuum. REALLY?! it felt dishonest and very wrong. which is exactly what i said when i told the supervisor that i wouldn’t be returning to work the next day, or ever. that was almost 15 years ago now, how time flies. i feel better ranting about it here; that way my hubby gets to hear the more condensed and less-angry version, which i’m sure he appreciates.

looking cool vs. freezing your hiney off

Leave a comment

to the 2 teenage boys that i saw outside today wearing just t-shirts: you don’t look cool, you look stupid.

i remember being a teenager, but i don’t remember being a stupid teenager. i always wore my winter coat, especially when it was -10 outside (that’s 14F for my american friends). would you honestly choose to try to look cool by not wearing a jacket or coat instead of keeping your body warm and not freezing your ass off?! i often wonder what goes through kids minds when they make that decision. i remember not wanting to wear a winter toque when my hair was short because then when i took the hat off i would have a serious case of hat-head. i decided instead to find hats that i liked so that i could just wear them all day, in turn, keeping my head warm and not suffering from another bad hair day. i still do that. now, i understand if you are going somewhere (like a mall) where you’ll be indoors for an extended period of time and you don’t want to carry around your jacket so you leave it in the car; but that means you’ll only be out in the freezing cold for maybe 5 minutes (if you park reeaaally far away). this freezing-your-hiney-off-just-to-look-cool (or hot) thing also can be applied to those women who like to go out clubbing in the freezing cold of  winter wearing a piece of clothing that barely covers their ass and a pair of cute shoes with no tights. i honestly think that your skirt or shorts should be long enough cover your vagina. no one wants to see that. and for the few select people that actually do want to see it, they don’t and won’t respect you. if you show off the goods for free, before someone even gets to know you, well, you’re stupid too.

The Weed Man cometh

Leave a comment

if you’re like me, you’ll understand where i’m coming from when i say i am easily frustrated by solicitors, canvassers and delivery people who come to my door after 7pm at night. while i understand that they have a job to do, i don’t understand why it has to be at door signsuch times. we have a sign on the window (it’s one of those long, narrow ones directly beside the front door) that has a big red hand on it  saying “I don’t talk to strangers”. well, tonight around 8:45pm that sign either went unnoticed or was read and intentionally ignored. obviously we put it there for a reason and i’m pretty sure whoever reads it knows said reason.

i had just laid my son down in his crib (after sitting and rocking him for the usual 20-ish minutes after he finished nursing) and decided to change into one of my hubby’s big comfy sweaters when i heard a knock at the door. i ran down the stairs (in stealth mode, which isn’t easy to do) in an attempt to hush the dog and see who was knocking on the door at this time of night. no one comes to our house at that time, especially anyone who knows we have an almost one year old kid who goes to bed around 8ish. you can imagine my surprise when i looked out the window (with the sign on it) and saw a guy wearing a big bulky coat that said “The Weed Man” on it. SERIOUSLY?!?! it’s January 29th, minus 22 with the windchill and you’re trying to sell lawn services? i opened the door, he said hi and i said, yeah I’m not interested, you woke my son up (a little white lie, i know, but i wanted to make him feel bad). i then sent my hubby a text to tell him about it (he’s working afternoon shift this week) and decided i’d send an email to the good old weed man telling them how much i appreciate their concern for my lawn. i don’t normally send complaints like this but if you have or have had a baby at some point in your life, you’ll understand.

here’s a copy of my email:

“To whom this may concern,

I’m writing you this evening to let you know that it is completely unacceptable to have your door-to-door canvassers come to our home at 8:45pm. I’m not sure what your company’s policy is regarding such matters, but that time of night is not only ridiculous but completely absurd. Even moreso because we have a sign stating that we do NOT wish to have solicitors at our door. Is it also your company’s policy to ignore such signage? It’s ridiculous to think someone would answer the door at that time of night at the end of January when the windchill is -22º, to agree to lawn services.

We have a big dog who alerts us when strangers come to our door, and although I appreciate his barking when such things occur, if he had woken up our son because one of your employees was there at that time of night, you’d have 2 very angry parents on your hands. If you have children you’ll understand, and if not, ask someone who does.

We live in the subdivisions behind 3M just off Railton Ave. Perhaps you should make a note in your files to not send canvassers around unless it’s before 7:00pm.”

if i don’t get a reply it really doesn’t bother me. i just want someone to read that email and feel like an ass. rant over.