Christine the Curmudgeon

So the landladies have apparently been putting their GARBAGE into our recycling bin.  They do try to recycle as much of their trash as possible, in order to avoid paying for the expensive garbage bags we have to buy here, in order to get actual GARBAGE picked up.  If we don’t use the city-approved bags, the trash will NOT be picked up.  Surely some wholesale distributors are getting rich over making low-quality trash bags that are sold for premium prices.  Anyhoo, mostly what they put in their recycling bin gets picked up, no problem.  But now they are throwing stuff that I think would be considered GARBAGE into OUR recycling bin!

Mister Curmudgeon is a doofus.  He wanted to use one of OUR expensive garbage bags, that WE paid for, to put the trash that the landladies threw in our recycling bin, just so the trash truck will take it.

I told him that if he did, he was a fool.  He’d be enabling these people to keep tossing their trash into OUR recycling bin, knowing that WE’D pay to have it picked up.

I got seriously yelled at by him over this.  Because of that, I made his ass eat leftovers.  Nobody yells at me for shit I didn’t do and gets away with it.

But I know I am right.  If there is too much improperly bagged trash that sits for weeks and is not picked up, it is not OUR problem.  The city fines THE OWNER OF THE PROPERTY for it.

When I managed to explain this to Mr. C., I THINK he finally got it.  Let the landladies get fined just ONCE, and hopefully that will be the end of them using our recycling bin as their personal trash can, rather than buying the bags like everyone else here has to!

The PROPER use for those flip-up bus seats

There has been a rather annoying thing that Christine the Curmudgeon has been noticing lately.  It’s parents with those Hugh Jass SUV strollers who get on the bus with the thing, and then opt to flip up the seats (which is supposed to be for making room for passengers in wheelchairs), and park the behemoth stroller there.

In my opinion, this practice is almost, if not AS bad, as parking in a handicapped space when you are not legally qualified to do so.  So what if there is no handicapped person on the bus/in the space right NOW?  You never know when someone MIGHT need it at any given time, so if you don’t need it, don’t use it.

When there is no wheelchair person on the bus, this also takes seats away from people who may need them.  The seats are at the front of the bus, and there are signs asking people to give up these seats to elderly/disabled people who need them.  But very few people do so; no doubt that the woman with the stroller that was as big as an RV, so big that it should be carrying 5th wheel insurance, would move if someone boarded who needed one of the three seats that were lost due to the stroller being there. Srsly, I don’t know why the bus drivers allow this. The rule should be, no flipping up those seats unless you’re using a wheelchair. No exceptions.

Yes, if you have a baby, you do need a stroller.  But if your regular way of getting around is on public transportation, why not just get a smaller stroller, rather than something that is as huge as a Winnebago?  I see plenty of people on the bus with normal-sized strollers, which do not block the aisles, nor require the need to take seats from people, by flipping up the seats at the wheelchair spaces.

People in wheelchairs have no choice, and they are protected under the Americans With Disabilities Act.  I don’t begrudge them at all for taking away two or three seats on a bus or train.  But parents who choose to buy a stroller that is big enough to tow my car away with deserve no rights, no protection under any law.  Those Hugh Jass things need to be banned from all public transit (unless they are checked baggage on an airplane, or stashed in the luggage  storage bins on a long-distance bus).  And they should all be labeled as to whether or not they are public transit-permitted or not, that way, parents who plan to use the buses a lot will know that to buy and what not to buy.

Basically, if it’s not a wheelchair, but you have to put it in a space that’s supposed to be for a wheelchair, it should not be on the bus.  Period.

Christine the Curmudgeon posted before about annoying old biddies on the Boston Express Bus.  But there is another rant, this one about The Toddler Who Would Not Shut Up.

This was last week, as well, I forget if it was Tuesday or Thursday, but that’s no big deal.  I got in the queue for the bus as usual, so I could get my seat with the power outlet.  I was distressed a bit to see some rather annoying young children in the line in front of me.  But the good thing abut having them in FRONT of me in the queue was that they’d be seated first, and I could try to not sit near them, if such a seat was available with a power outlet, that is.

But then the most annoying kid of the bunch, a little boy who looked to be about 3-4 years old, decided that he had to pee.  He was there with his mother and his grandmother, so Grandma volunteered to take him to the bathroom.  Whike they were gone, the bus started boarding.

I was able to get on and get a power outlet seat far away enough from the other people with little kids.  But then, who comes and sits RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, but Annoying Kid, Grandma, and Mom.  The adults took turns having the kid on their laps, otherwise, they’d not be able to all sit together.

This kid was annoying because HE WOULD NOT SHUT UP the whole time!  I had my iPod with me, but even that couldn’t drown out the high-pitched kid babble.  Fortunately, they got off in Salem, so I got to ride the rest of the way to Manchester in peace.

This is unfair.  I mean, Boston Express Bus has some strict rules about noise.  We are told at the beginning of each and every trip that we are to turn off our cell phones, or at least set them to vibrate.  Talking on the phone on the bus is not allowed, unless the bus is running late, and you need to call someone on the other end to let them know.  Even then, you are expected to keep it brief.  Texting is okay, though.

Also, they tell passengers that if they are using an iPod or other device that has sound, they should make sure that the volume is not turned up high enough so that everyone on the bus can hear out out of their earbuds.  These rules are enforced; once I saw a driver threaten to throw this guy off the bus because he refused to stop talking on his cell phone, despite repeated warnings.

So, if it’s a quiet ride they want for the passengers, then why does this kid get a free pass?  Because he’s a KID?  WHY couldn’t Mom and Grandma make him shut up?  Indoor voice, anyone?  But no, this kid was so damned loud, that my iPod couldn’t block him out.  Well, it would have, if I’d turned the volume up louder, but that would have broken one of the rules of the bus.

Even if I wanted to give up my power outlet seat to get away, I couldn’t have, as the bus was full.  And besides, the kid was so loud that I would have heard him no matter where I was sitting.

I’m sorry, but that kid was a zillion times more annoying than anyone’s cell phone conversation.  Fortunately, the passengers on the Boston Express Bus are mostly commuters who live in New Hamster and work in Boston, and want to avoid the shitty drive on I-93.  Not too many people with kids at all.  I’m not saying that kids should not be allowed on these buses, I’m just saying that the same standard of QUIET should apply to them, as it does for everyone else.

So Christine the Curmudgeon and the Mister went to Kappy’s.  The Hugh Jass location you see right here.

I was looking for a couple of beers in particular, neither of which they had, but I hung around the better beer section looking to see what else they had.  They actually had a decent selection, considering that Kappy’s mostly caters to the Bud/Miller/Coors crowd.

Somewhere along the way, Mr, Curmudgeon lost himself.  As in, he wandered off as I was looking at the beer, and when he tried to look for me, he could not find me.  So he went out to the car.  Which was why I could not find HIM anywhere.  But I didn’t know that he’d left the store until later.

I had a cart containing a case of Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale, and a six-pack of Dale’s Pale Ale from Oskar Blues.  I decided to just pay for it and put it in the car, and then try to find my dopey husband.

And that’s when I saw he went out to the car.  “I couldn’t FIIIIND you”, he whined.  Where, where the HELL did he think I was, other than looking at the GOOD beer section?  Off looking at Outer Banks homes?  Sheesh!

For someone who is a member of Mensa, sometimes my husband can be a serious doofus.

Scene from the "Every Sperm Is Sacred" segment of "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life"

Christine the Curmudgeon just read this article: Jobless Couple Expecting 12th Child, and does NOT approve.  This is absolutely appalling!  They CHOSE to have so many kids, why should the fine taxpaying folks across the pond be forced to finance this life CHOICE?

And YES, it IS A CHOICE!  This is the 21st century; there are plenty of effective ways to prevent pregnancy.  They have free health care over in the U.K.; so surely birth control pills are paid for.  And so would permanent sterilization, wouldn’t it?  If this couple were truly serious about not wanting more kids, they’d have gone and had it done – to both of them, just to make extra sure.

I don’t buy for one second that this latest pregnancy was an accident.  As I said above, it could easily have been prevented.  Why bother looking for a job, when they can just go on the dole (slang term for “welfare” in  the U.K.), AND get moved into a bigger house every time they outgrow the last one?  And this is all on the taxpayers’ dime.  It is grossly unfair that most people have to work hard to provide for themselves and their families, while people like this couple are rewarded for continuing to crank ‘em out every year.  It’s even more irritating when I see people on welfare dressed in designer rocawear and such.  I see them all the time at the supermarket, paying with WIC vouchers and food stamp cards, with perfectly done hair and nails, lots of gold jewelry and designer clothes, and yapping away on an expensive iPhone.

There are some people out there who think that having kids should be some sort of a basic right.  I disagree.  It’s a life choice, just like choosing to buy a Mercedes-Benz or a fancy boat, or going on a year-long world tour.  If you can’t afford it, you shouldn’t do it.  If you want kids, first make sure you have a reasonable amount of money with which to support them, and then only have as many as you can afford.  I’m not saying you have to be rich to have kids; they don’t need those designer clothes and fancy electronics to survive.  But at least try to have enough money for basic necessities first; don’t get pregnant with the full intention of living off the taxpayers’ dime.  I mean, if I wanted a boat or a Mercedes, the taxpayers won’t buy me one, so I do without those things.  We do need to have a car, but we have a Ford Focus because that is something we can easily afford.  A Mercedes is NOT a car that we can easily afford, so we didn’t choose to buy one.

You may have heard of Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar, who have 19 kids and say that they are willing to have more.  They are very religious people who practice something called Quiverfull; which means that you agree to have as many babies as God sends you.  In the case of the Duggars, they are supporting themselves, they are not on welfare or any other form of public assistance.  I think Jim Bob has some sort of a motivational speaking business, plus they are making money from their reality show, 19 Kids & Counting.  I may not personally agree with the idea of having that many kids, but as long as they can afford to support them, and are not raising them to be useless teen thugs, then it is within their rights to do so.

But Gary Bateman and Joanne Sheppard, the couple in the U.K. with 11 kids, another on the way, and no jobs, don’t even have a valid religious excuse.  It appears that they are not married; the same religions that are against birth control and abortion are also against people having sex without being married to each other.  So I hope they don’t try to haul out the “it’s against my religion” thing should someone suggest tubal ligation and/or vasectomy for them.

The system definitely needs to be reformed.  Public assistance should be for people who are truly in need, for people who fell upon hard times through no fault of their own.  It should be for people who lose their jobs, something which we hear a lot about these days, due to the sucky economy.  It should also be for people who become disabled and cannot work.  These people have a legitimate need for money to pay their bills and take care of any kids they have that are already here.  It should NOT be financing people’s expensive life choices, be it designer clothes, expensive cell phones, or for making more babies.