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!

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Here’s the latest entry in Christine the Curmudgeon’s Hall of Shame Gallery.  The local Stop & Shop parking lot seems to be great fodder for such pics.  Once again, we have a series of lazy jerks who were too lazy to take their carts to the nearby cart corral; rather, they preferred to leave them in handicapped parking spaces.

And YES, those striped areas next to the handicapped spaces ARE part of the spaces; they are there in case someone in a wheelchair needs to get in and out of a van.  The ramps in these specially-equipped vans require the extra space.  So no, jerks, it is NOT there for you to leave carts in.

It was busy and they were having a great sale at the store. But it was also a beautiful day; not raining, not too hot.  So it should not have been a problem for these able-bodied people to not leave their carts in the handicapped spaces.

Lazy jerks!

There was this jerk sitting behind us at the ball game yesterday who WOULD NOT SHUT UP.  His ongoing commentary to his friends was annoying, as he acted like he knew EVERYTHING about baseball, about the ballpark, etc.  Yet he did not know the name of the team that the Portland Sea Dogs were playing against.  It was the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.  Sheesh, how can you go to a ball game and NOT know the names of the teams that are playing?

Not this guy…but he was too busy yapping away, he barely shut up for one second.  He sounded like one of those salesmen who’d try to sell you anything, such as offering term life insurance quotes, yet knowing NOTHING about what it is he’s trying to sell.  He was the one who told his pals that they could buy beer right through the end of the game…sorry, not gonna happen, beer closes in the middle of the 7th inning.

We did get some peace when he announced to the entire section that he had to go pee, and asked this woman who he was with for his phone (which he was telling her how to take pictures with, with obviously no success, from what we could hear).  He was going to call his brother while he was downstairs taking a leak.

We’d hoped that he’d chew his brother’s ear off for a while while downstairs, so we’d get a break from his endless commentary about stuff of which he knows nothing.  But I guess his brother must have gotten all of the brains of the family, because the jerk came back and announced to the whole section that his brother was not picking up the phone.  Methinks that bro is screening his calls.  I would, if this jerk were MY brother!

At least they all left once they realized that no more beer was to be sold.  Sometimes, that cutoff is a GOOD thing!

The stores claim that they ask for this simply because they want to know where their customers are coming from.  But with cell phones, many of which have a different area code from where the owner of the phone actually lives, this is not so accurate.  Yet they still ask.

If they want to know where customers come from, asking for a zip code should be good enough.  They can’t do much with just a zip code except find out what city, town, or neighborhood you live in.  I consider to harmless to give that out.  However, I do believe that if someone chooses NOT to give it out, that should be their right as well.

But giving out your phone number can lead to a lot of annoyance later on.  If you buy something in a store, you are a customer, have officially done business with them.  And technically, since you are doing business with them, they are now exempt from the DO NOT CALL list, and you can bet that they WILL call you to try to sell you stuff.  And it will be next to impossible to make them stop.

Do you have cable TV?  Then you know what I mean, they forever call customers to try to sell them more services.  Do you have a Sunday-only subscription to the local newspaper?  I used to, I canceled it because they would not stop calling me to get me to buy a daily subscription.  It got to the point where they were calling me twice a day.  I told them to stop.  They said they would, but the calls kept coming.  I told them that if I got one more call, I’d cancel the Sunday subscription that I had.  They called again.  I canceled.

Never mind that people are often too busy, with their production jobs and all, to watch 500 channels of TV, or read the paper every single day. These people will NOT LET UP!

Telemarketers are universally annoying. So WHY would any sane person hand out their phone number to a store clerk, when there is absolutely NO reason they’d need it? You just KNOW they’ll use it to call you, and it’s perfectly legal.

I already have enough trouble getting unwanted callers to stop bothering me; the last thing I’d want is MORE annoying calls. So I refuse to give it out when a store cashier asks. If they give me crap about it, I speak with my wallet, leave the merchandise on the counter, and walk out.

Talking with your wallet is often the only thing that these businesses understand.

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.

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.

Several years ago, Mr. Curmudgeon and I dined at a restaurant in Portsmouth, NH called The Stockpot.  It is no longer there…too bad, it was a pretty good place.  Anyhoo, it was kind of a small place, at least the one non-smoking room was (at the time, smoking was still permitted in NH bars and restaurants).

We were there on a Saturday night in the summer, a busy time in Portsmouth and other seacoast towns.  Since it was just the two of us, we were able to walk into The Stockpot and get a table right away.

As we were sitting there, drinking our beers and enjoying our dinner, this group of nine people walked in.  The hostess told them that she could not seat them all together at the time, and that they’d have to wait.  The leader of the group started screaming at the poor hostess, as if this were somehow her fault.  But there was nothing she could have done, she did her best to calm this person down.  They left for a while, but then came back, probably because they realized that there was nit a single restaurant in all of downtown Portsmouth that could seat a group of nine people together on a Saturday night.  In the middle of the summer.  With no advance notice.  They were still waiting when we left, and they were loudly bitching and moaning about it all as we walked past them.

I was reminded of this incident by one that happened more recently.  I’ve been becoming a regular on the 3PM Boston Express Bus from Boston’s South Station to Manchester, NH, at least once a week.  This is because we go to a lot of New Hampshire Fisher Cats games, and for the weeknight games, it is easier if I go up on the bus, and Mr. Curmudgeon meets me at the stadium after he gets sprung from work.  His office is about halfway up I-93 between our house and the ballpark, so it makes no sense for him to have to drive home, get me, and them backtrack north again.  We’ll have season tickets for next year, so I’ll be using Boston Express Bus all the more; I hope they come out with monthly passes by then!

Anyhoo, these buses come equipped with free WiFi, as well as electrical outlets at some of the seats.  These are clearly marked, but you need to get in the queue for the bus early so you can get on sooner and snag one of these seats, if you need one.  Since I never go anywhere without my cell phone, Amazon Kindle, and iPod (and sometimes I bring my netbook if I need to do some work), I always get there early enough to get an outlet.  I always seem to have SOMETHING that needs to be charged up!

So I was on the 3PM to Manchester last Friday, sitting in my seat with the power outlet, my phone happily charging away.  At exactly 2:58, this large group of older ladies got on the bus, and once they saw that the bus was nearly full and that there was no way they could all sit together, they started bitching and moaning loudly about this.

Some people actually got up and moved so at least some of them could sit together.  I was not among them.  I was the one who planned ahead because I wanted access to a power outlet; although I do charge things up at home, using mobile web on a phone sucks up a lot of juice.  But that’s not the point – the point is that I knew what I had to do to get a power outlet seat, and I made sure to get there in time to board the bus and get one.  It’s not my problem that this bunch of old biddies didn’t plan ahead to get to the station early enough to be the first to board and get their choice of seats!  This is NOT the same thing as refusing to give an elderly person a seat on an MBTA bus or train, now that I would do.  The Boston Express Bus only sells as many tickets as there are seats, so nobody has to stand.  This was just a case where the old bats all wanted to sit together, and it wasn’t going to happen.

One of the old biddies sat next to me, but I put my iPod earphones in and ignored her as she glared at me.

Next time, get there earlier!  Sheesh!  If I ever act like this when I become an old bat, somebody please shoot me!

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.

We were in our usual seats, on the end of a row.  The only other people in the row were a couple with one kid, a boy who looked to be about 8-9 years old.  They were all the way on the other end, at the aisle seats. As we arrived at our seats, we had to wait for the kid to get out, he walked all the way down the row, rather than exiting at the end where he was sitting.

This would have been okay if we were not there.  But then the same kid came back, entering through OUR side and making us get up so he could get by.  The kid got up and down several times, each time exiting and entering through our end, unnecessarily disrupting us.  There were STILL no other people seated in the row at the time.

I finally got sick of it, and the next time the kid made us get up to get past us, I politely pointed out to him that he should go out at the other end of the row, because it was closer to the aisle.  To his credit, he actually felt bad for endlessly disturbing us, but said he’d go in and out at his end from now on.

Then it occurred to us that perhaps HIS PARENTS made him go in and out the way he was, because maybe THEY couldn’t be arsed to keep getting up to let him out.  I looked over at them, the father did kind of look like a jerk.  I don’t know why, he just did to me.

I kept looking over to see if the kid had returned to his seat, and how the parents reacted when he made them move so he could take his seat.  I wondered if they’d punish him or something.  The boy was gone for a long, long time, maybe he was afraid to go back.

He finally did return, the parents had to get up to let him by.  Fortunately, he wasn’t yelled at, at least not loud enough for us to hear.  But he did not get up from his seat again for the rest of the game.  I was hoping that they don’t punish the kid when they got home, for daring to disturb them to get up and down, to maybe throw him into one of those outdoor fireplaces or something. Or likely, just beat him for daring to inconvenience them.  If this were the case, why didn’t they just let him have the end seat?  Then he’d not be making anyone get up.

I worried a bit that one of both of the parents might come over and give us a hard time for daring to speak to their kid.  Fortunately, they did not.

The parents ended up having to get up to let people in and out anyway, because other people had arrived to sit in that row.  Just as we did, when people who were sitting closer to our end arrived.

To me, proper etiquette here is to exit your row on the side that is closest.   But if  no one had ever showed up in our row, and it was just up and the family on the other end, AND if the kid continued to enter and exit on our end, I’d have been SO tempted to get up and exit and enter through THEIR end several times, just so that they could see what it was like for us.  Mr. C always sits on the end, I sit in the second seat, so he has to move when I have to get up and pee or get more beer or whatever.  Why should I make HIM move, when I can make others move instead?

I thought about doing it once or twice just to get the message across, but I’m better than that.

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.