Christine the Curmudgeon

Yes, Christine the Curmudgeon has promised you this rant, and now, here it is.

The calendar still says JUNE, but it’s started already in our neighborhood. Yesterday, we were out for the day…at the Fisher Cats game, and then hanging out at the Wild Rover for a while…and we got home at about 9PM.

And there they were…members of the local FFA™ chapter (that would mean Future FELONS of America), setting off their illegal fireworks at the end of our street. Never mind that cops cars were going past, and surely must have seen and heard them. The little buggers were out there ALL NIGHT LONG, making all of this racket.

Note that I said ILLEGAL. Fireworks are illegal here in Massachusetts, unless you are a licensed pyrotechics person or whatever they call those who do those authorized, sanctioned fireworks displays. So, if they are so illegal for the regular Joes to use here, why do the cops not come when I call to complain about kids setting them off at 12AM? Why do they not stop when they drive past people setting off fireworks? Why bother having the law, if no one seems to enforce it? The only time I ever heard of the law being enforced was when they caught this guy, a year or two back, with a garage packed full of fireworks. No doubt he was re-selling them, probably mostly to the annoying little punks that I’m ranting about here.

And it always does seem to be underaged kids playing around with fireworks. I don’t care if they blow their limbs off, go blind, or whatever. If they are stupid enough to be fooling around with these explosives, they deserve what they get. What I care about is property damage, namely, MY property. Once I caught a few of these FFA™ thugs preparing to set off fireworks under the tailpipe of our car. I ran out and chased them away.

They were breaking more than one law here. First of all, they were trespassing on private property, as we have off-street parking. Second, they were doing something illegal, in having and using fireworks. Third, they had the intent of doing damage to our car.

Where are the parents? Well, I will tell you where they are…never in sight. The only time we would ever see them is if little Johnny hurts himself on our property while playing with fireworks. That’s when mommy hauls her ass off the couch and shows up at our door, accompanied by one of those skeevy lawyers that advertises on TV.

Fireworks are legal for sale and use by the public in New Hampshire. This is the time of year when fireworks sellers set up these tents just over the MA/NH border. I don’t know what the law is, but I’m pretty sure that these people don’t sell fireworks to anyone under the age of 18. but, as I said before, there are people who buy them in NH, bring them into MA, and re-sell them. Of maybe the idiot parents of these kids go up to NH, buy this stuff, and GIVE it to their kids. Here, kid, get out of my hair, go set these off under someone else’s car on the next block.

I would have less of a problem with amateur fireworks, if done properly. I’d have no problem with having a responsible adult being the one to set them off, maybe in the back yard. The kids would mostly just watch. And they wouldn’t be setting them off all damned night.

But that’s not the way it is around here. These kids are running around everywhere, unsupervised, trespassing, destroying other people’s property, making noise all night long, and the damned local cops will do NOTHING.

And we’ll have to suffer through this all week, and maybe beyond. I hate it!

Usually, Christine the Curmudgeon and the mister stay home for the 4th of July. We certainly would never go into Boston for any reason, just too crowded with half the world there for the Boston Pops stuff on the Esplanade.

But this year, we are going to a New Hampshire Fisher Cats game. It’s a night game, to be followed by fireworks. But we plan to leave the house way early and get up there…we can hang out at the Wild Rover Pub for a while before the ballpark opens.

Why? Because we want to get away from our neighbors, who will no doubt have a cookout, and when they do, the whole neighborhood reeks of lighter fluid! Yuck!

I was watching part of the BBQ U with Steven Raichlen marathon on CreateTV today. Steven thinks lighter fluid is evil, too, and he was demonstrating how to use something called a chimney starter. The link goes to an Amazon search, a whole page full of chimney starters for your consideration.

So easy to use – remove top grate from grill. Put some crumpled newspaper in the bottom part of the chimney starter, and fill the top with charcoal. Set this in the grill Use a long match or lighter to light the newspaper (the starter has holes in the sides for this.

The fire will work its way up to the charcoal and light it. When the top charcoal pieces are lit, lift the chimney starter by the handle, and the charcoal will fall out into the grill. Add more charcoal, having the unlit pieces touching lit pieces to make them ignite.

See? NO stinky lighter fluid needed here! And it’s FUN! You can select a section of the newspaper that has pictures of politicians or other people you don’t like, and set them on fire.

It’s also much safer. And I’m convinced that the lighter fluid gets into the food, and that can’t be good.

The only thing more evil in the world of BBQ than lighter fluid itself, are those Kingsford “Match-Light” briquettes…they come doused in lighter fluid, and they stink even worse than regular briquettes and separate lighter fluid.

I don’t know how much a can of lighter fluid goes for these days, but I’m guessing that a chimney starter will pay for itself pretty quickly…considering that they sell for well under $20. Maybe I should leave an anonymous gift of a chimney starter on the offending neighbors’ doorstep, complete with instructions on how to use it. Not so much because I’m feeling charitable…it’s more like the fact that I’m sick of breathing in lighter fluid fumes on every major summer holiday, and a few non-holidays in between!

But since I am feeling a little generous today, I’ll leave you with one more BBQ tip: NEVER BUY CHEAP GENERIC CHARCOAL. I made this mistake once, it does not light well. Ideally, you should buy the natural lump charcoal over briquettes. But if you can’t find these, or they are too pricey for you, REGULAR Kingsford charcoal briquettes are fine.

This has been a public service announcement from your friendly neighborhood Curmudgeon.

Coming soon: a rant about amateur fireworks “displays”.

Excuse me a moment. Christine the Curmudgeon needs to go and get herself a beer, so she can cry in it for these kids…NOT!

Angry kids protest gas prices after losing cable TV

Freakin’ spoiled BRATS! Yes, the high price of everything is affecting everyone. They should be grateful that they are not going hungry every night, like many other kids (and adults!) are. This is a world where people are getting laid off from jobs, and are losing their homes because they can’t make the payments. The gas prices are not just affecting drivers, they are affecting EVERYBODY…why do you think food prices are going up so much? The food has to get to the stores somehow, usually in something called a TRUCK, which runs on DIESEL, which is now up to $5/gallon.  There are other reasons, such as flooding going on in the midwest and destroying crops, etc…but yes, the gas prices are a big part of food price increases.

And if you use public transportation, even that will cost more, because those buses and subways don’t run on farts, yanno? However, if someone invented a way to harness all of the hot air that comes out of politician’s mouths, and use that for fuel, that would solve a LOT of problems…LOL!

These kids will NOT die from lack of cable TV. If they have a roof over their heads, clothes to wear, and enough food to eat, they are far better off than many other people are.

When the Curmudgeon household had financial problems years ago, cable TV was the first thing to go. And you know what? We found we really didn’t miss it all that much. Now, despite the high gas prices, we can afford it again, but we just chose not to re-subscribe. We just can’t justify the high cost for what mostly consists of crappy channels that we would never watch.

These kids need to learn that sometimes, life really, really sucks, and you can’t always have everything you want.

Finally, if a nine year old can’t spell “cable”, that means that she needs to get away from the TV anyway, and spend more time reading books and studying her spelling words. Books are better than most TV anyway, and they can be borrowed for free from this place called a “library”. Maybe this family oughta check it out sometime!

This is something that drives Christine the Curmudgeon batshit insane!

I see this all the time.  I see spoiled brat kids at the ballpark demanding money from their stupid parents to buy some form of junk food, and after they get it, half of it ends up on the floor, for the ballpark staff to clean up.  And then five minutes later, they want something else, and the idiot parents give them the money for that, too.

The worst example of this was at a Pawtucket Red Sox game a few years ago.  There were these two boys sitting near us, no adult handlers in sight.  This was clearly a case of the parents dropping them off at the gate with tickets and a LOT of money, and taking off to do their own thing.

These kids were VERY annoying, as they had to get up (and inconvenience us) every five minutes, so that they could get more food that they didn’t completely finish eating, and drinks that they didn’t completely finish drinking.  I swear, between the two of them, they must have spent $100 on food and drinks, and most of it was left behind on the floor under their seats.

One of them actually paid extra to get ice cream in one of those little plastic baseball helmets…and then they left it behind.  They left before the game was over, which is a whole ‘nother rant for a whole ‘nother day.

I collect those little plastic helmets, so after the kids left for good, I picked it up, washed it as best as I could in the restroom, and then washed it better at home.  Now it sits proudly with all of my other little plastic ice cream helmets. the rest of which I actually bought an ice cream to get.  But hey, why allow this treasure to be thrown in the trash, yanno?

The argument can be made that kids are wasteful because they are not the ones who pay for things.  When people pay for their own stuff, they are less wasteful…right?

WRONG!  So many times, I go to restaurants, and see people who don’t finish their meals…and just let the waitstaff THROW IT AWAY!  No way in hell would I do this.  Even the late, great Julia Child has said that she was an unashamed doggie-bag-taker, and she was right.  What is there to be ashamed of?  You are paying for the meal, it is your right to ask to have anything you can’t eat right there wrapped up to take home.  Trust me, most restaurants have NO problem with this.  I do it a lot, and the leftovers make a nice lunch or snack the next day.

Even being far from home is not much of an excuse.  We keep a small cooler in the trunk of the Curmudgeon-mobile, a cooler that I paid ten bucks for at Family Dollar a hundred years ago.  Even if we want to do something else after eating out in, say, Maine, we still can keep our *doggie bags* safe.  All it takes is the cooler and a buck-fifty bag of ice.  The amount of food that might otherwise be thrown out is worth far more than a buck fifty!

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again:  those who bitch the loudest about food prices, gas prices, and such, are usually the ones who are the most wasteful.

Wasting food bothers me a lot, and I do all I can to avoid it.

Christine the Curmudgeon is known for supermarket rants. Therefore, there is now an official category for them on this blog.

So I took the bus to The Evil Stop & Schlop today. I was only getting a few things, including some of that Silk soy milk stuff. The fact that I’m getting seriously menopausal here has made me do some reading, and I learned that drinking soymilk daily might help with those pesky hot flashes.

Since I was taking the bus, I didn’t use a cart, but a basket. After I got what I wanted, I headed for one of the *12 items or less* express lines. I would have made it there first, but some jerk with nothing but a mango cut in front of me. Since he only had that one thing, I didn’t beat him over the head with my shopping basket. But I was soon tempted to!

I’m holding my basket, which was a bit heavy. The guy in front of Jerko, who was buying cheap swill beer, was being rung up. But Jerko was still standing, blocking my way to the belt, with his lone mango on it, because he was too busy looking at some stupid Sudoku puzzle book on the magazine rack.

MOVE YOUR ASS! I wanted to yell. I put my basket on the floor, because it was getting too heavy.

It even took the cashier what seemed like forever to get Jerko’s attention, after Cheap Swill Beer Guy was gone, so she could ring up his stupid mango. Finally, he woke up. And then it took him forever to dig out the damned money to pay for the stupid mango.

Meanwhile, I was standing there with my money ready. You are in line. You are buying one (or a very few) things. Why not have your money ready for when it’s your turn? If you are planning to pay in coins, at least count the damned things out while in line, and DON’T look at the damned Sudoku book instead, okay?

I finally got checked out, and barely caught the next bus back. If I’d had to wait for the next one, I would have been on a bus with a million horrible brats from the high school, and then I’d be praying to the Flying Spaghetti Monster that Jerko choked on his mango.

What the hell…he was annoying enough, I hope he choked on it anyway!

And no, Jerko didn’t even buy the damned Sudoku book. What was he doing…trying to do the puzzle in his head while waiting? Sheesh!