Christine the Curmudgeon

Christine the Curmudgeon wants to know – what the HELL is it with people who bring the whole fam damily out grocery shopping?  I’m not talking about a single parent with a kid or two…I’m talking about a family with a mother, a father, and a whole boatload of kids.  Many of said kids are teenagers, and could certainly stay at home to mind the younger ones.  But so many times, I have seen families almost as large as the Duggars, all at the store together, with kids running around, screaming, blocking the aisles, and being all around annoying.

I don’t even think the Duggars would do this crap!  Chances are that Michelle goes to the supermarket, and perhaps brings two or three of the older kids along to help.  The rest of them stay at home with Jim-Bob and/or other older kids.

The families like this that I have seen at the supermarket act like a trip to the supermarket is some sort of entertainment, like it was one of those Orlando vacations to Disney World, Sea World, wherever.  The kids run wild, play with stuff, and generally get in the way of people who are there to buy groceries, pay, and go home.

It is not MY problem when people choose to have so many children, that they can’t afford to take them anywhere fun, so trips to the store will have to do.  It is also not my problem when some single woman welfare queen repeatedly sleeps with an assortment of deadbeat men, and has a whole string of children that their fathers do nothing to support.  And then brings them all to the supermarket, and hold me up in the line when they have to argue with the cashier because you can’t buy beer with food stamps.  After they annoyed me all during my shopping trip.

All I can do is choose stores where this stuff is less likely to happen, and go during non-peak times, as well.  But when I HAVE to go at any given time…it is HELL!

Christine the Curmudgeon offers up another gem:  4-Time Sex Offender Charged With Attacking Jogger

I mean, I know he WAS in jail…but they should have kept him there.  The fact that he is a 4-time sex offender should scream loud and clear that this is someone who is beyond rehabilitation.  At least this time, he’s being held without bail, and faces 20 years in the slammer.

This is the same guy who got fired from a McDonald’s restaurant in Tewksbury, MA a while back.  A woman who came into the restaurant had seen a picture of this guy in the local sex offender registry, and complained to management.  She did not think that he should be allowed to work at a place that children often frequent.  The manager fired him, and he tried to sue McDonald’s.  He later dropped the lawsuit.

Do you know who and where the sex offenders in your neighborhood are?  It’s easy to find out.  One night I was bored, randomly surfing blogs and websites, reading about the diet pill reviews and such, when I first came upon the link to the Family Watchdog site.  Just for the hell of it, I plugged in my zip code, and found that there is a Level 3 sex offender living right around the corner from us!

The site is also linked to in the news story.  The only problem is that these pervos can move about – this guy lives in Tewksbury, but he’s been skeeving around in Ipswich, where his latest crime took place.  A great argument for just keeping guys like this locked up for longer!

Tufts University Implements ‘Sex Policy’ For Dorms

What gets to Christine the Curmudgeon is that they had to make such a rule in the first place.  Whatever happened to common courtesy?

I would not feel comfortable about doing the nasty with a third person in the room.  Nor would I feel comfortable seeing/hearing two people going at it in the bed across the room.  That’s just gross!

I’m sure some of these kids do this all the time, when they are away on their Florida vacations for Spring Break and all.  They often have as many as four kids to a room, as a way to save money.  But it’s still gross to go out, get drunk, pick up some strange guy, and take him back to a room that you share with others, and go at it.

But as for the school, it’s unbelievable that they felt the need to get involved.  Where is common sense and consideration for others?

Christine the Curmudgeon is outraged by this:  Innocent Bath-Time Photos Get Kids Taken Away From Parents.

So, let me get this straight – Level 3 sex offenders are released from jail way too soon, go on to offend again, and little to nothing is done, about the time they are incarcerated for.  But some innocent parents take cute bath-time photos, and now they’re sex offenders, and the mom lost her job for a year over it?

I hope these parents sue the hell out of Wally-World and anyone else involved, and win.

This is a good case for investing in a digital camera and a decent photo printer, and printing your digital photos at home.  This may cost more money, but at least then you won’t get in trouble for taking innocent picturesf your kids!

Christine the Curmudgeon says that if people are too cheap/can’t afford to leave a proper tip when they go out to a restaurant or bar, they should stay at home.

On Saturday night, Mr. Curmudgeon and I were at Federal Jack’s brewpub, up in Kennebunkport, Maine.  As usual when we go in there, we were sitting at the bar.  Since the bartenders there know us, they allow us to run a tab without having to hand over a credit card.

Anyhoo, the place was starting to get very busy.  There were no more seats left at the bar, and there was a wait for tables.  So a lot of people were just standing around in the bar area, or going into the adjacent game room  to play pool or video games.  All of these people were ordering drinks from the bar while they waited for seating to become available.  The bartenders, all three of them, were super busy.

So anyway, this guy comes in with a bunch of his friends.  They go into the game room, and a few minutes later, the guy goes up to the bar to order drinks for himself and all of his friends.  The bartender says he can’t serve them unless all of the members of the group show ID.

So he goes back into the game room and they all come out and show their IDs.  This takes a while.  Satisfied that they were all of legal drinking age, the bartender starts to make all of the drinks.

The total bill came to $55.00.  The bartender asked if he wanted to run a tab or pay cash, and said that he’d have to leave a credit card with him for the former.  Guy opted to pay cash.

He handed the bartender $70.00.  Bartender hands him back his $15.00 change.  Guy starts carrying drinks to his friends in the game room.  We noticed that he left NO TIP!

Now I would have left the whole $15.00, but even ten bucks would have been acceptable.

We didn’t know how long they stayed, if they got another round, or what, because we left soon thereafter.  But I always thought that when you do *pay-as-you-go* in a bar like this, you tip each time you order.  At least that’s the way I’ve always done it.  When I buy a beer at a baseball game, I tip $1.00 each time on a five-dollar beer.  Yeah, I like the good stuff, so bust me!

Mr. C and I both had the feeling that there would be no tip for the bartender at all, ever, from this guy.

The only time it’s okay to leave the tip at the end, in my opinion, is if you’re running a tab and it’s time to cash out.  We usually pay with plastic and just add the tip onto the bill in the space provided for this purpose.

There was another cheapskate who’d been sitting near us earlier.  He paid with a credit card, and we saw the signed charge slip sitting on the bar.  Two dollar tip on an $18.00 tab.  Unacceptable!

These three bartenders were working their asses off, and we saw no problems with the quality of the service.  Our beers were not empty for long, and our food came out in a reasonable amount of time.  We felt bad about them getting stiffed like this, and left them a little extra to help make up for it, to show them that not everybody in the world is a cheap asshole.  And we always tip at least 20% regularly, often more.

As a result of our good tipping habits, we get treated VERY well at Federal Jack’s and other places we visit on a regular basis.  We enjoy eating out, and we know how hard these bartenders and servers work.  I used to be in the restaurant biz, so I know all about this.

Trust me…servers and barkeeps not only remember the good tippers like us…they remember the cheap ones, as well!