Christine the Curmudgeon

Christine the Curmudgeon doesn’t quite get it.  You know those people who crashed the White House State Dinner?  Of course you, do,  you seem to talk about nothing else, other than Tiger Woods and Black Friday/Cyber Monday.

Anyway, has it occurred to you that by reporting this to death, you are giving these two attention whores exactly what they want?  Reporting the incident when it happened was enough.  Now just let the authorities do their investigation, and report it again when these two losers are in prison where they belong.  Preferably sentenced to hard labor, having to operate one of those giant industrial hand wheels, like they had on pirate ships.

There HAS to be more newsworthy stuff going on in the world!

Christine the Curmudgeon remembers the days when kids could visit Santa, and parents could take pictures.  When I was a little curmudgeon, I was taken to visit Santa at the local Sears store, and if my mother wanted pics, she had to take them herself.

Well, how times have changed!  Now, not only are parents not allowed to take their own pics of their kids on Santa’s knee at the mauls, but picture packages, which seem to consist of crappily taken Polaroids, by teenagers who look like they just got out of drug rehab, and probably need to go back there, come with a high price tag.  I got an ad in the mail about this (why, I don’t know), and the cheapest package was $25.  Sheesh,  all most people want is one lousy picture!

Everything is about the almighty dollar these days.  Better to stay away from the mauls, and maybe find an event in your community that lets kids visit with Santa, and allows parents to take their own pics.

Disgusting!

This letter comes from today’s Dear Abby:

DEAR ABBY: I work in a busy hospital with many patients from other countries.   Our volunteer office collects magazines to distribute throughout the hospital for patients and visitors.

Please encourage your readers to donate magazines in English as well as any other languages that are spoken in their communities. These can help to ease the endless hours of waiting that inevitably occur. Thanks, Abby. — EMILY P. IN HOUSTON

DEAR EMILY P.: You’re welcome. And chemotherapy and dialysis centers would also welcome magazines for patients to read while they are being transfused. These are excellent ways to “recycle.”

This is a most excellent idea.  If you’ve ever spent any amount of time waiting to be seen in a doctor’s office or ER, then you know that what reading material that is available there is annihilatingly  boring.  But there is usually no money in the budget to provide better waiting room magazines, it’s certainly not top priority.  Some people, like me, bring our own stuff to read.  But not everybody thinks of this, and even when we do, the wait is often so long, we’ve finished what we brought, and there is nothing else good to read.

Mr. C and I have magazines all over the place here, maybe we should donate them to the Lahey Clinic, which is the hospital where we get all of our medical care.  Our magazines are much more interesting, at least to us, than the usual boring crap that is in their waiting areas.  I have more craft and cooking magazines than I will be able to reference, I should donate some of those.  I was thinking of getting rid of all my back issues of Cook’s Illustrated, and replacing them with the hardbound annuals they put out.  You can still buy the old ones, back from Day One.  They are easier to store and reference, since they also put out an Index.  And others will get good use from the copies that I donate.

It’s not just medical facilities that have boring magazines.  The service department of our car dealership, places where they do rv repair, and many other places suffer the same affliction.  But the WORST waiting room I’ve been in was that of the local JN Phillips auto glass repair place.  I had to go there once to get the front windshield on the old Curmudgeon-mobile replaced.  It had a Hugh Jass crack that went straight across.  It was wicked cold, and window glass replacement has to be done in a climate-controlled environment, or else the special glue they use won’t set properly.  And then they make you wait 30 minutes or so for it to be properly set, so it will be safe to drive home.

I hadn’t thought at the time to bring a book.  And all they had in their waiting room was a copy of that day’s  Boston Herald and the current month’s issue of “Auto Glass Monthly”.  Maybe we should drop off a small donation of magazines there, too.

Anyhoo, this has been a public service announcement from your friendly neighborhood curmudgeon.  By donating your old magazines, rather than just tossing them in the trash or recycling bin, you could save someone from dying of boredom in some hospital waiting room!

Christine the Curmudgeon saw this story on Twitter, via WCSH, Portland, Maine. Link to article.

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Maine officials say wastewater treatment plants around the state are experiencing problems because residents continue flushing baby wipes and similar items down their toilets.

Andrew Fisk of the Department of Environmental Protection says baby wipes sometimes form into long ropes that can wrap around pumps and other equipment. As a result, he says municipalities are spending millions of dollars for maintenance and replacement parts for burned-out pumps.

Rep. Bernard Ayotte, a member of the Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee, is urging Mainers to refrain from putting wipes into the wastewater system.

So the state of Maine is shelling out millions because many of their residents are basically stupid. baby wipes are NOT the same as toilet paper, they are much thicker and do not break down as quickly as regular TP does. Toilet paper is designed to be flushed and break down quickly in the sewer/septic systems.

People might be grossed out over putting something used to clean a baby’s stinky bum in the garbage rather than the toilet. But most parents use disposable diapers, what do they do with the used ones? Perhaps some people are really, really dumb, and try it. But perhaps just once. Once your toilet clogs up and overflows, and you have to not only clean up the mess, but pay money for a plumber, hopefully you will be more careful next time.

So, it would stand to reason that baby wipes be disposed of in the same way as used diapers.  Most parents keep a special diaper pail by the changing table, something that keeps the stink in until it’s time to empty the trash.  Why can’t they throw the used wipes in that, as well?

What other things do people flush down the toilet, that should not be flushed? Paper towels, humidifier filters, sanitary napkins? As for the sanitary napkins, I know some people do that, because I often see signs in ladies rooms telling people not to.

Teh stoopid…it hurtz!

Christine the Curmudgeon wants to know – if the economy is so bad, then how can so many people afford to fill their shopping carts with mostly unnecessary crap on Black Friday?

Seriously, people see all of this cheap crap adverised, and decide that they NEED it. How many big-screen TVs were bought today by people who already had perfectly good TVs at home? Probably a lot. But people tend to think they NEED the newest stuff out there; they want to have their homes equipped with all of the amenities of fancy Toronto hotels.

It’s one thing if you can actually afford it. But I see it year after year, people who go overboard buying crap for Christmas, whining in January and February when the credit card bills start rolling in.  Well, what the hell did you expect?  Did you think that all of this crap is FREE?  Even if it’s cheap, as it is on Black Friday, people buy way too much of it, and never get out of the hole.

Another thing that I will neverr get for as long as I live – parents who go crazy treying to buy *the new hot toy* for their kids, and are willing to pay any price to get it.  Once again, many of these parents are people who I’ve had to listen to bitching about their lack of money all the rest of the year.

The new hot toy for 2009 is something called a Zhu  Zhu Pet.  Unless you have been living under a rock, you’ve heard of these little robotic hamsters.  They originally sold for about $8-$9, which is a reasonable price to pay for a toy.  But there is so much demand for these things, that some vendors online are sellingn them for WAY more than that…and people are PAYING it!

I saw one today listed by an Amazon seller, for almost $57.00!  And I’ve heard that they go for even more on eBay.  Sheesh, why do some people’s brain cells go flying out the window when it comes to stuff like this?

I think thqt my cats might lije a Zhu Zhu Pet to chase around the house.  And one day, they will have one – sometime after next year’s yard sale season starts up.  It’s unbelievable how many of the previous Christmas’ *must-have* crap end up in the following summer’s yard sales!