Over this past week, I did a lot of back to school shopping and grocery shopping, errand running, etc. During that time, I came across a slew of things I have decided must go. They must be banished from the face of the earth, lest we all suffer needlessly. I might do a weekly list of these things. Perhaps if we are all onboard, we can make these irritations disappear. If not, well, I?ll feel better after bitching about them.
- Lipstick the same color as your face.
- Face piercing. Now, don?t get me wrong. A nose piercing or even the eye brow piercing is not as offensive to me as the guy I saw whose entire fucking face was pierced. He had a run of piercings down the bridge of his nose, both eye brows had at least four piercings each. One in his lip, and one in his chin. I wanted to run a shoe lace around the various piercings and make his whole face disappear. There is a thin line between exerting your independence and refusal to conform to society?s norm and becoming a freak of nature. He was the latter.
- Screaming kids in grocery stores. Really, if you can?t control them, leave them at home. That is how mine learned. It only took a few times of leaving with 7 and she finally caught on that I was not playing around. The world would be a better place if kids learned some rules, respect and discipline and if parents would learn to be the parent. Just sayin.
- School supplies. They have seriously become out of control. 7?s list had things like shaving cream, paper towels, Kleenex, Purell, and red pencils. 10?s list had 5 spiral notebooks, 2 reams of copy paper, 2 packs of index cards and a whole mess of other things like dry eraser markers and cleaner and hand cleaner. I don?t mind helping out, but sometimes I feel like I am supplying the entire 2nd and 5th grades. I know that schools are under funded. I know that many times, teachers spend their own money to buy extra supplies. I get that part. I?m just bitching because the list gets bigger every year and the older they get, the more expensive their stuff is becoming.
- School districts that wait until four days INTO THE NEW YEAR, after we?ve done the back to school shopping and got the new underwear (more about that later) and socks and shoes and uniforms to DROP THE UNIFORM REQUIREMENT! Oh yes. They waited until yesterday to send a note home saying that they were dropping the requirement and the dramas could wear whatever they wanted to. Now, I get to fight with JC Penny to return the uniforms I just bought, and go buy them school clothes.
- New cars that are not being equipped with turn signals. I don?t know why the manufacturers would be so selfish as to cut the nominal cost of a turn signal to save a buck, but I can only assume that is what is going on due to the vast number of new vehicles on our freeway systems, all sporting temporary paper license plates, and weaving in and out of lanes of traffic with nary a signal to be seen. And the drivers seem to look at me like I have three heads when I honk and yell that ?A FUCKING SIGNAL WOULD BE NICE!?
- Work. I?m done with it. I need to become, somehow, independently wealthy. If you figure that one out, let me know okay? Thanks.
I am with you on all of the above….Although the uniforms are still a requirement at my daughter’s school. I am going to play and try to hopefully win the Mega Millions Lotto woth $148,000,000.00 tonight. Maybe I will fullfill the last on your list.
ReplyDeletelol..I couldn’t help but laugh at your WHOLE list….
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, is that I totally agree with you!
OMG… what kind of car doesn’t have turn signals??! That’s insane.
ReplyDeleteI’m totally on board with everything else, too. Except I don’t have kids, so screaming ones really, really piss me off. Especially when it’s a tantrum that lasts more than a minute. Hello? Move your child OUTSIDE.
I hear you on your uniform frustration. That’s just stupid.
Michele sent me by to say hello! (and I’m glad she did!)
Thanks for visiting my site! Hahaha…school supplies. I remember being a tot and I showed up on the first day of school with Number 3 lead pencils. The teacher had a fit. She must have just finished watching “Patton” before class and I was sent to the office for insubordination! :)
ReplyDeleteYou hit some nerves with this one! The school supply thing bugged a mom in our district so much that she founded a nonprofit called Schoolhouse Supplies where teachers get free vouchers to shop for classroom supplies. If you google the name you’ll get the website and it explains how it works. You could do it there too if you were wealthy and a stay-at-home mom like she was.
ReplyDeleteTurn signals—yes! I love it! I’m teaching my daughter to drive and she’s already telling her friends, “Dad doesn’t care how I drive as long as I signal every turn!” I had a pal in Miami who told me when I moved there: “No one here uses a turn signal. If you see someone signalling, it’s because they left the signal on at the car lot where the guy bought it.” So true—of Miami and everywhere else these days. It’s especially dangerous for us bike commuters who nearly get run over on a daily basis by assholes who don’t signal a right turn as you’re passing them (legally) in the bike lane.
I HATE PEOPLE WHO DON’T USE THEIR TURN SIGNALS!!!
I’m so glad you helped me get that off my chest.
Kitten Heels. They are at the top of my list.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think the schools are under-funded, they over-spend. Many private and charter schools are half the price what the public school district spends.
ReplyDeleteThe amount they spend per child, they should be providing supplies, clothes AND food, if you ask me.
I remember when I was little, you bought pencils, crayons, scissors, paper, a ruler and Elmer’s glue. That was about it.
I also agree with all the things you mentioned. For me add the kids shoes with wheels to the screaming ones. I am so tired of seeing kids fly by me in the airport, the hospital hallway, and the grocery store aisles. If you are not in a place where skates are allowed, shoe skates should not be allowed.
ReplyDeleteVisiting randomly from Michele’s on her birthday.
I am totally with you on the independently wealthy thing. If you figure it out, tell me and we can maybe figure out a way to market it and sell it and then we can sit on our asses drinking coffee and talking about things that irritate us all day. Like the freak with the pierced face (I truly think it is a mental illness) and people who don’t signal their intentions (imbeciles) and school supply lists that are big and require certain brands of stuff that are extremely hard to find and schools that don’t tell you that you don’t need to get your kids uniforms until after you have already bought said uniforms and parents who cannot control their kids in public and gossip about what their home lives must be like if their children act like this in front of strangers and finally we could laugh at the geeky people who wear clownish makeup.
ReplyDeleteThat would be awesome. You game?
I am so with you on the turn signals. Why don’t people use them?? Burns me up.
ReplyDeleteI am so with you on the school supply thing. For three years my children attended a VERY disadvantaged public school and their school supply list was something like, Pencils, 1 Composition Book and 1 Glue Stick. Somehow the school and the teachers got by even though the parents of most of the kids couldn’t afford to give more than the minimum. And my kids learned. And life went on. Despite the lack of multi-colored dry erase markers.
ReplyDeleteFor the past two years my children attended ultra-advantaged public schools and it was beyond disgusting the utter obliviousness of the parents to the fact that not only did both parents in some families work…but the mom worked because she had to! They were kind of OK with those moms who worked because they were lawyers or artists or something cool like that. PTA meetings were at 9 a.m. One situation had a mother saying something to the effect of…if the parents with the issues on the bus situation are so concerned, why aren’t they here? I had to explain…not once, but twice…that perhaps they were WORKING and therefore couldn’t attend a morning meeting about the bus situation…and they were the ones who didn’t have the LUXURY of driving their kids to school if the bus didn’t show up!!!!
Thanks for letting me share your rant!