Black Friday Cometh

Posted on November 24, 2014 by luckyotter

I was going to write something about Black Friday, the scourge which threatens to take over Thanksgiving with its spirit of greed instead of thanks, but this rant is so well written, I’m just going to reblog it here. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Flakes of Cynicism

Or: Ready, Set, CONSUME.

Thanksgiving is upon us, which can only mean one thing – Black Friday is back, ready to blow your sanity to bits with door-buster deals. Don’t get me wrong, I love a bargain as much as anyone else, and have found myself wading through rabid crowds in the cold dawn more than I would care to admit. I don’t really take issue with Black Friday. The way in which it has usurped Thanksgiving and what that says about our culture is what I find problematic.

Look, a dead horse!

I’ve never been one for crowds, so perhaps that is the root of my general disdain for this holiday of consumerism. Thanksgiving has been my favorite holiday since I was a child. I have all kinds of warm and fuzzy memories of giant family Thanksgiving meals long past. As an adult, more often than not, my wife and I host our families for…

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WordPress Classic Editor vs. the “new, improved” Editor

Posted on November 14, 2014 by luckyotter

Yeah. I made this. It sucks. That thing that looks like a dandelion drawn by a 5 year old is supposed to be a ninja star weapon. Oh, well.

For some reason, WordPress keeps switching me over to the new editor (the beep beep boop one) and I have to manually switch it back to classic, which I like much better.

First of all, I think the classic editor is more readable. Second, my photos automatically resize themselves to the size I specified in my settings. The new editor doesn’t do that (maybe there’s a glitch), and I wind up having to upload my photos to Photobucket, and then resize them there, and that is time consuming. But the worst thing I noticed is the new editor doesn’t always save my changes. If I go in to edit a post again (I usually edit a post anywhere between 5 and 10 times, sometimes even more for longer posts), all my previous changes are lost. I finally figured out if I use the classic editor, my photos default to the correct size and I don’t have to worry about my changes being lost. Easy peasy!

I just wish I knew how to keep the classic editor from switching to the new one. I really don’t know what’s better about it. I really don’t need juvenile prompts like “Your post is lookin’ great!” and “Beep Beep Boop.” I’m not in kindergarten. And I will be the judge of whether my post looks great or not.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Remember New Coke? It was an epic fail. Everyone still wanted “Classic Coke.”

What do other bloggers prefer? The new editor or the classic mode?

Restaurant customers who don’t tip

Posted on November 13, 2014 by luckyotter

My son, who works as a waiter at Carrabba’s, served a 50-top today for a large group. Pictured below is the bill, which shows no tip was included.

Management asked the customer if the service was alright, and they said it was. They told management they thought the tip would be taken out automatically, but I smell bullshit. Management is “taking care of it,” whatever that means.

Wait staff make less than minimum wage, and tips is what they have to live on. While tipping isn’t required, it’s common courtesy and is expected, unless the service was really terrible. Even if this patron only tipped 10% (15%-20% is actually the correct amount to tip), then the wait staff who worked this event should split a tip of $95.50. Really, it should have been nearly twice that.

Not leaving a tip for a large bill like this, when the service was satisfactory, is rude beyond belief, considering the amount of work required by the wait staff, who could have been serving smaller tables and making more money.

Holy shirt!

Posted on November 11, 2014 by luckyotter

Be honest. Do any of you women suffer from holy shirt syndrome? I have a lot of thin cotton tee shirts, and every last one of them has an array of tiny little holes right in the front at the bottom, over the belly button area.

This is a huge mystery to me. My first thought was clothes moths, but that couldn’t be it, because why would the clothes moths only attack the same area of every tee shirt? Besides, I haven’t seen any clothes moths and none of my other clothes suffer. Belts? No, that couldn’t be it either. I never wore belts until very recently after I lost a bunch of weight because that was the only way I could get my old pants from falling off. I have had my holy shirt problem far longer than that. Someone suggested seat belts might be the culprit, but it happens even in cold weather when I’m wearing a coat and the seatbelt is not touching my tee shirt. Tucking my shirt into my pants can’t be it either because I never tuck my shirt into my pants.

Today I Googled “tiny holes at bottoms of tee shirts” and was shocked to find out this is actually a common problem and everyone else seems as mystified by it as me! For some reason I thought no one else had this problem. Anyway I found this article saying it’s caused by leaning over kitchen counters. Hmmm, I guess it’s time to start wearing an apron. Somehow I don’t believe it though. I’ve had brand new tee shirts I hung in the closet and never wore to cook anything, and somehow the holes still appear.

I don’t get it. Does anyone have a better theory of what causes this? And what can be done about it?

High anxiety

Posted on November 10, 2014 by luckyotter

I’m having one of those days again. You know, those days where you feel like all your nerves are beeping and buzzing and flashing the red DANGER sign. I deliberately stayed home from work today because I felt like sleeping in (and honestly, I wasn’t feeling well–I think I’m coming down with a cold, the flu, or maybe Ebola). But once I got over the anxiety-inducing hurdle of actually calling work, I curled back into my nice warm bed, expecting to drift into pleasant dreams, but instead I couldn’t go back to sleep! This happens A LOT when I try to relax: my mind starts racing and my heart begins to palpitate, while all my morbid, negative thoughts of unnamed disaster start to overtake my brain. This always happens, especially when I’m trying to relax.

When I was young I never had this problem. The 20-something version of myself could languish in bed until 2 PM or even later, with nary a sense of guilt or anxiety. I would drift into the most incredible, lucid-like dreams like someone on a mushroom high. I woke up ready to take on the world. But things have changed. As I’ve grown older, my attempts to sleep in just make me feel like I deserve to be punished and my body responds in kind. What’s up with that?

So I finally gave up trying to get back to sleep. I untangled my legs from under the covers, stood on the cold floor and walked to the kitchen where I made a strong pot of my favorite hazelnut coffee (I’m weird–coffee sometimes makes me sleepy) with cream and no sugar, put on some socks and opened my laptop. I read some blogs and blogged a little myself, but the nervousness was still there.

Around 11:30, I could no longer stand laying around in the clothes I sleep in (last night it was a tee shirt with threadbare drawstring pajama pants with Lucky Charms logos and leprechauns all over them) and got dressed in real clothes. But I still feel that unnamed sense of dread. My palms feel sweaty and my heart is in my throat. Should I go for a drive? Mow the grass (which is still overgrown and weedy looking even though it’s been cold)? Read a good novel? Cook something scrumptious that involves plenty of chocolate and butter? Arrange all my books in order by color to make my bookshelves look like a rainbow? I just don’t know. Now I wish I went to work today. I don’t know why I take these “mental health days” when I always wind up feeling guilty for doing so and crazier than if I’d just gone to my crummy job.

The crazy outfit I slept in last night. Maybe going to dreamland with kittens and leprechauns is the stuff of nightmares.

Am I the only one? Do any of you suffer anxiety and guilt when you take a day off from work when you’re not really sick? What do you do to combat your nerves?

16 overrated things

Posted on October 31, 2014 by luckyotter

1. Facebook. Your boss or your potential boss can spy on you and make character judgments based on what your updates say or what your photographs look like. Family members and old classmates you’d rather have nothing to do with can find you here. Companies can profile you and bombard you with ads for you to “like.” Facebook is fucking Big Brother. It’s going to take over the world someday. It must be stopped.

2. Stainless steel appliances. They look nice when new, but they’re hard to maintain and keep looking nice. They can’t take fingerprints and everything shows on them. After a few years they just start to look like shit. I’ll stick with plain old boring white appliances, thank you. Unfortunately, if you’re in the market for a new fridge or oven, they’re ALL in stainless steel these days.

3. The Kardashians. Famous for doing nothing at all. What the hell is so interesting about them?

4. Shrimp and other invertebrate seafood. Shrimp has a disturbing crunchy texture that reminds me of the exoskeletons of insects and arthropods. In fact, as members of Crustacea, shrimp, crab and lobster are biologically very close to Insectivora and Arthropoda. Sea-bugs for supper. Yum.

5. Vampires/zombies. They bore me. I’ll never get the neverending love affair America has with these uninteresting creatures.

6. Homeschooling. Kids don’t learn to interact with their peers, and most parents really aren’t cut out to be teachers. That said, I suppose there are some benefits for families who want to be able to control what their kids are exposed to. I’m not sure that’s always a good thing.

7. Autumn. There’s about a week where the trees actually look colorful, then it’s all downhill after that. While the weather is okay (in September and October), it’s getting colder and by November and December, it might as well be the middle of February. I don’t like fall because it reminds me that my least favorite season, winter, is coming. The days are getting shorter and everything is dying. It’s fucking depressing.

8. Snow. I ranted about it in this blog post.

9. Blonde hair. Women with blonde hair have to work extra hard to be taken seriously because everyone assumes they’re stupid. Blonde hair doesn’t age well and makes some people look washed out. Why 90% of women want to be blonde is a mystery.

10. Tans. The precursor to skin cancer, and they don’t look all that great anyway. I’d rather be pasty and free of both wrinkles and dangerous sun lesions for a few more years.

11. Christmas. The main problem I have with Christmas is how overcommercialized it has become. The day after Halloween it starts, and for almost two months we are made to feel guilty if we can’t afford the latest, most expensive gifts for our loved ones and can’t act jolly all the time. You can’t get away from it. Commercials and ads showing large, happy families sitting down enjoying a sumptuous Christmas meal with everyone opening gifts make me feel inferior and ashamed of my small, dysfunctional, impoverished family. One of my favorite radio stations during the rest of the year plays Christmas music 24/7 and it’s enough to make me want to stab Santa Claus.

12. Sushi. The package is nice but it’s RAW FISH. I’ll pass.

13. Major Sports (baseball, football, basketball, hockey). I just. don’t. care. Mmmmkay?

14. The news. I don’t like to get angry, and watching the news has an unfortunate tendency to make my blood boil. If it’s something I really need to know about, I figure it can’t be avoided anyway and I’ll be duly informed. Until then, I’m perfectly happy with my ignorant head stuck down here in the sand

15. Family Guy. Once upon a time it was funny (sort of). Now it’s just pathetic, recycling the same old lame jokes and unfunny cutaways. It’s time to put this show out of its misery. Peter is particularly insufferable.

16. Random, pointless lists ranting about things you think are overrated.

One more thing that pisses me off.

Posted on October 25, 2014 by luckyotter

I can’t believe I forgot to put this on my pet peeve list: Morning radio shows suck. I can only say 4 things about them.

1. They are not funny. It seems everyone wants to be Howard Stern these days, and guess what–he was never that funny either.

2. They ALWAYS have a really irritating, maddeningly perky, female sidekick with the IQ of a sloth and a voice to make even Kim Kardashian cringe in embarrassment. They never have anything original to add, and just seem to exist to laugh idiotically at the Stern-wannabe’s lame jokes.

3. Speaking of the Kardashians, does anyone really give a shit?

4. And finally, the worst thing of all: What the heck is wrong with ACTUAL MUSIC?

10 things that piss me off

Posted on October 22, 2014 by luckyotter

In no particular order (I hate them all about the same!)

1. Tailgaters. Really, you’re in THAT much of a hurry?

2. People who text while driving. It should be illegal in ALL states. When you text and drive, you’re as impaired as someone just over the legal alcohol limit. If I’m your passenger I will get REALLY pissed–it’s my life you’re risking (not to mention yours).

3. People who can’t stop talking about their kids/grandkids. I don’t mind this sometimes (we’re all proud of our young’uns), but ALL the time gets boring. Don’t you have SOMETHING else to talk about?

4. FOX News. Nuff said.

5. People who act like know-it-alls, when they know nothing.

6. People who think they’re superior because they have more money than you.

7. McMansions. I wrote a whole post about how much I hate them.

8. People who block the aisle at Wal-Mart (and other big box stores and supermarkets). Usually, they’re in groups of 3-5, walking abreast and will not move if you want to pass them. Arrggh.

9. Office politics. It’s why I don’t work in an office anymore.

10. Stale Reese’s peanut butter cups. Blech. They’re awful. I love them when they’re fresh, but you can tell they’re stale when the chocolate’s soft and the peanut butter’s all dried out. The trouble is, you can’t tell until you open one if it’s fresh or stale.

How “positive thinking” nazis jettison responsibility

Posted on October 9, 2014 by luckyotter

We live in an unempathic, selfish, narcissistic society. It’s social Darwinism at its finest, an Ayn Rand wet dream–a society that values selfishness over altruism, greed over empathy, money and material goods over timeless human virtues, fake smiles and phony platitudes over honest emotion.

Nowhere is this sickness more prevalent than it is in America today. One of the most irritating symptoms of how shallow a nation we’ve become is the plethora of corny “positive thinking” platitudes, cliches, and memes.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with some healthy positive thinking, and attempting to see the glass as half full rather than half empty–as long as the positivity is tempered by realism. If you spend your entire life thinking how awful your life is and don’t even try to look for the silver linings, chances are you’re not going to see much improvement in your life. Daily affirmations are a good idea, as long as we don’t delude ourselves into thinking problems don’t exist and therefore don’t need to be addressed.

But as human beings, we all need a shoulder to cry on sometimes, someone we can tell our troubles to without fear of being judged or our concerns dismissed or criticized. There are times when we all need a little empathy and someone who understands what we are going through. Being told in our darkest moments that we need to “smile and the world smiles with you,” “lighten up,” or “this is a learning experience” is the last thing we need or want to hear. Corny “positive thinking” platitudes can sound like an invalidation or dismissal of what’s close to our hearts and in some cases even make us feel shame in addition to the pain we’re already experiencing.

Both my parents and my stepmother are on the phony positive thinking brigade. A long time ago, I used to actually try to talk to my parents about my fears and heartbreaks, but never felt supported by them. All I wanted was a hug and some encouraging, genuine words, maybe something like “I understand why you’d be so upset” or “You have every right to be angry.” Sometimes even an attentive silence would have done, since really listening to someone doesn’t always require words and sometimes just being heard without judgment is all that’s needed.

Instead I’d get simplistic “think positive” cliches and slogans, if not straight up invalidation and criticism of my feelings. My narcissistic mother was notorious for emailing me these corny platitudes that were as phony and devoid of true emotion as a smiley face bumper sticker on a hearse. Receiving her brand of “encouragement” made my blood boil. I spent a long time trying to figure out why it bothered me so much when she (or my stepmother or father) did this, and I finally figured out why. It was a dismissal, not only of my feelings, but a method of jettisoning any responsibility or having to take any time away from themselves to provide genuine help or comfort. It was, in effect, the same thing as tossing a lollipop to a crying child instead of trying to find out why the child is so upset. “Alright kid, here’s a lollipop, now leave me alone and stop crying.” By sending me pictures of kittens with happy slogans under them or a rainbow with an “inspirational” sentiment, they were avoiding taking any responsibility or showing any empathy, while still being able to say, “Well, what’s your problem? I acknowledged your pain–I sent you that “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” video.”

Positive thinking nazis are pervasive, they’re fake as hell, they’re complacent, and they’re everywhere. Every day we’re bombarded with Internet memes (Facebook is notorious for them), slogans, bumper stickers, and politicians (usually Republican) telling us to “just be happy and everything else will take care of itself.” It’s enough to drive me insane. How do you “just be happy?” I’m sorry, but I’m not a machine with a “happy” button. I can’t switch my emotions on and off because you’re uncomfortable with my negative moods.

There’s also a huge disconnect from reality. Poverty, homelessness, mental illness, and addiction actually do exist and they’re everywhere, in every town, every city, every neighborhood. Positive thinking nazis choose to not see these realities and even blame those suffering from poverty, homelessness, addiction, and mental illness for “their own condition” by not being “positive” enough. If only it were that simple. But it’s not simple at all because for those who can’t even procure basic food, medical care, and shelter, or who have a chemical imbalance in their brain that causes severe depression or addiction, thinking happy thoughts is just about impossible.

There needs to be a balance between the deluded positive thinking tyranny and providing authentic support. The first does not replace the second and in fact can exacerbate the situation by making the person needing help feel guilty and ashamed for feeling the way they do.

We need to stop being a nation concerned only with ourselves and stop dismissing the very real concerns of our friends, family and neighbors. Saying “smile!” to an upset person doesn’t cut it. We are all in this together, and authentic care and support are in very short supply and are needed now more than ever. We will never heal as a nation if we continue to equate slapping happy face stickers on everything with actually going out of our way to do good for others.

This is not a nice post.

Posted on October 2, 2014 by luckyotter

I committed to complete honesty in my blog, even when it means I have to show an ugly side I prefer others not see. This blog is the only place I can be completely honest about everything regarding myself and the Narcs in my life, so I don’t expect everyone to like this post. In fact, some of you may hate it. It’s ugly, and it’s negative, and it’s petty, but it’s also something that’s REALLY bothering me, and since this blog is, first and foremost, self-therapy, sometimes ugly stuff is going to come up. What I’m going to write about may even make some of you suspect I’m the narcissist, but read further if you want to understand. I really wish I didn’t feel this way and didn’t have to write this ugly post.

I’m going to keep this short because I don’t want to dwell on it. In fact, I’d really just like to forget about it and move on. But I’m obsessing, so maybe writing about it in my blog will help me to let it go. I can’t talk about this with anyone I know IRL.

For those of you who have read my entire story (click the “My Story” link in the green header), you already know I spent many years supporting a man I was no longer married to, allowing him to freeload, trash my house, take over my home, abuse me and my family, and suck me dry financially, spiritually and emotionally for 7 years after we were no longer married to each other.

In 2010 or 2011, Michael applied for disability. I won’t say he isn’t disabled, because in a relative sense he is. I do think his “mental problems” are largely fabricated. The guy is a Narc–that’s his primary mental problem. I don’t believe he is actually Bipolar and he certainly isn’t suffering from PTSD. I don’t think Narcs can suffer from PTSD (can they?) although perhaps they can be bipolar. But I know him, and I know 99% of it is an act, so that he could appear “crazy” enough to get the treatment required by SSI so he would qualify–and also be able to stay in a psyciatric ward during the time when he would have otherwise been homeless.

Keep in mind that Michael didn’t have a second thought about ousting me from MY home (AND taking my kids away from me) back in 2003 when he was working in cahoots with his flying monkey Rachel who had taken over my home. He never apologized for this either. Yet he hates me because I “made him homeless” because after waiting on him hand and foot for 7 years and getting (and asking) nothing in return other than some help with the bills (which because he refused to work he couldn’t provide) I finally tossed him out when I reached my breaking point when he gave my daughter a black eye. I told him way back in 2007 when he first moved back in with me I would not tolerate violence. Well, he broke that promise. If he hadn’t done that, chances are I would still be putting up with him today.

During the time he was waiting for disability, he did so by my charity. If it hadn’t been for me providing him a place to live–and otherwise supporting him, he would probably have died on the streets since no one else would put up with him (and everyone else had kicked him out). He would never have gotten his SSI because no one would have sacrificed their happiness, given over their home, or put up with his intolerable, exploitative behavior for that long.

One day recently I sat down and calculated how much he had cost me over the 7 years he lived with me and the 5 he lived as a human leech and did not contribute one penny to the household expenses. I spent at least $20K on him, including turning over at least a third of my tax returns to him for at least 4 of those years. And this after he whined countless times, “But I don’t cost you anything!” Yeah, right.

Today he got his SSI check–not the regular monthly check, but the back pay going back to the time he stopped working in about 2008. The check he got is for well over $30K. So this useless, narcissistic, evil, hateful, exploitative, pathetic excuse for a human being is being rewarded–on the backs of the two people (me and my daughter) who made it all possible for him (not to mention the taxpayers). And yet….he told my daughter I will not get a dime of this money. Even though he saw how much I struggle financially, even though I work my ass off, even though I do all this with a smile on my face…not once during the time he lived with me did he show one iota of empathy or even offer to help around the house. Even after working all day, I came home and did all the housework–which meant cleaning up after him because he sat here getting high and trashed the house every day.

If I was going to make him accountable for what I had to spend on him, I would ask him for $20K. But I will not do that. I feel $3500 is fair. Of course he is not legally obligated to pay me this sum, nor do I have any legal rights to it. I don’t have a case in the eyes of the law. I don’t expect to get a dime from him, in fact, knowing his history with money, I expect he will spent most of it on drugs and gambling, maybe buy himself a nice new car (while my transmission on my 2001 Taurus is almost shot) and find a place to rent. The rest he’ll spend on whims–because that’s the way he operates. He sees something and has to have it right now. Like most narcs, he’s stuck at the emotional level of a very young child. The money he has will probably be gone in six months.
But it still doesn’t make me feel any better. I feel like I’ve been had. Used and used up.

I’m still dirt poor and now the asshat’s got a shitload of money for doing absolutely nothing except use me to freeload off of while he waited to get that money, and the unfairness of it is astounding and infuriating and makes me want to break a lot of things.

I understand if this sounds incredibly self indulgent, childish, and petty, and I apologize for that. I’m not too proud of it either. But I just don’t understand why Narcs ALWAYS seem to come out ahead, leaving a trail of destruction and misery behind them. I hope there’s a such thing as karma.

The Serenity Prayer comes in handy in times like this.

God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
The Courage to change the things I can
And the Wisdom to know the difference.

It’s the only thing I can do.