Ever have one of those nightmares where someone says “Hey! Is that your kid up there?” and you look over and your child is doing something incredibly dangerous and stupid?
Me either.*
*I realize she isn’t that high. This is a recreation of actual events and she is only as high as I would let her climb for the purposes of a blog post photo. In reality, my kid was about her body’s length from the flag when I was alerted to the situation. OMG!
Some people need to learn things the hard way. Like when everyone tells the m something is a bad idea they truly believe that they are somehow different or their circumstances will somehow preclude them from suffering the same consequences as every person making that same choice before them.
Some people insist on signing their children up for swimming lessons at outdoor pools. And those people are almost always the people whose children are the biggest babies ever when it comes to getting wet in the rain or being cold or are just plain anxious in the water.
Some people fret over the weather forecast for days before swimming lessons start, checking them every hour for days with a fervour normally reserved for outdoor parties or holidays. And when they realize that it really and truly is going to pour on Day 1 of swimming lessons they try to talk to their children before swimming to prepare them for the expected inclement weather and to help them approach this as fun! and exciting! and an adventure! rather than with weeping and gnashing of chattering teeth and rending of garments.
Some people might feel slightly less bad when they get to swimming lessons and see many other children looking just a hair less than completely miserable and parents looking frazzled and glassy-eyed and praying that this won’t be a complete disaster.
Some people might imagine their children getting worked up as it sinks in that they will be going out into the rain in 14 degree weather with very little on in the way of clothing. They might picture the freak-out that will follow as they actually venture out into that rain with a teacher who is just barely out of high school and knows precisely nothing about young children and the anticipation of trying to comfort a wet, crying child while still remaining firm and positive and convincing them to go back out and try again might cause them to begin to hyperventilate.
Some people might be more than a little shocked when the whole thing goes off without a hitch despite poor conditions and especially dumbfounded when their children proclaim their excitement at coming back again tomorrow!
Not that it happened to me. I’m just saying, some peoples’ kids are probably the type to have a total fit on a sunny hot day, instead of a cold, rainy one.
I have laughed.
I have laughed at people who naively read things on the internet and believed that forwarding an email will pay for a child’s cancer treatment or that they can cure baldness with a simple pill.
I have laughed at people who see an ad for teeth whitening products set up as an alleged interview with someone from that person’s hometown saying that in these hard times they have found the “secret” to whiter teeth by combining two products which are conveniently available for a “risk-free trial period” for only a couple of dollars shipping.
I have laughed when those people found themselves suddenly signed up for monthly charges of over $150 because the trial period ended before the trial product was delivered (since it was coming from Florida) and $25/month for some sort of Bargain-Dining-Coupon-Book-Club which is somehow related to the now-slightly-more-risky-looking teeth whitening products.
I have laughed when said people have found these charges on their visa statement and freaked out because they thought their visa numbers had been stolen and proceeded to call Visa and have a new card number issued before they realized that they had, indeed, approved the charges, even if it was a rather underhanded trick by the devious teeth-whitening people.
I have laughed when the same people have spent hours on the phone to opt out of what seems like half a dozen membership programs and argued with teeth-whitening agents in order to have their money refunded and their memberships cancelled.
I have laughed when they then realized that the new visa number had not been as necessary as a level head and a tad more vigilance regarding whiter teeth giving out one’s visa number.
I have laughed.
But I will not laugh anymore.
Not that I would ever be bamboozled by a flashy campaign for whiter teeth an internet scam. I’m just saying.
You know how people sometimes want to raise money for a variety of good causes – like, say, a local public school – and they invite people who want to help raise money to donate gently used items to be sold in a garage-type sale. The organization collects donations that may or may include such treasures as:
If I were helping with the sorting of such items I might just compose a letter to the (almost unilaterally well-off) parents of the school that went some like this:
Dear Parents,
The purpose of a fundraiser, as you may or may not be aware, is to RAISE FUNDS. The purpose of a loonie/twoonie table is to allow the young children of our school to buy Christmas gifts for family members that they can purchase without assistance from parents. By emptying out your garbage cans or the boxes you haven’t opened since 1987 into your donation boxes you are accomplishing neither of these goals as we cannot, in good conscience, sell your shit to innocent schoolchildren and, if we do not sell anything, we will not raise any funds. If you didn’t want your trash you should throw it in your local waste disposal container, commonly referred to as a GARBAGE CAN. If you wouldn’t like to receive a dirty Sylvester the Cat stuffy for Christmas, maybe you shouldn’t be sending your corpse doll for our sale?
The idea of this sale is not to find items that are worth 25 or 10 cents and sell them for such, but rather, to find good quality, gently or never-used items that are worth quite a bit, and sell them for only a little because we want our children to experience the joy of giving and to raise a little cash for a good cause.
Get your heads out of your rear ends and wake up! The items you throw away each week are better than what you sent to raise money for the school your precious offspring attend! And if you think that we don’t know that a very high percentage of you bastards are making twice or three times as much as the teachers who educate your children you are so very wrong!
Yours disdainfully,
A fellow parent
Lucky for the administration at my school, it certainly wasn’t me who was sorting that shit. Ahem.
Maybe you, like me, have heard of children who ride the bus to school. Maybe you, like me, have wondered about how the whole system works. How do kids know when and where to wait for the bus, do they walk to the appointed place alone or with a parent, who gets them on the bus when they leave school, what do you do if the bus doesn’t come…
My best guess would be that the school would contact the bus company who would give you an expected time and place for you to wait for the bus. And then you would go and wait for the bus. However, that bus might not come. In which case you would be standing outside for a long time – in the RAIN – wondering if you are at the wrong place or if you are too early or too late. And then you would eventually walk home, dragging your devastated 6 year old home and calling a friend to drive her to school because your moving truck is coming today and you need to be there to meet it driving her yourself.
And I bet that after school you might get a phone call from the school principal who is “just checking” to make sure you realize that your offspring is coming home on the bus even though it is the agreed upon start date for bus service. I would also wager a guess that the bus would be approximately 15 minutes late in delivering your deliriously happy daughter into your waiting arms.
Not that it happened to me. I’m just guessing.
You know what I hear is ill-advised? Taking your husband along with you when you go to deposit cheques at the bank ATM. Because he might think you are stupid taking too long hitting the buttons on the ATM screen and hijack your transaction by pressing the buttons for you. In doing so, his hand might slip and accidentally withdraw $100 before you can say “Jackpot!” even though the whole point of the transaction was to INCREASE the balance in your account.Â
Not that it happened to me. But if I were considering bringing the hubby along to the bank, I might think twice is all I’m sayin’.
There are certain things most people accept to be true of good parents.Â
Good parents do not beat their children. Good parents do not spoil their children. Good parents provide structure, discipline, and a supportive, caring environment. Good parents do not feed their children cookies for breakfast (at least not regularly). Good parents express love and affection for their children.
Good parents do not get so carried away by the thought of going out without children that they put on a movie for their kids and the babysitter and walk out without letting the sitter know they are leaving or where they are going or saying good night to their offspring – even if the sitter is a beloved and trusted family friend with whom the children are completely comfortable.
Not that it happened to me. Just sayin’, that might be an example of some poor judgement by the parents in question.
You know how some parents self-righteously insist that it is not sugar per se that makes kids hyper, but rather the exciting and sometimes overwhelming situations in which sugar-rich foods are frequently found (ie. birthday parties, Halloween, Easter) that result in children fraught with an abundance of energy.
Most people probably wish that those parents would end up with kids that consume their weight in sugar on a day such as Easter and proceed to run and run and run as though chased by hordes of demons with an extra large helping of screaming and teach those smug parents a lesson.Â
Not that I am a superior-sounding parent with sugar-crazed children. But imagine the look on that sanctimonious parent’s face. Just imagine…
Going through their heads: “OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!! CANDEEEEEE!!!!”
Whoever coined the phrase “there’s no use crying over spilled milk” clearly never had their five year old empty the half a cup of spilled milk in her lunch bag into the back seat of the car. The resulting stench is enough to bring anyone to tears. I imagine.
Not that it happened to me.
Attention Phlebotomists: If a patient explicitly tells you “Find your most skilled technician now, because I am a really difficult stick and they ALWAYS have trouble finding a good vein – every time I’m here I get poked multiple times,” it is not time to be cocky and assume that you are that person (or that the patient is exaggerating). This is a time for humility. Swallow your damn pride and be realistic about your skills. If you aren’t the best then find the person who is.
What you should definitely not do is pick a vein in the patient’s hand (which may be very normal for that particular patient), insert the needle, and then, when the blood does not flow, proceed to violently rape the patient’s veins until the patient is sucking their breath and biting their lip and trying not to scream in front of their watching toddler. Â Perhaps it is sometimes true that pushing the needle into the vein a smidge more will get the blood flowing, but doing it a dozen or more times is overkill and it will leave a bruise/lump the size of a small grape under the patient’s skin.Â
Also, learn to admit defeat. When you’ve violated one vein beyond all comprehension, having to start over with another vein just adds insult to injury. Not that I would know anything about this personally. But 9 out of 10 crappy-veined patients agree that it would be seriously annoying.
