Telemarketers

You've had a so-so day and are just ready to sit down and eat that delicious dinner that you've had simmering in the crock pot all day. You take that first bite and realized that your new chef should be "Rival" when out of the blue . . . the phone rings. No, it's not important news or even a friend who caught you at the wrong time - it's the dreaded "sales pitch". Within the last year or two, you don't even get a call from a real, live person - it's a computer. Barb the Computer called my house a lot for awhile - haven't heard from her in awhile. Those are so easy to hang up on. No one there to hurt their feelings. Sometimes I'll even listen to the end just in case they give you a code or a number to call to be taken off the list. It's the real people that bug me - half the time I can't understand what they are trying to say - let alone sell - they can't pronounce my last name, ask me how much I'm paying on my mortgage, ask if I have children younger than 18 living in the house, ask if my carpets need cleaned (listen, if I have children younger than 18 living here you can be sure my carpets need cleaned!), ask me if I have "just a couple minutes" to answer some survey questions, or try to tell me they are sending me on a "all inclusive paid" trip to somewhere I don't really want to go. Last I knew, if you are given something, you must claim it on your taxes as a gift & pay gift taxes - even when they tell you "Oh, no you don't have to pay sales tax." If I can't afford to go on a trip - I can't afford the gift taxes! And the last time I had people clean my carpet, they hooked me into allowing them to use some kind of cleaner that will disinfect the worst water damage, dog odors, etc. The "treatment" costs more than the cleaning. And whenever I answer survey questions, I get ten more calls trying to sell me whatever my answers seemed to tell them about products I need or purchase.
I'm one of those people who just never got around to being put on the do not call list. I guess it's because I need an outlet - someone that I can vent to without caring if I hurt their feelings. What I really want to say is "Get a REAL job!" Only a teeny-tiny percentage of people in the sales industry are going to make that $100,000 a week income - the rest of you - you'll be wondering why you don't have money to pay the bills or buy groceries. That pay by the week motel room is sounding better and better than a $2000 mortgage payment.
My daughter and I had a favorite - if the caller ID showed an "unavailable" number, we figured it was a telemarketer - so we'd answer the phone with "Roadhouse Cafe - you kill it, we grill it, what did you run-over?" One telemarketer laughed so hard and thanked me and hung up. I guess we made her day. That response worked for awhile until my sister-in-law called - at that time her number wouldn't show up on the called ID - she didn't think it was so funny. Then I started double-talking the telemarketers until they got so frustrated they hung up. Now I respond to their question with a question. They don't want me to ask them personal stuff - don't ask me. It really works when I've had a really bad day or I'm really ticked off with bad drivers (see post "Road Rants" below). I give these people on the phone a piece of my mind until they hang up. Just a waste of everyone's time.
Door to door salesmen - I had a neighbor who really fixed the Kirby vacuum people. I loved her approach. They came to her door & upon answering they handed her a dust buster vacuum and told her it was free gift. She thanked them & slammed the door. They knocked again and explained that it was a free gift IF she allowed them in to clean her carpet to show her what a great vacuum Kirby was (& by the way Kirby is a GREAT vacuum - we had one for years!) - she explained her husband worked nights & was sleeping so they couldn't vacuum as the noise would bother him. And no, she didn't return their free gift. I wondered why they didn't show up at my house! They lost their free gift! When they returned to our street the following week, they explained what they were giving away and for what reason before they handed the free gift to someone! Guess they learned their lesson. Anyone else have a funny story to tell about telemarketers or door-to-door salesmen?

Sites you should check out

Yesterday I chose to "goof off" & do some surfing - mind you I've never "hung 10" or sought after that big wave, but I do seek those "out of the way" websites that you only seem to come across by mistake or via another site. Which is exactly what I found yesterday. Wes Clark (see previous post ("Game Mentioned Below") has a site called "Avacado Memories" - he reminsces about growing up in Burbank, California. Lots of stuff on his site. Go check it out: http://wesclark.com/am
Via his website I came across a site that has ads for a bunch of 60s toys: http://www.toyadz.com
If you ever visited Disneyland years ago, you also might want to check out Yesterland at http://www.yesterland.com - it has stuff about rides/attractions that have been discountinued as well as other goodies you might enjoy.

Game Mentioned Below

For those of you who have no clue what the "Booby Trap" game is - as well as those who had one - you're probably saying to yourself, "This lady can't describe the game at all!" Well I found a picture - on another site dedicated to growing up in the 60s/70s that you can check out for yourself.
http://wesclark.com/am/booby_trap.jpg
Check it out & you'll see exactly what I mean about the spring loaded gizmo taking your fingers, hands, & arms off!

Toys

I've been surfing the web - some of my favorite sites - www.stuckinthe70s.com (Stuck in the 70s) and www.theimaginaryworld.com (The Imaginary World) - take me back to my childhood days of the 60s into the teen years of the 70s. Got me thinking about some of the toys I had. Does anyone remember the Parker Brothers Game "Booby Trap"? If that thing was sold today you can bet there would be lawsuits all over the place! It was a game where the top part of the board was where you put all these different colored and different sized round wooden pieces. They were pushed to the top by this kamikaze like spring loaded wooden piece. The object was to not be the person whose fingers got smashed when you took out a wooden piece. Talk about dangerous to small children (not to mention their parents!), animals, and anything else!

Another toy that got lots of attention in the early 70s were those Klackers. Two (basically fiberglass) balls on strings. The object was to "klack" them together (kind of like paddle ball or something you did yourself when everyone else was grounded or you were snowed in). They were recalled (I don't think they called it that back then) - because they were known to smash into millions of flying shards sending kids to the emergency rooms with cuts in their eyes, etc.

Some of my favorite board games back then included "Sorry" - got that one for my birthday one year. Seemed every time my niece, nephew & I played it (they were only a few years younger than me) - we were always sending my niece back to the "home" square. She got so frustrated I bet she never played it again! We also played "Battleship" - there were no lights, sounds, or talking computer chips. Just red and white pegs and your own strategy. I hated Monopoly because I'd always play with people who were lucky enough to always have the right amount of money to buy Park Place and Boardwalk and then take us for the rest of our money afer they put hotels on them. Plus it took forever to play. Card games we played - "Kings Corners" - it was just as popular with us kids back then as "Texas Hold'em" is to all kinds of card players today. We also played this one game called "Spit" (and no we didn't actually spit when we played) - it was a very fast "slap 'em" kind of game. Almost like "Slap Jack". Most of the time we made up our own games - at school we had one called "Red Ant". There were 5 of us the first day we started playing and the entire 4th grade the next day. The "object" was one person was the "Red Ant" and tried to tag people into being the next "Red Ant". We had circles painted on our playground - I think they were for some PE game - anyway - if you wanted to be safe, you had to get into one of two circles. Imagine over 100 kids in two circles? It was kind of lame. And the whole reason we started this ridiculous game was because we couldn't get on the hopscotch board or the monkey bars because there were already too many people playing. So we started a game that lasted about one week until everyone figured out it was pretty stupid.
Hopscotch - man that takes me back. In 5th grade my two friends and I made up a bunch of stupid rules to keep other kids from working their way into our hopscotch space. You had to have a "brown" rock. You had to have a "teeny" rock. You couldn't have blue on. And on and on. It wasn't until years later that I realized how bad I felt for keeping other kids from playing. But there were only 4 hopscotch places & 50 girls who wanted to play!
Jump rope - there's always one person who can't jump as good as everyone else - they usually became "official" rope holders. The other end was tied to something. Anyone remember any good jump rope rhymes - because for the life of me I can't. Chinese jump rope - that's probably not very PC - but that's what we called it back then. It looked like a bungee cord all in one piece (circle). Two people started it around their ankles while a third person jumped/danced in it. Then the cord went to the knees, then the hips, then the stomach, then the arms - I don't remember much about that as I wasn't a very good Chinese jump roper. I'm just not that coordinated!

My Day

Teenage daughter came home yesterday sick. Thought it was allergies - appears not to be as she had a low grade fever this morning. She was up at 6 a.m. complaining about a sore throat. Gave her tylenol and robittussin & sent her back to bed. Called the school to alert them that she wasn't going to be there. See, a lot has changed in the last several years. I used to tell them if the fever wasn't over 100 they were going to school come hell or high water. Then if they were sick enough the nurse would send them home. I have to work when I don't feel good - they can go to school. That brings me to a whole other subject . . . see later in this post.

Anyway - I don't pretend to be a nurturer. I grew up with the theory that unless you were bleeding from both ears, throwing up projectile vomit, had a fever that would send you to the emergency room, or bones sticking out - you were OK! And you better not complain about every little ache or pain you had. As a kid when I was sick - whether real sick, psychosomatic sick, or just feeling "ucky" Mom would keep me in bed all day. I couldn't watch television or heaven forbid go outside even to check the mail. I got my meals on TV trays. Had to stay in my pajamas and I couldn't even play in my room. If you said you were sick - then you were sick. I think when I got the chicken pox in first grade, both my mom and I were confused. I couldn't go anywhere because I was contagious. I couldn't go outside. I couldn't scratch. But I wasn't sleepy or feverish or even "ucky". I think I was allowed to watch television that week. But that was the rare exception.

To get back to my original thought - I think I've just gotten tired of fighting with my kids on whether or not they are really sick. Back in the fall this same daughter didn't feel well and I suggested she take it easy one day - we were starting flu season and I didn't want her to get it with her immune system down. She realized she had some major tests or stuff to do at school and went on in. By the afternoon she felt better. Guess that's what happens as you get older and most of your kids are off doing their own thing. I have less kids to deal with when it comes to being sick at home.

Now - for that whole other story - School Nurses. When I was a kid the teacher wouldn't even allow you to go to the school nurse unless you were bleeding, throwing up, etc. Nowadays all of my kids have gone to the school nurse because
1) they are "tired"
2) they have a headache
3) their stomach hurts (probably because they didn't eat breakfast & are hungry)
4) some other stupid ailment
Each time one of these stupid nurses called to tell my my kid had a headache, I'd tell the nurse I had a headache - could I leave work too? I finally had to give each nurse I dealt with my criteria for calling me. If nothing fit the criteria, I wasn't to be bothered. Do you know how difficult it is to leave work, drive 30 minutes home to get the kid from school, take the kid home, make sure they were going to live for the next 3-4 hours, then go back to work? Of course the kid had to be old enough to stay home by themselves. When that wasn't possible, I got black marks on my attendance at work, lost pay, and on top of that had a sick, complaining, whiny kid to deal with. That was way before I got a cool job working for my church - which allows me to be very flexible in my schedule. The corporate world was lousy - too political, too "social", etc. No matter how great of an employee someone was or no matter that they went above and beyond 99% of the time, when they had to take off due to dr. appts or sick kids, they felt persecuted. Ugh - I don't miss those days at all.

Does anyone else have sick kid stories to share?

Road Rants

Well I was just sitting here thinking about stuff that really annoys me to no end - like people driving school zone speeds when the zone time IS OVER!!! Haven't had to deal with that this school year but for the last 2, 3, heck - 18 years - I have. It was especially irritating when I had kids at four different schools - which meant about 2-3 times the school zones. I would go to LHS to pick up one or both of my daughters, then drive across town (through 3 more school zones to get my son at DeLay Middle School). However, by then the time for the elementary school zone was finished. Needless to say I'd get behind some jerk who insisted on going the 15-20 mph the whole way through it even with me honking my horn & pointing to my watch trying to tell the idiot driver - school zone is over! Then on the way home from DeLay, I'd encounter the same type of driver - you know the kind - they either can't tell time or can't read - one of the two (maybe both)! No wonder I was always in such a foul mood by the time I got home from chauffering kids around! Luckily, I've put somewhat of an end to that. My youngest - now a Freshman who has to go to the other end of town for school - rides the bus. Now she gets to be irritated by late buses, stupid kids on the bus, etc.

While we are on the subject of idiot drivers - have you ever tried to turn right at the corner of Edmonds and Main Street but can't because of all the drivers who insist on waiting for the next light in the intersection? I can't wait until a firetruck or a police car has to get through there - I want to be there to see how many tickets are issued! There has got to be something they can do about that intersection.

And what about all those people who have no clue what that little stick is on the left side of the steering wheel - you know the one that makes those lights blink on either side of your headlights and tail lights? For those of you who have never been introduced to it before - it's called a BLINKER!!! Use it! If you know you plan on turning left or right - not in the next five miles - but some sort of distance before you get there - USE IT!! Let those of us who are around you know what you are planning to do - please!

Parking Lots - I was never so happy when Wal-mart installed medians all along their parking lot. If nothing else - it cuts down on all those people who think a big parking lot means drive anywhere at whatever speed you want. I'd be driving along a lane looking for a spot and whoosh - there goes a car at 50 mph crisscrossing right in front of me. I'm one of those people who used to (I don't anymore with the advent of the whole road rage thing & drivers carrying guns to kill another driver) - slam on my brakes when some idiot decided to ride my back end. Buy me a new car!! When I'm going the speed limit there is no reason to ride my butt. I don't do that anymore - too many jerks want to kill you as to look at you. And if you are on a two lane road - especially one that is hilly and winding - drive the speed limit. Have you ever looked in your rearview mirror - there is a 2 mile long line behind you when you drive at 20 mph because they can't pass you! Second off - do everything possible not to wreck on one of those country roads - you back people up for hours and then no one gets to where they are going and everyone gets in a foul mood. Stop messing with people's days.

Welcome!

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