Kind of a lazy Saturday, so I stopped by the general store to pick up some ground beef and buns to make hamburgers for dinner, and when I reached the bread stand right next to the checkout, saw that there was only one bag of buns left, so I told Mrs. Chambers “I’m taking the last buns, but I probably only need two, so if anyone comes rushing in and needs some, have them stop by and I will share.” I left, stopped by the parents house to drop some keys off, and by the time I got to my house, a family friend was standing outside with another neighbor while Walt had let himself in to look for the excess buns. I gave him half the pack, we all laughed, and went our separate ways.
Life in a small town.
Violet
That is awesome. Doesn’t happen in the big city.
Gay marriage ftw!
Baud
Are you still hayseed enough to say look who’s in the big town?
fuzed
QOTD
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@fuzed: To quote Nancy Pelosi, “Who cares?”
SatanicPanic
I share my buns in a small town
somehow didn’t make it into that Mellencamp song
NickT
John Cole tells the world that he has nice, fresh, available buns.
I blame Bert and Ernie.
scav
Wondered what form and how long the essential joke in #1 would take. Place is solid.
Baud
Bun shortage is small town, USA. Is Obama to blame?
IowaOldLady
That’s nice. Where my 94 year old MIL lives, the fire dept keeps a key to her house just in case.
p.a.
@Violet: it does happen in cities, it’s just not anyone you know or want to know.
MikeJ
@IowaOldLady:
I assume she gave it to them. If she did, that’s nice. If she didn’t it’s creepy.
Amir Khalid
@fuzed:
I can certainly see the benefit to the USA of the Republican party breaking up into a series of splinter groups, each claiming to be the mostest right-wing party in the land. Sarah Palin stranding herself in one of them would be even better.
NickT
@MikeJ:
Snowden reveals Iowa fire brigades are part of NSA surveillance network!!!
droog
Gun owners yearning for a home invasion to fire one off can’t have nice parochial stories like this one.
kc
Where the hell do you live? Mayberry?
gbear
@MikeJ: If my house was on fire, it wouldn’t bother me much if they kicked in the door.
Violet
@fuzed: Excellent! She leaves the Republican party and a bunch of her deluded followers follow her right over the cliff. Split the Republican voters and Dems have a better chance of winning. Go on, Sarah! You know you want to do it!
NickT
@Violet:
Maybe we should found the party first and challenge her to put up or shut up. I think it might be fun to denounce the Republicans for their lack of conservative principles.
IowaOldLady
@MikeJ: They just don’t want to have to kick in the door if her “senior helper” arrives one day and no one answers the door. She lives by herself in a split level house and refuses to wear one of those alert things around her neck.
Violet
@IowaOldLady: One of my elderly relatives wears an alert thing and refuses to press the button when he falls. The across the street neighbor came over and found him on the floor–he’d been there all night. “Why didn’t you press the button?!” she asks. “I didn’t want to bother anyone,” he says.
GAH!
Edit: Neighbor is a retired nurse who has volunteered to look after him since he refuses to allow in-home help, even though he can’t take care of himself. So she’s part of his team, which had to be set up because he’s unwilling to recognize his own limitations. He ended up with bruises and a sore that is having trouble healing because of his refusal to use the button. He is still in pain from the night on the floor. Drives you mad dealing with it.
? Martin
@droog: Sure they can. But instead of Walt getting the buns, Walt gets two in the chest, later described as ‘4 large black Chinese youths with Obama stickers on their Prius – armed with Social Security issued rocket launchers that came to gay marry my daughters’
Violet
@NickT: Can we tie the FOK-U PAC from the previous thread to the effort? I do note that Amir Khalid’s initials are AK, like Alaska. Could there be a secret relationship? Can he see Russia from his house?
Southern Beale
… a family friend was standing outside with another neighbor waiting on the ambulance while Walt had let himself in to look for the excess buns and I shot him because I thought he was an intruder.
Life in a small town. Fixed.
NickT
@Violet:
It’s worth a try. Maybe FOK-U AK PAC should spread its wings in the immediate future.
IowaOldLady
@Violet: I’ve been really impressed by how my SILs have arranged things for my MIL. She goes to the Jewish Community Center three days a week for elder day care. A bus takes her and brings her home. Two days a week, a someone from an organization provides a senior helper for several hours. She pays extra so this helper can drive her around to hair appointments and so on. She get lunch at the JCC the days she’s there, and gets Meals on Wheels for dinner. With that support, she’s been able to stay in her house.
It’s a hoarder’s paradise, but that’s why god made dumpsters.
gnomedad
@efgoldman:
Two thoughts:
Conservatism can never fail; it can only be failed.
Palin already knows that actually winning an election and having to govern is a bummer, so she needs to run under a banner in which that’s not a possibility; then she can focus on whining and bullshitting.
Southern Beale
Sarah Palin leaving Republican Party to start her own “Freedom Party”? God can’t love me that much.
muddy
@Violet: My mother did this same thing. One time she sat on the floor bleeding for 3 hours until she was able to reach me by phone. She couldn’t push the button because she was in her underpants. Fully dressed on top. It’s not like she was naked. As usual she had slid on the wood floor wearing sheer knee highs on her feet. So that they look pretty. aiee
Other times she could not push the button because it would embarrassing when the cops came, what would people think? The only time the button got pushed was when she wore it when we went out, they would get called and she’d be gone. Probably pushed the button getting into the car. She was sure it was a plan so they could rob her.
RSA
Good thing your friend didn’t speed on the way to your house; I hear Barney Fife is on a tear these days.
(Living here in North Carolina, I find that people take Mayberry semi-seriously in some ways.)
cckids
@IowaOldLady:
My in-laws have been told they won’t get buried if they die with so much stuff in their house. They want me to teach them to ebay it. So, last time they were here, I spent close to an hour going over the point-by-point lessons ebay has on their site. At the end, the MIL says to me “you keep saying ‘click’ this and ‘click’ that. What do you mean, ‘click’ ?”
Oy. just send me pics of the crap, I’ll sell it for you. There is a reason I never went into teaching, patience is not my strong suit.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@NickT:
What a great idea; set up a honeypot for wingnuts. We could use it to put the Republicans through all kinds of misery. Having pulled off some elaborate deceptions, as pranks, in the past this one very much appeals to me. Now to enlist DougJ.
IowaOldLady
@muddy: An older woman in my writing group fell in her kitchen and couldn’t get to the phone. She spent the night there and when someone realized something was wrong, the EMTs had to come in through her kitchen window. She shattered her shoulder and had to have a full replacement.
She now wears an alert button.
Violet
@gnomedad: Can you imagine how hated Sarah Palin would be if she actually ran third party and split the Republican voters? It’s not like she’s Ross Perot and can go back to her businesses and counting her billions. Her job is politics. If she plays third party spoiler and the Republicans lose, she’s going to be ostracized. No more Fox and Idiots on the couch for her. All of which makes me hope she’ll do it.
gogol's wife
@scav:
It’s breathtaking, head-spinning, gobsmacking . . . .
But he does tee them up, you know.
gbear
@gnomedad: Reminds me of a woman I knew (singer in a band) who ran for Miss North Dakota hoping to come in second or third so that she could win some college scholarship money. She screwed up and came in first, and she thoroughly hated the year that she had to put in as Miss North Dakota. Couldn’t wait for it to be over. True story.
Violet
@IowaOldLady: So glad it’s worked out well for your MIL. It’s always great when the older person can stay in their home and the support system allows it. So often it does not, or the older person really needs more help than they can get at home or they don’t want help and the whole thing ends up being a mess for everyone.
NickT
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
We need someone as the front man. Preferably an older white man with a guileless open face and some history of previous Republican commitments. Hmmm. I wonder who we could find round here who would fit that bill?
gnomedad
@Violet:
Hated by some, certainly. I’m guessing the teabaggers are too much in love with her to admit they’ve been had. You’re making me hungry for popcorn. Run, Sarah, run!
NickT
@gnomedad:
If the teabaggers haven’t realized how much she conned them by now, the likelihood that they will ever do so has to be close to zero.
? Martin
@cckids:
When my son was in 6th grade, he earned $2000 helping the neighbors clean out their garage and yard. They wanted it clean, so he’d pull something out, ask if they wanted it, if not, cleaned it up and put it on craigslist, handled the emails, and for the really big things split the money with the owners, and for the small stuff kept it himself for the effort.
Find a teenager they trust and set up the same deal. It’s a pretty good moneymaker.
muddy
@Violet: Amen. The only good thing about being left with hoarder house is getting to go through the crap without the presence of the hoarder.
Violet
@gnomedad: Her support has fallen off. She can’t attract the crowds she used to. She didn’t bring eyeballs to Fox, so they dropped her and then renegotiated her contract at what must be a more favorable deal to them. In the last six months she’s mentioned writing a “fitness book” and a “book about Christmas”, none of which has actually been announced by a publishing company or promoted in any way so they seem a bit iffy. Her daughters recently were on Wife Swap (with Joan and Melissa Rivers), which wasn’t received with much approval by the Palinbots.
I know she’s got hard core fans, but outside of that a lot of people who used to support her have come around to recognizing that she’s a grifter whose kids keep getting pregnant out of wedlock and make their money on reality shows. She hasn’t held an office for years now and quit the one she had. She has also aged, so the starbursts she used to give those older and middle-aged men aren’t happening as readily.
I just don’t know if she’s got the support to lead a third party run.
muddy
@gogol’s wife: He probably did it on purpose and sat there saying hee hee.
NickT
@Violet:
All we need is a third party that splits off say 5% of the GOP vote. I reckon Starbursts Sarah in her hooker heels and with a face-lift or three can manage that much.
IowaOldLady
@efgoldman: She lives in NJ, thank god.
trollhattan
@Southern Beale:
Has “Freedom” in the name so I fully expect the IRS to scrutinize that 501(c)(4) app extra double-super good.
Ruckus
@muddy:
The only good thing about a hoarder house is the exercise one gets throwing all the crap in the dumpster.
Of course the bad thing is throwing out your back getting the exercise throwing all the crap in the dumpster.
? Martin
@Southern Beale: The Constitution Party is already out there. It’s basically the Tea Party proper. Effectively the Tea Party is a reverse takeover of the GOP by the Constitution Party. Having Palin leave hurts the effort. But if the internal strain of the GOP ever gets too big, expect all those Tea Party folks bolt for the Constitution Party and make a proper run of it.
The problem the GOP has is that at least in the House, more members would want to leave than stay. That’s true in a number of state legislatures as well. It’d be chaos.
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
We had one down the block and after the owner passed, they filled TWO 40-yard dumpsters from a 2br1ba house. I’ll bet the floors sprang up six inches.
muddy
@Ruckus: The trouble with this was that treasure was seeded through the crap. You couldn’t chuck a magazine without checking for money or important papers inside. Plus she used to dig and rearrange before she got feeble, so you can’t even rely on the strata (as though it were an archaelogical dig).
pat
My folks cleaned out the house while I was out of the country and moved to California to live in an apartment. When my dad could no longer do the shopping (mom was pretty disabled by then) he reluctantly agreed to go into assisted living, where they had a nice little apartment with a tiny kitchen and could eat in the dining room.
They died within three weeks of each other (heart attack for my dad, her disabling neuropathy for my mom).. Everything they had left fit in my dad’s Buick for the trip back to Wisconsin, and is still sitting in my shed. Sigh.
But THANK GOD my dad had all his faculties until the end and died at the poker table (a little card room, not a casino) with $300 in front of him. He also had all his papers in order, and the most important thing, ALL the bank accounts etc. were joint ownership with either me or my sister.
Made everything SO MUCH easier.
cckids
@? Martin: I’d love to, but they don’t trust their own kids (much less me). None of the kids have earned this distrust, but their parents are convinced that if they let anyone help with this stuff, they’ll be ripped off. It is sad and infuriating at the same time.
Part of the problem is that they have a VERY inflated idea of what their stuff is worth, and anyone who attempts to get them to face reality is only trying to con them. They watch too much Antiques Roadshow.
Not every old teapot is worth a million.
pat
moderation?? Did I use a bad word? Could it be the mention of a certain c a r d game?
BillinGlendaleCA
Guy I used to work with was a hoarder, got so bad that he had to move out of his condo to an apt cause he couldn’t get in or out. Mind you, he still owned the condo, it was just filled with stuff.
trollhattan
@pat:
Why yes, that’ll do ‘er. So I’m always careful mentioning a popular fireplace implement.
mai naem
@Southern Beale: If Sarah Palin starts the party it has to be called the Freedumb Party.
Also too, this WV smalltown white bun shortage is obviously Obama’s fault. He has mandated that more brown buns be offered for sale even though people want white buns.
quannlace
“and said that if the GOP continues to abandon its conservative principles, ”
*********
And when asked ‘And which principles are those?” She stammered and finally said ‘All of them.”
BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: To say nothing of an unmentionable NJ Senate candidate. What will we do if said current mayor wins and becomes the junior senator from NJ?
muddy
@cckids: One of my siblings is a hoarder as well, and took a lot of really useless crap of my mother’s. It’s been over a decade, the boxes have never been opened. A “pod” was purchased for the overflow.
I tried last year to address it, had always been told, “I’m not a hoarder I’m just lazy.” The reaction from my overtures made it really clear that she was a hoarder, she flipped right out. I said I don’t want to hear that stuff about “just lazy” ever again.
pat
well now what. I spent a lot of time on that comment. Will the thread be dead by the time it comes out? Who moderates this stuff anyway?
Oh and FYWP.
satby
@Violet: Yeah, it does, at least in my ‘hood in Chicago. But this doesn’t happen in small towns:http://cassella.wordpress.com/2013/06/29/sweet-home-chicago/
Keith
@Violet: Yup…if my local store ran out of hamburger buns, I’d have been in the manager’s face saying “How the hell can you run out of fucking hamburger buns?!??! You get truckloads of food every day; it’s the middle of burger season!” And don’t even ask about my reaction if someone showed up at my house asking for half my bun stash.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: I guess 00 instead of oo, might work.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Keith: My buns are quite a personal matter. I’m very selective as to who can touch my buns.
Shakezula
Join us now for … THE QUEST FOR JOHN’S BUNS!
Questions: Don’t you have pets? Didn’t they object violently to the intrusion?
Ruckus
@muddy:
I didn’t say it all had to go, only the crap. Having to look through all the crap while throwing it away just makes the job take longer.
Suzanne
This is such a nice weekend so far (weather notwithstanding). Lots of sleeping and relaxing, and reading Balloon Juice. In my massive studying push, I have missed youse guys so.
Ruckus
@cckids:
Having an inflated idea of the value of crap is one thing that makes them hoarders in the first place. “Can’t throw it out, it’s valuable.”
burnspbesq
Technically correct, but oh so dickish.
http://my.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20130629/945edffe-feb7-4f85-b73d-97377574ec3c
quannlace
“And don’t even ask about my reaction if someone showed up at my house asking for half my bun stash.”
***********
Guess I won’t be coming to your house after the Zombie Apocalypse.
_______________________
“THE QUEST FOR JOHN’S BUNS!”
*******
Did he finally find that mustard?
Mnemosyne
G read Stuff a few years ago and got worried that maybe we were hoarders instead of mere pack rats. He was very relieved to find the pictorial Hoarding Scale that therapists use and discover that we’re maybe a 3 at best.
IowaOldLady
@Ruckus: Yeah, my MIL can’t take her stuff to Goodwill, for instance, because someone unworthy might get hold of it.
And if the teaparty runs a third-party candidate, I may have to start believing in the FSM.
ruemara
wrapping up prep for hanging my show and having last minute panic attacks. It’s always the way, isn’t it?
Redshift
@muddy:
Yeah, we went through the same thing with my in-laws’ house after they moved to assisted living. Ms. Redshift was really worried about what me might have lost because in the early days I took out 21 bags of newspapers/magazines/catalogs without going through them, just so the place wouldn’t be a fire hazard, but it would have taken years to check them all.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: That is fascinating. I am probably a 2. My children, however, throw that shit ALL OVER THE PLACE.
NickT
@ruemara:
Just remember that we all wish you well and are looking forward to triumphant reports of your show.
BillinGlendaleCA
@burnspbesq: They’re in AZ, do they have standing for an action that only concerns CA?
Redshift
@Ruckus: The bizarre thing is, I don’t think my m-i-l was actually a hoarder. It was just that she had dementia, and the normal process of “collect paper in a bag and when it gets full take it out to recycling” got short-circuited into “when it gets full put it in another room out of the way.”
My father-in-law, it appears, hoarded office supplies, but never accumulated quantities large enough to take up a lot of room.
burnspbesq
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Probably not. Also unclear how they’re going to get a lawyer to make the certification required by Supreme Court Rule 44(a) that the motion is filed in good faith and not for purposes of delay.
MikeJ
@burnspbesq:
Not really technically correct. The ninth was never compelled to issue a stay while the case went to the Supreme Court. They could have started allowing weddings as soon as they issued their first ruling. They issued the stay to minimize legal mayhem if the Supremes overruled them.
When was the last time that somebody went back to the USSC in the next 30 days and got them to reverse themselves?
IowaOldLady
@ruemara: Is this photography or painting or what, ruemara? Where’s the show?
Svensker
@muddy:
Do we have the same elderly parent?
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
I would say that you’ll be fine, but that might jinx it, so I’ll say, “Break a leg!” instead.
@Suzanne:
It doesn’t help that I have ADHD, so something that leaves my hand leaves my consciousness immediately afterwards and I literally don’t see it anymore. G still tells the story of watching me eat a paper-wrapped ice cream bar and letting the paper fall to the floor because, once I didn’t need it anymore, I completely forgot it existed.
jeffreyw
Sleep Hard!
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@burnspbesq: Who the fuck still uses Earthlink?
Violet
@Mnemosyne: Fascinating. I’m probably a 2, although maybe reach 3 at some points in time when I get busy and things sort of get piled up.
I do still have boxes of crap from cleaning out older relatives’ home. Don’t know where that puts me on the scale. It’s mostly sentimental and/or family heirloom stuff. Have no idea what to do with it and can’t really throw it away either due to family pressures.
Ruckus
@Redshift:
21 bags you could carry? I don’t think that is a lot. Look at what @trollhattan: posted. A 40 yard container is huge. Last year I helped my friend fill one with yard waste from 6 different landscaping jobs and clearing his lot. It took several days to fill it and chop up branches so we didn’t waste a lot of space. I know someone who remodeled 6,000 sq ft of commercial space including all the windows/doors in the building and only filled up a 30yard bin.
? Martin
Aha! Now we know where the mustard went!
WereBear
@trollhattan: Yep. Every time I get a glimpse of that show, Hoarders, I take steps.
Clothes to donations, consignment shops, recently a charity yard sale. Books to the library; especially ones I know I can get electronically if it comes to that. Music downloaded and takes up no room at all.
Helps to live in a tiny, 1 & 1/2 bedroom attic apartment. Every charm… but room.
Ruckus
@Violet:
When you are the last one in the family you can throw all of it away. That’s what it says some place anyway. I still have about 4 boxes of stuff that I haven’t thrown out yet because I’m too lazy to go through it. That’s it, too lazy. Yeah, I’m using that excuse.
Although the time before last that I moved I took about 30 yards of crap to the dump. And gave away about 10 yards.
Redshift
@Mnemosyne: Ah, that makes a lot of sense. Ms. Redshift has some ADD and it drives me nuts, because she can complain about one pile of papers I have in the upstairs hall getting in the way when her stuff is literally taking up ten times as much space there. Any recommendations from your end about how to effectively remind ADD/ADHD folks about the existence of this stuff without being annoying?
Redshift
@Ruckus: 21 bags I could carry was just from one bedroom on the first day. And like I said, they weren’t really hoarders. I was replying to the “important stuff like checks and irreplaceable photos hidden in the trash” because that was a major effect of the dementia in this case.
MikeJ
@Mnemosyne:
That might explain my mother. When she’s cooking she’ll wipe something up with a paper towel and just drop the towel on the counter and never, ever, ever pick it up. And like the true Repubican she is, if it’s not a problem for her it’s not a problem.
Felonius Monk
First, they stole his mustard …
And now, they’ve taken for his buns.
But beware you food stealin’ bullies,
’cause Tunch is now packin’ guns.
Ruckus
@Redshift:
I stand corrected. And I’m sorry that you had to clean it up. I also apologize just a little bit because I chortled a little at your answer. Both dad and mom had Alzheimers and so I know about dementia and cleaning up.
I wonder if some people keep their crap as it reminds them of better times or if they do it so someone has to clean up after them.
different-church-lady
I want you to remember this the next time you have one of your “I’m a complete asshole!” moments.
Anne Laurie
@cckids:
Or take a couple bags of ‘crap’ with you every time you go over, tell them you’ll put it up on ebay. Throw away the trash, donate whatever’s usable, and either give them a token sum or tell them it’s still up for bid on your next visit.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Stuff? I recently spent some days going through stuff. My criterion was that if I hadn’t put my hand on something in five years then I had to either commit to it permanently or dispose of it.
A couple of dumpsters’ worth went away. Anything that Goodwill might be able to use went to Goodwill. Much of it was was stuff that I kept “because it might come in handy” or that it would be a good basis for a project. Right. Other stuff was working when I replaced it with newer stuff and I put it away. Yo, Goodwill. A surprising amount was stuff that I kept through moldy nostalgia; Navy uniforms, dope pipes, butt-ugly souvenirs, magazines. Yo, dumpster.
It was worth it. I found some forgotten treasures and I freshened up some memories. The memories are worth holding on to, the stuff not so much.
Just Some Fuckhead
With that kind of demand for your buns, you will be gaymarried in no time.
Anne Laurie
@pat: “Casino” — FYWP hates that word, too, along with “poker” and “roulette”.
SiubhanDuinne
@Redshift:
My father was basically a tidy man, but after he died I discovered a cupboard that was FILLED with those little pimiento jars. All nicely emptied and washed out and stacked up. For … what, exactly? There were dozens of them, scores of them.
ruemara
This is only a small show in a cafe, so I think resounding success means, “does not throw people off their pastry and coffee”. And it’s just photography.
I rather like this small town thing JC is advertising. I’m in a town of 65k. It feels very small compared to NYC, but we most certainly don’t have it like that.
Mnemosyne
@Redshift:
I wish I had an answer for you, but G and I are still trying to figure it out. Having cleaning people come every other week probably saved our marriage. I have a really good therapist who’s experienced with ADHD and is a big believer in taking practical steps, so she found me someone who’s helping me (slowly) go through all of my clutter and figure out what to keep and what needs to go.
Your wife is probably going to be very sensitive to anything that seems like criticism of her housekeeping skills because she’s been getting that same criticism since she was a kid from people who just don’t understand why she can’t keep things neat and clean like other girls do. Doesn’t she want to be a good girl? Why is she being so bad? Etc. And every time you try to say something about how maybe it would be nice if she could clear that pile off the kitchen counter, she hears all of those other voices instead.
So I guess my two recommendations are professional cleaning people and a therapist or coach who works with ADHD adults and can help her come up with and execute a plan of action. There could also be some underlying depression and/or anxiety related to untreated ADHD that may need to be dealt with as well — I was diagnosed with depression long before I was diagnosed with ADHD because the untreated ADHD was causing me to be depressed.
muddy
@Anne Laurie: My mother would have asked for receipts.
MikeBoyScout
It’s PRIDE weekend and Cole is advertising the fun time he had giving handfuls of buns to random neighborly aquaintances?
He’s just trying to get a New Yorker mention.
muddy
@SiubhanDuinne: My dad had a drawer full of pimento jars too! They had rusted screws and bolts etc inside.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@ruemara:
Don’t tell Arno Rafael Minkkinen that it’s just photography.
Or Anne Arden McDonald either.
Anne Laurie
@Redshift:
Spousal Unit and I are both ADD, and from 30-plus year’s experience, the best you can do is negotiate — carefully. A lot of us can’t remember what we have unless we can see it, so we have towering stacks of stuff because, as long as the towers aren’t messed with, we know exactly where to put our hand on the book / paper / disc that we need. But there’s also the put-it-down-and-it-disappears neuroglitch Mnem mentions. The problem for the other person in the relationship is to help differentiate between “piles in use” and “piles of abandonment”…
Anne Laurie
@muddy:
“You don’t trust me? Your own child? What does that say about the way you raised me?”
In our family, a good verbal battle was the go-to for every awkward social situation.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Anne Laurie:
Wow, you and your spouse are strong people.
Reminds me of the part in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance where Pirsig describes the difference between “memory mechanics” and “organized mechanics”.
muddy
@Anne Laurie: I’m sure she’d have blamed drugs, don’t get me started.
Mnemosyne
@muddy:
IIRC, your mom was seriously effed up in multiple ways, unless I’m mixing you up with another poster. No offense. :-)
muddy
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: I remember that. Supposedly the memory mechanic could put his hand on anything in the pile, but it was gone forever if someone moved it 3″ to the left.
I know someone who claims that method, but she just loses shit and then pretends someone else must have moved it.
muddy
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, that was me. My therapist said, “Sorry to be unprofessional, but your mother was a monster!”
Nice to have validation. ;-)
red dog
@Violet: I got to pitch the same type stuff by telling rellies they had 60 days to come get it or pay to have it shipped. The silence and the cleared out garage were both welcome.
Ruckus
@muddy:
Which she would keep?
muddy
@Ruckus: Of course! But not all in one place. Each one tucked into a different drawer or box.
WereBear
One of our issues is that Mr WereBear’s life and livelihood were “untimely ripp’d”* away from him when he got chronically ill, so for a while he clung to everything from a combination of not having the energy to sort and not wanting to admit such a radical change had taken place.
But recently tech innovations have really changed this for us; his art is now digital, we loaded most of the CDs into the computer, and I have a Kindle account. We just don’t need to store things like we used to.
*that Scottish play
Ruckus
@muddy:
Dad was like that. Would yell out loud if he walked up to a bench and what he was looking for was not right at hand. “WHO MOVED MY _________!” Of course the answer was, “You mean the _______ that’s 2 inches to your left that no one has touched?”
He never caught on. Of course neither did I.
Ruckus
@muddy:
Now that’s some serious stuff. Were you like me and figured out at 12 that it was time to leave home? And be right?
Ruckus
@muddy:
I like an honest therapist.
muddy
@Ruckus: I tried to suicide the first time when I was 7 if that tells you anything. For some reason that was the only out I could ever see. It took a long time to get over it, but then it took a long time being laid on.
I consider myself a successful parent however, I decided to be the parent I wished I’d had, and we kind of came up together.
Keith
@efgoldman: Heh…will keep that in mind. I’m not really big fans of my neighbors right now. I just had the county constable come by (at my request) because one of them took my grass clippings (my lawn guy showed up after the garbage men, so it didn’t get picked up; I didn’t move it by my garage last night because I got home late after dialysis and was not physically up to moving it) and moved them to the center of my driveway. They’ve done that several times, the last one some time while I was in the hospital for a week with kidney and heart failure. Nothing beats having to get out of your car and moving lawn clippings when all you want to do is get inside and sleep.
I’m going to let them do it one more time, this time with a camera on them so they can have a talk with the constable as well.
Ruckus
@muddy:
Looking at your life and deciding that you don’t have to go along with all the bullshit being dumped on you is called maturity. For some it happens early, a lot late 20’s and some(OK a lot) never. Some of us needed help to see it, I got that from a 35 yr old black man who worked for my dad when I was 12. A great and wonderful human being. I don’t know where or how he got it but he had a way of explaining it to a 12 yr old that was understandable. It would take me another 15-20 years to realize it though. Some of us are slow learners.
WereBear
@Keith: What. the. heck. is wrong with them? Lawn clippings? Wha?
muddy
Yeah, there were circumstances that made me more isolated with her, so that there weren’t other points of view, siblings friend etc. People always said what a wonderful woman she was. Everyone was in agreement that I was the bad one.
I’m happy now. She probably never was.
Ruckus
@muddy:
I’ve only known a few people who claimed to have or I know them to have great parents. Most are about average, a little screwed up themselves so not able to pass along only the good stuff. I’ve also known people with bad parents. Alcoholics, drug addicts,or both, abusive, many times all three. And then there are the psychotic ones who torment their kids/families, some without trying or even knowing they are doing it. Mom fell into the last group. Still not the worst. Kids I went to school with who lived a block away, came home from HS one day, opened door to find parents on the floor in a murder/suicide. Now that’s bad parenting.
Ruckus
@muddy:
You and I may have had the same mom. Sure sounds like mine anyway. I was sick a lot as a kid so I spent a lot of alone time with mom. My saving grace were my older siblings. I got to see a lot of the issues and learned to stay out of the way and what not to do. The oldest never had a chance.
Anne Laurie
@muddy:
I realized, once I was old enough to read grown-up biographies, that the best thing my parents ever did for us was admit that they were pretty lousy parents who shouldn’t have been trusted with the job.
Of course, that’s meant that none of their six kids have reproduced, but that’s a general blessing for the world.
burnspbesq
@MikeJ:
Your point is not well taken. The Ninth Circuit was not required to grant a stay of its mandate, but it did, and once it did, Rule 41(d)(2)(B) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure says the stay remains in effect “until the Supreme Court’s final disposition.” The Supreme Court’s order vacating the Ninth Circuit decision isn’t final until the 25-day period to move for rehearing runs out (or until a motion for rehearing is filed and denied). So the Ninth Circuit fucked up.
Anne Laurie
@Keith: Ugh. Your neighbors belong in the douche canoe with Sean Parker. Which I like to imagine loading up, right before we set fire to the vessel and send it off to sea…
muddy
@Ruckus: I hope that your mom was not equally bad.
And I hope I never come across my kid online, probably saying that I’m a nutjob. ;-)
muddy
@Anne Laurie: Admitting it! What a bizarre attitude! If several people remembered something different than she did, she actually thought we got together ahead of time and agreed on a story.
I’ll say this for her, she hated Republicans with a passion. So there’s that. Altho now I think about it, her projection was about equal to theirs.
Ruckus
@muddy:
Let’s just say they weren’t the same person. And neither are we. So how we took the shit and how it was dished out probably wasn’t either. I tell people that mom was one of the nicest people they ever met as long as they weren’t her kids. She never struck me, can’t remember her ever yelling but the psychological treatment that we all got scarred us for a long time. It was not intense, it was constant, unwavering and always politely negative. And always centered about her. Always.
Chris
@Violet:
Not hated at all. Her fans would simply say it was the Republican establishment’s fault for not following their precious snowflake’s lead.
She already played a huge part in fucking up their game in 2008. Did they care? Of course not. They simply said it was all McCain’s fault, and the RINOs in the establishment who’d sabotaged her.
Anne Laurie
@muddy: I think I was five or six when my dad first quoted GBShaw’s “If you can’t get rid of the family skeletons, make them dance.”
Luci
Yah… small towns and living in the country can be like that. Even in mid sized towns, in nice neighborhoods, people often help each other like that. I have keys to my neighbor’s house and they to mine, and we share things that are not used all the time. For example, I have a live trap, and my neighbors have borrowed it to trap things like squirrels and raccoons and take them into the country. No one needs that all the time, I have one I don’t use all the time, and they use it when they need it. It works out that we help each other as often as we can, and it’s nice. That was very thoughtful of you John to let people know where they could find the buns if they needed them. I might not have thought of that, but it seems to have worked out. :) You are a good guy!
SiubhanDuinne
@muddy:
Old men and their pimiento jars. I swan.
John
@SiubhanDuinne: I would be interested in what they did with all the pimientos.
MikeJ
@John: Look around for a bunch of empty olive jars.
muddy
@Ruckus: They do sound a lot alike. My sympathies. No, my empathies. Cheers.
muddy
@Anne Laurie: That’s excellent!
steverino
I was chatting with my neighbor, and mentioned we had gotten a large pizza and I had several slices left over (for breakfast, of course!). At about 10 PM her daughter calls, just home from the late shift: “Mom says you have pizza?” Here you go. Same neighbor cooked us a dinner when my wife was laid up. Neighbor on the other side mowed my lawn when I was laid up. On snow days, four or five of us play “share the snowblower”. It’s great to have good neighbors.
PurpleGirl
@Mnemosyne: I read Stuff too. Found it very interesting. For me some of the defining criteria are “Do you throw out your garbage or does it pile up on the floor?” Also “Are you able to cook and use the sanitary facilities?” Answer No to either of those questions and you’re a hoarder and not just lazy or a pack rat.
PurpleGirl
@jeffreyw: isn’t it amazing how cats/kittens can fall asleep in some of the strangest positions that must be uncomfortable… but not to the cat/kitten.
Ted & Hellen
You make these stories up.
“General store?”
More likely the Walmart Superstore.
The prophet Nostradumbass
I remember Sam, he was the village idiot.
And though it seems a pity, it
Was so.
He loved to burn down houses just to watch the glow,
And nothing could be done,
Because he was the mayor’s son.
The guy that took a knife
And monogrammed his wife,
Then dropped her in the pond and watched her drown.
Oh, yes indeed, the people there are just plain folks
In my home town.
stinger
@Luci: “trap things like squirrels and raccoons and take them into the country”?
What? No thank you, we already have plenty. Geez, I don’t take my excess vermin and release them into town.
vheidi
@ruemara: Mr vheidi has had a few, we have a supportive neighborhood, hope you do too good luck!
Redshirt
Hey what’s “local crazy teabagger with a sign” up to lately? Agenda 21 stuff?
dww44
@SiubhanDuinne: That’s so funny, cause I too love those jars. My primary uses are, first, for flower seed. Specifically impatiens flower seed, which I’ve always collected from the plants.. Actually that was a good move, now that impatiens are dying from powdery mildew. Holding on to those seeds for a couple more years and then will plant and see if the resulting flowers are disease resistant.
2nd use is as a container for bacon drippings, which I refrigerate and use for flavoring within a couple of weeks. Plus, I do make my own pimento cheese and the small jar is perfect for a batch for lunch for the two of us.
Bubba Dave
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Is there ANY situation that can’t be improved by quoting Tom Lehrer?
jon
What happens if you don’t share.
aimai
@dww44: Good idea but they probably won’t be disease resistant since the seeds come from before the blight and don’t reflect any spontaneous blight resistant mutation. If all your plants don’t die you should also collect the seeds from the ones that best resist or survive the blight and selectively plant those in a few years.
joel hanes
@SiubhanDuinne:
a cupboard that was FILLED with those little pimiento jars. All nicely emptied and washed out and stacked up. For … what, exactly?
He was getting ready to organize all the screws, bolts, nuts, etc. in the workshop.
Svensker
@Keith:
You need to switch neighbors with John Cole.
Do your neighbors have any idea about your physical challenges? Pieces of work, they are.
AHH onna Droid
@Redshift: If u watch the first season of hoarders buried alive on netflix, NOT the AE traimwreck show, you can watch what therapists teach hoarders to make decisions and manage anxiety. Its clear that a loving and patient, not accusatory and nagging support group is indispensable. It not only inspires me but it got my ‘way too busy to clean this office’ wife to not only clean but volunteer donations, she never does this, without me saying a words. My mother was an abusive hoarder and her mom just was having a really bad day for twenty years and so forgot to teach her how to let go of and dispose of things in a mature manner.
JR in WV
@burnspbesq:
My understanding is that a Judge(s) have a great deal of independence in choosing when they do something.
I imagine a Judge feels that if their order pending a superior court’s decision becomes irrelevant, then they can by FSM rescind that order.