Archive for the 'Rant' Category

11
Jul

Welcome to Charter. How may I disgust you today?

By Functionally ReTodded 0 Comments
Categories: Blog, Functionally ReTodded and Rant

As you may or may not know, I’ve more than my fair share of run-ins with Charter Communications and their line of residential (non)services. I’ve had near strokes dealing with their Madagascar-based tech support where some dot-head can’t vary from the script for one second to actually listen and hear me say "Hey FUCKO!!! I’m a network administrator and not a monkey feeder at some temple like you, and I’m telling you that IT’S NOT MY GOD DAMNED NETWORK CARD!!!" I’ve gone insane spending two hours on hold only to have some ass-hat hang up on me while "attempting to transfer me" to her supervisor. Of course, I’m sure that supervisor is some dot-head based in Madagascar.

The trouble is, it’s not a Charter problem really. It’s a telecom/customer service problem for many companies in this country. You can thank the shareholders and board members the next time some guy named "Sam" takes your call and you realize that only one of you even barely speaks English.

Offshoring: It’s FAN-tastic!

That said, the wife and I came to the realization yesterday that we were paying WAY too much for our phone and internet services at home. In light of that realization and that our Charter Business contract for internet service had expired, I decided to crawl into the cesspool known to laypeople as "Bundled Services."

I know you’ve all heard of bundled services. You are beaten over the head constantly on TV, radio, magazines, billboards, etc., at all the ways you can save money by letting one company handle your phone/internet/television services. Of course, they don’t tell you that the shit-tacular service you got for just your television will now be shared amongst all of the things you hold dear in your home that aren’t your kids.

But it’s a brave new world out there, and a family doos what it gots ta doos.

So I contacted Charter residential yesterday about bundling our services. I’ll skip the details of that except to say that I worked it out so that we’d save $70 a month, which ain’t exactly ashtray change.

Of course this switch means that we have to:

a) cancel our business internet

b) get a new residential cable box

c) re-program our wireless router

d) return the old business internet cable box

e) have someone from charter handle the provisioning of our VOIP service on site

And most of these items require direct contact with customer service, so you get the idea. This is going to be painful.

Yesterday I got home to a wife that had been on the phone with customer service three times, each consisting of 20 minutes on hold, 30 minutes of retardation with someone that is less internet/tech savvy than my 6 year old, and then an attempted transfer to tier two support and / or a manager that results in getting hung up on, which just lights the fuse for the next call.

So we got the kids to bed and I calmly contacted tech support. 30 minutes on hold and a dot-head with a script later, I was transferred to a supervi…click.

Call back again and get someone from Appalachia, which is a welcome change indeed. He recognized my networking and troubleshooting prowess immediately and deemed my assessment correct, that the modem we were using was still tied to the business unit, and we agreed that I should get a residential modem, have it re-provisioned, and then go from there.

However, one of our old business internet modems worked when connected directly to a computer, but not thru our brand new wireless router. So, at 9pm, I called D-Link tech support. Hello Katmandu? How can you help you?

Fast forward several holds, then a few redundant power cyclings, and we got nowhere fast. I arranged an RMA replacement of my brand new wireless router (in a mere 7-30 days of course), and went to bed grumpy.

By the way, my least favorite tech support instruction is the "Please disconnect the power from the router and wait five minutes…"

People, I have it on good authority and experience that that particular recommendation is complete bullshit. There is nothing that five minutes powered off will do that 10 seconds won’t do. At that point, just hold down the reset button, plug it in, and move along. That five minute thing is just so you might set down the phone for a second and they can then hang up on you.

Back to the story.

I decide to go straight to the Charter office this morning for my new modem, hoping that I can drop it off at home later and my wife can get it configured with tech support and then get off her ass and get some work done (just kidding sweetheart).

I walk into the office at exactly 8am and there are two women at the counter. One is waiting on someone else and the other is waiting on me. After going thru the usual "I don’t see an account in your name" bullshit, we finally are able to find my account information. Never mind that I’ve had charter service for over fifteen years. I’m sure it’s my fault.

Anyway, the woman waiting on me is clacking away with her three inch fingernails and I glance to my right and see the other girl, who is now not waiting on anyone, lotioning up her hands and her ashy arms.

My girl waddles off to find me a modem, and during this time, the other woman starts lotioning her feet.

SERIOUSLY!!

Yes, I know I am at work and that I am sitting at a customer service counter prepared to have direct visual and physical contact with our customers instead of in some back office where no one can see me, but I need to lotion my fucking feet. You gotta problem wit dat?

I manage to push my mouth closed after having my chin hit the counter at this egregious violation of any kind of decorum, and instead look back at the vacant chair in front of me.

Then, I hear the recognizable sound. It elicits a Pavlovian response from me as my head snaps right at the thought of delicious sweet Pringles.

And that’s when I see the retard to my right up to her elbow in the can of Pringles and shoveling them into her maw with the same hand with which she had just finishing lotioning her stinky ashy feet.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!

03
Jul

40 things about turning 40

By Functionally ReTodded 5 Comments
Categories: 1Doh, 2Doh, 3Doh, Blog, Functionally ReTodded, GBD, News and Rant

I’m sure all of you are waiting to send me cards, presents and even cards filled with money, so I will go ahead and let you know the details. On July 3, 2008 I will be turning 40. Forty. Four Zero. I’m not upset about it. I’m not sad about it. I’m not anything about it. I genuinely stopped associating anything with the number of years I’ve been alive when I left my wife’s 30th birthday party. And as I have said many times over the past two and a half years, the alternative to getting older every year is a good deal more troubling.

Anyway, in honor of my birthday and in no particular order, here are 40 things about turning 40.

1) I have way more hair on my head than I thought I would.

2) I have way less hair anywhere else than I thought I would.

3) I feel way younger at 40 than I thought I would.

4) I feel way older than I think I should.

5) Now I can hold my head high when entering the clinic asking to have my prostate exam.

6) I should not ask for a prostate exam at the dentist’s office, the movie theater or The Home Depot.

7) If I were 400 years old, I STILL wouldn’t be able to watch The McNeil Lehrer show.

8) Ditto for NPR.

9) When my dad turned 40, I was almost 15. Fuck was HE old.

10) As I turn 40, my kids are six, two point five and one. I don’t think I’m old at all.

11) Maturity is CLEARLY not age based.

12) 40 sounds like a good age to focus on developing one’s career.

13) I feel like maybe I should feel ashamed rummaging thru the xbox 360 rental section at Blockbuster.

14) I don’t.

15) As much as I hated my job at 30, I LOVE my job at 40.

16) While I hoped I would be, I’m still pretty shocked that the wife and I are still the wife and I after 22 years.

17) I love my wife and kids more than I let on sometimes.

18) Will I ever NOT love pizza?

19) I don’t look like I’m getting older. Why the hell does everyone else?

20) Is there a forty year old on the planet that owns less tools and knows how to do less WITH those tools than me? I’m pretty sure 1doh could run circles around me building a birdhouse.

21) Same goes for cars and car maintenance. I’m pretty sure I could cure cancer before I could change my own oil. Is that healthy?

22) When does one begin taking Geritol? What does it do anyway?

23) Should I concern myself with the farm report, rainfall amounts or titty bars?

24) I am constantly surprised and yet not surprised at all by the stupidity AND the kindness of strangers.

25) I am more conservative politically than I was at 30.

26) I am more disgusted with the republican party than I was at 30.

27) I’d like to start taking my kids to early season Auburn Football games so they experience that in person.

28) I want to teach my kids to do more things than I was taught to do.

29) Is your 40th birthday literally the last day it’s remotely acceptable to drink beer(s) via a funnel and some rubber tubing?

30) I have far few friends at 40 than I had at 20 or 30.

31) I have far better friends at 40 than I do at 20 or 30, and I value them more than I did then as well.

32) I am far closer to my family than I thought I would ever be.

33) I regret the time lost in my life due to my stubborn nature and my short-sightedness.

34) I am about 70-75% comfortable in my own skin and about who I am.

35) I’d like to learn more about macro and global economics so I can be more educated when I vote, invest and bitch about stuff.

36) I always regretted not ending up with a cool nickname.

37) Despite being told for years that your taste buds change and that "someday you’ll like asparagus/broccoli/cauliflower/any bean that isn’t a green bean/any other awful vegetable," I don’t think I ever will.

38) I wonder how my parents (all of them) do what they do at 20+ years older than me. My knees and ankles hurt like fuck when I get up every day as it is.

39) I look forward to turning 50 WAY more than I did yesterday.

40) PAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!

18
Jun

My new cause in life

By Functionally ReTodded 0 Comments
Categories: Blog, Food, Functionally ReTodded, Pop Culture, Rant and Uncategorized

Unless you live under a rock or under Avitable, you know who Jessica Simpson is. She is the big-tittied daughter of a minister turned overbearing pimp of his children who was married to Nick Lachey and on that MTV show "Newlyweds" that showed us all how dumb naive she was about money and cars and life and sex and laundry and cooking and everything else.

She has also dated/not dated/dated/not dated Dallas Cowboy QB Tony Romo since the tragic end of her marriage to Mr. Lachey.

She’s a talented singer. You only have to watch this clip to know how talented she truly is.

Now, sarcasm aside, I actually like her and think a lot of her dizziness is an act. But she has taken five years of shit and smiled through it all. She’s spent her life lorded over by her pedophile of a dad who can apparently only talk about two things in interviews:

Jessica’s boobs are real and made her uncomfortable.

Jessica’s commitment to her virginity until marriage (this was obviously before the newlyweds show).

We agree on both counts, just so you know. Her boobs make me very uncomfortable, specifically when I hurt my penis while masturbating to them using cheap conditioner, shaving cream or just a handful of Newman’s Own dressing.

I was also committed to her virginity despite the fact that I knew Mr. Lachey planned to do permanent harm to her mysterious lady parts.

Enough about me. Today I’m stumbling thru my usual news reads: Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, The New York Times, AVN weekly, and WWTDD, and I found this horrid story on Fox News.

Here’s a photo because no Jessica Simpson story is complete without one:

meaty goodness

Now PETA has their collective gay pot smoking hippie hemp panties in a knot and made Jessica public enemy number one, along with adding a list of the top five reasons why only stupid girls would brag about eating meat. Here’s PETA’s list (followed by my witty rebuttals):

1. Meat increases the risk of breast cancer. A 2007 study of 35,000 women published in the British Journal of Cancer found that women who ate meat were far more likely to develop breast cancer than women who consumed none. Will Jessica’s next t-shirt will say, "Real Girls Smoke 3 Packs a Day"?

I hope she does because T-shirts are funny, don’t hurt anyone, and who in their right mind is sitting around waiting to make dietary decisions based on what this girl has scrawled across her fun bags?

2. Real girls don’t support animal abuse. Compassion is super sexy , if the huge number of hot celebs ditching meat is any indication. Young women turn vegetarian in droves when they learn that the meat industry cuts the sensitive beaks off newborn chicks and cuts off the tails of baby piglets.

Hey you dumbass PETAs (who I am about to start calling PITA). You’re rotting from the inside out because you eat no protein. Unless you’re a vegan. But if you’re vegetarian, then you don’t mind fucking over fish and plants. You don’t think tomatoes have feelings? Or Chilean Sea Bass? And for every devout PETA person who lives like this, there are five carrying signs while wearing a leather belt or some $600 shoes made out of kitten scrotums.

3. The meat industry is destroying the Earth. The only thing that’s hot about the meat industry is that it’s toasting the planet . According to the United Nations, raising animals for food causes more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, SUVs, planes, and ships in the world combined.

Absolutely and completely bullshit. There is no way on God’s not as green as it used to be earth that that’s true. If it is, I would contend that human farting is a thousand times bigger problem than animal farting. Why, my father alone is probably making Al Gore cry himself to sleep daily. Oh, and the next thing the UN says that’s true will be the first thing. Stupid dictators.

4. Meat will make you fat. All the saturated fat and cholesterol in chicken wings, pork chops, and steak eventually leads to flabby thighs and love handles . I hope the upcoming "Jessica Simpson’s Intimates" line comes in plus sizes! Going vegetarian is the best way to get slim and stay that way.

Fuck you again. If you ate 5,000 calories a day of asparagus and didn’t exercise, you’d get fat. That’s the trouble with trendy bandwagon clubs like PETA. They don’t like to let facts or, God forbid, MATH, get in the way of a good quote.

5. Eating meat steals food from starving kids. Jessica’s trip to help kids in Africa got a lot of media buzz, but by gnawing on meat, she’s essentially stealing food from the mouths of starving children since it takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of meat. If more people went vegetarian, we’d free up enough grain to feed every person in the world.

I’m pretty sure that the sabre-rattling dictators that run their countries steal way more food from starving kids than Jessica Simpson. Look at her for God’s sake. Do you think she walks into the Golden Corral and says to the guy behind the counter, "Hey Cutie. I’ll take the Old 96er please. And make sure I get plenty of grissle?" Of course not. Like any hot skinny chick with big tits, she probably does some blow before dinner, loses her appetite and then just takes a bite of the lobster before she purges and ends the night by giving the star quarterback a hand shandy under the table.

So my message to you, PETA, is to get off your high horse, stop lying, and do us all a favor and fuck yourselves mute.

07
Apr

The Field Trip

By Functionally ReTodded 3 Comments
Categories: 1Doh, Blog, Functionally ReTodded, GBD, Poppy, Rant and Uncategorized

As you may or may not know, I took last Wednesday off to go along with 1doh on a field trip to a semi-local operational dairy farm. Seemed like a lot of fun with good kid equity to be earned, and going to an actual farm is far from the worst thing in the world for me.

The day started early for me as you can imagine. One dot oh was emitting what seemed to be a humming or buzzing sound, which I completely expected. She also knew that she left for school at 8:20 and that I was to be there 30 minutes later. I spent from 6am to 8am hearing two things from 1doh:

1) The bus rules say no electronics on the bus and three to a seat.

2) How long is 30 minutes?

Good times.

I walked hustled 1doh to the bus and headed home to pack my multimedia travel kit. I had visions of isolationist grandeur that included bringing not one but two books, my iPod, two sets of earphones, my point and shoot digicam, my Nikon D50 and my sony digital HD recorder. I mean seriously. They have teachers and parapros. What the hell did they need me for? I was hoping I’d get to be the "guy that knows all about the farm" guy.

Sadly, I was wrong.

I got to school and I was full of piss and vinegar and rarin’ to go. Actually, I wasn’t full of piss. I knew we had a long ride ahead of us, so I went at home.

As is always the case, 1doh ran to hug me when I showed up, and I nearly expected the same from her teacher and the parapro. They were THRILLED to have another adult on the trip, and I realized that I might have some responsibilities that went beyond "Hey! Look at the teats on THAT one!"

The buses were scheduled to leave at 9am, so I was a little shocked that, at 9:20, they still weren’t there. The farm is about 50 miles by highway or 30 by surface streets (as if anyone would be fuck-tarded enough to take surface streets).

The buses finally arrived and we got loaded up and were ready to ride about 9:30ish. I thought this trip was 1doh’s class. I had no idea it was 150 kindergarteners and four buses. Yikes.

And these weren’t full sized buses. They were some morphed (non-retard) buses that had seat backs about four inches from the front of the seat behind it. That mean that anyone over four foot seven and eighty pounds had to do their best "fat guy at the movies" impression and sit with their legs at about 160 degrees open or with the legs in the aisle. VERY comfortable for a 39 year old fella with big bones like me.

(editor’s note: 1doh’s teacher is a mid-twenties skinny ass and even she couldn’t sit right, so I didn’t feel bad. Or as bad anyway).

We were ready to leave and I pulled out the old point and shoot (the one made by HP, not the one in my pants) and took a picture of the load of kids on the bus. That was when Cruella DeVille stood up from the driver’s seat, spun around like Linda Blair’s head and screamed "NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY!! THAT LIGHT GOES RIGHT IN MY EYES AND I COULD HAVE A SEIZURE OR WRECK!"

Ummm…okay. But we still haven’t moved. I’ll keep that in mind though and turn off the flash for future pictures.

I shut off the flash and took a few pictures as the buses were fired and started to move.

We got about a mile before we got to the railroad tracks and saw what we were in for. When we got near the tracks, the driver SCREAMED "HEY!!! I NEED TOTAL SILENCE!! IF I DON’T GET THAT, WE COULD GET HIT BY A TRAIN A KILLED!!"

Mind you, this was a bus full of five year olds. Their biggest concern was not pissing their pants.

We got silent, I made a mental note, and we went on our way.

So I notice that we are not headed towards the highway, which would seem prudent given that the farm is 50 MILES AWAY!

But our driver, mapquest directions in hand, went against conventional wisdom and decided to take one of the busiest surface streets north of Atlanta. What that means is that the only adult that was surprised by the traffic we hit (which was bumper to bumper) was Ms. DeVille.

We turned off of a semi-main road and the driver pulled over to the side. "That’s odd," I thought to myself.

One of the mothers asked why, and the driver told us that the buses had to stay together and in sight of one another.

So, to minimize this being a problem, we skipped the highway and took traffic light-laden surface streets? Seriously. That’s fucking retarded. When was the last time you saw FOUR SCHOOL BUSES get thru a light cycle? ANYWHERE?

Along the way the driver used her magical horizontal mirror to admonish five year olds with pearls of wisdom like this one (and I literally confirmed wording with other parents so as not to exaggerate):

"YOU! IN SEAT FIVE!! PUT YOUR ARM BACK ON YOUR SIDE OF THE BUS!! LAST WEEK, A GIRL DID THAT AS THE DRIVER SLAMMED ON THE BRAKES AND SHE FLEW FORWARD AND RIPPED HER FACE OPEN ON THE KEY, BREAKING OFF THE KEY AND SHE GOT SIXTEEN STITCHES IN HER FACE!"

I turned and looked at 1doh’s teacher and said "is that level of detail appropriate or necessary for a bus full of five year olds?"

Actually, I said "What the fuck was THAT for? They’re five?"

(editor’s note: I actually mouthed the F-word, so I was still clear on the "how soon will FRT swear on this trip?" bet).

We continued on, only instead of heading toward the highway, we were going toward the surface street path that I knew would a problem. After turning left at a light, we slowed to about 20 mph in a 55mph zone, and the driver said to no one / everyone that "the buses have to stay together."

Now seriously, I ask you. Is there a traffic light in America that is slow enough to get four god damned bluebird school buses through it? OF COURSE NOT.

Our caravan of buses and their retarded drivers continued on, until we hit the bumper to bumper traffic that even the kids knew we would hit but that caught our county-provided drivers by surprise.

I will fast forward thru the rest of the ride, only pausing to add that on four or five different occasions, Cruella screamed while looking into her magical mirror and told some gruesome story of carnage related to a child that wasn’t seated and facing forward while reading the bible and knitting sweaters for poor kids in Africa.

She also had to pull over a dozen times to wait for the other buses and to consult the trusty mapquest printout that she brought to help her find her way. It turns out, only our driver had the directions to the dairy. That’s right. Not one other brilliant county employee thought to print out or write down the directions for themselves. (Grrrrrrrr).

So, we finally arrive at the dairy at 11am. That’s right. This freaking moron took just under 90 minutes to go 31 miles. That’s twenty miles an hour. ARE YOU KIDDING?

The conversation that was occurring in hushed tones between myself, another parent and some staff (who shall remained nameless), was in hushed tones, but the murmurs attracted the evil eye of the antichrist driver. This was NOT going to get better.

We got off the bus and found ourselves herding 150 kids thru a sort of field bathroom area. They were outbuildings and there were six unisex restrooms and about 12 buses full of kids in line. There was no way we were getting thru this without at least one spaz wetting his pants.

Shockingly, a teacher from another school who had 20 or so kids under her watch walked up to the one child of hers that was in line (in front of 1doh and I who were third in line) and basically created an offshoot line where she let her other 19 kids (and herself) jump in front of us and the rest of the folks in our line. Not very nice considering 1doh was doing the peepee dance by then.

Oh, and when the teacher walked out after cutting off the line she looked at me and said "You may need to plunge that. It’s not flushing too well."

She had no idea that I was tempted to plunge it with her dumbass.

Thankfully, we got thru the bathroom nonsense with no issues, and we strolled across the road and hopped on one of four hay-covered wagons that seated about 75 each and were the rotation for our tour of the dairy.

The kids were giddy and I was actually excited. I knew I was the only one on our tour who’d probably ever dealt with cattle up close and I very much enjoy farm settings, so this was to be fun for me as well.

We rode thru an area where the "guide" told us about cows we could see laying down, the molasses silo they had for mixing with the feed, and the empty silos on the property which were no longer in use. She did not address the broken down cars, rusted out washers and dryers and various other white trash accoutraments that took away some of the joy I was hoping to feel from my dairy tour experience.

We then headed to the dry pasture (that’s where the cows that are not currently being milked, are waiting to have calves, etc. stay) and saw a brief border collie herding demonstration. The best part of this was that the trailer had feed buckets around the outside, so about 30 cows surrounded the wagon and the kids were a little freaked out being that close to animals that they had no idea were actually so large.

After the demo it was off to the baby calf area (which is my personal favorite). Baby animals are awesome and cute and baby cows are some of the cutest in the world. They had calves ranging from 8 days old to six weeks old, and they were amazing. I filmed for a few minutes while the guide bottle fed one of the calves, but mostly I sat next to a beautiful eight day old Holstein calf that not only let me pet her but she nuzzled up to the fence so I could pet more of her.

(In case you were wondering, the cow was too tall to accept my penis lovingly into its mouth when I was kneeling and it was too short to do so when I was standing. I bet if I’d had one of those kickass milking stools, I’d have said this was the best field trip EVER! Oh, and it wouldn’t let me fuck it either. Go figure).

From there it was off to the milking demonstration. In the olden days (when I was younger), you could go anywhere around the milking operation. You got a true sense of the size of the operation when you’d see hundreds of cows lined up and attached to the milking machines. And there was always the added bonus of seeing the person that was walking behind the cows and not paying attention getting pissed or shit on in the way that only cows can).

Here, we got an old dude named Gus or Vern or Cletus who gave the old timey milking demonstration, showed us a riveting demo of how the udder gets cleaned by "an upside down shower," and then he showed how the milking machines worked.

He then asked for adult volunteers to hold several of the milking devices so the kids could come forward and stick their thumbs in to feel how it worked.

By this point, the moms and teachers on this trip had an idea of who I really was, and several immediately reiterated to me that I was to put ONLY my thumbs into the device and nothing more. It took all of the restraint I could must to not put my thumb out thru my zipper and then walk up to 1doh’s teacher (who was holding one of the milking heads) and stick my thumb into it.

However, I’m an adult and the father of a child in the crowd, and I didn’t think that leaving the tour in a cop car as a registered sex offender would do me much good, so I refrained. (Note to self. Go on dairy tour alone, or at least without your own kid next time).

After that it was off to the milk processing area where some woman named Beulla or Eunice or some such thing showed us how the assembly line worked. Of course she used water instead of milk and really didn’t turn any of the machine on, and once she started gumming her way thru a description of their products, one and two percent milk and the farm’s daily output, the kids were ready to go and get on with eating their lunch and getting their free pint of chocolate milk.

Back across the road and thru another turnstile type bathroom area and it was off to the picnic area where about 600 kids were eating lunch either sitting on the ground or while running around like nuts.

It was 12:30p. And that’s when our asshole driver walked over to my daughter’s teacher and said "Why aren’t you all ready to go? We were supposed to leave at 12:30pm. Three of these buses have to get back for their afternoon high school runs."

The teacher explained that it was not the kids’ fault that the buses were 30 minutes late, drove slower than an old lady on her Rascal scooter, and that half of our group was still on the tour. I of course was saying these things from about 50 feet away in a voice that made sure she heard me.

The driver huffed and walked away, but moments later a woman holding a cell phone came over and told 1doh’s teacher that there was a call for her. The "call for her" was her principal. It seems the driver called dispatch who called the principal who called to tell the teacher to pack it up and leave. Great. The bitch was a tattletale as well.

The teacher was in no real position to argue and she didn’t want to get in trouble, so we started rounding up kids, cleaning up and headed to the bus. The part of our group that just got there packed their lunches up and headed for their buses as well.

We got on the bus and were ready to go. And we sat. And sat. For fifteen minutes. Now I am getting very angry. I ask why if we’re in such a hurry that we’re all sitting in a stifling hot bus not going anywhere. She ignored my question.

And here is where things took a turn for the worse (and the ridiculous).

The driver asked one of the room moms if she could read the mapquest directions backwards for her.

That’s right. Not only was our driver the only one with the directions, she only brought directions TO the dairy. No one thought to printout return directions!!!!

GAAAHHHHHH!!

I think it was at or around this point that 1doh’s teacher started texting GBD with the following words:

"I think he’s gonna kill the bus driver."

We pulled to the end of the driveway WITHIN THE DAIRY and the driver stopped and turned to the room mom and just stared.

Seriously. We are preparing to turn on the road that we just left, and the driver’s looking at the room mom to tell her which way to go. OMFG!!!!

I advise her to turn right and she immediately turns left. Every child on the bus knew from which direction we came, but the DRIVER didn’t know. She then took another wrong turn and then another, and then I remembered that I had Google Maps on my blackberry.

At the next intersection, the driver started to panic and lash out, shouting "WHICH WAY NOW?"

I replied, "If you can stop for a second so my map can catch up, I will tell you."

Of course, she huffed in reply. I guess she hadn’t yet finished reading her copy of "How To Win Friends and Influence People."

My map came up and, since I had asked it for directions from the dairy’s physical address to the school’s address, I was fairly certain of the correct route back. The driver, however, wasn’t so convinced. Apparently she wasn’t ready to rely on some newfangledy eeelectronick gismo to do her navigatin’ for her.

She then asked / said "So do I go left?"

I replied "No. Go right."

She replied (quite wittily I might add), "Are you sure?"

"Yes," I answered. "Gor Right."

"Not left?" she questioned.

"NO!" (Holding my Blackberry in the air like Moses with his tablets) "GO RIGHT! GO RIGHT AND DRIVE 18 MILES UNTIL WE HIT (insert street name here), THEN GO RIGHT AGAIN AND WE’LL BE ABOUT 3 MILES FROM THE SCHOOL."

She turned right in silence.

The driver didn’t speak again except to berate kids for talking, laying down in their seats, etc. They were told of the horrid maiming of kids that were chewing gum when a missile hit the bus because it was attracted to the sucrose in their gum and blew their heads clean off. Or something like that. I was so busy cursing under my breath that I couldn’t really hear her.

One funny from the ride. The room mom sitting in the seat in front of me was new to Georgia and as such, she hadn’t been exposed to some of our older humor. The town that we had to drive thru on the trip back was Cumming, GA . So I said to her that we were in Cumming. She said really? That’s the name of the town? And then I asked "So you’ve never been to Cumming?"

She replied "No. Where’s Cumming?"

I answered "It’s about ten minutes from breathing hard."

All of the longtime residence gave the courteous chuckle they always give when a new person gets the Cumming joke. Good times.

Anyway, back to the grim reality of the bus ride. My directions proved to be accurate. Once thru Cumming (and crying myself to sleep like I usually do), the driver was aware of and familiar with her surroundings and immediately returned to being a cunt. One little girl was making faces on the window and the driver said "HEY!!! Don’t put your mouth on my windows!! I’ll make you clean every window on this bus if you do that again!!"

We are now about five miles from school and the teacher is furiously texting my wife (laughing the entire time) and my wife is furiously texting me with helpful tips like this:

"The drivers have to clean their own buses, no matter what the mess is. Maybe you could work up a case of the squirts or shove your finger down your throat and puke everywhere. At least one other person would puke for sure. Then she’d be even later than she is already.

Oh, and don’t cuss. And don’t embarrass 1doh."

We crossed the railroad tracks that are a mile from the school. She drove about half a mile and then pulled over to the side of the road.

I said "Hey, why are you stopping? We’re half a mile from the school and you’re late. Shouldn’t we just go on and finish this?"

She replied "I cannot leave the other buses. I have to wait for them."

Me: "But they can see the school from here? What kind of nonsense is THAT?"

Her: "I am not allowed to leave the other buses."

Me: "Oh right. I remember Maverick telling Goose that in ‘Top Gun.’ You never leave your wingman."

Her looking toward me in her mirror: "Hey!!! THERE IS NO EATING OR DRINKING ON THIS BUS!"

I’m not eating or drinking, but she’s looking toward me. That’s when I look down to my right and see 1doh with my empty water bottle in her mouth.

That’s it. I’ve fucking had it now.

I say "Look. She’s not eating or drinking. It’s an empty bottle. I’m her father and I’ll take responsibility for it."

Her: "But if I slammed on the brakes, it could go thru her mouth and her neck!"

Me: BUT YOU’RE PULLED OVER ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD! YOU’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE!! JUST SIT THERE AND BE QUIET!!!"

Silence.

And I don’t mean silence from her. I mean silence like somebody just died silence. The only sounds on the bus are the teacher frantically texting GBD and my blackberry buzzing because GBD is texting me as she fears she might be too late.

The driver is using that fucking overhead mirror to keep glaring at me and muttering to herself. I say "You can stop rolling your eyes at me too. Just look out the window, drive the bus and leave us all alone."

Thankfully we returned to the school and since no cops were waiting for me, I assumed everything was fine. When the time came to get off the bus, I advised the moms, the teachers, the parapro’s and the kids to go ahead. I needed to talk to the driver.

When I got halfway to the front of the bus she said (all nice and syrupy), "So, were you the group photographer today?"

Ignoring her, I replied "This was pathetic. You are a complete embarrassment. You have no right to talk to anyone’s children like that. There is no excuse for using graphic violence and gore to scare the kids into behaving on a bus. Which brings me to the fact that 150 five year olds just spent over THREE HOURS on a bus, and they were great. No one peed their pants, no one acted out or misbehaved, and frankly I was proud of all of them. But all you can do is scream at them.

And another thing. What kind of moron only brings one copy of directions on a multi-bus trip and NO RETURN DIRECTIONS?!?! If it weren’t for me and my blackberry, you’d be driving around Tennessee about now. These buses weren’t free. And the fact that you spent all day acting like you were doing us a favor driving us was crap. I will be reporting you to the county and the school. Your demeanor and behavior towards the children was indefensible and your lack of professionalism in the driving part of your job is inexscusable.

Then I walked off the bus and thru the throng of kids and moms and I felt like Sally Fields in "Norma Rae." These parents were all but applauding me.

I went inside and comforted my child, who was on the verge of tears because the bus driver yelled at her.

I got the contact info for the country transportation department on my way out of the school, and I headed home.

When I walked into the kitchen I stopped and hung my head. I had let 1doh hold my hat on the bus and had forgotten to grab it. And it wasn’t just any hat. It was my eight year old fitted Auburn hat. It was my Goldenboy. And now I’m certain that this bitch has taken a shit in it, so I really don’t want it back anyway.

And now one more observation. This farm / dairy was a mess. Once you got off the main drive, it was like a trailer park vomited. Trash, scrap metal, cars, old equipment, appliances and other like stuff littered the place. I told my dad this during the drive on Sunday, and we noodled thru the details and decided that my displeasure was valid, and I want to walk you through that now.

This place has 80 milking cows. They said each cow gets milked twice a day and gives 8 gallons a day. They later said they produced 800 gallons of milk a day, even though their own stats say about 640, which with waste and spillage and what not probably means 600 gallons a day, but I will use their 800 gallon figure for this exercise.

This is specialty milk. They don’t make enough for whole grocery chains where regular milk is around $2.50 per gallon. So lets say that they sell all 800 gallons every day for three bucks a gallon (and the store sells it for four, which is what they told us). That means that prior to operational expenses, they make $2,400 per day. There were 8 people working the tours who had to make minimum wage, meaning 64 work hours time six bucks an hour is 384 dollars a day in wages alone, but let’s say they actually clear $2,000 a day.

Our tour contained 150 kids at six dollars per kid. That’s 900 bucks clear from our tour alone. There were several other tours there just while we were there, but if you said that only four tours a day the size of ours came thru, that’s 600 kids a day at six bucks a kid or $3,600 per day. So basically the tours keep the place running and not the dairy.

So I think it’s okay to expect that a place like the Cagle Dairy that’s more tourist attraction than working farm oughta put a little elbow grease and some man hours into cleaning up the place so it doesn’t look like one of the tornado scenes from the movie "Twister."

Thank you and have a great day!

07
Apr

my own little 3 hour tour

By Functionally ReTodded 1 Comment
Categories: Blog, Functionally ReTodded, News, Pop Culture, Poppy and Rant

Yesterday I took the girls to spend the week with their Nanna. At pretty much the last second, my dad called and said "Hey, you want some company?"

"Sure dood. Come on over."

On the way the kids watched Dora (with headphones on) so pops and I could talk.

I enjoy talking with him a lot because he doesn’t get heated or let hot-button issues pull him into fights. He is a mechanical engineer by education and a commodities broker / compliance guy by trade.

Since I’m functionally retarded and the political and stock market knowledge equivalent of an 8 year old, I like to pick his brain about stuff in the news.

Yesterday’s topics included:

Hillary and Barack’s claims that they will "take" the "record profits" of big oil.

Why gas prices are high.

Being an ACTUAL compassionate conservative (he really is), what factor(s) do you use to decide how you’re vote?

Me being the opposite of mein papa when it comes to media snippets and hot button issues and talking points, I was curious what he’d come up with for me.

As for the Democratic candidates saying they’d "TAKE" big oil’s excessive profits, his answer was "don’t worry about it."

I countered with "How could they anyway?"

He replied, "Well, if they wanted to make a contest out of it, congress could repeal the 28 or so percent tax break Big Oil gets for getting the stuff out of the ground. It’s a different way of taking but it’s taking nonetheless.

"But," he said "beyond that, it’ll never happen. There is zero chance of anything like that getting thru Congress. Ever. So even though you may find it deplorable or disgusting, you shouldn’t think about it twice. That stuff simply can’t get done. Congress is a big and expensive machine that moves INCREDIBLY slowly and carefully."

Additionally (I made this point and he agreed), I think one of the Big Oil guys should have stood up and pointed at the panel and said "Do ANY of you know the difference between profits and profit MARGIN?"

Exxon’s profits have grown immensely in the last 30 years. Their profit margin hasn’t wavered a tenth of a percent in those 30 years. Why? BECAUSE EVERYONE IS USING MORE GAS!!!

If folks really want gas prices to go down, walk or ride a fucking bike. Bitching while you’re driving does nothing. It’s simple economics. If you sell more widgets than you used to, you’re going to have bigger profits. Your margin can stay the same, but yelling at the provider for our consumption is retarded.

I brought up the issue of every state having different EPA regulations for gas and no new refineries built in 30 years as reasons for high gas costs.

Among his replies were these:

While no NEW refineries have been built, the existing refineries have been modified and reworked to increase productivity, so it’s not as bad as everyone thinks.

A bigger issue is that people think oil is oil and gas is gas. Neither of those things are true.

There are different oils, but the biggest two are the sour black nasty stuff and what’s called light sweet crude (the stuff traded on the commodities markets).

A plant built for refining light sweet crude can’t handle or process the other stuff, and vice versa. Also there is the issue of what a barrel of oil produces. There are a variety of products that come from a barrel of oil: crap for making roads, diesel, aviation fuel, motor oil type stuff, gas, and other junk.

If you are heavy into needing diesel but not road crap, you have an exce have to store it or not make it, and not making it results in higher prices for diesel like we’re seeing now.

As for how he decided upon which candidate to cast his vote, his answer was simpler than I expected and a little shocking:

"I vote for someone from the party that ISN’T running congress. Besides, there’s less difference between conservatives and liberals than ever before. Step a smidge outside of everyone’s comfort zone and you become unelectable. So every candidate drops a couple of never can pass ideas and a couple of ideological ones that are palatable, and the rest is basically the same."

That made me think too, so I asked "Then would it be smart to try to vote and take the possibility of putting supreme court nominees into consideration?"

He liked that, but repeated that candidates can’t get confirmed if they’re "too" anything (besides ugly like that Ruth Bader Ginsberg, whom he said reminded him of that lady on Laugh-in. I told him it was Ruth Buzzie and he laughed because they had the same name).

We also discussed the Bear Stearns "non-bailout." What irked him was the invoking of the Federal loan program on the Monday AFTER the Bear imploded. If that had been done five days prior, not only would Bear Stearns still be in business, but much like JP Morgan, the note for the 30 billion probably would never have been called. I could see that didn’t make him very happy either.

So a three plus hour drive with Dora blaring that could have been miserable turned out to be educational, entertaining and it went by in a snap.

Thanks poppy.

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