Rant Here!

[Windrunner he/him]

Okay I need to rant for a minute because I am extraordinarily frustrated.

I like Facebook, I like it a lot. It lets me stay in touch with all my AZ friends who I no longer get to see on a daily basis, so I can still see what they're up to and talk to them. It's really useful. But now I've just about had enough of it. I'm sure that everyone has seen these pictures on their news feed that say things like, "like if you want to see cancer cured," or "like if you know these actors," or "like if you remember this show from the 90's". I find them horribly stupid, and many of my Facebook friends seem determined to spam my news feed by liking these pictures which tell me, "Yes so-and-so does remember Ice Cube in 'Are We There Yet'". Just because I don't like this photo of this little girl with cancer doesn't mean I want the little girl to die. It means that I don't have the need to inform all my Facebook friends that, shockingly, I am against cancer, or beating children or any other obviously terrible thing.

Then the people who originally post the pictures on Facebook always leave a comment on the bottom saying things like, "subscribe for 2000+ friend requests". Why would I want to do that? First of all I'd have even more of your asinine posts clogging up my news feed. Secondly I would be spamming everyone else with your stupid pictures. And thirdly, Why would I ever want 2000 friend requests from random strangers? They would just "like" more of these stupid pictures. I don't even like having my 200 or so Facebook friends because I've realized I only want to hear from less then half those people.

So people who have gotten this far are undoubtedly thinking, "Silly Windrunner, just block those "subscriber-whores" (which is an amazingly good term that I did not come up with). Believe me I would do that faster then I could summon my Shardblade. But guess what? Its impossible!!! I go there and hit the block button and Facebook kindly informs me that the blocking system is overloaded and I should try again later. I've tried again and again on every one of these people I could find. And it never works. It apparently doesn't work for anyone else who hates these people either. I'm seriously considering deleting some of my friends because these pictures annoy me so much. I've known these people for longer then I can remember but if all I'm getting out of our contact on Facebook is that they remember the original Scooby-Doo tv show then its not worth it.

Thank you 17th Shard, you've saved me from putting my fist through a computer screen.

[Eerongal he/him]

Okay I need to rant for a minute because I am extraordinarily frustrated.

*snip*

Thank you 17th Shard, you've saved me from putting my fist through a computer screen.

Yeah, i do find those sort of things annoying. Years ago, when facebook first started up (2007 or so) i didn't see a whole lot of that, but now a days it seems like its either that or people playing stupid games (i dont want to accept your wheat or magical goats or whatever it is the game prompted you to share yet again in the past 20 seconds) clogging up my news feed. This is one reason why i don't really use FB so much anymore.

Oh, also, everyone! Show you dislike of subscription whores! Upvote this post if you agree!!

Edit: apparently someone doesn't know what "being facetious" is

[IvoryRoad he/him]

Good LORD, man! Just because I'll occasionally spring for your lunch doesn't mean you get a free meal every week. I'm way too susceptible to guilting.

Oh, we're going out to dinner. You don't have any money? Eeeeemmmm FINE I'll pay for you.

Sigh..

[CrazyRioter she/her]

make him do your cooking the next night in exchange. Then at least you get to be lazy two nights in a row for no extra cost.

[IvoryRoad he/him]

make him do your cooking the next night in exchange. Then at least you get to be lazy two nights in a row for no extra cost.

Lol true that. I don't really have much of an excuse to be spending money on eating out at all. It's not TOO often, though...

[Sweetness she/her]

I love this thread. This thread is awesome.

So, my car broke down a few weeks ago. Or rather, my parents' car, a 2005 Chrysler PT Cruiser. Remember this fact, it comes into play later in this rant.

I was driving, the Check Engine Light started blinking at me, and I pulled over and called my dad. This was my first mistake.

Dad says "It needs oil." No REDACTED? It's last oil change was six months ago. How do I know this? I'm the one that paid for it! My parents don't do things like "oil changes" or "standard maintenance." They wait for the car to die and then call "Reginald," the "mechanic" who worked on my beloved Explorer before it died tragically last year.

The thing about Reginald is, he came to fix the Explorer. Two weeks later, it had a completely unrelated problem. So, Reginald came to fix it again. This happened about five times before the engine seized and in order to fix it, we would have had to pay as much as we still owed on the loan for the thing.

So, I am sitting in a random parking lot, and I go buy oil from a gas station. Now, I don't know how to do this, so I call my friend's step-dad for back-up. We dump two quarts of oil into it and try to start it up. The car is shaking like an epileptic chihuahua. And it shuts off when I throw it in reverse.

This is not good.

Long story short, we manage to get it home. After, mind, finding out the hard way that our roadside assistance plan expired. I've got my friend's truck, so it's not too big a deal.

Next day, my wonderful, intelligent, responsible father decides he's going to drive the PT to a car part store to get a diagnostic run. Half an hour later, I get a call to come pick him up from the random neighborhood the car died in.

And what does my dad do to remedy the situation?

HE CALLS REGINALD!!!!!!! *headdesk*

Reginald comes and tows the car to his shop. He tells us, at first, that the problem is the fuel pump. About $300 to fix. That's a lot, but not devastating.

Then, we don't hear anything from Reginald for a week. And then another week.

Now, apparently, two of it's four cylinders are broken. (Gee, I wonder how that happened?) And it's not the fuel pump at all!

So now, we get it back, and we get to pay $1000 to get it fixed.

My parents took out a loan for it. Because they are smart.

It's just. Just. *ragespren* I'm like 87% certain that a standard oil change ($30, for the record) would have prevented all of this. But we "can't afford" oil changes. We can afford sushi restaurants, and trips to see "Spiritual healers" who stare at you for five minutes. But not oil changes! Oh no! That's far too much money! Seriously! Take preventative measures. They may not seem like a big deal, but they save trouble down the road. My parents do not seem to understand this. That's why the truck died. That's why we keep getting kicked out of houses. That's why our credit sucks and why we never have any money!

Just, REDACTEDing use your REDACTED brains. I know you have them. If I can figure this stuff out, you should be able to, too.

I'm twenty-one. You're pushing sixty. This is not how the parent-child relationship is supposed to work.

Okay?

Okay.

I'm done now.

Thanks, guys. <3

[Eerongal he/him]

It's just. Just. *ragespren* I'm like 87% certain that a standard oil change ($30, for the record) would have prevented all of this. But we "can't afford" oil changes. We can afford sushi restaurants, and trips to see "Spiritual healers" who stare at you for five minutes. But not oil changes! Oh no! That's far too much money! Seriously! Take preventative measures. They may not seem like a big deal, but they save trouble down the road. My parents do not seem to understand this. That's why the truck died. That's why we keep getting kicked out of houses. That's why our credit sucks and why we never have any money!

Just, REDACTEDing use your REDACTED brains. I know you have them. If I can figure this stuff out, you should be able to, too.

I'm twenty-one. You're pushing sixty. This is not how the parent-child relationship is supposed to work.

Okay?

Okay.

I'm done now.

Thanks, guys. <3

It sounds like your parents share a lot in common with my mom. Important things like vehicle maintenance are "too expensive" to spend money on, but other things like expensive "organic" foods, all sorts of fake/dumb/whatever alternative medical things (i've been to a spirit healer like you mention before. Biggest waste of money EVER. I was appalled to learn what she spent on that. For whatever reason, she thinks all of modern medicine = quackery, but a $20 bottle of super-lotion that heals cancer? It's just covered up by the government and really works!) and the list goes on. If i bring it up to her, she basically says that "i don't know what i'm talking about", and implying her wisdom because she is older. So I can empathize with some of the stuff you mention pretty well

[Sweetness she/her]

Thanks, Eero. I'm glad it's not just my parents.

[JamesW he/him]

Sorry to hear that sweet, my girlfriends family complains about not having money, but they spend twice as much on food that is organic because the government is trying to kill is with genetically altered food and store produce gives everyone cancer.

My mom has no money to get her car fixed, but if it doesn't start she calls a quack drug attict mechanic to "fix" it. If there is a problem with the car, and it is making noise she turns the country music up until the noise is gone. She blew up two cars and a tow truck within three weeks once when I was a kid...and i dont think a car has had a scheduled oil change in my lifetime.

Oh and if a car has tags that are out of date, no worry we'll go to the computer and print more. And, this is no joke, once she got pulled over for driving with tags, made out of orange construction paper and drawn on with a sharpie. The cop was laughing so hard, he only gave her a ticket for not having a license or insurance, and said he had never seen something so ridiculous.

And Sweet, I'm 21 too and sometimes I think I ought to be the parent...

[Sweetness she/her]

I think your mom might be worse than my parents, James. I didn't think that was possible.

[JamesW he/him]

My dad is a 63 year old Vietnam veteran who ran drugs for the Hells Angels, he has his share of mental issues too. Oh and his brother was a member of the FBI's anti drug task force, no love lost there.

Oh and one of my mom's brothers is now homeless, we dropped him off at the river (where all the homeless live) on Tuesday following a drunken comment he made regarding my little sisters. In a single afternoon he got hit twice and had a gun barrel put in his mouth. The next day my mom picked him up and put him in a shelter.

Don't feel bad about your family! Or rather feel a little less bad!

Edited July 27, 2012 by JamesW

[Eerongal he/him]

Sorry to hear that sweet, my girlfriends family complains about not having money, but they spend twice as much on food that is organic because the government is trying to kill is with genetically altered food and store produce gives everyone cancer.

Heh, that's the exact same reason my mom only buys organic. And as stated previously, she thinks the medical community is out to keep everyone sick. Honestly, i've given up arguing with her over the issue(s)

[Lady_Yasha she/her]

My dad is a 63 year old Vietnam veteran who ran drugs for the Hells Angels, he has his share of mental issues too. Oh and his brother was a member of the FBI's anti drug task force, no love lost there.

Ran drugs. Brother a member of a law enforcement agency. If you tell me your dad is also an expert chemist this is shaping up like the plot of Breaking Bad.

I'm thankful to have the parents I do, but that still doesn't excuse me of feeling annoyed at people that don't look after their family and can't manage money because they blow it on ridiculous garbage.

Hugs to you all. I know that doesn't improve anything but I'm cuddly, apparently, so meh.

[EHyde she/her]

I'm going to switch from the topic of ranting about parents to say,

There is a bloated dead rat in the vent hose behind my dryer. I know this because I unfastened the vent hose from the dryer to see if I could figure out what was causing the smell. If it were a normal dead rat I could probably deal with it myself--I've cleaned up the presents my cats brought me, after all--but well, concentrated hot moist air has a negative effect on rat corpses and this thing has swollen up to the size of the vent hose and eeegh. I would not do very well in a zombie apocalypse, okay? But it should be okay, because I live in an apartment and they have maintenance people who are supposed to deal with stuff like this. Only they haven't. I told them about it yesterday and they still haven't sent anyone over yet. We've got all the windows open for ventilation (and thus the AC is off, so as not to be throwing money out those open windows) and it's already almost 90F here and seriously, if they do not send someone by this afternoon I'm gonna have to call an outside service because I really don't think I can work up the nerve to deal with it myself. The apartment people probably think I'm some weak-willed housewife freaking out over a dried-up dead mouse but this is a huge, bloated dead rat and ... it's just really disgusting okay?

[IvoryRoad he/him]

I'm going to switch from the topic of ranting about parents to say,

There is a bloated dead rat in the vent hose behind my dryer. I know this because I unfastened the vent hose from the dryer to see if I could figure out what was causing the smell. If it were a normal dead rat I could probably deal with it myself--I've cleaned up the presents my cats brought me, after all--but well, concentrated hot moist air has a negative effect on rat corpses and this thing has swollen up to the size of the vent hose and eeegh. I would not do very well in a zombie apocalypse, okay? But it should be okay, because I live in an apartment and they have maintenance people who are supposed to deal with stuff like this. Only they haven't. I told them about it yesterday and they still haven't sent anyone over yet. We've got all the windows open for ventilation (and thus the AC is off, so as not to be throwing money out those open windows) and it's already almost 90F here and seriously, if they do not send someone by this afternoon I'm gonna have to call an outside service because I really don't think I can work up the nerve to deal with it myself. The apartment people probably think I'm some weak-willed housewife freaking out over a dried-up dead mouse but this is a huge, bloated dead rat and ... it's just really disgusting okay?

I hate rats. Some people freak out about spiders - I've always thought they were a bit freaky looking, but I don't have any problems killing them.

No, what really freaks me out is rats. I cannot stand the creatures. It makes me shiver thinking about them. I'm like Indiana Jones' dad...

[CrazyRioter she/her]

I used to have two pet rats and I don't fuss over spiders too much, what I hate are wasps and bees. Well wasps mostly, but it's kind of hard to tell the difference when they're buzzing around you. Wasps are jerks.

I got stung twice in one summer when I was 9.

[IvoryRoad he/him]

I used to have two pet rats and I don't fuss over spiders too much, what I hate are wasps and bees. Well wasps mostly, but it's kind of hard to tell the difference when they're buzzing around you. Wasps are jerks.

I got stung twice in one summer when I was 9.

I have collected 4 bee/wasp stings in my life. I'm allergic, but not in the bloating-up epipen-needed way. I got stung on my left hand for #3, and the hand became at least twice its normal size. That was the worst...

I think the allergy has diminished, though. Most recently, I was hiking in South Carolina and got stung on the calf. The swelling was much less intense, although for me that basically means it didn't make my leg look like a balloon.

Basically, what happens now is I swell in a circle the size of a large orange around the sting, the swollen area becomes stiff and hard, and then it itches like crazy. The sting doesn't go away for two weeks.

The effect is like a supersized mosquito bite, which I am allergic to also in a similar - although much less dramatic - way. It really made living in Florida a pain at times.

I've developed a bee-sense. I'm extremely proficient at detecting and evading the little creatures.

[Emeralis00 she/her]

So this post is more of a placeholder than anything else as I already ranted in the chatroom.

ENFORCED SOCIALIZATION SUCKS.