Stories are simple sequences of events, plots are about causes, motivation ..., what stories mean. ...life is all stories, and fiction is all plots.....
-- Peter Ho Davies --
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-- Peter Ho Davies --
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On yesterday's post - the gentleman called this morning and asked if he had gotten out of line at all. I said no. He remembers nothing, I hope. Good. It sounds like the small town network works, because several of his friends dropped by his house during the course of yesterday afternoon and evening, and they had a pizza party. I stopped in his office this afternoon and had quite a chat with his daughter while he was conducting business on the phone. He gave me a few glances that seemed to me to be full of concern, but I think we're ok.
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On the great under/over toilet paper dispute - I have the definitive answer. If you have young playful animals or children in the house, then it must go under so that when the young'uns bat at it, it won't unroll all over the floor. Otherwise, over. Personally, I don't put it on a wall holder at all. It's much more convenient just sitting on the back of the john.
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There are stupid men, and stupid women. I am unhappily coming to the conclusion that the stupid women outnumber the stupid men, and are stupider. I don't want to believe it, but the evidence is overwhelming.
Ethnic dinner in Albany this evening. Eleven people at the table. Total bill was over $300 before tax and tip. Everybody figured up what they owed and put it in the pile. The pile was at least $70 short, before tax and tip. Four or five people had underpaid, but one of them was unbelievable. She said her bill came to $18, so she had put $20 in. Uh, $2 does not cover tax (close to 9%) and tip on $18. The recommendation is 25% of the tab to cover tax and tip, so she was asked to put in another $2.50 on her $18, and she flipped out.
Now, what the others seemed to miss is that she kept saying, "I had only three appetizers!" Hey, folks. The appetizers were $9 each. Then someone asked about drinks, trying to account for all the wine on the tab. The woman said, "Oh, yeah, I had a glass of Chablis." That's another $9. Then someone asked who had the yogurt dip, and she admitted she had asked for it because her whatsis was dry, but she didn't know they were going to charge her for it. That was $4. That's $40 right there, $50 with tax and tip.
Now, get this. She STILL figured she was fine with her $20. "After all," she said, "I only had three appetizers!" She was absolutely pissed that she was asked to put more in, and she all but accused people of trying to get her to cover the shortage of others.
How do you reason with someone like that? Someone who refuses to listen to reason?
I've seen it at almost every dinner where we didn't run separate checks.
I'll remember that the next time I run a dinner with one of my groups.
It's funny, but not surprising, that it's usually the person who comes up short on the tab who blusters that the only fair thing is to split the tab evenly --- without seeming to realize that then they'd have to pay significantly more.
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I am so discouraged. I have worked and associated most of my life with people selected for intelligence by employers. But I also noticed that many of the clerks in stores, delivery and service people, mechanics, the "ordinary" people I run into, are mostly indistinguishable from the "intellectually elite". Their experiences and references are different, their education may be lacking, but their thinking and conclusions are usually, frequently, sound. I am often impressed. (We already know I find self-exalted Mensans to often be obstinately stupid.)
The only previous time I'd seen such stupefying lack of logic in females was when I briefly played "suburban housewife and new mother", and did the morning tea and afternoon baby shower circuit with the other women in the Ballwin, Mo., neighborhood. I was ready to chew the walls.
Meetup may kill me.
(I don't know if this means anything, it's a small sample, but all the women I'm meeting who are divorced from all logic and incapable of simple math, all of them so far, seem to be originally from The Bronx, and/or "Lon-Guylan". Does the culture there encourage mental helplessness in females? And make them defensive and combative when you attempt to explain something to them? Oh - and are they all so loud?)
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2 comments:
Yes. They are all that loud. And trust me, they aren't stupid about money, just cheap. I've run into this species frequently in Jersey.
I thought it was so cool that you were doing a meetup thing but didn't foresee the aggravating consequences. Maybe better to do something that involves pay your own way or no money at all?
Ah, Long Island. Let me start by saying that it's the BROOKLYN accent that says "Lon-Guyland". I've never spoken that way and I lived there for my whole life until I moved to Kingston in 2000.
Yes, most people on LI are loud. Many of them are stupid and arrogant about it. LI had a mentality of "I have to get over on you before you can get ahead of me". AND, it's a culture of MASS consumerism! When I accuse people of it, they deny it, getting insulted, and then go out and buy another iPod, large TV, new car, etc. They don't see it. LI (Nassau and Suffolk counties) has 12 WalMarts in the SAME square mileage as Ulster County, which has only one. LI's population is 15x that of Ulster County. I worked up these numbers when that man was trampled to death in WalMart in Valley Stream a couple of years ago.
As for the mental helplessness, that's there too. But it's only because the population there is so big that there are so many of them. It's proportional. There are a lot of stupid dipshits on LI and that's one of the many reasons I moved away, almost 10 years ago!
I always get pissed when we go back because people are so rude, impatient and ignorant. If you met me in the first couple of years I lived up here, you might have thought that of me as well. Until I settled into "country life" and started to get it.
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