The Frank Funny Farm

hey look! a blog! yippee and whatnot. no, this doesn't mean i have a job. sadly, no. i've in fact concluded that i sit in the perfect storm of unhirable: master's degree, but little experience in my preferred field, which is irrelevant, since said field is scarce in nashville + master's degree, which prevents me from even getting an interview for an admin assistant-type job at any place + glorious economy = i'm just going to rot for a while. great. awesome. but that's beside the point of el blogo here.

you know that show 'what not to wear'? i'm sure you do, as it's been on for a while and seems to be on fairly often, especially saturday afternoons, which is when i found it this weekend. ben and i both always get sucked into it (and if anyone wants to turn me in to them, gimme a heads up and i'll look extra crappy for the 'secret' submission tape). it's one of those sappy feel-good type shows that doesn't always make me want to throw up, and i like shoes. anyway, the point, if there is one: the thing that's always kinda bugged me about that show, aside from the inexplicable hatred of comfy lazy clothes, is the extreme emphasis they place on putting so much time and energy into 'assembling a look,' creating the perfect hairstyle and mask of make-up every day. it bugs me partly because it's usually completely ridiculous and impractical for most of the womens' real, actual daily lives, but mostly because it's bullshit.

the one saturday really tipped me over on the rage scale because that big moment when the woman cries and wails about how she feels beautiful (it's in every episode) was right after the make-up artist held up the mirror so she could see her new air-brushed, plastic-looking face. really? at this moment, when you are wearing so much make-up you can't even tell what you look like, this is when you feel beautiful? the whole show is built around how you look, so i know it's no big shock or whatever that they make such a big deal over sending them to get their hair done at the end of it; i guess the make-up artist kinda makes some sense, except she always puts so much make-up on them they even look over-done on TV. shouldn't this tip someone off? anyway, back to my gripe. for a show that is so into helping people take time for themselves and regain lost confidence and blah blah blah, why is it they must be told that all the fancy new clothes and shiny bouncy hair are useless without a ton of clown paint? you can dress well, have great hair, and be confident in how you look and happy with who are, but only if you don't forget the eye shadow. cuz without all that you're still a busted old mess. what not to wear most definitely doesn't include make-up, so enjoy working the extra half-hour into your no doubt leisurely morning routine!

bollocks, i say. bollocks!

how 'bout they do something revolutionary and don't proliferate this idea that women have to wear make-up and look completely 'done' in order to be beautiful, confident, smart, capable, etc, etc, and etc? i'm all for the aspect of the show where they teach people how to dress for their body and personality, etc, and for the fact that most of the crying, oh-my-i-forgot-about-taking-care-of-me moments come much earlier in the show, often when the family and friends who turned the chick in say why. anyway, that part's great. they show the women how to work with whatever flaws they think they have and are trying to hide, which usually starts the whole confidence boost / i'm not hideous thing. they give them a couple of days of glorious new wardrobe aquisition, send them off for a new haircut and color, and the women are all feeling fantastic and renewed and confident and ready to go back to their lives. instead of letting them do so, the show has to ruin it by saying, wait, wait, you're not quite good enough for all this stuff unless we can fix that face of yours, and wow are we gonna need a lot of foundation. jerks.

so i got ben a smoker for christmas, one of the little bullet-looking ones. to go with it, i ordered two probe thermometer/timers - one for the meat, one for the ambient - so that he could know the temp without opening the door and letting all the smoke out. i used dan as my personal smoker guru and he told me to buy these pyrex ones, and since he's gone through a million different varieties of timer and currently owns 4 of these, i figured he might be right. i found them cheapest online at bed, bath & beyond and in hopes of avoiding shipping costs went to the store. no luck, of course, so order them i did. ups brought the box on the 16th (maybe - the week before christmas anyway), i opened it to find two oneida thermometer/timers staring at me. UG. i called customer service and the lady said that they couldn't ship the right item until they had those back, so it would be speedier for me to return them to the store. alright. so that thursday (before we're leaving on friday, my first day with nothing to do all semester) i get to go out amongst the shoppers. i was in the store for probably an hour, and honestly, i'm not even sure why. you would think no one had ever returned anything ever, let alone someone who'd ordered online (what? the interwebs? huh?) and needed a new item shipped. anyway, eventually it got sorted and the order was placed for the correct timers (again).

skip to our eventual return from holiday festivities and new car innards and we once again have a bed, bath, and beyond box. ben is all excited cuz now he can smoke something (i had to wrap up pictures of the freaking things for him. lame.). except that we open the box and -you guessed it!- oneida thermometers. my head almost exploded. but it was new year's eve, so calling was futile, so i waited until friday. this oh so charming woman didn't seem to think it was at all strange that this had occurred. she said she emailed the warehouse to make sure they check the box and make sure they're pyrex. shouldn't they do that in the first place as, you know, a basic part of their jobs??? then she wanted to make it very clear to me that i needed to get the crappy thermometers back to them, otherwise i'd be charged. she did at least clear the shipment of the thermometers i ordered before they get the wrong ones back. wench. so anyway, they have mailed something to me again, so i guess we'll see. but i certainly don't plan to order anything online from them again. third time's a charm, right?

Tags: bed bath & beyond is boo, mmmeat thermometer, online ordering, sorry you may never get your present

so some of you are aware of my dad's current situation, so you can skip a bit i suppose. anyway, the short recap i guess is this: four weeks ago he had surgery to straighten his big toe, which was so crooked it was laying on top of the two toes next to it. since he's on his feet all day and it hurt even to put his shoes on, he really needed to have the surgery. he can't go back to work until he's 100% with a doctor's note that says so, as he can't work in the orthopedic boot thingy due to OSHA regulations (he's a corrections officer). however, his (insert expletive here) company gives them no sick days, so he had to save all his vacation days and use them. i think that was 13 days. after that his "disability" kicks in. his "disability" is supposedly half the regular pay rate. thing is, they still take out all the tax witholdings, health insurance, life insurance, and whatever other stuff they normally take out. he got his first paycheck for the two-week cycle today. $9.98. no, that decimal is not misplaced. he has a minimum of two weeks before he can go back to work, possibly as many as four. what do these bastards expect people to do? how can you have so little regard for your employees? (the company is a government contractor by the way, and they certainly aren't small).

it's so frustrating all around. partly on a universal level in that anyone is treated that way, but mostly because they're my parents. my mom is not in good physical shape, to put it mildly. she gets a little disability from the government, which thankfully pays their mortgage and their other loans, most of which is debt leftover from the farm going under 10 years ago. too bad no one was putting corn in their cars and every foodstuff known to man back then. anyway, it's just stressful and infuriating. silly things like electricity and gas for cooking and hot water heating and house heating if it gets cold enough, and lots of prescriptions are apparently not important enough for his employer to think they might need them while he's recuperating and PHYSICALLY UNABLE TO DO HIS JOB, for which the pay is crappy to begin with. at least due to my dad's endless gardening and mom's resulting canning and freezing and that southern habit of feeding people to death in the event of even the slightest infirmity, they are in no danger of starving. ever, i dont think. which means, that my parents, really are in better shape than a lot of my dad's coworkers would be in the same situation. what about the single parents, single people, people with a non-working spouse or parents or something like that? it just makes me so angry i can't even speak. good thing i can type i spose. it's even more frustrating because i can't fix it, which i know is completely absurd, but it's true nonetheless. i'm also not helped by the fact that i can't even be there to help with whatever and give my mom a break from the world's most impatient patient so she doesn't murder him and / or have a nervous breakdown. it's frustrating to see - not even see, hear - my parents who are both genuinely good and decent human beings (not without their flaws obviously) having to deal with so much more than anyone should. daddy is 64 and has spent his entire life working to take care of mama and me, mama's spent her life working to feed us and cart me around to various sporting things, lessons and whatever else i was into - which was a lot - so that i had every opportunity i could. they both are truly good and caring and giving people who've never said no to the chance to help or give to anyone and what to they get for it, what have they gotten for it for so many years? shitpiles on shitpiles with shit sandwiches to eat.

and i can't do one damn thing about any of it.

Tags: health insurance, parental units, rant