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Complaint: Mini-adventure this morning was more than I expected. Long story: My laundry day breakfast at Burger King, just a toddle away from the laundromat, is usually very quiet. My bus gets there at 8:10 and I see the same group of 8 or 9 retired men gathered in a group just chillin' at the tables in the center of the room as they apparently do every day. I sit along the back edge of the room and face the window looking out onto the street. Nobody speaks to me. I eat one of my two Jr burittos & tater tots, drink my coffee & OJ, and stare out the window watching the world go by. Then about 8:20 a woman perhaps in her late 60s comes in and sits with the guys, pulls out her tablet and proceeds to show off her photos to anyone she can find polite enough to feign interest. I see this same scenario every time. Nobody is ever enthused to see more photos. A few months ago she glommed onto me, came over sat down and started showing her photos. I recognized one of the people in the pictures as someone from my hometown and in my high school class ('62-'66). I mentioned this and she said "Oh, that's my sister, I hate her".
This person from my high school class is someone I often have lunch with when my BFF from NYC comes into town and gets our old group together for lunch at Olive Garden. Great time, good people, long, long, long time friends. And in fact I now live next door to her 98 year old mother. Regardless, the tediously intrusive woman in Burger King goes on-and-on about her dislike for her sister (my friend) and other family squabbles.
I didn't want to hear that, but listened politely without encouraging her to stay at my table. So, that was my first encounter with that woman.
The next time, several weeks later, another laundry day, I'm casually eating my BK breakfast (same items) and the woman comes in, wanders directly past my table (same spot), grabs my still wrapped, spare Jr. burrito off of the tray, and walks off with it smirking. I very quietly, but as seriously as a growling wolf say "That ISN'T funny".
She puts it back, gives me a dirty look and goes over to pester the 8 or 9 retired men in the center of the room, pulling out her tablet of photos, and playing music loudly when they lose interest. I've seen her a few more times but I just let the old men handle her.
HOWEVER, this morning as soon as she walks into the BK, she blasts some 1960s rock music and starts dancing around the room exclaiming "It's my mothers 98th birthday!". Everybody looks up but nobody says anything, but the collective looks from me and the others must have had effect because she turned it off before sitting down in the old man group. About 15 minutes later she turns on her music again, loud, I mean LOUD, window rattling LOUD. About one minute of that and I screamed out (to be heard over the music) "THIS ISN'T YOUR LIVING ROOM!" It took 10 seconds for that to register and she did turn it off, but gave me the finger. I then said in a normal voice "Just wanted you to know!". A couple of the men turned toward me and gave me sign that they agreed! (Whew, I thought I'd overstepped my boundry). At that point, I'd thought that the event was over, and that she was under control, but no.
A few minutes later she came over to my table and started rattling on about my yelling and how she had been a nurse (which I thought was entirely relevant to the price of tea in China)
Somewhere in the brief interchange that we had I was informed that I was going to hell. I retorted loud enough to have witnesses, "Look, I'm not interested in your music. I'm not interested in your photos. I'm not interested in your family squabbles, and I'm not interested in you. GO! AWAY!" Flustered, she repeated that she used to be a nurse, again entirely relevant to the price of tea in China.
She went back to her spot at the group of men, one of which turned to me, circled his finger around his ear, nodded at me, and I nodded back but I noticed that she noticed the interchange. All was quiet after that and I left a few minutes later to go do my laundry. But I think I might have encouraged some of the men in the group to stop putting up with her without saying something. If not, then I guess I'm going to hell.
(I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall after I left.)
Short story, TLDR: Irritating person in Burger King got reminded of civilized behavior and told me that I'm going to hell. Not worried. Been there, done that, writing the book.
@SilverGirl sorry you lost your friend.
I'm sorry for your loss. It is always too soon, but it does seem she made good use of the time she had available.
@SilverGirl I'm so sorry for your loss. Cancer sucks.
I could handle the music and maybe even the conversation. But if that woman tried to walk off with my burrito, they would have to rebuild the part of the laundromat where the fight took place.
My condolences, SilverGirl.
I've lost 3 very close friends in the last 10 years or so, one to cancer, one to sepsis, and one to a heart attack.
I miss them terribly, and think of them often, but I watched helplessly as my friend with cancer suffered through years of chemotherapy, wasting away until he was being fed through a tube at home by himself. I tried to help him as often as I could (and there were others that were helping him - he had many friends and a cousin that was cleaning and helping around the house), but I was still working full time and could only check in on him Friday nights and weekends. When he passed, it seemed merciful. No more suffering.
Sadly, we are all mortal, and all we can do is love people while we still have them, mourn them when they're gone, and cherish the good memories of all the things that made us love them in the first place.
John
Sorry for your loss.
I'd watched her in the Burger King for the last couple of years. The men are always there regardless of which day I show up, and she would often show up too. Sometimes there would be another woman, I believe the wife of one of the men, but not always. Regardless, the intrusive woman was, despite her late '60s age, still rather attractive with obviously dyed long blond hair and attention paid to her makeup and nails, and trying too hard to get too close to the men's circle. The men were all retired grizzled farmers, factory workers, and truck drivers, and looked "hard driven". She had to be the center of attention but the men weren't biting. Until eventually, with not enough fish in the sea, I became the fresh meat, despite my infrequent, sporadic appearances. I had no idea who she was until she cornered me with the photos and I recognized her sister. The men all treated her with respect but were obviously not interested in letting her too deep into their "club". (I'm a people watcher.) I was initially annoyed that she started cornering me, but listened politely for a few minutes until I recognized her sister, mentioned it, and was told bluntly, intimate perceived family details that I didn't want to hear about my friend. Then the second time we interacted, she stole my burrito (clumsy attempt at humor) and SMIRKED. Warning: Do NOT smirk at me!!!!
It was immediately at that point that I knew I wanted to avoid this person at all costs. Which unfortunately became more difficult, because now that she knew I lived next door to her 98 year old mother, our paths crossed a couple of more times, near my home. But I was able to quickly disengage from those situation. A few weeks later, when her desperation for attention had risen and she waltzes into BK blasting music, and later rattling the windows with it, I couldn't remain divorced from the situation. The men would not have said anything, they're too entangled with her. I was the "annoyed general public" (despite being the only other person in the dining area) and had the choice of complaining to the staff (who would never have confronted a customer from their desperate, failing business) or saying something. I think my choice of simply pointing out where she wasn't was enough. And the timid indications of agreement from the men said I was wasn't out of line. I probably took the air out of her superiority balloon and did what others had been wishing they had the courage to do.
For me it was the smirk that turned me against her on only the 2nd time dealing with her. Do not smirk, it reveals so much about your inner being.
Thanks for the condolances, all. They're appreciated.
I always find conversations about death of a loved one to be difficult. Because I feel like nothing I say can make the situation better. So that means I can only make it worse. I've had a friend or two who may have felt disappointed in me because I didn’t show up or didn’t say anything. But what can I say?
The first time I experienced such a loss personally was when I lost my oldest aunt. And I wasn’t used to problems that cannot be fixed. It was unimaginable stress.
The second time this happened to me was when we lost my uncle. And we didn’t want to lose him. But when we did, I felt like a great pressure was gone. Because we had spent all that time worrying about him dying. And now we were no longer worried about that. It felt horrible, but in a different way.
I got a call from a man some hours ago. He had previously asked me if he was more like a father figure to me, or an older brother, or just a crazy old white man. I told him I don’t see why he can’t be all three. But we were talking about things related to the Christian faith. And he was talking about how it is sometimes troubling to experience the occasional feelings that death might be an end, with nothing after. I told him I was taught that this faith was necessary. And I concluded, if we were given some proof that there is a reward, we would find it difficut to do anything just because it’s right, because we could never separate what’s right from the reward. And there are often times when we try to be good and it seems like there is no reward. And he said to me, maybe that’s why people, who have passed on, don’t communicate with us. Because we’re better off not knowing.
This is a good example of why I shouldn’t speak when somebody has lost a loved one.
Who knew?: There's a word for a gathering of old men in a restaurant, chillin' They're called a "ROMEO Club" Retired Old Men Eating Out. It's apparently a phenomenon! Wikipedia knows.
Major Event: Today's the day! 60th high school runion. Yay! BFF from NYC is in town and will pick me up at 2:00 for the start of the day's happenings. 2:30 is a tour of our old high school by a member of our class who is now a member of the school board. I've only seen the school from the outside since 1966, but it has grown to at least double its size when we were there! I'm curious to see what's inside. Do blackboards still exist? Did they ever replace the hard wooden seats in the auditorium? Enquiring people want to know.
Then at 5:00 is cocktail hour, and at 6:00 is the dinner at a local upscale steak house. We had about 150 in the class in '66, but I don't expect more than 50 for the dinner, and a long list of departed & otherwise absent. I guess, for me, this must be more than a mini-adventure because I dug out my dress pants (though they are a little big for me), and a nice crisp ironed shirt. Dress code is "casual" but I feel that jeans and polo shirt would be a bit under dressed. But jacket & tie (despite owning them) would chafe my seasoned attitude toward formalism.
I warned my BFF that these days, he might have to pour me back into the car after both the cocktail hour and a dinner drink. One drink a month is about all I can handle these days.
Which has done wonders for keeping dust from gathering under the spot in my pantry for the vodka bottle, and last bottle of champagne that I bought for a special occasion a few years ago. Usually, when I go out I'll get a margarita if they have a decent one(Olive Garden
), or a vodka tonic, but two drinks in one day make an interesting evening, and miserable morning.
And good thing I'm not driving.
Regarding condolences: Some people are comforters, others are just awkward. I understand, but am among the awkward group. Personally, I burned out my grief muscles during the year after my Max died. I have little left to share. Just know that awkwardness does not mean apathy. Again, condolences.
Heh... well, for for anyone who feels awkward, rest assured that you cannot possibly get worse than the cashier at the grocery store who decided that the best thing she could say after my first kid didn't make it to the finish line was to assure me that "Babies don't die in the third trimester. We have science to prevent that."
People can hate on self check-outs all they want, at least they don't make comments like that.
(I'm pretty sure her brain just glitched that "oh your baby must be coming any day now!" didn't get the response she was expecting, and that was what fell out. So in retrospect I feel bad for her, and it makes for a "good" dark humor story... although at the moment I was not feeling particularly graceful about it. The poor guy behind me probably desparately wished he'd picked a different lane.)
I use self-checkouts sometimes, but I'm not a store employee and don't want to be one. So, when I visit the checkout clerk, we exchange pleasantries, not opinions on any actual topic. Getting beyond-the-pale comments like that might change my mind, though.
The I Shouldn’t Do Short Stories Complaint Thread
Story Number 1: I was sitting with a friend as she had told me she lost her sister a few days earlier. And she told me it was her sister’s birthday. I automatically said, “Happy Birthday”.
Story Number 2: My father was a minister at a Baptist church. At his funeral, my mother stood at the microphone in front of the people and said, “we never got married. I was his girlfriend. There is the child we had together”. And she pointed at me.
I suppose I’d better get started mowing the lawn.
I think the absolute best "I did an awkward" line I ran into was from a found-family member who had inadvertantly stuck her foot in it and recovered with "So, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play??"
Something about her delivery... I laughed so hard I almost fell off my chair.
I don't know if maybe it's a Midwest thing and people in other places have more restraint... but around here cahsiers feel compelled to have a full conversation. The number of times I've gotten religion dumped on my head... or when Teen Kiddo was a kid, trying to guilt/shame them into cutting all their hair off and donating it to Locks of Love (the first time they cut it was a couple years ago, so for a good chunk of their life it was knee-length)... (I'd get it too, but not as often).
And on top of it, the ones coughing right into their hand and then grabbing the next grocery without using any hand sanitizer in between...
Just... no.
I do entirely agree with the point about providing free labor for the store, though. IMHO they should have a 10% discount for using the self-serve registers or something. Because I don't want to be a store employee either... I just want to deal with the store employees even less.
The My Shoes Got There Before I Did Complaint Thread
So I don’t know about shoes that teleport themselves or whatever. But on Star Trek, the teleportation mechanism seems to work by breaking the object down into its smallest possible pieces. Perhaps molecules or atoms. And those particles are transported to the new location where they are put back together. I don’t know why they think it’s better to split the object into a billion pieces and send them individually rather than send them all as one piece.
Maybe their particular means of teleportation requires a tremendous amount of energy to transport even a very small thing. So it would be necessary to transport one piece at a time.
Apparently, if something goes wrong with the teleportation, it is possible to store all of the pieces of the object in the computer system until it’s safe to resume teleportation. And this leaves the stored object in fine condition as long as the system has power, even if it’s a complex living organism. There was something like that on an old TV show called Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. The bad guys had machines that had a way of storing a human in some digital form inside the machine, which sometimes was the end of the human. And I’m pretty sure this was meant to be a show for children. I mean, they were selling toys that could respond to input from the TV show.
Now people seem to have trouble reconciling consciousness with science. Like, you’re pretty sure it’s in there but you have no idea how it’s working or how to move it around or anything. So one would have to wonder what happens to that consciousness if you break down the entire structure containing it.
Like, if you disintegrate the human for teleportation purposes, then have you killed the person? And when you put the person back together, does the consciousness return to the person? How does the out of body experience work if you move the body fairly far away? Or does a whole new consciousness enter that person, leaving the old consciousness lost? Like you've destroyed one life and created another very similar one. Or do we have a wacky scenario in which only one person is conscious and the rest of us are all complex automatons, which means the teleported automaton is just a machine that has been disassembled and put back together.
I don’t care for the process personally. I’d get more use out of the holodeck.
Now there also seems to be this theory about “wormholes”. Apparently, the belief is that time and space works kind of like a physical area… like, you can take the long road from one place to another but you can also take a shortcut or move backwards. And this is done by opening some kind of portal. I feel like the Star Trek transporter and the wormhole are both a bit much. I still want the holodeck. I’d settle for a good VR headset.
60th High School Reunion Report: Long story: High school tour was very interesting. Ugly parts of the building addition built in the late '50s in the ugly style of aluminum and glass panelling had been competely torn down and rebuilt larger in properly styled brick to sort of match the orginal building from the late '30s. Nice tech labs, nice wood shop, sawdust free via built-in vacuum system on each piece of equipment, senior class size now half the size ours was (75 vs 142), building now houses grades 6 through 12 (used to be 7 through 12). "Library" is now a "Media Room", they still have both orchesta and band, and a couple of chorus groups, auditorium refubrished and now has plush seats instead of hard wood fold-down seats, classrooms have whiteboards and digital boards, original '30s picturesque entrance stairs, long abandoned, has been rebuilt with a modern grand entrance with stairs and ramps. Gym was the same but the climbing ropes and gymnastic equipment eliminated due to safety issues. Football field and track is now artificial turf, and it's been named for the gym teacher from our era. I approve of all except the removal of the gymnastics equipment (parallel bars, pommel horse, spring board, etc.) that was the only thing I actually liked about gym class.
The reunion dinner was wonderful, fun and went without problems. Out of 142 graduating, 44 had died, about 20 attended the school tour, and 36 people attended attended the dinner. My steak was perfect, salad was perfect, dessert was meh. Good conversations. So many unrecognizable people though, age hits some harder than others. I did run into the sister of my BK annoying person, I congratulated her on her mother's 98th birthday, and she said something that indicated that she had already heard about the incident in BK. I said, "Oh, you know already?", and the conversation proceeded from there and I told the story in 4 part harmony, and everybody had a good time. So, that's off my mind now. It was a good day and night.
Short story: TLDR: AOK!
...lots of catching up on the forums today. More boring RL and "concerned ctiizen stuff for the most part, with a few pleasant distractions here and there to help maintain a grip on sanity.
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First and foremost, @SilverGirl: condolences and many
for the loss of your freind yeah one of htose "awkwared" types here
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@LeatherGryphon.
enjoyed the story about the Burger King "ROMEO Club" and "restaurant pest". Being retired myself (and member of our local "retired old men smoking cigars club" that meets twice a week) I only rarely encounter someone like that woman as it is too expensive these days dine out and I avoid fast food joints for dietary reasons, When it does happen it's usually while riding the bus or tram and there I am stuck, a captive audience until my stop comes up.
Hoping you have a good time at your 60th reunion.
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Teleportation is not without its risks as André Delambre discovered in the 1958 sci-fi classic The Fly.
As to the transporter in Star Trek, the concept was conceived primarily as a means to save production time and costs as it would have been more expensive to build additional sets/props and film shuttle landing and tale off scenes. Proves that necessity is the mother of invention as the transporter (and replicator based off of it) has become an iconic element of the Star Trek universe.
Complaint: My MS flare or relapse or whatever got worse, so I can't walk without a walker now. My bedroom is upstairs, so it was a pain getting up here and I required help. I was a little better today, but I didn't feel like I could make it to the MRI clinic. I ended up canceling. I left a message asking to reschedule to a location closer to my house and in a hospital, so there will be nurses if I need assistance. The clinic just had technicians and can't assist you.
Complaint: We have a dead tree in the backyard, and it's starting to drop limbs. So now I get to figure out how to pay to take that down. Because I needed another expense.
Non-complaint: Being disabled and on a fixed income, I might qualify for emergency assistance to take down the tree. Maybe. Seems like I have a bunch of phone calls to make on Monday to try and find out.
Star Trek events indicate that the person is disintegrated, existing as matter particles and data in the transport buffer and a copy of the person appears on the other end. The original, apparently no longer exists. Faulty re-integration can leave the copy altered or dying/dead on arrival. There's the episode where Kirk & Co reintegrate as old people with accelerated aging. They go through the transporter again and get re-integrated using the data from before the mishap. Magically, they're fine after that.
The transporter can sometimes produce multiple copies. There's the ToS episode where we get two Kirks (one lacks willpower the other lacks reason/empathy). They get re-integrated back into a single Kirk. TNG says there are actually two Will Rykers due to a transporter accident before TNG began. The second is discovered by the Enterprise (Small universe!) in a ship Ryker served on that was used for an illegal cloaking device experiment. The duplicate decides to be Thomas and then goes rogue in DS9.
Consciousness is apparently unaffected by the process. IIRC in Wrath of Khan, Kirk & Co have a conversation while being transported. Movie magic! Being transported apparently feels weird, McCoy doesn't like having his molecules scrambled. I would guess breaking the body into particles encased in an energy beam solves acceleration problems and maybe the packet of matter moves through what is effectively a wormhole. IDK. There's a lot that's handwaved away because transporters in ST are a mcguffin to simplify going from place to place. They do use a lot of energy, as they don't work when the ship's power is reduced.. Ironically, the one ToS episode that features a shuttlecraft ends with Spock & Co being rescued from certain death using the transporter. Aside from demonstrating I probably watched too much Star Trek, I don't know if this helps at all.
Going through my photos and thought I would share my bunny friend with you all.
"...got apples?"
(...forgive the haze; it was super humid out that day and the lens fogged up within seconds of wiping it off.)
On Star Trek and transporters:
I seem to recall an episode with a transporter failure that was described by a character as something like, "What was transported didn't live very long."
Another memory I have is a Next Generation episode where they found Scotty stored in a transporter buffer and successfully removed by Geordie who was a big fan. Until Scotty became painfully aware he was a man out of his own time, and obsolete as a engineer.
And one in of the most recent series, the ships Dr. has his daughter stored in the buffer in the transporter in sickbay until he can find a cure for her fatal illness.
That's right! I forgot about Mr Scott being storeed that way! I never had the Paramount channel and haven't seen much of the recent series.
@SilverGirl: Cute apple bunny.
I had a wild bunny that came to greet me for several days when I got home from work, and would actually come surprisingly close when I spoke to him. No apples or anything.
I missed when he quit coming, wishing him well and getting back to normal bunny business.
Damned eye infection
That's a day of double bubble HGV driving money I'm down this week. Can't drive a 44t artic with one eye like a waterfall.....
Love the bunny pictures @SilverGirl.
LeatherGryphon so glad you had a wonderful day and a great meal.
Life: Yesterday I stripped the bed, washed all the bed linens, sheets, blankets, quilt, and throws. This morning Charlie decided to pig out on his breakfast and after he was groomed, and I had just settled down at my computer, he started the infamous hacking up. He managed to nail a pillow case, four throws, cover sheet and quilt. He knows he totally messed up and has apologized and is now asleep against the rest of the pillows. Simon, who was asleep when all this went down, flashed out of the bedroom and hasn't returned.
So, more laundry today. Joy.
One positive note, my iPad is finally charging. Thanks to the last iOS 26 update, it messed up the charging completely. Even upgrading to iOS27 which was waiting to go live didn't help. So I went and bought one of the Apple power adapters and a new cord. Had to reboot again but it is now stable and keeping a charge. (Knocks on wood.)
Speedy recovery to you!