Tag Archives: practical jokes

complaints, lessons learned, rants

READING IS FUNDAMENTAL, Y’ALL!

It’s no secret that I have a long list of pet peeves. I often vent about them in my blog. One topic that occasionally comes up in this rag I write, is how irritated I get when people chime in on things they haven’t deigned to read. As a matter of fact, I wrote about this topic in December 2019, and I KNOW I’ve written about it multiple times on my old blog. Well… I’m about to write about it again, because goddammit, I get pissed.

Yesterday, I read a poignant article on The Atlantic about a man who spent 306 days in the hospital after contracting COVID-19. Yes, that’s a really long time to be hospitalized. After I read the beautifully written article, I looked at the comments, and so many people were aghast at how large the hospital bill must have been! Comment after comment was left about the hypothetical size of this man’s medical expenses.

BUT— the man in this story was not from the United States. He lives in Britain. In Britain, they have the National Health Service, which covers the costs of everyone’s healthcare (although one can also pay for private care). So no, there was no huge hospital bill for him or his family to pay.

I must have read over a dozen comments about the perceived size of the guy’s medical debts until I finally saw a comment from a woman who commented on the size of the bills, and then openly admitted that she hadn’t read the article because she didn’t want to pay for a subscription. Against my better judgment, I left this comment for her…

“Why would you comment on something you haven’t read?”

I know… it probably comes off as peevish and bitchy to many people, but it seemed like a fair enough question to me. I didn’t use exclamation points or all caps. I didn’t swear at her. In fact, it was a perfectly reasonable query, in my opinion. ESPECIALLY since she could have taken a minute to read just a few of the many comments on the Facebook link and found out that the man was from Britain and didn’t have huge hospital bills. Even if, as an American, someone doesn’t know that most countries don’t have an insanely and inhumanely expensive healthcare system like ours, he or she could have gotten that information about Britain’s NHS system by simply reading a few comments left by those in the know.

But you know what she did? She went to my Facebook page and noticed my tag line, which reads “My life is basically one long Maalox commercial.” I used to have “Wake me in 2021” there, but changed it after Biden won the election. Anyway, after visiting my Facebook page, she wrote:

“Oh, go take your Maalox.”

Well… that WAS a bitchy comment, wasn’t it? So I responded thusly,

“Why don’t you support journalism by purchasing a subscription to The Atlantic and reading before posting. Then, your uninformed comments won’t prompt me to need Maalox.”

Which leads me to my next point. Why did she feel the need to stalk my Facebook page just because I asked her why she’d comment on something she hasn’t read? My question to her wasn’t that unreasonable. I mean, she openly admitted she hadn’t read the article and, apparently, didn’t even bother to read any of the many wrong comments about the guy’s “huge” (and non-existent) medical bills, which were corrected by more informed readers. And yet, she still felt she had something to add to the conversation. Tell me. Why should anyone read and respond to her comment if she hasn’t read theirs, OR the article that has prompted the discussion? What makes her so goddamned special?

I suppose she was disappointed that there’s not all that much public on my page. I think my last public post was one from a few months ago, asking former colleagues the recipe for the savory cheesecake we used to sell at the restaurant where we worked. Not all of my former colleagues are Facebook friends, so I made the post public to allow non-friends to respond. That post has been liked by two creepy guys who tangled with me in the comment sections of political posts. I blocked both of them, not that it matters.

The lady I ran into yesterday also went looking for information on the public part of my Facebook page. I wonder what she was seeking. Was she wanting to know my political proclivities? Did she want to know if I breastfeed zoo animals or take opium rectally? Was she looking for evidence that I live in a cave? I mean, I’m just an ordinary person who gets irritated by people who think they need to comment on things they haven’t read. If you haven’t even bothered to read what you’re commenting on, why should I read your thoughts?

After getting good and annoyed by that exchange, I decided to research the Internet to see if I’m the only one who gets irritated by non-readers who spread their stupid egotistical shit in comment sections. Sure enough, I found several impassioned articles about this sad epidemic of a phenomenon. The first one I read was especially interesting.

Back on April Fool’s Day in 2014, NPR decided to play a trick on its readers by an article entitled “Why Doesn’t America Read Anymore?” That is a very provocative title, isn’t it? The people who came up with it knew that it would prompt discussion. Sure enough, it did.

Indeed, what HAS become of our brains?

I hasten to add, however, that Amelia Tait, the writer who quoted the NPR article in her article, got the NPR article’s title wrong, calling it “Why doesn’t anyone read anymore?”. I guess she’s not a careful reader, either.

Notice that there are over 2200 comments on that original post. If the people who commented had bothered to read before opining on the headline, they would have read this.

Ha ha ha!

Notice in the directions, it says “If you are reading this, please like this post and do not comment on it.” Sure enough, of the many of the people who did bother to read, quite a few didn’t follow directions. Or, I can also assume, they didn’t care what the directions were, like to ruin practical jokes, and spoil other people’s fun. 😉

I decided to experiment on my own page with this article. I shared it, and not five minutes later, I got a comment from someone who offered an opinion, admitting that he hadn’t read the article (props to him for that, at least). Then he read it and promptly ruined the joke. I decided not to delete his comment, though, because I wanted to see if other people chimed in without reading the comment section. Someone did, although, she wasn’t tripped up by the fake article. However, she also didn’t follow directions, and commented when she was requested to only react to the link.

The next person simply liked the post, which earned her the grand prize. In this case, the grand prize is my admiration, respect, and good wishes. It occurred to me that if I were a teacher, this exercise might make a great object lesson in the classroom. Because, if you think about it, it’s the rampant liking, commenting, and sharing that people do WITHOUT reading first that helps get dangerous idiots like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump elected and conspiracy theories started. THIS IS HOW FAKE NEWS AND MISINFORMATION GETS SPREAD, PEOPLE. The NPR April Fool’s article probably just made people feel foolish. Imagine how some of the people who fell for QAnon and later regretted it feel (sadly not all of them yet realize QAnon is total bullshit). Doesn’t life present you with enough opportunities to feel foolish without making a basic mistake like not reading before reacting or commenting?

I totally get that we live in a hyper-paced world right now. People are busy, stressed out, and broke. People are also kind of lazy, and don’t want to spend their precious time reading things, especially when they could be writing lengthy posts about something completely non-sensical and irrelevant. But they DO want others to read what they write, otherwise why would they comment? And it seems lost on them that if they don’t even take time to read whatever has prompted the discussion, it’s pretty arrogant and disrespectful to opine about it.

Actually, no I won’t. I want people to read because they’re genuinely interested. And I want people to comment only if they’ve read first.

As someone who writes and has actually made money doing so, I am asking you, for all that’s good and holy, at least take a minute to read a few comments before popping off with a comment that makes you look dumb and/or lazy. I realize that not everyone has the money or the desire to subscribe to every magazine or newspaper whose content they want to read, but a lot of times, there are people who HAVE read and left comments, and you can glean a more informed opinion or at least have some of your misconceptions corrected before you post something irritating. I think Annie Reneau, who wrote this excellent piece for Scary Mommy, sums it up nicely. I encourage you to read and heed her fabulous rant, which is NOT behind a paywall.

Also… journalists have to pay bills, too. You don’t work for free, do you? So don’t expect them to work for free. Show some respect. If you didn’t read, please try not to comment. Or, at least take a minute to read a few other comments before you chime in and post something ridiculous. My Maalox swilling lifestyle will improve if you do.

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Bill

Bottoms up…

Thanksgiving approaches this week. Since we’re in Germany, it’s not a huge deal in these parts. Bill is planning to cook Cornish game hens, and I’ll probably make his favorite cake from scratch. We’ll have our usual sides, cranberry sauce, maybe some rolls, and plenty of wine. No raw vegetables will be consumed, though, because on Monday of next week, Bill has to have a medical procedure done. I’m… uh… not really looking forward to it. Let’s just say that Sunday promises to be quite shitty. Being ever the pragmatic, prepared sort, Bill came home last night armed with what’s in today’s picture. He has butt wipes and butt paste, since he’s probably going to be a bit… raw. I hope he won’t require diapers, too.

Since Bill is 55 years old, his healthcare provider suggested that he have his colon scoped. This procedure, known as a colonoscopy, requires that he be sedated. Since he’s going to be under the influence of drugs, I must accompany him and drive him home from Landstuhl. This probably means I’m finally going to try driving our new Volvo, since that car is more comfortable than my 2009 Mini Cooper convertible is.

We bought the car a few months ago. It’s a 2020 model, and we got it straight from the factory in Sweden. Bill says it practically drives itself. It has all kinds of fancy gadgets and tools designed to make driving safer and more pleasant, including a very annoying GPS system that turns down my music to repeatedly tell us where to go. I actually hate driving with the GPS, even though I know it’s a handy device. I find it hard to have conversations or enjoy music with that carping female computer voice booming over everything. But since it’s Bill’s car and I’ve never driven it before, I guess I’ll defer to the nagging old bitch. At least the voice in the Volvo’s GPS doesn’t sound like it belongs to a two pack a day smoker, like one of our old GPSes did. By the way, Bill would happily let me drive the Volvo if I wanted to. I don’t really enjoy driving that much, though, so I let him do it when he’s not bombed out of his mind on mind altering drugs.

We’re taking Arran to the Hunde Pension Saturday, then on Sunday, we’ll go to Landstuhl. Bill will fill out forms at the hospital, then we’ll check into a hotel, where at 6:00pm, he’ll drink half of a bottle of GoLYTELY. This is a brand name for a polyethylene glycol electrolyte solution, which is a laxative. Bill will then shit his brains out until 3:00am, at which he has to drink the other half of the bottle. I expect we won’t be getting much sleep. Bill also isn’t allowed to eat solid foods the day before the procedure, and has to adhere to a special diet this week. No raw veggies, no nuts, no seeds, no foods with red dyes, and I forget what else he has to avoid. He can only have clear broths on Sunday, and booze is out of the question.

Monday morning, they’ll sedate him. I’ll sit in the waiting room while they root around in his colon, looking for any signs of trouble. Then, while he’s mildly coherent, they’ll tell him what they saw in there. After that, I’ll drive us back to Wiesbaden and hope we don’t have an accident. Really, I’m an excellent driver, but I don’t like driving very much, especially in Germany. The Volvo has so many gadgets in it that it’ll be strange for me. It has an automatic transmission, and I don’t even have to use a key… I just have to have it on me or in the car. That will be weird.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had to be Bill’s chauffeur. Back in 2004, Bill very kindly had his vasectomy reversed so we might be able to have a baby. We got up in the wee hours of the morning at our house in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and drove to Fort Meade to what used to be a full scale Army hospital. It’s now a health clinic with a same day surgery center. We happened to luck into the schedule with the vasectomy reversal, since the surgeon had just come in from downrange in Iraq. Military surgeons have to keep up their skills, so they do certain elective procedures for servicemembers, free of charge.

Bill had the surgery and it went very well. It was technically successful, and according to the test he took the following month, he was firing live ammunition– 90 million sperm, to be exact. Alas, I didn’t get pregnant, but maybe that was for the best. We didn’t have the money or time to pursue other methods of getting me pregnant, so that was that. Anyway, Bill had decided to have the surgery as a means of taking back a bad decision he’d made under pressure from his ex wife. She had convinced him to get “snipped”, complaining that pregnancy was “hard” on her. She had a son and their two daughters and convinced Bill that she was “done”. So he went under the knife for her.

A few years later, they got divorced. Two years after that, she had remarried and was pregnant again. She had another baby a few years after that, bringing her grand total to five. Meanwhile, I’m a mom to rescue dogs. One reason why I get so pissed off about people who promote vasectomies as if they’re simply reversed is because I have seen firsthand that they aren’t. Vasectomy reversals are not a joke, and they are a hell of a lot more expensive and involved than vasectomies are. And they don’t always work, either. People who have vasectomies should consider them permanent. It’s true that a lot of men can regain their fertility after getting a reversal, but it’s definitely not a given. I’m for people using less permanent birth control methods unless they are absolutely certain they are done having kids.

It used to upset me that I wasn’t destined to be a mother, but now I think it was probably a blessing that I missed out on having children… even as I wonder what kind of a child Bill and I would have had together. He or she probably would have had blue eyes, a short stature, and a propensity for swearing. Or maybe not… maybe he or she would have been genteel, polite, studious, and endlessly caring, like Bill is. He or she probably would have been a good writer and perhaps might have been a good singer or musician… or, more likely, a fine artist, since we both have artists in our families. Eh, well, we’ll never know. At least Bill’s daughter is sharing her kids with Bill, so he can be a grandpa.

One thing I do remember about that surgery was that Bill was asking the surgeon all kinds of questions. The surgeon kind of laughed and told me that he wouldn’t remember asking the questions– no one ever does. Sure enough, he didn’t… and I remember bundling him into my 1997 Toyota Corolla and driving us home, where he was laid up for two weeks to recover. We were lucky his bosses were so understanding, especially when he had to beg off of a PT test because he had a “profile” (meaning he had a health issue that prevented him from taking PT tests). The sergeant who administered the test winced when Bill said, “Ain’t gonna be there, Sergeant Timms, I gotta go get my junk hooked up.”

When he came back to work, his buddies had decorated his office with tons of cut out paper sperm, which he was still finding months later. They’d put them all over the place… in his desk, between pages of books, under his computer… it was hilarious!

If someone at his current job decorates his office with shit, I will probably shit a brick myself. But I don’t think any of his current pals are that irreverent. Besides, he works for a hoity toity contractor now, so it probably wouldn’t be kosher. Maybe I’ll decorate the house, instead… hang a log on the tree or something. I’m sure Arran will provide the best, or maybe I should stock up on brown construction paper and glitter.

Nah… it’s more fun to write shitty blog posts. Stay tuned for more that stink. I’m here all week.

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