Complaints List

First, look at these flowers. What’s particularly amazing about them is that Cute W got them for me before he went on his business trip last week, so when I took this photograph, this bouquet from ShopRite had been sitting in our house for eight days. That’s pretty crazy, right?

Okay, I’ve actually been pretty gloomy, and I started a post that turned into a rather long-winded rant, but I’m scrapping it. Instead, here’s a list of what’s pissing me off right now:

 

• House of Pestilence: J is blowing her nose constantly and then leaving her used tissues on random surfaces in spite of my repeated exhortations not to do this and the fact that I’m basically following her around with a waste basket. Also,  I am waking up every morning with a killer sore throat caused by post-nasal drip. I’m honestly not sure I can go on like this much longer.
• “Cool for the Summer:” I really hate this song because it’s got that purring tone that seems like the woman is singing specifically to get boys to masturbate to their music, which pisses me off so much that I have created a name for this kind of music: jerk jams. But then I thought that I was being terribly sexist for targeting women like that, but come to think of it, almost everything Jason Derulo sings could qualify as a jerk jam, so maybe I don’t have to feel bad about that, after all. But dang, that song is on all the time, and now sometimes the girls will beg to leave it on just because they know it drives me crazy. I especially hate the juxtaposition of “die for each other” and “cool for the summer”: I mean, which is it, a casual hot-weather fling, or a life-and-death forever romance? I’m so confused. Also, the worst, worst, worst part: “Don’t tell your mother.” Eeeeewwwwww, who tells their mother about this stuff? This has totally become a joke with the girls. M texted me “Don’t tell your mother” while I was driving so that my car’s system would read out, “Don’t. tell. your. mother.” But then she forgot it was a robotic voice, and she tried to make Siri fix it, but the result was that the car just read out in its clipped little robot voice, “Whisper. Seductively. Don’t. tell. your. mother.” So it’s been a running joke for weeks, except that now it turns out Demi Lovato has lupus, so I feel bad for hating on her song so much. But I do.

• Asphalt Crumbles: They’ve been digging up sections in around our neighborhood for weeks now to replace the underground gas lines. At first we thought that we’d score some new sidewalks out of deal, but no. Instead we have chunks of sidewalk gouged out and then replaced with mismatched asphalt along with all of the paint lines that were a permanent solution to a temporary problem.  It looks terrible, but I could deal with that if the asphalt weren’t so freaking shoddy. Little crumbles are getting lodged into the treads of everyone’s shoes, and then next thing you know we have sticky black gravel in my rugs. Gross.
• The iPhone: It sucks. Back when M was begging, begging, begging for a phone, only an Apple product would do. I don’t know why. We told her that they were much more expensive than the phones her Dad and I had and they weren’t worth it, but it was an Apple phone or nothing. The Easter Bunny was only willing to cough up enough cash for a cheaper phone, so M chipped in her own money to make up the difference between a phone that we and the Easter Bunny thought was reasonable and the phone that she wanted. Well, guess what: the phone is a piece of crap. It cracked, like, almost immediately, and then someone helped us replace the screen and suggested an ultra-tough OtterBox case (hello? why didn’t someone suggest this before the phone broke?). Then something else happened to the phone and when we took it to the Apple store they were basically like, someone else replaced your screen for $20 instead of the $150 we would have charged you, so now we don’t have to help you and we won’t help you even if you pay us, just buy a new phone, which had M and I about ready to throw ourselves off of a highway overpass until Cute W swooped in with his tweezers and combo head flashlight-magnifying glass and saved the day. And now something else is wrong with the stupid phone and the battery is drained, like, constantly, and we’ve trouble-shot the thing to hell and back and the trouble that can’t be shot is that the thing is an overpriced, trendy piece of crap. Cute W and I should be receiving trophies daily for not saying “I told you so” to M.
• Homework: I strongly believe that items labeled “enrichment” should not be mandatory. And I would really love it if J’s teachers would just quit any reading logs or reading-related homework and especially the awful, hideously boring test-prep-style questions about articles that make her crazy. I just feel like it would be both easier and more beneficial for everyone if they could just give her free time in a room full of books and magazines. Also, is there a list that the elementary school teachers pass around about the pain-in-the-ass parents, and am I on it? Because I’ve already written two emails (one citing a single night of 2 hours and 20 minutes of homework and the other in which the word fun in quotation marks was my euphemism for “cried for half an hour,” and I have no idea if the teacher knows this, because I’m trying not to be a pain in the ass). I feel like I’ve shown considerable restraint, but I have no idea what the other parents are doing/saying.

Okay, yes, I’m going to stop there. I’m really not my best self. Blame the mucus. Look, see: my life is good. I have pretty flowers! The sun is shining.  I swear I’ll be more cheerful for the next post. I’d better be.