the penis-brained jerk who crashed into me while i was hobbling painfully down the steps to the tube ... I have hurt my back and this ugly tedious brainless nob-head was desperate to throw me to the ground in order to catch the tube ...

We both missed the tube - a consequence of the fact that I refused to fall down the stairs however hard he tried to push me.

He then proceeded to yell at me that he had missed the tube and berated me for having been in teh way. I apologised (more fool me but I know how he feels it is frustrating) and said I had a bad back which is why I was less than nimble and pointed out that there was another tube in 2 minutes time ...

He then continued to hurl insults at me, lunatic, idiotic, selfish were a few of the words that I heard ... by this time there was quite a large crowd.

My parting shot as he legged it to the next tube was for him to get over himself.

ME - for having forgotten my keys *&%$£"!!!

People who think they have a right to know where I am and for me to be contactable to them 24hours a day and who can't handle it if I'm away from my phones for a few days.

It's NONE of their *&^%$£"!!! business!

Now I have to calm down and explain to this person tomorrow, that No, I have not been kidnapped by aliens, and no, it is none of her business where I've been.

And I'm not very good at dealing with these things calmly.

All this because I went away for some peace and quiet...

quote:

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Originally posted by Louise:
All this because I went away for some peace and quiet...

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how about saying

"Thanks for your concern. I just fancied a few days away from things. It was absolutely lovely!" and then walk off in a dreamy fashion....

OR

"It is none of your business where I was, or who I was with, or what I was doing. No, no. I refuse to answer any questions on the grounds that it might incriminate me."

You would have to start that one with a slight smile, then increase the size of the smile until you were grinning from ear to ear.

Managed to listen almost calmly to the recitation of the extremely non-urgent matter, said person had thought it worth leaving five increasingly hysterical messages on my phones for.

Due to wonderful display of 'pretending to care' I managed to avoid any awkward questions as to where I'd been, instead of being instantly at the beck and call of person with not-very-urgent-or-important query.

Not sure that 'Lord teach me to pretend to care!' is exactly a wonderful motto, but it's an improvement on screaming 'Tell it to someone who cares!!!' down the phone.

Eventually I'll work up to the 'actually caring' bit - but I'm not there yet!

I also CTH that I've run out of logs and the coal merchant isn't answering the phone. No heat for me.

quote:

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Originally posted by Cusanus:
Uruguay

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I second that consigning.

quote:

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I presume you mean a particular sports team from Uruguay rather than the whole country?

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Right now the idea that the country even exists and plays sport is a raw throbbing wound, but in the fullness of time we will forgive everyone except the soccer team and their more agressive supporters.

[fixed the UBB code. I live to serve.]

"I'm interested in a purple dress." - "They are wearing neutrals this season." (Well, they may do as they please.. I didn't tell you to tell me what I wanted.)

"That style is wonderful - see how it slims you!" (I came to shop, not to be insulted, bitch.)

quote:

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Originally posted by tomb:
TICTH the Jefferson County Clerk for summoning me to jury duty the !#@$%O *#$^* week before Christmas.

Just let those bozos DARE to empanel me....

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Fool proof ways to avoid being empanelled:
(a) stare menacingly at defendant and mouth 'you're a goner mate'
(b) blow kiss at defendant
(c) blow kiss at prosecution/plaintiff

Any of these will definately lead to the other party objecting to you.

quote:

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Originally posted by sakura:
Fool proof ways to avoid being empanelled:
(a) stare menacingly at defendant and mouth 'you're a goner mate'
(b) blow kiss at defendant
(c) blow kiss at prosecution/plaintiff

Any of these will definately lead to the other party objecting to you.

Of course, you might get done for contempt, but you will get out of jury duty!

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quote:

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Originally posted by sharkshooter:
... or, be a tax auditor - defense attornies do not like anyone who has anything to do with any kind of law enforcement

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Thanks for the suggestions, guys. Actually, I've always found an almost foolproof method of avoiding jury duty is to wear a tie. Scares the defense attorneys, because they figure nobody in professional dress will be sympathetic to their client (a lawyer told me about that particular dodge).

As to the death penalty, Colorado does have the death penalty, but the summons was for county, not district court--which probably means civil and not criminal cases, so shall most likely not have to worry about that.

Unless, of course, the damn district attorney decides to empanel a Grand Jury to investigate the Grinch or somesuch.

Today, following a week when lots of pain had been amplified, I was in such depression and tension that I felt tears coming while I was in my office, and I slipped outside, to an area where I thought no one was. I didn't realise that someone else was nearby, and saw the tears on my cheeks.

Her immediate response was, "There are people in the world who have it worse than you." (For the record, she had no knowledge of what was paining me.)

Yes - indeed there are! I'm not terminally ill, or being bombed in Afghanistan, or sleeping in the street. But does that mean my own pain is "invalid"?!

It reminds me of a man I knew , who, if he saw anybody in pain, would say, "You woke up this morning! Lots of people didn't!"

Angel does not understand.

Deal with it.

Perhaps you and the Coot could get together and trade complaints.

I can imagine it now:

"I'll see you a chillblain and raise you two prickly heats."

Of course, the two of you could establish a Subscription Service and both move to the tropics.

But then, I daresay, you'd be complaining about the Inexorable Fungus that was slowing absorbing your extremities.

I work shifts and there is genuinely nothing more annoying then having some punter phoning me up 10 minutes after I've finally fallen asleep after a long night shift.

TIalsoCTH the woman who works for the above nameless (Thomsons) telephone directory who told me today that it wasn't their responsibility to make sure the numbers were correct ('Did you not read the small print in the phone book?' 'No because until recently I didn't know my number WAS in the phone book.') and whose only advice is to get an answermachine (Exactly how will that stop me waking up) or change my number (I've only just remembered this one).

quote:

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Originally posted by Islandexile:
TICTH
Four-inch flying cochroaches
and
barely-scopic ants that come by the score

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Oh my word - where do you live?! Remind me never EVER to go there!

quote:

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Originally posted by chive:
TICTH the nameless (Thomsons) phone directory people who mistakenly put my name in the phone book as belonging to a construction company. Obviously this results in dozens of irritating calls from people looking for builders, work or to sell me things I don't want.

<snip>

AAAAAAARRRGGGHHH - have just spent a night shift planning reprisals (he he he wicked laugh). Could I possibly piss them off as much as they have me. Suggestions on a postcard please.

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quote from Islandexile
------------------------------------------
TICTH
Four-inch flying cochroaches
and
barely-scopic ants that come by the score
-------------------------------------------

Maybe Islandexile could send you some of his cockroaches and ants to pass along to the directory people.

the A$$holes who are having a party right outside my bedroom window, right now.

myself - for feeling so crappy, I forgot to go and buy fruit.

and this virus, because it won't go away.

TICTH the fact that, almost invariably, the person who I love (platonically), admire and wish approbation from is the one in front of whom I manage to look like a complete idiotic attention-seeking shallow juvenile pain in the neck. How the hell could he ever like me and do anything more than put up with me out of Christian charity?

TICTH myself yesterday, for forgetting to take my medication with me when going out all day. Thus when I nose-dived unexpectedly there was nothing I could do about it, so I spent the run-through before the advent procession feeling dreadful and trying not to snap at people, and the first bit of the service in tears and trying to hide it. I wanted desparately to cry during Benediction, but as an acolyte in front of that many people I was NOT going to.

quote:

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Originally posted by Arietty:
Re people who say you could be worse off - my parents were great for that, I suffered from depression for most of my childhood & adolescence, whenever I was asked why I looked so miserable and said I felt sad, I would get a big lecture on how other people were worse off, I had nothing to be depressed 'about' and then a long list of people who were cheerful under terrible circumstances.

On one memorable occasion I was told 'at least you've got legs'!!

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My mother used to tell me (this AFTER my first suicide attempt) "You could be happy if you wanted to be." Maybe that's true for the much of the population, but what I really needed, and never got for any effective period, was professional HELP!

But I'm better now regardless, so I guess I must have chosen happiness at some point?

******************

TICTH my group project. Of course the big research paper for my first graduate-level course is a group project--otherwise the professor would have to read all those extra papers! So instead of our paper, due Wednesday, being done by now, it is still being squabbled about.

I and one other person had made an effort to WRITE something for the paper before the whole group met Saturday for what was supposed to be a run-through of the whole thing to put it into a final draft. I had been e-mailing the first draft (which barely included half what the final draft will) to all the group members for 3 weeks BEGGING them to add to it so we wouldn't have to write the paper from scratch on Saturday. Well they couldn't be bothered to, so Saturday we met for hours. After arguing for hours over what one section of the paper should contain, I asked that we just leave what we had written for now and continue on to make a draft of the next two sections. At which point one of the non-contributers says to me, "But we HAVE to finish this now, it's due Wednesday!" Well, no kidding! That's why I'd been begging her to write something before then. We ended up never getting farther than that section so I had to write the results and discussion on my own as well as the abstract and making 4 charts and now I am e-mailing the file around begging them to look it over before Wednesday. And the chance of them doing so is nil.

Especially given that the spineless government has capitulated and said that all speed cameras have to be painted bright yellow so we can see them.

The younger children ended up cowering in the basement of a nearby building while the older students stood in the cold at the edge of the parking lot ("out of the way of flying debris if anything happens" according to the SWAT commander).

This is Jefferson County, for God's sake, home of Columbine High School. When a co-worker ran up to me and told me that "something bad is happening at your son's school" I thought I was going to be sick I was so frightened.

It was a hoax, of course. Good thing I'm not liable to get my hands on the little bastard, though, before the Law catches him. I'd rip off his testicles and stuff them in his ears (I imagine they'd be just about the right size to fit.)

And this on the day after the State Department issues another warning about "unspecified terrorist threats."

There isn't enough Gin in the world to calm me down right now.