Special Snowflake Stories

[Sirius]

Backing up out of a parking space isn't hard. But it is not as safe as pulling forward out of a parking space.

When you back out of a parking space, there could be pedestrians that you can't see, or small children darting about or a stray grocery cart or the like. If you drive a small car and end up having to back out of a space with much larger cars on both sides, it is very, very difficult to see if there is anyone walking down the aisle or any other cars are in motion. You have a very limited field of vision when backing out of the tunnel formed by mini-vans on both sides.

If you back into the parking spot, it is a tad more difficult because you need to be careful that you don't hit the cars on either side, but there is less of a chance that someone will be walking behind the car.

That's why some of us prefer spaces where we can pull through two spaces. All the ease and convenience of pulling forward in to a parking spot, plus the safety advantage of pulling forward out of the parking spot. You can see where you are going and are much less likely to hit someone or something.

The chief problem with backing into a space is that other drivers frequently don't like waiting for you to back in slowly and get impatient.

Someone pulling through in a busy parking lot hit my former boss' brand new car head on as she pulled into a parking space.  So if you're going to pull through, don't do it in a busy parking lot.

[Slartibartfast]

Bits and pieces of background on DH's grandmother have been posted on other threads, but here it is all in one place:

[bg]FIL always has and always will put his mother first, over MIL.  This may be correlated with Grandma being a huge special snowflake.  She gets her way most of the time, and nobody's allowed to say boo to her or she'll throw a huge PA fit and FIL will go all crusader to fix whatever is making his mother unhappy.  Last year Grandma pulled the "It's going to be my last Christmas!" thing again (link to my previous thread - be sure to see the updates too) and DH went along with it but took her at her word.  Not surprisingly, this year she expected us to come up to see her for her "last Christmas" again, and was taken aback when DH pointed out that last year was her "last Christmas" so we made definite plans to be home this year.  We stuck to our guns and now the plan is for FIL to drive the eight-hour round trip to pick up Grandma and bring her back here to stay with him and MIL (note: Grandma and MIL pretty much hate each other) for a week over the holiday.

Second half of the background: DH's two sisters live in town near us, but we rarely see them.  We get along fine with the middle sister (just don't have anything in common) but his oldest sister royally messes up her life on a regular basis.  She has awful taste in abusive guys half her age, and her kids (my niece and nephew) - who are special snowflakes themselves - don't want anything to do with her as long as she has any of her user boyfriends around.  SIL1 only keeps in contact with MIL when she wants something, but MIL tries to keep a line open.[/bg]

Because of all this mess, MIL was basically being forced into hosting Christmas this year and was not happy about it.  (She hates cooking and entertaining and hates how her MIL, DH's Grandma, criticizes everything she does.)  If she hosted Christmas, she'd have to make it a "whole family" thing, which would have to include SIL1 and her current boy toy and Niece and her screaming brat toddler (not his fault, honestly, but still) and Nephew who would rather sit and ignore everyone and play on his phone and Grandma being upset the world wasn't revolving around her and it would have been a huge mess with the potential for a lot of hurt feelings, at the expense of MIL's nerves.

I actually kind of like hosting and needed an excuse to really get the house clean anyway, so I volunteered to have MIL, FIL, and Grandma over to our house on Christmas day.  Since MIL's not the hostess, she's not obligated to invite SIL1, and since we rarely see SIL1 and frequently see the ILs, it's natural to make it an "us and the parents" thing and not "us and the entire extended family."  We do plan to invite SIL2, but everyone knows not to mention it to SIL1 and if SIL1 gets mad it won't bother me because we don't see her anyway.

The special snowflake here is Grandma.  When I offered to host, I told MIL what I would be doing: we're having Christmas morning with just our family, then everyone can come over in the early afternoon and we'll have a buffet of "heavy appetizer"-type food to nibble on while we hang out, so there will be no big formal dinner and no huge cooking marathon and no specific timetable.  Grandma said this "won't work for her" - she expects someone to provide a full Christmas spread, complete with spiral-cut ham and roasted turkey and side dishes and fine china, because it's what she would have done if we had gone to her house (true) and therefore if we won't let her host we have to do the same.

Since this was relayed through MIL, I let her have to break the bad news to Grandma    Sorry, Grandma, but I'm hosting this year and this is what I'm choosing to do!  I'm trying to figure out a menu I can mostly prepare ahead of time (or things that don't take much prep time anyway), and I don't want to be stuck in the kitchen all day when I could be relaxing.  I don't know why Grandma is so upset - she's in her 90's now and eats less than my toddler anyway.

[pierrotlunaire0]

^^^^ Okay, with that last story, my eye is starting to twitch.  I might have to go and lie down awhile.

[Shoo]

Good for you for sticking to your guns!  *Somebody* has to stand up to Grandma. 

[Shalamar]

was taken aback when DH pointed out that last year was her "last Christmas" so we made definite plans to be home this year.

Off-topic, but I'm reminded of a scene in I,Claudius:

Lentulus: (kissing Caligula's hand) Your recovery is a miracle!
Caligula: But you prayed for it, Lentulus.
Lentulus: Oh, night and day! But prayers are not always heard.
Caligula: But yours were special, so I understand. You offered your life to the Gods in place of mine. That was extremely noble!
Lentulus: (expecting a reward) It's true, I did.
Caligula: And what are you going to do about it?
Lentulus: Do about it? What do you mean?
Caligula: Well, I'm still here, and so are you. But we oughtn't both be here. Should we not give the Gods the things we promise them? You're in danger of the crime of perjury, Lentulus. Think about it. But not too long- Gods won't wait forever, that I can assure you only too well.

[Yarnspinner]

was taken aback when DH pointed out that last year was her "last Christmas" so we made definite plans to be home this year.

Off-topic, but I'm reminded of a scene in I,Claudius:

Lentulus: (kissing Caligula's hand) Your recovery is a miracle!
Caligula: But you prayed for it, Lentulus.
Lentulus: Oh, night and day! But prayers are not always heard.
Caligula: But yours were special, so I understand. You offered your life to the Gods in place of mine. That was extremely noble!
Lentulus: (expecting a reward) It's true, I did.
Caligula: And what are you going to do about it?
Lentulus: Do about it? What do you mean?
Caligula: Well, I'm still here, and so are you. But we oughtn't both be here. Should we not give the Gods the things we promise them? You're in danger of the crime of perjury, Lentulus. Think about it. But not too long- Gods won't wait forever, that I can assure you only too well.

Oh yes, Caligula, quite possibly the original special snowflake!  Don't want to get off track, but my favorite scene with Caligula was John Hurt standing with the head of his young and probably consumptive cousin announcing to one and all "I have cured [kid's name] coughing!"

[PastryGoddess]

I wonder if all special snowflakes deep down inside actually want to live up to the example Caligula set.

[Jocelyn]

  I'm trying to figure out a menu I can mostly prepare ahead of time (or things that don't take much prep time anyway), and I don't want to be stuck in the kitchen all day when I could be relaxing. 

I gift you with the menu of a party I attended last night: a barbequed brisket, sliced, in a roasting pan, meatballs from Sam's Club cooked according to the bag's instructions in a crock-pot, and a big basket of sandwich rolls, cut into 2" long slices. Assorted other things like a veggie tray, a cheese tray, olives, pickles, and some chip and dip. And an arrangement of cupcakes frosted to look like Santa. (store bought)
Everyone just raved about the brisket and meatball sandwiches.

[Elfmama]

I wonder if all special snowflakes deep down inside actually want to live up to the example Caligula set.

Funny story about Caligula.  His actual Latin name was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.  "Caligula" was a nickname, given to him by the soldiers that his father commanded.  Little Gaius was very proud of his footwear, miniature copies of the soldiers' caligae, the hobnailed sandal-boots that they wore.  Caligula is a diminutive of that.

Yes, children, the most feared and terrible of the Roman emperors has been immortalized as "Bootsie."

[Nora]

I wonder if all special snowflakes deep down inside actually want to live up to the example Caligula set.

Funny story about Caligula.  His actual Latin name was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.  "Caligula" was a nickname, given to him by the soldiers that his father commanded.  Little Gaius was very proud of his footwear, miniature copies of the soldiers' caligae, the hobnailed sandal-boots that they wore.  Caligula is a diminutive of that.

Yes, children, the most feared and terrible of the Roman emperors has been immortalized as "Bootsie."

*Dies laughing*

[Nikko-chan]

I wonder if all special snowflakes deep down inside actually want to live up to the example Caligula set.

Funny story about Caligula.  His actual Latin name was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.  "Caligula" was a nickname, given to him by the soldiers that his father commanded.  Little Gaius was very proud of his footwear, miniature copies of the soldiers' caligae, the hobnailed sandal-boots that they wore.  Caligula is a diminutive of that.

Yes, children, the most feared and terrible of the Roman emperors has been immortalized as "Bootsie."

*Dies laughing*

*Cough, gasp,wheeze*

Thanks for the laugh Elfmama!

[CrochetFanatic]

*snerk* "Bootsie"...That reminds me of a neighbor who had a Neapolitan Mastiff named "Thor", but neighbor's wife always called the dog "Pupper-Doodle".   

[RebeccainGA]

*snerk* "Bootsie"...That reminds me of a neighbor who had a Neapolitan Mastiff named "Thor", but neighbor's wife always called the dog "Pupper-Doodle".   

Then there's me, with my six pound poodle I refer to as "mommy's manly man"

[weeblewobble]

At the grocery (AGAIN) yesterday with my daughter, age 8.  This time it wasn't in the holiday baking aisle, at least.  I was in the dairy aisle and passed a woman with two small children.  The kids were obviously excited about Christmas and were singing and talking about Santa and presents and maybe getting snow.  They were speaking at an average conversational volume level, not obnoxious or painfully loud to be around.  I passed them, DD wished them Merry Christmas.  All was good.  A lady came around the corner of the aisle and searched for items near the kids.  They started singing again and she turned on them with this angry, irritated expression and said, "SHHHHHH."  The shushing was just as loud, if not louder, as the singing and done in this really hostile, hissing sort of way.

My jaw dropped.  She clearly didn't know this family and she was angrily shushing the kids!  The mother said, "Ma'am.  Please don't do that."

The woman snapped, "I HAVE A HEADACHE.  I don't need all that extra noise!  Tell them to shut up!"

The mother opened her mouth to respond, but glanced at her children and pushed the cart away from Headache Lady.  On the next aisle, I ran into the mom again.  The kids were much quieter and all their happy spirit seemed to be sucked out of them.  The mom and I shared this incredulous, "What the heck?" look.  DD told the kids she really liked their singing, which made them smile a little.

I didn't run into the family again, but a few aisles later I crossed paths with Headache Lady.  DD was telling me a funny story from school in a completely normal, not-loud conversational tone.  Headache Lady saw her and very clearly narrowed her eyes at my daughter.  I watched her face change to that angry, irritated expression she wore earlier when she shushed the kids. DD saw it too and stopped speaking.  Headache Lady seemed frustrated and that she no longer had a target and huffed off, muttering to herself about loud kids everywhere. DD continued her story, relatively unfazed.

It was like she was actively seeking out children to "upset her" so she could fuss at them.  If you have a headache, I sympathize, but perhaps you should stay away from a very busy, noisy grocery store until you feel better.

Normally,  I'm not a "but they're just being chiiiiiiildreeeeeen" person, but this seems petty and mean spirited and very very speshul.

[Shea]

Another library Special Snowflake.

A man came into the library yesterday and asked me "where the science journals are". Trying to narrow it down, I asked him which journal he was looking for.

Man: ::condescending tone:: Just the area with all the science journals.
Me: There's isn't a single area with all the science journals. The paper copies we have are shelved in with the rest of the collection.
Man: How can that be?!
Me: ...they're shelved by call number.
Man: No, they're all supposed to be in one place! That's how it was when I was a student here! [note: I work in a university library]
Me: When was that?
Man: About 10 years ago.
Me: Yeah, things have changed since then.
Man: ::sigh:: Okay, just tell me where I can find [name of science journal].
Me: ::looks it up in the catalogue:: I'm afraid we don't have a paper copy of that. Just the electronic version.
Man: That's crazy! Look up [another science journal].
Me: Same thing, I'm afraid.
Man: What, did you just throw away the paper copies?
Me: Probably. In the last 10 years, things like journals have become mostly digital. Some of them don't even print paper versions anymore. If we have access to the digitized versions, the library chose not to keep the paper copies for space reasons.
Man: ::heaving a great sigh:: Well, I'll just look at the digital versions then.
Me: Do you have a student or staff ID?
Man: No.
Me: I'm sorry, you won't be able to access our online resources. They're only available to students and members of the faculty and staff.
Man: That's completely ridiculous!
Me: Not really. Databases are expensive, and students pay for access with their tuition. Non-students don't pay tuition and so aren't given access.
Man: That's completely STUPID! Can you pull up the journals for me?
Me: No, I'm sorry.
Man: USELESS! ::walks out of library::

I mean, I get that he was frustrated that he couldn't get the journals he wanted, but that didn't give him the right to be rude to me because the library hadn't stayed exactly as it was in 2002 (his tone throughout was VERY short and annoyed). Then he verged into SS territory by getting angry that he couldn't get into the library databases (dude, it's NOT A PUBLIC LIBRARY. The rules are different!).

At least it made the day a little interesting, the library is still open even though nearly all the students have gone home for the break, and the place is absolutely dead.