Special Snowflake Stories

[MrTango]

In the Minneapolis, MN area, some places got over a foot of snow yesterday.

When I pulled into the parking ramp at work this morning, I was amazed that people would drive with 12+ inches of snow still on the roof of their vehicles.

Luckily for me, I didn't have to brush my car off, but that's why I pay extra for a heated, underground parking space at my apartment.

[BatCity]

I'm nominating my husband for a SS award.

B/G: Both of my brothers are divorced, so DH is the only in-law left in the family.

Over Thanksgiving, my parents scheduled a photo shoot for a family picture with a very well known photographer.  I have to admit, this guy was good. 

In the very best picture of the entire family, DH appeared to be standing a bit apart from my brothers and me.  It worked, since DH is a lot taller than my family of shrimps, but my husband HATES the picture because he feels it makes him look "separated" from the rest of the family.

My parents have already offered to pay for a large framed print for each household, at considerable cost (these things aren't cheap!).  DH has told me he will refuse to hang it in the house.

[siamesecat2965]

In the Minneapolis, MN area, some places got over a foot of snow yesterday.

When I pulled into the parking ramp at work this morning, I was amazed that people would drive with 12+ inches of snow still on the roof of their vehicles.

Luckily for me, I didn't have to brush my car off, but that's why I pay extra for a heated, underground parking space at my apartment.

I live in NJ, and its illegal to drive without clearing off your car. You can be ticketed for it, yet I still see many people who can't be bothered. My feeling is, if you either can't reach or be bothered to clear off the top of your gigantic truck or SUV, you need to be driving something else. I always make sure its all off, unless its impossible to do so, but that's usually just frozen water which melts as the car warms up, and wont' fly off or cause any damage.

I once drove from NJ to VA at Christams, after a big snowstorm, and I was scared of the ice coming off the tops of 18 wheelers!  HUGE chunks that wuld randomly fly off.  None hit me, but it was a bit nerve wracking.  even staying far back didn't mean one wouldn't hit you.

[Miss March]

I know someone who got married and her mother later got upset because she didn't feel that the hired photographer had taken enough pictures of her (the mother) with her daughter, and the ones that he did take, she didn't like. So they actually scheduled a re-shoot, the daughter put her wedding dress back on, the mother put her dress back on, they re-did their hair and makeup to match the wedding day and they returned to the outdoor wedding location and had the photographer take a few extra pictures of them together that they could slip into the wedding album.

[MrTango]

I once drove from NJ to VA at Christams, after a big snowstorm, and I was scared of the ice coming off the tops of 18 wheelers!  HUGE chunks that wuld randomly fly off.  None hit me, but it was a bit nerve wracking.  even staying far back didn't mean one wouldn't hit you.

I always wondered why truck stops didn't have some way of clearing off the roofs of big semi trailers.

[Wulfie]

They do. My SIL used to work at a truck stop and she said the busiest time at the truck wash was after a snow. The truckers run their trucks through the truck wash to get rid of the snow.

[gramma dishes]

Over Thanksgiving, my parents scheduled a photo shoot for a family picture with a very well known photographer.  I have to admit, this guy was good. 

In the very best picture of the entire family, DH appeared to be standing a bit apart from my brothers and me.  It worked, since DH is a lot taller than my family of shrimps, but my husband HATES the picture because he feels it makes him look "separated" from the rest of the family.

You know, I don't quite agree.  I don't think your husband was a special snowflake at all. 

If this photographer is really that good, s/he should have realized that there was an unnatural and awkward separation of one person from the rest of the group and corrected that on the spot before that shutter ever clicked.  That's kind of Basic Photography 101.

Height differences can be compensated for in many ways.  One example would be by having some family members slightly seated on a high stool or something.  And then of course there's always the magic of Photoshop for "after fixing".

I think your husband's feelings were hurt and I can kind of see that.

[Twik]

I once drove from NJ to VA at Christams, after a big snowstorm, and I was scared of the ice coming off the tops of 18 wheelers!  HUGE chunks that wuld randomly fly off.  None hit me, but it was a bit nerve wracking.  even staying far back didn't mean one wouldn't hit you.

I agree - it's terrifying to see those big slabs of ice coming off at 60 mph.

[Virg]

I have to agree with gamma dishes on the photo issue, BatCity.  Your DH is reasonable to want to appear well in a photograph and it's the photographer's job to avoid such setups or fix them.  A call to the photographer to see if he can pull in your DH with post-processing would be entirely reasonable.  Your DH's desire not to display a photo of himself that elicits bad feelings is also reasonable, and it's dismissive to call him a SS for it.

Virg

[misha412]

Okay, I saw a very SS today.

I was in the waiting area of our local Department of Social Services this morning. My fiance had to get some paperwork filed. It was towards lunch time so it was slower as people in the back were going to lunch.

An older lady (OL) (around 70 or so) was waiting with a slightly younger female (YF) (about 50 or so). A DSS employee from the back came out to speak with them. The YF had some paperwork in her hand and started waving it at the DSS employee saying her aunt (OL I guess) doesn't understand this paperwork. The YF then said she didn't understand the paperwork. As she is saying this to the DSS employee, her voice is getting louder and her tone is decidedly curt and rude. Her volume was loud enough to attract the attention of most people in the waiting area as well as the ladies behind the desk. I was sitting less than 10 feet away and heard most of it.

The DSS employee asked her to calm down and please not be rude. The DSS employee was using a calm voice and a reasonable tone. But, this set the YF off like a firecracker. She said something like "I was born in the South and I have never been rude in my life." This was in a very loud voice, shaking her finger in the DSS employee's face, with an even ruder tone than before. She started ranting and raving how she should not have to sit in a waiting area with "these" people. That last part was said with quite a bit of disdain in her voice.

(The people in the waiting room were a good mixture of people from young couples with babies to older people with apparent medical problems and a few in between. Apparently, she though anyone who had to go to DSS was beneath her.)

The DSS employee tried to calm her down, but YF would not shut up. The DSS employeed ended up saying she would get someone from the back and walked away. The YF kept ranting and raving to her aunt about the DSS employee being a liar, rude, etc. I was leaving a few minutes later and heard the YF talking about how she should have to waste her time waiting on anyone.

For what its worth, the aunt looked supremely embarrassed by the YF's behavior.

[LadyClaire]

Years ago I had a brand new roommate. I became quite ill, threw up a lot. Lost almost 10 pounds that week. She was the one doing the cooking. Turns out she hadn't washed her produce at all because it was Organic, and she reasoned that meant she didn't have to wash off pesticides, ergo she didn't wash it at all...even if it wasn't to be cooked (veggie tray and a salad, plus she always had a bowl of fruit on the counter).

Oh was I mad.

I got food poisoning from a salad once. It was not fun.

[Outdoor Girl]

I wash my organic produce MORE vigorously than I wash non-organic produce.  Accumulated pesticide poisoning might kill me eventually but E.coli poisoning could kill me now!

Plus, my organic veggies come direct from the farm.  It is a reasonably small operation so the veggies aren't prewashed the same way grocery store veggies would be.

[LadyClaire]

On my way to church yesterday morning, it was snowing some outside.  One person flew by me with his large pickup truck that was partly covered in snow and the front window and others part of my car got his residue of snow and ice.  Good thing I had been running my wipers due to the snow coming down.

A friend of mine stopped at a red light once and notice the woman next to him had only cleared off a little port-hole sized space in the snow on her windshield. How lazy can you get? He was so furious that he hopped out of his car and took the 10 seconds to clear the rest of the windshield she wasn't a menace on the road.

She rolled down the window and giggled and said Thank you!

He snapped back, "I didn't do it for YOU!"

I was nearly hit once by someone driving with just one little spot cleared on their windshield. The guy clearly couldn't see where he was on the road because of the rest of his windshield and windows being iced over, and he swerved out of his lane and into mine. Nearly hit me head-on. The only thing that saved me was the wide shoulder.

[CrochetFanatic]

SS encounter at Burger King tonight.  I was behind my dad as we were taking our trays to the table, and a teenage boy came in to look at the menu.  Due to the layout of the building, this was a narrow space in front of the counter, with only a railing running parallel to the counter to make it easier to form a line.  There's an unspoken "beginning" and "end" to the line; the line starts and ends at the right, and the beginning is closer to the door while the end is closer to the counter.  (Hope I described that okay.)  We were the only ones there at the time, and this kid came in through the "end" of the line so that my dad, who is a big guy, couldn't easily pass him. 

My dad said, "Excuse me," so that he could get by.  The kid said, "That's all right," and just pushed past him so that he almost lost his grip on his tray. 

[deadbody]

Years ago I had a brand new roommate. I became quite ill, threw up a lot. Lost almost 10 pounds that week. She was the one doing the cooking. Turns out she hadn't washed her produce at all because it was Organic, and she reasoned that meant she didn't have to wash off pesticides, ergo she didn't wash it at all...even if it wasn't to be cooked (veggie tray and a salad, plus she always had a bowl of fruit on the counter).

Oh was I mad.

I got food poisoning from a salad once. It was not fun.

This is why I follow the tennant of the one and only Homer Simpson in all things food related.

"You don't make friends with salad.  No you don't make friends with salad."