Special Snowflake Stories

[delabela]

My mother is perpetually either a) watching what she eats or b) espousing the doctrine of "Just thirty minutes of exercise a dayyyyy" which I have posted about before. Her latest tactic is letting everyone know that she's watching what she eats. I can't tell if that's for her benefit or if she's trying to be PA about it like she was when she repeatedly mentioned 30 minutes of exercise a day.

Well, my father and I were talking about where we wanted to go for dinner or if we wanted to cook. We'd eaten lunch at an Italian place and had all had pasta with some sort of cream sauce. Dad brought up the idea of eating Chinese, and my mother clutched at her stomach and said "No, not tonight, I just had pasta for lunch and that would be too rich for me to eat something like that twice in one day." To which Dad and I shrugged and started talking about somewhere else. My mother, unsolicited, interrupted with "I just have to eat something cleaner if I eat pasta for lunch, I may eat a piece of fish and some vegetables." To which my father suggested another restaurant and my mother said "Oh no, I couldn't go out twice in one day, they put so many sauces and preservatives and calories in things now" and which point my father said that was fine, we could stay home. He asked her if she wanted the leftovers in the fridge, at which point she heaved a martyred sigh and replied that no, those were far too rich for her tastes and she just wanted to eat cleanly for the rest of the evening, because she didn't usually splurge like she did at lunch. It was just so unusual for her to eat unhealthily like that but she did it every now and again, etc. etc. When Dad and I finished the leftovers she cooked her food and while we were eating turned to me and said "This is what I like to eat after I eat something rich and fatty for lunch, it's really good for you."  I swear it never ends with her.

This kind of stuff makes me NUTS! I know a person who does this - has to go on and on about how something is too rich, or the portions are so big how could anyone eat it, etc. Just don't eat what you don't want to eat! I don't want to hear a production about how little or how healthy you eat!

[Mental Magpie]

I took DS1 to have an eye test and to choose some new glasses on Friday.  it was busier than I expected, but the staff were working hard and getting everyone seen as quickly as possible.  I was waiting for DS1 to finish his eye exam and a woman came in with two small children, a girl and a boy.  The little girl seemed to delight in winding her brother up and the little boy kept walking around the store and touching things, getting behind the counter and generally getting in the way.  His Mom told him to stop by telling him that the man behind the counter would tell him off if he continued.  She also made no effort to get up off her chair and stop him.  Bad enough, but then when he was trying to spray lens cleaner everywhere, her response was to tell a member of staff to tell him off for doing it    The staff member stuttered a bit and then asked the little boy to leave things alone.  I know that it is hard work taking small children out on errands, but it is not up to other people to parent your children.

Wow.  I wish I had been that clerk.  I am getting a better spine from work and I probably would have told the lady, "You tell him, he's your child.  If you don't tell him, you are both welcome to leave."

[Yarnspinner]

I'm not sure if they were snowflakes or clueless, but these two ladies DID hold up the line at the post office today because of their lack of packaging skills. 

Snowflake the Lesser had a gigantic gift to send for a baby.  It was inside a bag with baby themes all over the outside.  She was completely shocked to learn that she couldn't send a loosely wrapped package through the mail and that she was going to have to box it up.  Unfortunately, she had to leave with her gift because the item she was sending was so big it didn't fit in even the largest box the post office had. 

Snowflake the Greater was actually at the head of the line when I arrived at noon.  She had been there, from what I caught from the online gossip for at least ten to fifteen minutes.  She would put items into a box, have the clerk weigh the box, then tape it up and slap on mailing stickers.  While I was in line she did at least six boxes, but when I got to the front of the line (some twenty minutes later) she had a printed receipt that was as long as she was tall.  So she tied up one of the two clerks for over half an hour in a post office whose self serve mailing wasn't working today.  Lovely.

[BabyMama]

Yarnspinner, your post reminded me of a woman I saw at the post office a few weeks ago.

We live in a very small town (~1800.) I was behind an older woman who had a package to go out. The post office worker is our local postmaster and rather new. Not sure where he's from though, but I've never seen him before. 

Woman: Do you know the address of Betty Lastname?
Postmater: No...
Woman: Can't you just look it up in your computer? (Not sure what magic kind of computer she thinks he has. Or why she couldn't have looked in the phone book before arriving...)
Postmaster: No, I' sorry.
Woman: Well, I know she lives by the, ah, the, you know, that place on the west side of town, um, oh yeah, she lives by the laundromat...:::ponders for several moments, muttering to herself about the exact location::: (Not sure why she couldn't just drop her letter off if she knows where this woman lives...it was only a couple blocks from the PO.)
Postmaster: Is there someone you can call to find out the address?
Woman: I suppose I could call her children when I get home to find out...I wonder where my address is...
Postmaster, sighing: I'll take it. MarySue will know who you mean.


There's always a good SS story to be had from the PO. Mostly because it is a small town. Probably 90% of the people in town leave their cars running while they run in to get their mail. (Most people in town have a PO Box, since we don't get offered home delivery.) Once I was there and the woman in front of me got a phone call. She stepped out of line and around the corner to take it. Which wasn't the  part. The  part was that she left her billfold on the desk (intentionally, as she had been about to start a transaction). It was a Coach billfold and had bills sticking out the sides. And her SUV was outside with the engine running. Only in a small town I guess!

[kherbert05]

I'm in this Mom and Pop pizza place because comcast can't get its act together. It is mostly take out.


This man and lady just came in with two teens. The teens spent some time yelling to the people in the kitchen - until their friends got them to understand the boss would be ticked off if he came in.


The man and woman sat down opposite me and began to argue. The man was her brother. His car had been repossessed - so he took her keys, "borrowed" her car, and got in a fender bender his fault. He isn't on her insurance and his doesn't cover him driving other cars. Poor lady was in tears. I got the impression she knows she either has to report him for stealing her car or she is going to be in trouble with her insurance company and the cops. He kept saying nothing was his fault and it was her job to make sure he had transportation so either she drives him or he gets to take her car.

[Piratelvr1121]

Poor woman, I think I'd be in tears as well.   

[gramma dishes]

Poor woman, I think I'd be in tears as well.

I would be too, but they'd be tears of frustration and anger.

I am curious though as to how he got her keys (and her car) in the first place if he was her brother.  And I would also like to know in what universe his brain lives in where it is his sister's responsibility to either drive him around or provide him with her car? 

[CuriousParty]

I would not be in tears, OR in a pizza joint with my brother, as he would be in jail.

Oh, that story ticks me off!

[Jocelyn]

This is my favorite flash mob that I've seen yet.  And thankfully it's a song I know by heart so it's not a problem that I don't speak or understand Polish! LOL!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXgCrhIevwU

I love the way they did it.

I love the people who joined in and danced with the singers.
I once attended a performance of CATS where, when the Rum Tum Tugger came down off the stage to dance with someone in the audience, the woman would. not. dance. She wouldn't even stand up. I told someone about it and she cried out, 'No! You've gotta dance with the Rum Tum Tugger!'
That became a sort of motto for us, how you need to seize the moment and the experience, rather than worrying about whether you'll look foolish, or whatever else you were doing.

[Jocelyn]

It made me sick to hear her talk to Bob like that - you could hear her voice over the receiver all the way to my cubicle because she was very loud- 

I once had a next-cubicle neighbor who- well, I could always tell when he was talking to his wife or son, because he got very loud and abrupt with them. It wasn't as if he was trying to discourage excessive calls at work; as a matter of fact, he called them more often than they called him (gee, I wonder why). All I could imagine was that he was so accustomed to speaking to them rudely, he didn't realize how his voice changed.

[magician5]

I love the people who joined in and danced with the singers.
I once attended a performance of CATS where, when the Rum Tum Tugger came down off the stage to dance with someone in the audience, the woman would. not. dance. She wouldn't even stand up. I told someone about it and she cried out, 'No! You've gotta dance with the Rum Tum Tugger!'
That became a sort of motto for us, how you need to seize the moment and the experience, rather than worrying about whether you'll look foolish, or whatever else you were doing.

Good positive advice, BUT if it happened to me I'd react the same way as that lady. I can't feel "free and easy" when suddenly (and by surprise) all eyes are on me. Neither am I happy when a musician belts out "Everybody, JOIN IN THE CHORUS, come on you can sing louder!" - Pal, I paid good money to  sit right here and watch YOU sing.

[rose red]

I love the people who joined in and danced with the singers.
I once attended a performance of CATS where, when the Rum Tum Tugger came down off the stage to dance with someone in the audience, the woman would. not. dance. She wouldn't even stand up. I told someone about it and she cried out, 'No! You've gotta dance with the Rum Tum Tugger!'
That became a sort of motto for us, how you need to seize the moment and the experience, rather than worrying about whether you'll look foolish, or whatever else you were doing.

Good positive advice, BUT if it happened to me I'd react the same way as that lady. I can't feel "free and easy" when suddenly (and by surprise) all eyes are on me. Neither am I happy when a musician belts out "Everybody, JOIN IN THE CHORUS, come on you can sing louder!" - Pal, I paid good money to  sit right here and watch YOU sing.

I've never seen Cat's live and didn't know they do that.  I would be like that lady too.  I don't think that makes people like us SS.  The actor should have moved on.

[Margo]

I love the people who joined in and danced with the singers.
I once attended a performance of CATS where, when the Rum Tum Tugger came down off the stage to dance with someone in the audience, the woman would. not. dance. She wouldn't even stand up. I told someone about it and she cried out, 'No! You've gotta dance with the Rum Tum Tugger!'
That became a sort of motto for us, how you need to seize the moment and the experience, rather than worrying about whether you'll look foolish, or whatever else you were doing.

Good positive advice, BUT if it happened to me I'd react the same way as that lady. I can't feel "free and easy" when suddenly (and by surprise) all eyes are on me. Neither am I happy when a musician belts out "Everybody, JOIN IN THE CHORUS, come on you can sing louder!" - Pal, I paid good money to  sit right here and watch YOU sing.

Yup. and while being willing to try new experiences and not be too worried about whether you'll look foolish is fine, I don't think that trying to force someone to 'go with the flow' is appropriate. In the 'Cats' scenario, if the actor was trying to get the woman to dance for long enough that it became really noticeable to the audience as a whole that she was resisting, then I think he was pushing too hard - he should have quickly moved on to someone else rather than put her in an unwelcome spotlight once she had made it clear she didn't want to dance.

[Tea Drinker]

Neither am I happy when a musician belts out "Everybody, JOIN IN THE CHORUS, come on you can sing louder!" - Pal, I paid good money to  sit right here and watch YOU sing.

Getting the audience to join in is a skill, and it doesn't consist of yelling at them. Doing it right can range from gesturing to indicate that singing along would be welcome, to Pete Seeger's style of encouragement and teaching the lyrics. But if the musician is good at it, s/he isn't yelling at you, because s/he doesn't have to, and because s/he realizes that not everyone wants to sing.

Done right, it also doesn't feel like the musician is being lazy: it was clearly more work for Pete to teach the audience a chorus or two than it would have been for him to just sing it. But equally clearly, he liked that work just as he liked the work of singing and playing an instrument. (I went to a concert by a different folk musician a few years ago, and I liked it, but it was also clear that this guy had wanted to be Pete Seeger when he grew up, and wasn't, and not just because Pete Seeger was still being Pete Seeger.)

[doodlemor]

Poor woman, I think I'd be in tears as well.

I would be too, but they'd be tears of frustration and anger.

I am curious though as to how he got her keys (and her car) in the first place if he was her brother.  And I would also like to know in what universe his brain lives in where it is his sister's responsibility to either drive him around or provide him with her car? 

I suspect that brother was the **special** golden child in his family, and that sister has spent her whole life in his service.