We are in, what I guess you could call an club of sorts, an organization. You pay yearly membership fees and for the next 12 months you get mailings asking you to renew or send extra money in for this or that, blah blah blah. Yesterday, from this organization, we got a DVD.

I did not order this DVD.

They sent it to me without asking if it was ok or if I wanted it.

There’s a “handwritten” note on the form letter that says something like, “I know you didn’t request this DVD but I thought you should see for yourself how great it is.” Right.

So then if you keep the DVD, you have to pay $13. Otherwise, you have to check that you don’t want it and mail it back, so you’re not charged.

I mean, really, is that even fair to do to someone? Send them something they didn’t ask for and if they don’t return it, charge them for it? All the while claiming that they’re getting it for a very low price, since it “retails” for $19.99.

But the icing on the cake? If you keep the DVD and pay the $13, they’re going to send you more. More!! That’s right, you are now on a subscription list and you get to buy stupid DVDs every month or so.

So I have to take the DVD out of it’s case and put it in an envelope with the form from the bottom of the letter check marked with a NO I do not want want this and please please please do not send me any more of these. They can’t even perforate the form for me, I have to get my scissors out and cut it on the dashed lines. And then! I followed the lines on the back, right? Turn it over and I’ve sliced off all the important stuff. What is up with that? THEN it takes me 10 solid minutes to get the stupid paper in the envelope the right way so that the address information shows through the window.

It just really aggravates me. This is not the first time, either. I told Steve that I’m letting my membership cancel, this is ridiculous. Really, I don’t have time for this, I don’t have enough time in the day to do the things I want to do as it is.

And on the other hand, how is this legal? I mean, can I start mailing out my candles unsolicited and tell people either you can ship it back or you can keep it and send me this money? Uh, no. Ridiculous.

/rant

We’ve now received a total of five inquiries, two for me, three for him. Three of those emails have basically said, “Do you still have [item]? Then call me at [phone number].”

Ok, now maybe it’s me, but, I think that if I wanted to talk to these people on the phone, I’d have left a phone number where they could call us. But I didn’t, I purposely only left the craigslist protected email. For instance, the one in my inbox now, is for Steve. I actually Googled the phone number and was able to find out a decent amount out about the guy but, well, that doesn’t matter, that’s just interesting, haha. Anyway, he wants Steve to call him. Steve has no time. That email’s been there for about a day and a half to two days now with no response. Whereas, had the guy just asked me his questions, I could have maybe even already known the answer and emailed out a response right away.

Steve says something to the effect of this being a classified ad and if it were in the newspaper we’d have left a phone number. That’s true, but these are the online classifieds where I left an email address! So I’m finding it really rude that these people are immediately trying to put any type of phone responsibility on me. It’s especially rude because, the one woman I called last Saturday, I talked to her and she was really interested and wanted to talk to me more about getting the item come Monday or whatever. Wednesday finally rolled around and I called her again and left a voicemail and said that if I didn’t hear by Friday, I’d assume she didn’t want it anymore. She’s not called back and it’s Saturday. I find that incredibly rude, too, I mean, I don’t care if she doesn’t want it anymore, just tell me, you know?

I’m not saying that a phone conversation later on isn’t appropriate if you need to iron out details for the actual selling, but for them to just start out with having me to call them just doesn’t sit well with me. Of course, I feel obligated to make the calls because I do want to sell the stuff, so I guess there’s really nothing I can do about it.

Ok, just wanted to rant. :)

Tonight, though, we all went out for a sit-down dinner and then we drove around a bit looking for nature (and did find 5 deer), then to the store for Elijah to spend his $30. He has more money than that but the rest is in coins so we left it for another day. He’s been filling this can in the hopes of going on a shopping spree.

So he chose this motorized backhoe thing and a Mater Lego set.

Which brings me to my next point.

I. Hate. How. They. Package. Toys.

Can’t they just put stuff in a box anymore? I’ll even deal with Styrofoam if I have to. Best, yet, for something like this, though, would be the thing unboxed, unpackaged with a price tag attached!

I mean, first I had to rip open the box — that took a good amount of time right there. Then I had to wrangle the toy out of the box where it was still attached to cardboard. I then had to remove two heavy duty twisty tie things, a zip tie, and actually remove twelve — TWELVE! — screws from six — SIX! — extra plastic pieces to get the stupid thing off of that cardboard and get it to operational status! Then there was the cardboard guy who was sitting inside the cab with a piece hanging out stating that most figures of such and such size could sit in there. Even that was a pain to get out.

Through it all, however, and oh, very surprisingly, Elijah stood there patiently, looking all melt your heart cute.

The Legos though? He opened that box, Steve helped him with the plastic bags, then Elijah had it all put together by looking at the picture of the box, all before I had a chance to even enter the room.

Well it could have been worse, I guess. Elijah could have been two years old again, screaming the whole time that he wanted the toy that was taking Mommy 30 minutes to remove from the packaging…

And now, for random purposes none other than the fact that I adore the frogs, here are some scrapbooking pages I did yesterday:

The end!

I am sick and tired of it. Utterly disgusted.

Well, I guess if one’s not allowed to make racial generalizations or generalizations about sexual orientation or any other kind of generalizations about groups of people anymore, homeschooling is the next big thing to pick on, huh?

I don’t understand why homeschooling is considered, by many (or is it just the loud, annoying few?) to be weird. Why is there this crazy notion that socialization starts in the public school? Why is it that we are considered to be brainwashed, just because we want something different for our kids/ourselves?

Isn’t this supposed to be the Land of the Free? Maybe it’s just the Land of the Free if you fit into that same mold as everyone else. It seems that individuality is only encouraged if you’re going to go with the flow, be someone like every other person out there.

I guess the ignorant person just has to pick on something, so it must be the unknown. Yeah, that must be it. Ignorance.

Why bother to defend myself? Why even try to deal with blind ignorance? I don’t. I’m tired of it. I posted one comment to one very big idiot then left. I don’t have to prove myself to anyone, I don’t have to explain myself for being completely normal. So I come here, to my site, and rant a bit. It takes me two minutes. And now I’m done.

Yes, it is time for my yearly rant on personal property taxes.

What a load of you-know-what!!!!

I seriously get aggravated every year – the blood pressure raising kind of aggravation, mind you – when the thick paper comes, asking, nay, demanding we tell the government about any new crap we’ve acquired in the last year, so they can tax us on it, again at the end of this year and every year for the rest of our mundane lives.

On the front of the paper we’re told to fill in any vehicles we owned this January 1st. They list the vehicles you owned last January 1st and if you sold it sometime before this January 1st, you get to cross it off the list so you don’t pay for it in December.

They want to know about the mobile homes you have, the boats, trailers, etc., all on the front page. There’s even line asking if you have remodeled a building in the last year. Who in their right mind is going to say, “yes, I remodeled my bathroom with new equipment, tax me more, baby, I loves ya”? (In other words, “hurts so good.”)

Then the back is very interesting. It starts with the farm animals, yes, I said animals. They want to know how many horses, cows (and what weight they are), pigs (what type), goats, sheep, and chickens you have. Then they want to know about your farm equipment: did you get any new tractors, balers, mowers, sprayers, combines, or miscellaneous farm machinery. AND THEN!? They want to know how many bushels you have stored of your crops. They don’t even list any types, they want it ALLLLLL! You bought the seed, you did the work to plant it and reap it and the government wants to tax you on your reward??? WTF!?

Next column? More room for vehicles such as buses, airplanes, motor homes or campers, boat, snowmobiles, hydro-ski, etc.

Then, here’s the really fun part, they want to know how many computers you have as well as copiers and “etc.” “Professional tools, equipment, & fixtures…” Furniture! If you’re a hotel, motel, or bed & breakfast, of course. Please, though, computers? What is this, a Nazi state? “Tell us your radios, if you know what’s good for you, and we’ll be back to steal them later and leave you disconnected from the world.”

What I mean to say is: what the heck!?!

First of all, we pay all sorts of taxes on all this crap when we buy it the first place, how is it even legal for them to keep taxing us year after year on the stuff we already own!? Seriously, I get ticked off every year, haha. It’s just so unjust, being robbed by our own government on a daily basis. Strangely, this ticks me off more than federal income tax which is also soooo not right.

Spank me hard, US of A, spank me hard.

/rant of the day (please return now to your regularly scheduled program)

The guy is not even 30 yet, not much older than me, and every time I hear the song I think, “dude, did you smoke your childhood away?”

I mean, he talks about no video games being out when he was little yet, didn’t the NES come out in 1985, you know, when he wasn’t even ten-years-old yet? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Let’s not even mention that Atari was out before that, even. Oops, I just did, didn’t I?

He also refers to satellite TV which, if my history is correct, was out before or about the same time he was born.

He talks about prayer in public schools… um, no, that was removed more than ten years before he was born.

And how about no seat belts in cars? Maybe when he was really little, if they owned a car older than a 1968 model.

So, yeah.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad song (and you have to note that he didn’t actually write it, therefore he gets the benefit of the doubt); all that stuff in the lyrics is eventually true but not so much when it comes to him. Not to say, of course, that artists can never sing songs that are not true to their lifestyle, not doing that would end up being impossible, but this song makes generalizations and assumptions about a generation and by singing it, he is claiming a generation that just isn’t really his. I think I could take it if someone else, older, like Toby Keith or Tim McGraw sang this song, but a guy who’s not even 30 yet? Ahhhhh