Concessions-R-Us

Well, actually, it SHOULD say "Concessions-R-Me". Because I was the ONLY ONE working there last night. Grr.

Here's Why: Our Little League here in Nowheresville, KY is run by the most inept, incompetent, uncaring morons that I have ever seen. One of the by-products of this is that they say they "can't afford" to pay someone to man the concession stand during games, (to which I said "then where did all of my money go? Because it wasn't to the coaches or field staff, who are all volunteers") so they require parents to volunteer to man it instead. You are required to write them a check for $50 (in addition to all the other registration fees, which are also sky-high) when you sign your kid up, and if you complete your time in purgatory at the concession stand, they supposedly tear it up and don't cash it at the end of the season. If you don't serve your time, they cash it. They figure, and rightly so, that most people don't want to waste $50, so they'll do their time. However, I don't see how this $ is helping MY kids, since these checks aren't cashed until AFTER the season is over. So if you don't work, you've just subsidized next year's league.

So I signed up and dutifully showed up last evening to fulfill my first required shift (you have to do two) and found a locked concession stand. Another woman, who was supposed to distribute shirts (that were also inside the stand) to another team showed up about ten minutes after I did and wanted to know why it wasn't open. I told her I didn't have a key or any way to contact anyone who did. So, well-connected as she was, she called the league director, who just happened to be in the next town (20 min away) at ANOTHER field with his family. She finally managed to get ahold of some parks and rec guy who showed up 30 min later with a key (you know, 30 min AFTER the games had already begun and people were circling me like sharks wanting to know why the stand wasn't open.)

While we were waiting, I noticed I was the only one who had apparently shown up to work. Which would not have been such a big deal if I had known ANYTHING at all about where the food and drinks were, how much to charge, how to work the ancient cash register, what to prepare the food with, how to shut everything down and close and lock up, etc. I conveyed this apprehension to the other woman waiting with me, and she said she would show me where everything was and how to run it before she left.

Apparently this meant she would get the hot dogs ready and take off, because that's what she did. Since I was swamped with hillbilly rednecks wanting snacks and drinks for the first 45 minutes, all I could basically do was throw their money in the direction of the cash register and hand out food in return. I actually told people we were out of sunflower seeds and peanuts because I couldn't find them. (As it turned out, they were in a bucket on the floor. You know, because that's where food belongs: on the floor.) After the initial rush died down, I sorted out the money into the register and hunted down the rest of the items for sale. Things were going relatively spiffy until two teeneage umpires came in and held up their time cards and said "Where do we put these?" Uh, well, um, how about where you usually put them?" Their response? "We don't know where they are supposed to go." I decided to skip the rest of the conversation about how they've been doing this job for over a month now and SERIOUSLY, have they never turned in a time card?, while they stared at me blankly, so I just took the cards and told them I'd take care of it. Ten minutes later, a severely overweight man comes in wanting to know where the first aid supplies were. (My thought: we have first aid supplies? What do I look like, a paramedic?) I finally found a file cabinet labeled "ice packs" so I handed him one and said "good luck."

When I decided to close up shop for the night, I discovered there was no way to wash out the hot dog pan except for hot water, so I turned it up full blast and poured the hottest water possible into it over and over, hoping to at least kill whatever germs might be in it by sheer heat alone, since there was no scrubbing item or soap in sight, except the hand soap by one of the sinks. I put up all the food, cleaned up the area in general, and turned off the hot plate. I closed out the register, put everything in the cash bag, wrote a note telling the manager which three items they were nearly out of, and stuck the two umpires' time cards on top. I locked the window and door behind me, shut it, then realized I hadn't remembered to check the ice cream chest to make sure it was closed. Nice. So if all the ice cream treats are melted when I go back tonight for my second (and last) shift, I will basically be the most hated person in town. However, in my defense, it would serve the managers right for being such *unprintable words* as to not bother showing up to open it, then leaving me there by my clueless self.

Oh, and I discovered the schedule sitting on a counter near the register. Guess who was supposed to show up and work the stand with me last night? That's right, the leaders (husband and wife) of my sons' Cub Scout pack. Wow. Way to display those leadership and responsibility qualities there. I'm so impressed.

There are two different ladies schedule to work with me tonight. I have a feeling I'll be by myself again, except this time, at least, I have the phone number of the man with the key.

Why I Will Celebrate

There has been a lot of talk over the past 24 hours about how we, as American citizens, should not be celebrating the death of the terrorist who, without provocation, slaughtered thousands of people, both civilian and military. The reasons for this non-celebratory attitude differ: some people are afraid of terrorist retaliation if they see us having a nation-wide shindig, some people are pacifists and dislike any and all conflict regardless of the justification, and some people feel we should be like Jesus and mourn the loss of a life, no matter how vile it was nor how much intentional destruction it caused.

I am not one of those people.

Here are the facts: 1. American military forces executed a man guilty of multiple premeditated, unprovoked mass murders. 2. They did so in face-to-face combat. 3. Bin Laden knew who killed him, why they killed him, and was caught entirely off-guard when it occured.

Those facts are indisputable, so let's address the various theories of non-celebratory behavior put forth by these nincompoops.

Any terrorist cells loyal to Bin Laden will want revenge for the death of their leader. Whether or not we engage in celebratory behavior will neither encourage nor dissuade them from that position. If you really believe it will, you have the reasoning capabilities of a two-year-old who thinks that screaming at the night sky will cause it to turn to daylight again. Just as there is no correlation between screaming and sunrise, so is there no correlation between celebratory behavior and terrorist actions. Terrorists have a callous disregard for all forms of life and will do what they will do regardless of the state of the rest of the world.

The pacifists will remain unmotivated no matter what happens. A true pacifist will not condone or participate in any type of conflict or combative behavior, preferring instead to sit idly by, wringing their hands while wishing everyone would just love one another and sing Kumbayah. Unfortunately for pacifists, however, terrorists tend to be unreasonable people and are thus entirely unmoved by displays of pacifism. The main trouble with pacifism, though, is that it consists entirely of people who refuse to stand up for their own beliefs, refuse to protect what they hold dear, refuse to take action against those people or circumstances who would seek to do harm. The very root word of pacifism, passive, means to submit without resistance. And I cannot condone an ideology that consists of sitting idly by and submitting to the the machinations of an evil madman without resistance. Call me a warmonger if you wish.

And now we come to the question of What Would Jesus Do? Well, you can quote Bible verses at me all day long and into the night, but when people begin using Bibilical passages as a means to justify pacifism, I tend to give them the same consideration as I would Jim Bakker, who as you'll recall, used Bible verses as a means to justify personal financial gain. While I do agree that it is admirable, and Godly, to forgive your enemies and wish for their conversion and redemption, I also believe that allowing the continued massacre of innocent people puts their blood on YOUR hands as well. After all, you are either for it or against it. There is no middle ground when it comes to the question of the taking of human life. I stand resolute that we as Americans should, and have a responsibility to, do everything in our power to protect our families and fellow citizens from reigns of terror.

Osama Bin Laden's assasination is unquestionably a good thing. No, it will not bring back the dead. It will not erase the pain felt by their families and friends, and it will not reverse the horrific events that have transpired over the past ten years. It may or may not bring "closure" to people; that psychological term cannot be narrowed to a precise definition or composition; it is brought about differently for everyone.

What it DOES do, however, is bring justice. If you intentionally decide to end the life of another human being without their consent (or at least a morally and legally reasonable justification), we in the civilized free world deem than unpardonable, and the payment for such an atrocity is the relinquishment of your own life and freedoms. Should you decide not to comply, you will be summarily executed. And when you happen to have planned, encouraged, and brought about the entirely unprovoked murders of thousands of people, your death will be met with much revelry and relief. That much is certain.

So I WILL celebrate...because his death means he can no longer orchestrate the senseless deaths of others. I WILL celebrate...the defeat of evil in this world. I WILL celebrate...because I am proud that American forces were the ones who removed this vile cancer from among the living. And I will celebrate without fear of retaliation, because I refuse to give any terrorists the satisfaction of my fear.

Observations

Today I saw an old man, no younger than 70, mowing his yard in shorty-shorts and a button-down shirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders.

Thoughts:
1. Oh. My. Gosh. This person needs "What not to Wear" like a fish needs water.
2. I hope he's not dressed that way in some misguided attempt to get a tan or impress the ladies, because frankly, 70 year olds don't need tans and if he couldn't attract the ladies before, it's not gonna happen now.
3. I would've thought only a gay man would wear shorty-shorts. But this man obviously isn't gay, because no gay man (even a drag queen) with even a shred of self-respect would wear such a repulsive outfit.
4. Now I need my eyes sanitized.

Observations

This is the first of a series on this blog that I'm going to call "Observations." These are things I notice at random that I feel like sharing my thoughts on, for whatever reason. They'll pop up every now and then.

Today's installment regards turkey vultures. If you've never seen a turkey vulture, let me preface this by saying that these are the most repulsive birds on the planet. They look exactly like the bastard child of a turkey and a vulture, hence the name, and out here in Kentucky, not a day goes by that you don't see at least two or three of them circling up in the air.

I took my younger two to the playground today while we waited for my oldest's baseball practice to end. I happened to look up at a turkey vulture circling the playground area and the first thought that immediately popped into my head was "If I had a gun with me, I'd drop that sucker." Pure reflex.


Thoughts: I have never actually wished death on any animal. There are some animals I don't like very much, but I've never had thoughts of killing them. I'm too soft-hearted for that. Or at least, I was. The realization that such a heartless and emotion-free thought was my initial gut reaction to that bird was a smidge startling. But I didn't (and still don't) feel guilty, because the very reason I had that thought was because I felt my kids were threatened. Now, I know that turkey vultures don't attack live anythings, let alone people, but these are huge birds, and when they circle low (and it was VERY low) over my babies, my reflexive reaction is immediate and absolute annihilation. I turn into a rabid militant with a vicious attitude problem if I sense any harm about to befall my children.


Lesson: Anyone or anything that even so much as has passing thoughts about threatening me or my kids in any way, shape, or form had better be prepared for certain, immediate death. I don't give a rat's butt who you are and I'll leave your smelly carcass to rot where it falls. I take no prisoners when it comes to my family.

Food I Miss

Because food and thereby, restaurants, tend to be regional, I knew when we came out here that I would be sacrificing some of my beloved culinary addictions. Since I'm hungry and in a sentimental mood today, I'm going to share a list of some of the centers of my food universe that I no longer get to frequent. I do try, however, to eat at every single one of them when I'm home to make up for it.

Ted's Cafe Escondido: The best chips and tortillas I have ever had. The rest of their food is pretty good too. They also have a great lunch menu with very reasonable prices. This is an absolute can't-miss when I'm home.

El Chico: Not the best or most authentic mexican food on the planet, but the main draw here is that they also serve Kraft mac and cheese and corndogs, so the kids will actually eat without whining that there's nothing they like. Prices are also quite reasonable, and their queso is fairly good.

Chipotle: I like that you can see it as they make it, it tastes great, it's pretty fresh, and again, affordable. I like to get the soft-shell tacos. The closest one is an hour away, which beats 10 hours, but is still too far to go frequently.

Tarahumara's: a family-run joint with the absolute fastest service anywhere. On Earth. One time I had my food within five minutes (and it was perfectly cooked, too.) I don't think I've ever not cleaned my entire plate when I've been here. It's so good I literally can't stop eating til it's empty.

Poblano Grill: this chain opened up about six months before we moved, and I immediately became a fan. Apparently lots of other people feel the same, based on the ratings.

Taco Bueno: (sensing a theme yet?) Again, not the best or most authentic, but for fast food mexican, it's fresher and better than most. Excellent for when you're broke but still want good food. I've yet to meet anyone who doesn't like Bueno.

Pei Wei: the cheaper, faster version of PF Chang's. Marvelous Asian food and a great variety at reasonable prices (unlike Chang's itself.) Another can't-miss.

Johnny Carino's: My favorite Italian place ev-ah. Their bread is awesome, their food is awesome, their service is awesome, their atmosphere is awesome. Soldier Boy and I ate our first meal together here. Again, there is one about an hour away, but that's a lot of fuel just to go out to eat.

Braum's: this is THE place for ice cream at home. My favorite is cherry limeade sherbet. They're probably also just as well known for their burgers, which are big and delicious.

To be fair, there are a couple of new places out here that I have become attached to; I will probably miss them when we leave, but not enough to want to stay out here. They are:

Hungry Howie's Pizza: the pizza itself is fairly good for an inexpensive carry-out/delivery-only place, but the flavored crust is the big deal here. There's something like six different flavors to choose from and all the ones I've tried have been great. The kids love it too.

Longhorn Steakhouse: on the pricey side, but no more than Carino's or Ted's. It has a real "Texas" vibe to it, but then again, if it didn't, I couldn't consider it a real steakhouse. Good steaks, good bread, good sides. They have coupons, too, which is unusual for a steakhouse, but endears me to them even more.

And we all know how important coupons have become to me recently.

Couponing the paycheck away

I've always been a casual coupon user. If I notice a good one, for something I've been wanting to try, I'll try to remember to bring it with me to the store. Fuel prices of late, however, have catapulted the need for $ cutbacks anywhere I can make them. To that end, I have turned the furnace down 3 degrees and tried to consolidate all my errands to one or two days a week. Which means I have to stay home the other five. Which is driving me insane.


So yesterday I decided it was time to jump back into the coupon pool and see what I came up with. I regularly subscribe to Groupon and Living Social, but the problem with those is that you have to pay up front before you can use the coupon or discount. And they're usually for things like restaurants, carpet cleaning, entertainment, or spas/salons. When you're scraping nickels out of the car seats to put fuel in your truck, like me, you tend not to have extraneous cash to fritter away on such luxuries like a flippin' haircut, although I've needed one for over 9 months now, and we haven't seen a movie in a theater in over a year, and we can't afford to eat at most of those art-house restaurants anyway and even if we could, they're not usually ones that welcome kids and since we can't afford a babysitter we stick to places like McAlisters that offer two free kids meals with an adult entree purchase Monday-Thursday.


Although I will admit that both of those services offer some damn good deals if you can afford to shell out up front.


One of my husband's friends routinely posts on facebook (hereafter known as FB on this blog) about her coupon savings. She's bought every grocery item you can imagine for nearly free, at least once. She uses a website back at home that consolidates coupons from every possible source and lists them out neatly so that you can pick and choose what you want and then print them out. However, since I'm half a continent away from home, I can't use most of them, so I have to hunt for my own. I dream of the day I can go to Target or Wal-Mart and walk out with six bags of groceries, having paid something like $20 for all of it.


I'm not there yet. Mostly because the majority of the coupons I encounter are not for things I use. I realize that this is because the whole purpose of coupons, from the manufacturer's perspective, is to entice the customer to try their product, and they don't need to entice people to buy things they are already buying anyway, but frankly, I don't care about the manufacturers. I care about me and my family and feeding all of us on a thrice-daily basis.


So far, all the coupons I've cut out and printed off amount to about a $7 savings on my grocery bill this paycheck. Not enough, sonny boy. Where are the coupons for milk, eggs, rice, taco shells, sliced bread, shredded cheese, butter, or trash bags? Come on, give me something I can really use. I don't give a rat's butt about .75 off a box of Claritin, which I don't use anyway because it doesn't work. I want to save a dollar or two off milk, which is almost $4 a gallon. It's almost cheaper to have your own cow.


While I'm on the subject, why is it that healthier foods are always so much more expensive anyway? If Michelle Obama wants us to eat healthier, why doesn't she introduce some REAL eating-habit-changing legislation, like requiring healthy foods to be priced half as much as the crap that's bad for you? I'll be honest, a lot of people buy soda (or "pop", as we call it where I'm from) because a two-liter costs $1.09 versus a gallon of juice that costs $4.50. That family-size box of Froot Loops costs less that the paperback-novel size box of Kashi granola. If it means the difference between eating and not eating, I'm gonna go for the Froot Loops. Is the point of Whole Foods and other stores like it simply to drive home the insinuation that only the wealthy should be allowed to eat healthy? Is this just really (literally) Survival of The Fittest based on economic scale?


I've already switched to store brands for a lot of things like paper towels, kleenex, toilet paper, baggies, trash bags, and a host of other non-food items. I tend to be more of a snob about food, though; I've tried the store brand spaghettios and they suck. Milk is milk no matter what label is on it, though, so it's one of the few things I'll go generic on, food-wise.


I've "liked" a page on FB that is all about couponing, in a effort to pick up some more deals here and there. And although it costs $2, I'm gonna go buy a Sunday paper this weekend since the P&G coupon section is supposed to be in it. I hope it's not a waste of $2, because I can feed myself lunch at McD's with that much. Or buy half a gallon of gas.

Things I'm Thankful For, Part One

You know those fun-filled all-night sleepovers with your kids where they're up projectile vomiting every thirty minutes and you have to change the kid's bedding and clothes so many times that you run out of clean bedding and clothes and the unbalanced washer is bouncing all over the laundry room (which happens to be across the hall from your bedroom) all night trying to keep up with the growing mountain of crap you keep throwing at it? We had one in our bedroom last night.

This was a few days after taking Soldier Boy to the ER one evening for the same thing. Apparently all the boys in this house have been trading this virus back and forth for about a week now. I'm hoping it's one of those "y-chromosome" viruses that doesn't affect the mother, because I can't afford to be sick while they are. Frankly, I can't afford to be sick ever.

Despite the roughly hour and a half or so of sleep that Soldier Boy and I got, I have to say that I am thankful for a few things, at least.

1. Soldier Boy was actually HOME to help with the mess. I did not have to hold the baby, clean the baby, change the baby's sheets, and urge him to drink some water all by myself. After three years of doing it myself, having the help made it almost easy. Almost.

2. Said baby (who is nearly four, by the way) does not sleep in our bed anymore. This is a fairly recent development, having occurred only about six months ago when we moved. (Don't judge me, he's the baby and everyone knows that by the time you've been schooled by several kids in nighttime battles, you just give in and let them sleep wherever they want so everyone can get some rest.) Thus, now when he gets sick, it's in his own bed and does not destroy ours. Toddler bed sheets are a lot easier to rip off and throw in the washing machine than queen-size ones. Moreover, we don't have to smell his vomit-scented breath in our faces or take a shower because he's thrown up all over US.

3. I am still a stay at home mom at this moment. This will be changing soon, but nights like last night make me grateful that I don't have to fake sick calling into work. Or worse, be threatened with involuntary termination if I don't go in, and cry and scream and sob in a desperate manner to find a non-psychotic person to come stay with the contagious baby so I can go to work and sulk and pout and feel guilty all day, all in the name of staying Employed.

4. The baby, although he is in his own bed, still sleeps in our room. We have been devising ways to evict him from our bedroom and out to his own room for awhile, but I just haven't had the balls to do it yet, because he sleeps pretty much peacefully in our room and I don't want to have to get up seventeen times every night to walk to the other end of the house to cover him back up, reassure him that it's not the end of the world, or help him to the bathroom. When he's sick, it is particularly convenient that he is in our room, because he's less than five feet from me and I can get to him quickly before he drags the vomit-covered blankie and jammies across the carpet and down the hall, crying and spewing. If he were in his own room, not only would I have to clean up THAT mess, but I would also have to bring him in bed with us so I could keep a close eye on him while he's sick, and then you're right back to the whole sick-baby-destroying-your-bed-and-breathing-vomit-breath-on-you scenario again. With him in OUR room, but in his OWN bed, it's the best of both worlds when he's sick.

5. It's a gray rainy day outside, so I don't feel like I should be out running errands or getting some exercise or being outside in general. Everyone knows that it's better to be sick (or nurse a sick person) when the weather is also sickly. That way, you don't feel like you're missing out on much.

6. I have a washing machine. I can't tell you how important this is when you have a sick kid. The washing machine is my favorite appliance pretty much all the time. I'm fond of the fridge, the oven, and the microwave as well, but dragging loads of smelly, messy clothes to a laundromat and 'washing' them in some equally dirty-looking machine that Bubba's wife probably used to wash the chicken shit out of his coveralls and skid marks out of his Hanes makes me want to simultaneously throttle someone and bathe myself in bleach. Thus, I (heart) my washing machine. Which I now have to go put another load of vomit blankets into.