My mundane life. I got up yesterday morning to a note on the microwave. It explained that the microwave gave up the ghost at some point in the night while I was sleeping. No biggie, last time I bought a microwave it was right around fifty bucks including tax.
Imagine my surprise when I got to the microwave isle and saw that a similar microwave was going to cost seventy bucks, plus tax. Making it damn near an eighty dollar purchase. (10% sales tax in Tn.) Jebus fricking christ!
Then yesterday as I took my wife to work, (note I said my wife and not “the” wife*) I saw the price of gas was holding steady at $1.72 a gallon that morning. By three- o- clock in the afternoon gas had jumped to $1.99 a gallon. A twenty seven cent increase in less than ten hours! WTF?
Now I suppose the orange idiot tariffs could have something to do with microwave prices. I dunno.
I also understand if you are looking for a freezer these days, good damn luck! It seems they are in high demand and slow to stock. Just FYI…
Will an assassination in Iran cause a darn near thirty cent jump in gas? I guess. I can’t think of a good reason besides that. But whatever. It is what it is, we have little say in the fluctuations of the consumer goods department. We as consumers are just along for the ride. I can say for sure though, the cost of the needs, sure puts a dent in the wants.
I hope this post finds you all in good health and maintaining covid protocalls. Y’all stay safe out there.
* I made a post on Pharyngula several days back, and described a situation in which I typed the words “the wife.” Someone made a comment thusly: “The wife, ugh!”
Now I’m not exactly sure what I did wrong there. I am getting to be an old fart and might be out of touch with all of the wokeness, and feminist leanings of the day, but as far as I know “the wife” isn’t a derogatory statement. Though I can see, if I squint, and try really hard, how it possibly could be interpreted that way. But I can assure you, and anyone else, that I’d never ever mean it in a derogatory fashion. It is an term I grew up with and never saw it used in a negative way. But I am mentioning this here, instead of there, as I wasn’t going to touch it with a ten foot pole on the Pharyngula blog. That place is a piranah tank for the unwary. I am not the unwary. 🙂
If anyone can help me sort this out, without depriving me of a few appendages, I’d appreciate it.
Evidence Based Reality 
LOL. I can tell you many females in these parts refer to all evil things with a “the” in front of it. We call it “the menopause,” “the cancer,” “the situation.” One might refer to “the husband” if they were having a quarrel….otherwise he’d be “hubby.” However, if a man says “the wife,” I don’t assume it’s always in a negative connotation. Many men are not as clued in on the intricacies of language. I don’t say that as a judgment, but of the acknowledgment that men and women are sometimes socialized a bit differently. 😉
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Count me as one of those “not always clued in” types 😉
But I am capable of learning. Even if I might be on the slow side of getting a clue…
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No worries, there are plenty of things I’ve taken a long time to get a clue about…mainly religion, which sunk me for 41 years and had very serious repercussions on my life. Not getting the connotations of a certain expression is minor enough to be nearly irrelevant…except when you happen to be in an online piranha tank. 😀
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Whew, 41 years is a long time. Just find hapiness in the freedom that comes with ditching religion. Enjoy what we have, and try not to dwell on what could have been,
I was lucky, I tried to get religion a couple of times, it just kept rubbing me the wrong way with its inanity, contradictions, and blind devotion to things I found hard to accept. I got away relatively unscathed.
I did enjoy the company of the people. The camaraderie, but even that could not hold me, against the increasing ridiculousness of the experience.
I applaud you for having the conviction to see your way out.
And, yeah, one must be very, very, careful in the vicinity of piranah tanks. 🙂
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I am in that class that would say the wife and not mean to be derogatory
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We should both tread carefully then I fear.
Sometimes it just seems like the world, and society in general, tend to pass us by at some point. We are left to being out of touch jackasses who “just don’t get it.”
I certainly didn’t mean it as derogatory. But apparently some do…?
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I’m 47 and feel the world has indeed become more treacherous. One verbal slip-up on any of a million different topics can get you brutally dragged. I have a 9 year old son and have noticed the kids in his generation don’t tolerate the jokes of my generation. Example: my 77 year old mother was wearing medical compression stockings on her legs for blood clots. I joked to her that they they made her look sexy, and my son cracked down on me for “objectifying a female.” Holy smokes!
Social media seems to be widening the generational gaps. Perhaps younger generations who were born with the internet will find some sort of balance/understanding with it, though I fear us old farts will never quite “get it.”
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To the old farts that just don’t get it! (Raises glass)
Wow. 9 years old, and freaking “gets it.” Yep, I’m having another drink lol.
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And just so you know, you can’t make jokes about your OWN group of people either. I’m disabled and made a crack about “being a cripple” in the privacy of my own home, and had to endure a lecture from my son about how that kind of language “marginalizes disabled people.” I tried to explain to him that I know they’re marginalized, because I’M marginalized, and that I was simply joking. To which he responded, “hiding prejudice under humor is not acceptable.”
I tell you, it’s a whole different world out there. Forget the glass, I need an entire bottle of wine at this point.
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I think we can all drink to that Miss Violet 🙂
I do the same thing all the time. That is cracking jokes about my chronic back, being an old fart, etc.
I even crack jokes with my wife (who is Puerto Rican, and a New Yorker) I’ll see her in the kitchen at a cutting board and proclaim “A Puerto Rican with a knife! Run!” Or similar silly shit. Everyone knows I’m kidding. But if someone else tried that, they’d have to deal with me 🙂 Conversely, I’d never say something like that to someone I wasn’t married to for almost 20 years.
Maybe it’s just me, and someone might come along and say that’s the most racist thing they have ever heard, but if you can’t jest in good fun with your loved ones, or yourself even, the whole thing has gone just a wee bit too far.
I know the piranah tank would be on me like a crippled cow in the river for even thinking such a thing. No offense to crippled cows intended…
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…though I might add, I think it’s great that the younger generation is getting it. And working on it.
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They’ll be less prejudiced than any generation before them, which is a credit to them. Their use of humor is totally different though and takes some getting used to (it’s very clean, unlike my DARK humor).
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I didn’t know that.
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Apparently so. But, then again, I’ve been a jackass LONG before I was ever out of touch with anything. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go pay “the” landlord, “the” rent.
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Be careful how you throw those “the” around. You never know when they will see you 😉
Oh… and hail brother jackass! 🙂
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An authentic gas price increase takes months to work its way through the system (which is currently full of oil bought at a lower price). Therefore retailers use any kind of negative news from the Middle East to jump up their prices in anticipation of such a change. They never want to be behind the curve. (They can always drop them if the increase doesn’t happen … plus, all of the stations in a region copy one another; if one station increases prices, they all do.)
And, since the Republicans are all for wager suppression and the pandemic is a massive wage suppressor (is that why the Repubs are “for” it?) we are all lucky we can afford to buy anything and, quite possibly, soon we won;t have the income to but much beyond the basics.
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I think the R’s are hunky dory with covid for a lot of reasons. Mostly because old people on SSI are dying. And many people of color (who may or may not be receiving gov’t assistance of some sort) are dying. And in general people of color (who might not vote R) are dying. In fact I’m pretty sure those bastards are whistling/dancing down the halls knowing it.
I have said many times in the past, if an Arab sneezes in the desert, gas prices jump 10 cents a gallon. This looks to be the case here…
Stale wages, excessive loss of jobs, and higher costs on consumer goods are trending in a bad direction.
I suppose you have seen that stocks are at an alltime high, and in the meantime more people than ever are falling into poverty and hunger?
Some place we are living in.
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i am keeping well.
the gas station just saw you and decided you could pay more for gas
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Well, every gas station in that town jumped thier prices the exact same. Except one.
Guess where I filled the tank up? 😉
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I hope you went to the most expensive just to show them you have money
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Well of course! Then I went in and tipped the clerk fifty bucks!
… no, not really 😉
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Haha ha
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…and stay well my friend 🙂
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I suppose it all comes down to how we allow a situation over which we have scarce control, to impact us.
Shakti
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That is a fair amount of wisdom. Seldom seen in between my ears 😉 At least no one has documented it happening yet. But I remain hopeful 🙂
So much easier to knee jerk than seek wisdom in the moment. I’m working on it 😉
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