2024, Kids, Mysteries, News, Uncategorized

Alarming Trends

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I have noticed over the past year or so a really alarming trend for people to back into parking paces in parking lots. At the grocery store, it means that if you have a van or you put your groceries in the trunk that it is hard to access the rear of your vehicle. I guess people do this so that they have better visibility when they leave their parking space. I think it is really dumb. It takes longer to park, makes it harder to park, and also makes it quicker for someone to steal your vehicle since they can just drive off instead of having to take time to back out.

People at my agency also noticed over the past year a trend for Middle School and High School female students to try to convince us that they have Dissociative Identity Disorder aka Multiple Personality Disorder, and watch TikTok videos to practice the symptoms and the shifting into the other personalities. They are so disappointed when we dismiss the symptoms.

If you haven’t noticed, I wrote this when I was really crabby. That is usually not a trend for me, but this has been an annoying week. I will be alarmed if my crabby trend continues.

What has made you crabby this week? What were the passing fads when you were in Middle School and High School.

53 thoughts on “Alarming Trends”

  3. Customer service over the phone. This week I had two encounters. One with an endless computer voice telling me to say or enter all sorts of account numbers, dates, addresses, etc.

    The second: a very nice, polite, efficient LIVE woman for whom English is not her native language. So I struggled to understand her over the diminished sound quality we now have after Ma Bell broke up however many decades ago and phone quality became a race to the bottom in the name of maximizing profits. Same old story everywhere: Cheaper is better, more is better, planned obsolescence is better. Bah, humbug! *Speaking of crabby*

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. Customer Service is a sore spot in the world of commerce right now. What I would not do for the kind of customer service available at Daytons 30 years ago.

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  4. Ha! I am one of those backer-inners, IF when I park there is no other car waiting to enter the lane I’m in. I have a fear of forgetting to look carefully if backing out, and hitting a person walking through the lot – I much prefer to be able to drive straight out. (And I hate walking through parking lots because you can’t always tell when someone is going to back out.

    We also back our car into the garage for somewhat the same reason. We enter the garage from the alley, and I have almost, when backing out of the garage, hit a car coming down the alley… feels safer to come out frontways.

    Crabby:
    However, yesterday I managed to bash the back left bumper by not checking the left mirror as I backed into the garage! Car is drive-able but will have to go into the shop next week to completely re-attach.

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  5. Rise and Vent, Baboons,

    I am not super crabby today, but I have misplaced my earbuds this morning which is a problem when I go to the gym in a bit. I listen to music or audiobooks at the gym which makes my experience there very pleasant. Where did I put those…..

    Middle school kids being creative about various symptoms is a tradition. I saw this same thing occur with various “sexual identities” which kids would glom onto, as well as fashions that accompanied a particular identity. Back in the mid-80s there were early-age teens and tweens wearing pacifiers on a lanyard around their necks and sucking on them. That was a weird one that invited any number of interpretations. DID will pass. Meanwhile, TikTok is problematic. Exported and unregulated Chinese capitolism invites this stuff.

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  6. Because of my very bad neck, I do everything I can to avoid backing up. I find spots I can drive through to the other side so it looks I suppose like I backed up. When I have to, I back out, not in. Much easier. In the apartment garage the old couple opposite me often leave their car sticking out into the middle space. I left a note asking them not to. A polite note but I made them crabby. The building manager told them I was right.
    What makes me crabby these days is Sandra’s drug insurance which fights me at every turn.
    Clyde

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    1. 3 new discount drug companies in 2024
      i’ll get the names and pass them on

      the savings over drug companies via insurance is amazing in my experience

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  7. Wow! I needed this today! I was just going down a deep hole of crabbiness due to Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Minnesota.

    They have changed their website. I’ve had problems getting my electronic premium bill since November. I get repeated emails informing me that my payment is due. I log in to my account to pay it but the website has changed utterly and completely. I have looked under every heading, every link, everywhere I can see in my account, and it tells me that I need to do a health assessment. No monthly premium invoice anywhere. It used to show right up. You would think they’d want to make it easy for me to send them money. I tried last night and again this morning. Nice new website, easy to use, no bill. It would be fine if they didn’t threaten that I can’t even be a day late or they will remove me from the state’s advantage insurance plans.

    Yesterday I went to Cub for a few groceries. I was drawn there like many others due to winter storm warnings for our area. I drove into the parking lot and had my eye on a spot on my left. There were some people walking ahead of me so I was moving very slowly and keeping my eye on my spot. Suddenly on my left a car began to back up, really getting close, not slowing down, only a foot or two from my driver’s side door. I couldn’t move forward due to the people wandering toward the store in front of me, and another car was entering the same lane with their eye on my parking spot, and a guy on my right was putting his groceries in his trunk. I was stuck in place with some (ahem!) almost backing into me. I felt very sorry for the people who were walking but the only thing I could do was lay on my horn. I did and it worked. They stopped right before hitting me – literally inches away. Everybody turned and looked at me. I really hope those people didn’t have heart attacks. The guy loading his groceries in his trunk looked at me, shaking his head. The other car eyeing my spot took the opportunity to steal it right in front of me. Talk about crabby! I drove out of that lane, then decided to look farther back in the parking lot where there wasn’t quite so much activity.

    We didn’t have middle school, we had junior high. It was an anxious time for me, a time of lots of change. I wasn’t the kind of kid who wanted to feign illness to skip school, and I don’t remember any trends except learning Jacob’s Ladder because other girls were doing it and I wanted to fit in.

    OT: Storm update. Nothing happening here at all. I expected it to be snowing by now. I’m sure it will come.

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        2. I retired at age 59 and continued paying my premiums on my own so that I wouldn’t lose the state Advantage plan. I wait for an e-mail, click a link, there’s my bill, click Pay, and voila! Done. They changed it in December. I should have signed up for auto pay then I wouldn’t be worried. Medicare doesn’t start for me until April but I received my card. I think I will have the Blue Cross Coordinated plan when I start Medicare in April.

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        3. I’ve been with BCBS for several years. So far, no complaints. Their response to claims has been prompt and in accordance with the contract; no surprises. They have made some changes to their website which have had some snags, but they are aware of it and working on it. I pay my monthly premium electronically through my bank, no problem at all.

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      3. I usually don’t have problems with them. Overall they’ve been great. It’s just that they’ve changed their website and it seems they’ve changed the billing too – making it completely disappear. Maybe I should be happy.

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  8. Morning-
    I had Jr. High too. Big hair, big glasses, that’s what I remember. Unfortunately, I had both back then.

    I get crabby all the time, but I am blessed with a short memory so I don’t remember them. Generally it is people are the cause.

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  9. Sandra has to have one of the dual health plans (health and drugs) approved by the state or maybe it is the county. I chose Medica because at the time they were my very good health plan. But every April they jacked their rates through the roof. So I left them. The drug part of her plan is now run by Express Scripts, which is a thieving awful organization. So I am going to transfer to I guess BC/BS.
    Junior high was 1957-60. They were terrible years for me, in school and in my family. The steel industry was in recession. Styles? What were they? Senior high wearing a letter jacket covered a lot of that ground. I am told that in many schools the jackets made up a kind of a kind of a gang. The jocks were too desperate a group to be that. We were not allowed to wear jeans and girls had to wear skirts. In our junior year everyone just ignored the rule.

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    1. In high school I was once sent to the principal for wearing a denim shirt. The principal admonished me, saying that “denim was working class.” This in a suburban school where many of the families were in fact working class, whatever that meant.
      That’s how much a dinosaur he was.

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      1. I sewed a skirt for myself in junior high… out of a round red and white checked tablecloth with white fringe. It was long, down to my calves. This was several years before midis and maxis came into fashion. I got sent home to change.

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        1. Around the 70’s schools got really weird about anyone who expressed individuality through clothing or hairstyles. God forbid that anyone should try to be different from everyone else.

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  10. Crabby yesterday as I spilled coffee on keyboard & track pad of my large iMac. Shut down computer, quickly mopped up (fortunately paper towels close by, disconnected keyboard. Resisted AI advice to haul it to Best Buy (of course don’t have box any more) and convinced person (once I got a live soul from another country where I had to spell computer terms) to schedule a repair person to come to my house Mon. Hoping it will work or that I might just have to buy a new external keyboard. Can’t believe I did this after many years of using computers without incidents. Sounds like it would have been worse if it was a tablet or Mac book. Sighing a lot.

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  12. It is -39° wind chill now, and and very snowy and icy, and I was nearly TBoned by a guy who didn’t stop at a stop sign. I had to take evasive action and drive over the curb and on the sidewalk so he didn’t hit me!

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  14. We have all the makings for an Indian feast-Rogan Josh made with lamb, green lentils, broccoli in garlic oil, homemade chapati, and rice. We don’t sing or ring bells in church on Sunday, and Monday is a holiday for State employees. My crabbiness is lifting.

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  17. OT My son flew from Denver to Boise this afternoon despite the storm. Landed in lots of snow but runway was clear. Because he works for the airline, they gave him two seats in the bulkhead row. They asked if he would accept a German shepherd as his seatmate traveling with the man behind him. He was thrilled. The dog was relaxed but not very friendly. Took a few pets. Looked at my son when he talked to the dog. When they landed, he learned it was a new dog for the K9 force.

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    1. i am crabby because my frigging body has been hurting for a month

      it dawns on me how difficult it must be for people with chronic pain

      recreational marijuana is an option but the first opening for pain accessment is in march . i’m sure i’ll recover it by then

      gummies help but they are pricy

      the trend i remember in jr high was bell bottoms my mom brought me from nyc theater trip she took
      small flair dress slacks with small houndstooth pattern was a big big deal
      1st pair ever seen in these parts
      i was cool from that point on

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  18. Kelly and I took the truck and drove up to the highway and got the mail. Windy, lots of scattered drifts, but soft and fluffy. Some small, like 4-6″ and a few 12″ deep. Highway was just snow covered. I was impressed we actually had mail. Glad to just be home all day and tonight.

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  19. I got a new phone recently and have been a bit crabby about having to get used to it.

    It’s a Samsung product of the Galaxy persuasion and they want me to use all the Samsung apps. I resist being coerced.

    The Galaxy Store wanted to send me notifications. I went to the app to turn off notifications,and the next thing I knew, it had installed Tik Tok without my permission. I removed it right away, but still felt sort of spied upon. Did the Chinese government find out anything about me if I didn’t open the app?

    Had to keep turning off notifications for each individual app. There should be an option to turn off notifications for everything, and then turn them on for the precious few useful things you might want to be notified of. Couldn’t figure out how to do that, though.

    I don’t like backing out of parking places. The ideal is if you can find a place to pull into that has a vacant spot opposite, so you can pull forward and never have to back up at all. I will often park quite a distance away from the store if it means I can park in a spot like that.

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