Top Ways to Show Your Contempt for People Who Disagree With You On Facebook

Posted on October 21, 2025 by pegoleg

Facebook is great for staying in touch with family and friends, but I like to think that its main purpose is providing a forum for the free and respectful exchange of ideas.

Bwahahahahaha!

I know, right?  Good one, Peg.  Sometimes I even slay myself (wipes tears of laughter from streaming eyes.)

But seriously…

Facebook used to be a hip and happening place, where young people shared details of their exciting social lives.  Once we seniors figured out how to get on there, however, almost everyone under 50 abandoned it.  Now it’s used primarily for:

  1. Sharing pictures of grandchildren/sunsets/food/thoughts for the day.
  2. Sharing pictures of ourselves, but only if we’ve recently lost a ton of weight or had a bit of a facial “refresh.”
  3. Sharing photos of our dream vacations that others only wish they could afford.
  4. Direct selling Fountain of Youth supplements, creams, etc to all of our “friends,” including everyone we ever met to whom we had previously barely given the time of day, but recently asked to be “friends” so they can buy the stuff we’re selling.
  5. Espousing our political views and explaining how those who disagree don’t deserve to breathe the same air.  Or any air.

Several of my retired “friends” seem to have made Option #5 their new, full time jobs.

Since very few people want to take the time to fully explore the nuances of complex societal issues, and many seem to lack the mental bandwidth to understand these, let alone debate them, how is the average Joe supposed to “get in the game” when it comes to political commentary?

Peg Co* is proud to present: “Shutting Down Debate When You Got Nothing But Hate: A Troll’s Guide.”

Our experts have done extensive market analysis to come up with the best ammunition for quick and easy, drop-and-dash responses to opposing viewpoints.  We’ve compiled our research into this comprehensive playbook that lets you battle like a bot, providing maximum offense for minimum effort.

Here are just a few of our brilliant suggested responses for posts you don’t agree with:

  1. “Make it make sense.”
  2. “Tell me you are (insert sneering insult here) without telling me you are (repeat sneering insult).”  Complete with comprehensive selection of sneering insults for all occasions
  3.  “You’re full of sh*t/f**k you.” Short and crude, these options can be effective but usually backfire.  Most readers figure the user is really saying, “I got nothing.”
  4. “Prove (insert whatever poster said because they are somewhere on the continuum from pitifully misguided to literally an existential threat to our democracy). I’ll wait.”
  5. January 6th
  6. “When did they know he was senile?”
  7. “Release the files.”
  8. “Who was operating the autopen?”
  9. “Sweetheart/honey/ babycakes…” Considered endearments when used by someone who loves you, being addressed this way in a Facebook comment is the verbal equivalent of a supposedly intellectually superior adult giving a condescending pat on the head to a simple child.  Used almost exclusively by men to demean women they don’t know.  Important life hack: good indicator of how the commenter really feels about ALL women.
  10. “Bless your heart.” Translation: See Response #3.  Strict societal norms limit usage to women of a certain age who were born south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
  11. Clown emojis.  Helpful tip: 1 clown is considered amateur and 7 is trying too hard.  3 is a nice balance.
  12. Insert unflattering caricature of public figure you hate.  Wide selection of full-color, high quality pictures available – drawings, doctored photos or AI generated.
  13. Repost memes from reputable hate-speech vendors.  We provide affiliate links for all the major suppliers, with content that runs the gamut from slightly mocking to outright lying to disgustingly offensive to any decent person.  Premium subscribers get deep discounts on content from Occupy Democrats.
  14. Out of context quotes from the Bible, other great literature, and public figures, living or dead. Choose from our full menu, which can be custom-twisted to support whatever point you want to make.  Premium subscribers get “quotes” that these figures never even said.  100% made up!  You can rest assured that nobody actually checks to see if the quote is true, and calm your conscience (if you go in for that sort of thing) because you just KNOW that this is for SURE what the misquoted person really thinks.
  15. Charlie Kirk option.

Whether you want to respond to “friends” or kick it up a notch by attacking the opinions of random strangers, we’ve got you covered.  Armed with our invaluable guide, even the dullest political parrot can strut through Facebook, confident that all will see how clever and enlightened they are, and how hard they are working to make the world a better place by regurgitating someone else’s mean opinions.

Call today to order your copy of “Shutting down Debate When You Got Nothing but Hate: A Troll’s Guide.” It’s the best hate money can buy.  Operators are standing by. 

*Peg-Co is not responsible for possible negative side-effects including but not limited to: increased blood pressure, alienation of formerly dear friends and family, and the sour, sick feeling in the pit of your stomach that comes with the realization that labeling everyone who disagrees with you as either stupid or evil damages society and may diminish you as a human being. 

Peg-Co is a division of Peg-o-Leg Industries. 

Posted in General Ramblings, Peg-Co Catalog | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Just a Girl And Her Chiroptera

Posted on August 20, 2025 by pegoleg
Wakey-wakey!

Do you mind a personal question?  What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?  If you’re like me, you head to the bathroom for the morning pee.  My advice?  Look before you sit.  For the love of sweet baby Jesus, LOOK BEFORE YOU SIT!

I live in the boonies so I’ve wrangled my share of critters.  Nature is wonderful; majestic and noble and everything but, as I’ve often said, it’s not all Bambi and butterflies.  Sometimes Nature is winged denizens of hell that want to drink your blood. 

The other morning when I stumbled into the bathroom, my bleary eyes noticed a large, dark mass in the toilet bowl.  Not to be gross, but my first thought was, “Eww! I don’t remember doing THAT last night! And for cripes sake, why didn’t you flush, you slob?!?”  Then my vision cleared and my heart sank.  It was not Unsinkable Molly Brown.  It was a bat.  A real, live, I-live-alone-so-it’s-not-a-family-comedian-pulling-my-leg-with-a-rubber-toy bat.

I tiptoed out of the room at a sprint, which isn’t an easy combination.  I wanted to be elsewhere rather quickly, but didn’t want to disturb the foul creature.   It then occurred to me that it could easily get out of the toilet so I crept back and slowly, gently lowered the lid.   It barely moved, which was encouraging.  I piled various bathroom  reading materials and the trash basket on top of the lid in case this 3 ounce flying rat had supernatural powers and could lift a toilet lid 10 times its weight, then I scampered back out of the Room of Doom. After quietly sending a text about the situation to my siblings, heavy on screams and much profanity (interesting side note: voice-to-text must have automatic “Your mother would wash your mouth out with soap for that” filters, as it asterisked out the nasty words), my helpful sister Judy said bats are very good at getting in and out of tight spaces and it might be able to squeeze through the crack between the toilet seat and the bowl.   I shut both bathroom doors and went downstairs.  I needed to get some coffee, come up with a plan, and try to get my heart rate somewhere down in the “not about to stroke-out range” recommended by 9 out of 10 cardiologists.

With shaking hands I did a little research on my phone and learned some very interesting facts.  Did you know bats are found all over the world?  Typical habitats did not seem to include plumbing fixtures. Some are insectivores, some are frugivores (fruit eaters), and others are nectarivores. Then there are blood eating vampire bats.  Yes, that’s really a thing, not just a horror movie invention.  Wikipedia did not mention any poopivores.  I had to assume the worst – that my toilet-guest was a vampire bat.  Given the body part he was obviously aiming for, I dubbed him Count Assula.

This was all very fascinating, but, the bottom line was this: I had to get rid of him if my bottom ever wanted to use that bathroom again.  At this point I didn’t think it would, but my feelings on the subject might change someday.

This was incident 5,784,332 in the “Damn, I Miss My Husband” category.  I could call my kindly, big strong neighbor but it wasn’t even 7 am. I could sit moaning and wringing my hands, but that wouldn’t solve anything.  “Dammit,” says I, “You are a grown woman, resilient and independent.”  I straightened my spine. “You don’t need to call anyone for help.  You can do this yourself!”  Besides, the neighbor was out of town.  Like it or not this job, like every other job since Bill died, was on me (insert healthy dose of “poor me” self pity here.)  So I pulled up my big girl panties and got to work. 

I also pulled up my regular pants and threw on a t-shirt.  I felt street clothes projected a more confident image than my old Betty Boop jammies, and I wanted to be ready in case I was forced to run screaming out of the front door.

I got a small fishing net from the basement, a pair of strong canvas garden gloves with long cuffs, a plastic bag and a pair of long-handled tongs.  I quietly climbed the stairs and cracked open the door, checking for sounds or movement.  Nothing.  Heart pounding I crossed to the Porcelain Bat Bus and slowly lifted the lid.  He didn’t seem to have moved.   I gently lowered the fishing net over him, but the metal edges wouldn’t conform to the bowl.  He drew his wing in, but very slowly.  The net wasn’t going to work and he seemed really sluggish so I inverted the plastic bag, put it over him and grabbed him in my gloved and bagged hand.

Eeeeeeeeewwwwwkkkkkkkk!

He merely wiggled feebly as I ran down to the first floor, out the front door, down the deck stairs, down the steep driveway, across the road and flung him in the field across from my house.  At this point all my calm and cool deserted me and I screamed.  I ran back up to the house, shrieking and laughing.    As I got back to the deck and bent over, still laughing and gasping for breath, the previously mentioned big strong neighbor drove by and honked hello.  It seems he had gotten home the previous night.  Well, damn. Thanks a lot, Bruce.

I still don’t know how it got in.  When I think that he somehow crawled up through our septic system, I break out in a cold sweat.  I’ve nailed down the toilet lid and do my business when in town – going to the Y, shopping, any place with clean, enclosed plumbing systems.  It’s ok for now, but I’m getting tired of the chamber pot under the bed. I don’t know olden days people managed, although it was probably not so bad if you had servants to deal with the mess.  So I’m building a state-of-the-art outhouse near my home.  I’ve got the shell up and I’m trying to come up with a screening system for the toilet that will allow bad stuff to go down, but no bad stuff to come up, if you get my drift.  I’ve already painted a sign for the little building which I’ll put up when I christen it:  The Shat Cave.

I’ve told this story to a number of people and I’m amazed how many sympathize with fiendish Count Assula, not with his innocent, traumatized victim.  “Bats are great!” they say.  “They eat insects and pollinate fruit trees.  You should have kept him as a pet!”  Yeah… no.  Hard no.  How would I feed him?  The last time I tried giving blood at the Red Cross I almost passed out, so I’m not about to siphon off a daily pint of A+.  Besides, the only suitable container I have is an old guinea pig cage, and the toilet wouldn’t fit into that.

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

A Tale of Two Terminals

Posted on August 1, 2025 by pegoleg

It was the best of terminals; it was the worst of terminals.

I had to become a savvy traveler to afford trips to California after both of my kids moved there.   Spirit was my airline of choice because they used to have a cheap, non-stop flight from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport to Oakland, which was only 10 minutes from one daughter’s place.

Spirit advertises itself as no-frills, and they ain’t kidding.  Their cheapness isn’t limited to their planes.  I can’t speak for all airports, but at O’Hare, the very terminal they inhabited reflected their corporate culture.   Spirit and American Airlines were both in Terminal 3 then.  Spirit occupied the tail end of concourse L, and American was in concourses H & K.  

I’d flown Spirit out of O’Hare often enough that I was familiar with the terrain.  Half of concourse L was usually under construction.  There was never any evidence that anything was actually being constructed, just orange cones and tarps haphazardly set up to narrow the flood of travelers to an anxious, impatient trickle.  Fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered on and off overhead, and unknown fluids dripped from the ceiling.  Spirit had a couple of gates at the very end of the concourse, as if the airport bigwigs wanted to keep us as far as possible from the full-fare passengers. 

Concourse L smelled faintly of boiled cabbage and despair.

On one trip they changed the gate for my flight at the last minute.  They went from L1 to an infrequently used gate that didn’t even have an electronic sign and wasn’t on the site map.  There wasn’t as much as a chalkboard to show the departure times or gates. Thank goodness I was in the vicinity to hear part of the announcement, although the boarding agent’s accent was so thick and the sound system so scratchy I couldn’t understand more than a few words. I followed throngs of people to an open, unmarked door to one side.  When they finally started boarding, instead of filing down a long, enclosed boarding ramp, we had to schlep our stuff down a dingy flight of damp, concrete steps and out a door clearly intended for the maintenance crew.  Once outside, we walked across the tarmac.  It had, of course, started to rain.  We climbed up a long ramp that had been hastily outfitted with a canopy, treading cautiously around rubber mats covering the power cables attached to the plane.  Typical situation at an airport in a third world country.

On another trip I got to O’Hare with hours to kill and, rather than heading straight to my gate, I thought I’d investigate the rest of the terminal.  I wandered down to concourse H, turned the corner and discovered how the other half lived.  I’d entered airport Shangri La.

The brightly lit hallway featured a soaring, barrel vaulted ceiling festooned with brightly colored flags which, I assume, represented all the nations where American Airlines flew.  It was light, airy, spacious and colorful. A little girl being dragged along by a frazzled woman stopped short in front of me, stared up at the ceiling and breathed, “Mommy, it’s beautiful!”  Indeed.

The mouth of the concourse was occupied by luxury goods stores like Mont Blanc, Brooks Brothers and a place that sold handbags that were so fancy, it looked like they only stocked 5 of these masterpieces in the whole store.  Each was displayed with more reverence than the Mona Lisa.  The saleslady, pencil thin in severe black with flawless makeup and 6-inch heels, looked at me with such ill-concealed contempt when I dared to look in their window, I didn’t even consider crossing the hallowed threshold. These places must really come in handy for the upscale traveler who realizes with dawning horror, “Oh no!  I forgot to pack my $850 wool hacking jacket!”

By comparison, the entrance to concourse L featured a mini cart and cooler selling prepackaged dry, ham and cheese sandwiches for $17, tiny $9 bags of pretzels, and $8 tap water bottled in Gary, Indiana.

Wolfgang Puck had a restaurant in concourse H.  Ronald McDonald had a restaurant in concourse L. 

As I wandered through the enchanted land that was concourse H, I forced myself not to stare, to keep my jaw from dropping.  I tried to blend in with the high-end shops and restaurants, and all the beautiful people.  I wanted them to think I was just another world-weary international traveler, but I feared it was glaringly obvious that I was not of this concourse.

If my sweatpants and tennies weren’t enough to out me, there was my luggage.  Those who’ve flown low-budget airlines know that one way they keep it cheap is by allowing one measly “personal item.” An actual carry-on bag costs more than the ticket price.  My bright blue, scuffed and fuzzy 7 x 11 x 13 rolling bag was clearly designed to fit under the seat in front of me.  I was in a cold sweat that it would brand me as an intruder – fearful that security guards in matching American Airlines Brooks Brothers wool tweed hacking jackets would hustle me back to concourse L before any of their privileged flyers noticed they had been invaded by riffraff.

The stress was too much – I turned and scurried back where I belonged.  It was strangely comforting to navigate the familiar construction cones, mysterious puddles and surly, slow moving custodians who inhabited concourse L.  I decided to treat myself and it occurred to me there was at least one benefit to these less than glamorous surroundings; although everything at the airport costs way too much, $6.99 for a small cup of coffee at McDonalds sure beats the $13.99 offering at Starbucks in concourse H.

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

Am I The A**hole? Asked Nobody Ever Without Being Sure It Was The Other Guy

Posted on July 12, 2025 by pegoleg

In the olden days, if you were having a dispute with someone and wanted advice about the situation, you’d ask your mother, your friends, or you’d write Dear Abby, Ann Landers or Miss Manners.  The vast majority of people now get all their information from the internet, so naturally that’s where they go for advice.  One of the most popular questions asked nowadays is: Am I the a**hole?

In case you’re even older than I am, let me geezersplain (see below) this. 

“Am I the a**hole?” is a subreddit, or topic, featured on Reddit, which is an American social news aggregation and discussion website.   People write in with their conflicts and readers give their opinions about who is right and who is wrong.

According to Reddit: “The purpose of this sub is to offer perspective both on the merits of your actions, and why your counterparts are upset. Comment with the goal to give the OP (see below) actionable feedback on how to improve when they’re on the wrong side of a conflict, and to deal with difficult people/situations when they’re on the right side.” 

This has become such a “thing” that there is a legit abbreviation for the question: AITA.  Ask your kids or grandkids about that acronym and I bet they’ll know what it means.

I’m not on Reddit, and was previously only vaguely aware that it existed, but AITA posts have been showing up as suggested reads on my Facebook page lately. When I was visiting my sister last week we clicked on one of them, and down the rabbit hole we went.

I doubt most of these conflicts ever happened at all.   People make shiz up, the more sensational the better, to earn 15 minutes of fame from random strangers: Internet Munchausen Syndrome.   A lot of the situations involve sex, as you might imagine.  All of the stories are written in the same over the top format, with a lot of the same terms being used, like “she smirked”.  In my experience, the average Joe does not use “smirked” in daily conversation, least of all the kind of person who is asking if it was OK that she beat up the ho in the next trailer who may or may not have had sex with HER baby daddy. Clearly ChatGPT has an AITA setting.

Nobody asking the internet for their opinion is in any doubt that the a**hole in the affair is the other guy.  Always.  In the few cases where some parts of the situation may have actually happened, you KNOW the OP is only revealing the stuff that makes the other person look bad.  They never did anything that could be even slightly interpreted as having “asked for it.”  Never. Most judgments are cut and dried. Who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy is as obvious as if they were wearing white and black hats in an old-time Western. 

Here are a few actual examples from Reddit:

  1. “My parents only paid for my sister’s college tuition because “she deserved it more.” When I graduated with honors and landed a 6 figure job they asked me to pay off their mortgage.”  There are a lot of sibling rivalry posts.
  2. “My husband told me he wished I was dead instead of his first wife.  I’m devastated.”  There doesn’t seem to be much room for interpretation here, but maybe it was April Fool’s Day.
  3. “My Mother in law tried to have me declared legally dead so she could gain access to my assets.”  Hmmm…hard to put a positive spin on this one.

If we dug further into the above situations for the information the OP isn’t giving, we might find:

  1. The OP couldn’t go to college because she was in and out of jail for most of her life. Her parents mortgaged their house, time and again, to post her bail.  After getting her degree in prison on the taxpayer’s dime, she was ready to start fresh without that parental burden.
  2. The OP started the argument with, “Your first wife is lucky she’s dead so she doesn’t have to live with you!”
  3. This happened after the son-in-law tried, unsuccessfully, to have his mother-in-law bumped off to get HER money.

As fascinating as these are, I’d be more interested in real-life situations that may have happened to real-life people like, for example, me:

  1. A huge branch of my neighbor’s crabapple tree hangs over my fence.  It’s really messy and I fear that one day it will snap off and land on my patio furniture.  For years I’ve been asking him, very politely, to clean up the dead flowers, the leaves, and the &%$@* mushy, rotten crab apples that fall on my patio, but he just laughs.  AITA because I firebombed the tree?  Which also torched half his back porch?
  2. Traffic is stop and go on the highway because the left lane is ending.  I’m in the middle lane and I see someone a ways behind me sneak out of our lane and race along the ending lane until the very last second, forcing the rest of us to slam on the brakes to let them in. AITA for launching a heat-seeking missile at their car?
  3. I’m in the 15 items or less line at the store and the person in front of me has at least 16 items, and that’s being generous since technically every package of Koolaid counts as one.  She’s digging around in her huge purse for a coupon that turns out to be expired, then needs a price check on a 12-pack of Coke that she was SURE was on sale.  Then her credit card doesn’t work because she put it in wrong. Three times.  All the while she and the cashier, who is scanning items as slowly as if she had all day (since she does.  She’s getting paid by the hour, unlike the customers who are at her mercy) are chitty-chatting about somebody they both used to work with.  So I scream at them, “What the actual $&%@#!? Some of us have places to be!  We don’t want to stand in line for hours for one lousy ½ gallon of ice cream which is, by now, melted!” And I slam the slushy ice cream down onto the conveyor belt and stomp out of the store.

Reddit should concentrate more on daily life conflicts like this.  Not only would it be helpful for people with similar problems, it models right living since, clearly, the OP is the innocent victim in all 3 examples.  And if you disagree?  No need to ask who the a**hole is here.

Geezersplain: To explain modern words and expressions to elderly persons.

OP: Original Poster –the person asking the question or starting the thread topic.

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Solving the Y2K Wax Beans Dilemma

Posted on June 10, 2025 by pegoleg

I am my father’s daughter.  My dad was probably the finest man I’ve ever known, so this statement is undeservedly complimentary to me.  But along with his many sterling qualities, Dad did have some quirks which I seem to have inherited.

Let me explain.

Every 20 years or so, “experts” announce a new calamity looming on the horizon which will mean the end of mankind if WE DON’T TOTALLY CHANGE OUR EVIL WAYS IMMEDIATELY!  70 years ago it was the Cold War, which would make the Russians drop the bomb.  55 years ago it was overpopulation, which would cause massive food shortages.   In the last 20 years it has been global warming, or climate change, or whatever they call it lately, which will cause the icecaps to melt.

Most are old enough to remember the doomsday scenario every news outlet gravely warned of 25 years ago – a little thing called Y2K. For the younger set and those who lived under a rock at the time, none of the supposed experts across the globe knew quite how computers would react when their internal clocks hit Year 2000.  It seemed they were programmed for two digit years like 99, and might not know what to do with 00. We were told to prepare for electrical grids failing, lights going out, cats and dogs living together, the end of civilization as we know it.  Possibly. 

This seemed unlikely, but what did I know?  My computer knowledge was limited to punching cards to run rudimentary programs for the mandatory Fortran computer class I took in college.  The computer language was replaced by Basic the very next semester (I’m not even exaggerating here,) which rendered my education obsolete before the ink had dried on the check I used to pay for it.  Even more tragically, this meant I couldn’t sell my $150+ Fortran textbook back to the college bookstore where I bought it, even for their usual measly pennies on the dollar offer.

As the turn of the century approached, humanity was encouraged to stockpile essentials to prep for the possible (probable) Armageddon scheduled for the stroke of midnight on 12/31/1999, when the computers that ran the world stopped working.  I knew people who believed the end was near.  One old college friend and her family actually built a cold-war era bunker in their yard.  My husband, Bill, and I didn’t buy into all the panic, but it seemed prudent to make some preparations, so we laid in a modest supply of ammunition, toilet paper, bottled water and canned goods.

Which brings me to my current dilemma.

Do you think canned wax beans with a sell-by date of 3/17/2000 are still safe to eat?

My dad would say yes.  Emphatically. 

Dad was a child of the Depression.  He grew up poor, and considered wasting food immoral because our bounty was a gift from God and there were people starving in the world.  I tend to agree with him.  This means I am a charter member of the clean plate club and have struggled mightily with weight issues all my life.   But I digress.

While visiting my parents in the later years of their lives, I was rooting around in their pantry for something and noticed that almost half of their food had expired.   Good daughter that I am, I resolved to sort through everything and toss the expired stuff.  Dad caught me in the act.  Was he properly thankful for my hard work?  No!  He was horrified.

Dad grabbed for the dented, dusty can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew I was intending to chuck in the trash.

“That’s still good!” he said, indignantly, trying to wrench the prize out of my hand.

I tugged back.”Dad, this expired during the Eisenhower administration!” 

Dad held on grimly and replied, “That date is just a guideline!”  I must say, his grip was surprisingly strong for a man in his eighties.

I wouldn’t put it past the old man to have bought the stew to stock an air raid shelter back in the day.

This episode highlighted several things about my Dad: he took care of his family, was thrifty, thankful for his blessings, genuinely concerned about the less fortunate, and cautious.  These wonderful traits were sprinkled over with a generous helping of good, old fashioned stubbornness.  That same caution and fierce, impractical determination runs through my veins, which is why I find myself debating the fate of a 25 year old can of wax beans. 

I’m sure I bought these as part of my Y2K preparedness plan, but I can’t imagine why – I hate wax beans!  Maybe that was all that was left on grocery store shelves made bare by panic-purchasing at the time.  I’m afraid to open the can, because after 25 years of bottled up fermentation, it’ll probably explode.  Maybe the beans have turned into some oozing, primordial life form due to spontaneous generation.  Even the poorest of the poor wouldn’t want these now, but for some reason it seems wrong to throw the can away.  I can practically hear Dad saying, “They’ll be fine with a little salt and pepper!”

I think I’ll put the beans aside until my next visit to my hometown.  I’ll go to my parents’ graves, dig a little hole and bury the can next to Dad.  Perhaps I’ll say a few solemn words.  I think he’d like that.

And that way I’ll know where to find those wax beans if I need them in the future.  Just in case.

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Weighty Economic Thoughts

Posted on March 27, 2025 by pegoleg
Posted in General Ramblings, Little Ditties | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Is The Other Guy A Thoughtless Jerk or Doing the Best He Can? You Decide

Posted on February 5, 2025 by pegoleg

It’s human nature to get mad when someone acts like a thoughtless jerk, but how do we know if our rage is justified?  

My dear mom died a couple of years ago.  Recently my siblings and I were talking about people who were conspicuously absent from her funeral, one of whom was our Mom’s cousin.  He lived only 15 miles away, was in good health, and Mom had always made a point of inviting him to big family gatherings.  He was either a thoughtless jerk, or he had a good reason for not showing up, and was doing the best he could.  How can we tell?

It’s hard to figure out what motivates someone else, but we have to try.  Motive is at the heart of the case against any defendant, as we know from every crime whodunit ever penned.  

Here are some situations I have encountered and their possible interpretations.  You be the judge.

  1. You’re browsing the clothing racks at a store and a woman near you is dialed into her company’s quarterly finance meeting on her phone.  On speaker.  Loud.
  • Doing Her Best: Her cousin’s mother died and she is desperately looking for an appropriate black outfit for the funeral tomorrow.
  • Thoughtless Jerk: Who wants to stay home and listen to this boring crap? But if she’s not logged in she’ll get in trouble with the boss.  Why not get in some recreational shopping at the same time?

Conclusion: Total asshat.  No debate. Same for everyone else who puts their phone on speaker in a public place, forcing the rest of us to listen to their business, about which we give not even one, teeny, tiny damn.  Especially if you’re in a public restroom.  Eeeew. 

2. Traffic is stop-and-go on the freeway and a car comes zipping by on the shoulder.  He swerves back into the lane at the last minute, forcing everyone else to slam on the brakes.

  • Doing His Best: His wife is in active labor and he’s frantically trying to get her to the hospital in time.  He’s also coaching her Lamaze breathing: hee, hee, hee, hoooooo.
  • Thoughtless Jerk:  His reservation at Le Trop Cher is in 10 minutes and maître d’ Jean Snobelle is notoriously strict about not seating late patrons.

Conclusion: This is a tough call without more info. You can’t help hoping either the cops snag him, or he crashes into the oncoming barricade.  You don’t want anyone to die, per se, just get a bit messed up so the police and/or ambulance can get them where they deserve to be.

3. Person in front of you going 10 MPH under the speed limit. You can’t pass because it’s a twisty, turny, two lane road, it’s dark, and you’re stuck on that road for another 40 miles.

  • Doing His Best: Elderly gentleman going to his monthly meeting at the Moose Lodge in the next town.
  • Thoughtless Jerk: Some dip wad kid too busy texting to watch the road.

Conclusion:  Can’t tell until you finally get to pass them.  If a kid texting, you curse her fluently and foretell she will meet with a bad end. If an elderly driver you strive for patience because someday, by the grace of God, you may be that old and in need of understanding.  His car means independence, a vital link connecting him to his past as a contributing member of society.  But still… what the hell?  Some of us have places to be!  Why does the DMV renew these geezers’ licenses?!?

4. Significant other always leaves dirty dishes in the sink, after you’ve told them time and time again how much it bothers you.

  • Doing His/Her Best: This is new territory for them. They grew up with a house full of domestic servants and never had to clean up after themselves before. Or they were raised by wolves.
  • Thoughtless Jerk: What’s the big deal? He/she fully intends to do them tomorrow-ish. It’s not like the dishes stay there long, anyway.  They magically get cleaned right when he/she was about to get to them.

Conclusion: Do we really need to debate this?  C’mon. You may be in love, but love is not TOTALLY blind. Unless you’re an anal retentive perfectionist and experience has taught them that nothing they do will ever live up to your exacting standards.  Then it’s on you.

Reviewing examples like this helps hone our interpretive skills so we can judge our fellow man with confidence.  Analyzing our own behavior, however, requires a bit more effort.  I will cover that topic in a separate piece I’m currently working on entitled; “The Speck and the Plank”.  I hope to have it done soon – I’m up to Volume 23.    

 

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Top 10 Signs Your Anti-Virus Software Renewal Email Is Legit

Posted on January 13, 2025 by pegoleg

The internet is an essential part of modern living, but connecting exposes us to the threat of malicious malware, cyber attacks and the like.  Many protect themselves with subscriptions to anti-virus services from McAfee, Geek Squad, etc. who email you when your subscription is expiring. Given the widespread practice of phishing, where criminals try to trick you into giving them your sensitive information, how can you tell if an email is legit?

Here’s what to look for:

  1. “From” address is a professional gmail account like: viveknareshvarshasagargic2013@gmail.com
  2. Uses typical business salutation: Greetings and Salutations Esteemed Customer INSERT NAME.
  3. Email says: It brings us immense joy to notice a renewal invoice has been deducted from your account.  Flowery verbiage is a hallmark of legitimate business communiqués.
  4. Subject/verb agreement issues show that English is not the primary language of the technician.  Everyone knows all really good computer techs are from Mumbai or some such place.  Americans suck at tech.
  5. The subscription price isn’t a fake looking round number like $300.  That $439.72 charge is authentic.
  6. You have somehow already paid this, but have a limited window to cancel.  Have your PayPal or credit card info ready merely to verify it’s you.
  7. You can’t reply to the email, but they provide a handy, international phone number to call.
  8. It’s signed by a manager with a name like Carl Hopkins, whose mailing address is in California or Arizona so clearly the top brass is in the US.  His foreign-sounding email, sarojsarojkumaryadavsarojyadav58@gmail, indicates his secretary sent this.
  9. The notice wound up in your spam folder.  When it comes to anti-virus, the bots at Yahoo and other email providers are notoriously unable to recognize legitimate emails.
  10. You’ve received multiple notices from different managers with various prices.   They value your business so much they reminded you about the renewal 49 times.  Today.  That doesn’t count the previous 537 notices in your spam folder.
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Top 10 Signs You’re Living in an Over 55 Community

Posted on February 6, 2023 by pegoleg
Which way to the fun?

Active Adult, Senior Living, Over 55, Retirement Resort.  Whatever you call it, sticking a bunch of old people together behind guarded security fences doesn’t seem like a recipe for fun and frivolity, does it?  I beg to differ.

As my husband neared retirement he started pushing for us to get a place in an over 55 community far from Illinois’ wintery weather. “No way!” I replied, memories of my parents’ place in Lake Worth, Florida (aka God’s Waiting Room) still fresh in my mind.  There the leather-skinned pool police stood unmoving in the water, glaring at those of us who dared to cause ripples in said water, and demanded to see our visitor passes.  “That’s a red Resident Tag.  You should have a green Visitor Tag!” they cried in righteous outrage.  Bill talked me into it, though, and in the year and a half since I bought this place I discovered he was right.  It seems old people have gotten a lot younger since I joined their ranks.

Although I love it here, there are some glaring differences between life in an over-55 community and the rest of the world.

  1. If you see someone pushing a stroller, 9 times out of 10 there is no baby on board.  When you move in for the coochie-coo you risk getting your finger bit off by the occupant – one or more yappy little dogs.
  2. We don’t even have a golf course in our community, but lots of people still have golf carts.  Some do so for mobility issues but, let’s face it; they’re just cool to zip around in.  Whether running up to the club house for happy hour, or decorating for holiday golf cart parades – mulled wine, spider webs and witches hats for Halloween; fireballs, peppermint Schnapps and twinkle lights for Christmas – golf carts are the fun way to go. 
  3. Time was many of us would dance the night away, close the place down and then go out for breakfast.  We could still get up on time the next day, fresh as a daisy.  Now we need to get a jump on bedtime if we want to have any chance of getting in 5-6 hours of decent sleep, what with the insomnia, night sweats and endless trips to the bathroom. All social activities here are scheduled so we are home in our jammies by 9.  And we’re okay with that.
  4. Although I have yet to demand someone’s visitor pass, I do find myself eyeballing anyone who isn’t “our kind of people.” I don’t care about ethnicity or skin color – my squinty-eyed scrutiny is only triggered if that skin is unwrinkled.  Then I start wondering if said young person is here to burgle us or, even worse, use the pool without the proper authorization! 
  5. Pickleball, which has taken the place of shuffleboard for the active, over the hill crowd.  ‘Nuff said.
  6. Everybody’s busy.  We’re doing yoga, zumba, line dancing, water aerobics, pickle ball, bike rides, golf and going for walks.  We’ve got groups for playing cards, photography, stained glass, painting, knitting and just about every hobby there is.  This doesn’t even cover the concerts, dances and any other excuse you can think of to get together and drink.  Before I moved here I was a slug by comparison!  As we boogie into our golden years we have adopted Neil Young’s mantra: it’s better to burn out than to rust. 
  7. Everybody’s friendly.  It’s an unwritten rule that you smile and wave when you pass someone here, whether on foot, bike or car. I lived in the same town for more than 35 years, and still had a hard time finding friends to do things with, especially after my husband died and I was no longer part of a couple.  Almost everyone here is from somewhere else. We left behind our lifelong support networks of siblings, friends we’ve known since 1st grade, co-workers, kids and grandkids.  Without these to nurture and/or need us, we have to be open to new people or we wind up staying home alone.  In an over 55 community you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a widow, so there’s a ready supply of people in the same boat as you; people who need a friend.
  8. Happy hour is no more.   Why should one hour in the day have all the fun?  Now that most of us are retired, we’re getting happy around the clock.  At home “the bar” was a couple of dusty bottles of rum and gin we stuck above the refrigerator where the kids couldn’t get at them (ha!).  Now I have an actual bar.  I’ve got separate glassware for wine, beer, martinis and margaritas; I’m constantly on the lookout for cool accessories and have even developed a signature cocktail, the Grapefruit Sunset.  I’ve never drunk so much in my life.  That’s probably why we take part in all those healthy sporting activities.  The exercise helps burn off the alcohol before it turns into sugar which fries the liver.  I’m pretty sure that’s how the science works. 
  9. Keeping up with the Joneses involves patio amenities.  Since we all live on top of one another, and that life is lived mainly outside (at least here in Arizona) I’ve had plenty of opportunity in the last year to see how the other half lives.  It made me feel ashamed.  I hid behind my curtains when well-meaning neighbors with superior patio set ups dropped by with an invitation.  How could I reciprocate? My rickety, rusty table and folding chairs could never provide the oasis of hospitality I longed for.  Those days are gone. I remodeled the tiny backyard to include several seating areas, one by the water with a fire pit.  One daughter got me a patio heater for Christmas, the other an outdoor speaker, and I invested in a substantial set of comfy, outdoor furniture.  Now I can hold my head up high and host drinks and apps on the patio with pride.  I don’t want to brag, but did I mention the heater is the professional kind like at restaurants, the fire pit is gas and the cushions are genuine Sunbrella?
  10. As we get older, our opinions harden into undisputable facts, which we are not shy about sharing.  This generally isn’t a problem out in the world because younger people, like grandchildren, have been taught to listen politely and not contradict their elders. When everybody else around you is just as old, just as opinionated, and just as convinced that their way of thinking is the ONLY valid opinion, it can make for some tense conversations.  Doesn’t matter if the topic is world politics or when the sprinklers should go on in the common areas.  Which, of course, is the middle of the night when most of us are not in danger of getting squirted because we are at home, trying to get just a few minutes of quality sleep.  As anyone with a brain will agree.
Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , | 19 Comments

Life, Loss and My 23-Year-Old Top Loading Maytag Washer

Posted on August 26, 2021 by pegoleg

It is a truth universally known that appliances die in threes.  You watch in helpless dread when the dishwasher starts leaking, because you know your breakdown woes have just begun.  Appliance blight will almost certainly spread.  You can only hope it chooses a minor appliance like the toaster or blender as the next victim, but you know the neighboring stove and fridge are vulnerable.  It may even, horror-of-homeowner-horrors, jump floors to infect the furnace.  

Three is bad enough, but that’s supposed to be the end of it.  It’s practically a law of nature, right?  Which is why I’m protesting; I seem to be getting more than my share.

This year started off well enough.  My husband, Bill, retired at the end of last year and I cut way back on my hours at work.  We rented a house in Arizona for the month of February, trying new things and avoiding the worst of a horrid Illinois winter.  Bill wound up in the hospital with pneumonia, but we still had a great trip.  Shortly after we got home we both experienced Montezuma’s Revenge, something one associates with 3rd world countries, not central Illinois. Bill got it worse than I.  We had our well tested and I was with Bill, in the hospital again, when we got the results: our water was contaminated with both coliform and e-coli, a particularly nasty bug.   The well company come out the next day and bombed the well with chlorine and I started lugging jugs of water from Bill’s sister’s house while we waited for the chlorine to do its job.

A week later the water softener we had been renting for more than 20 years died.  I like my poisoned water to be soft, so the Culligan guy came out to go over options.  We wound up having a new one installed to the tune of $2,300. 

We had the well tested again the following week, and still had the double whammy of coliform and e-coli.  I scheduled the well company to come and chlorine-bomb it again; $160 minimum each time they turned into the driveway.

The next week our refrigerator, which was only 8 years old, got bored with the same-old, same-old of keeping the temperatures at 0 in the freezer and 37 in the refrigerator.  It wanted to mix things up and started playing Dial-a-Temp, gifting me with frozen carrots and pasta salad, along with semi-liquid ice cream.  I called the local repair/sales place who had originally installed most of our appliances and the repairman came to look at the fridge.  He sat in my driveway for 15 minutes. When he came in he didn’t take out a single tool, didn’t break a sweat or even bend over – just opened the fridge door, looked in and announced it would cost $500-600 to fix, supposing he could get the parts, which was a big suppose.   I said no thank you.  Time for a new one.

I did my due diligence; checked out Consumer Reports, asked friends, then went comparison shopping.  I found out there’s some sort of chip shortage due to Covid (everything is due to Covid), so refrigerators are as hard to find as a helpful customer service person at the DMV. The local place didn’t have anything under $2200, and even at that price they couldn’t guarantee a delivery date.   I went to every place in town and a couple places out of town looking for something that was in stock, would fit my small space and would not break the bank.  Slim pickings.  I settled on one for $1500 from a big-box store and scheduled delivery for 2 weeks later.  I adjusted the temperature on my current fridge 10 times a day and prayed that it wouldn’t die before the replacement arrived. 

Since I wasn’t buying from them, the local shop sent me a bill for $89 for the 15 minutes their teenage repairman had spent standing in front of my open fridge.   

The next week I asked the guy who mows the lawn for an estimate to take down a small, dead maple tree that was leaning precariously close to my screen porch.  He looked around and pointed to a much larger tree, which was also leaning toward the house, and which towered over both the maple tree and the house.  “That’s the bigger risk,” he announced, “it’s also dying.  About $750 should take care of both of them, unless we run into problems.”  I told him to put in on his schedule.

Time for another water test.  I’d been hauling water back and forth from the in-laws for more than a month, going so far as to boil water on the (still working, thank God) stove a couple of times like I was living in a Little House on the Prairie episode.  Surely everything was OK now?  The email I received from the lab the next day said that my water woes were here to stay.

The day of the new refrigerator finally dawned.  I spent the evening before cleaning out the old one: saying goodbye to a trash bag full of my fast food condiment hoard, frozen produce and a surprisingly large assortment of  ancient, half-used bottles of sauces and dressings.  I transferred everything that would fit from the freezer section to the chest freezer down the basement, then lugged up and cleaned out coolers in preparation for the big day. When the deliverymen called to say they were 20 minutes away I loaded all the perishables into the coolers and dragged them into the dining room.  They had to remove my front door, no fun when it’s over 90 degrees outside, and they broke my mom’s sterling silver candelabra in the process, but soon the new fridge was installed.  I waited a couple of hours while the new unit cooled, then reversed the unloading process.

That evening I went down the basement to start a load of wash.  I was pleased to have one problem solved and was considering a more permanent water solution as I pulled the knob out on the washing machine to start it filling, and…nothing.  No mechanical sounds, no water.  I checked the water lines – they looked good.  The thing was plugged in.  I tried the dryer – also nothing.  Aha!  If neither one was working something must have tripped a circuit.  Easy peasy, problem solved!  I flipped the breaker back on, heard a popping sound and the breaker flipped itself back off.  Hmmm.   I flipped the breaker on, yet again, and wisps of smoke started coming out of my 23-year-old Top Loading Maytag Washer.

I’m not mechanically inclined, but even I know that it is a very bad sign when an appliance smokes.  I unplugged both the washer and dryer and monitored them for a few minutes to make sure the house wasn’t about to go up in flames, then trudged upstairs, defeated.

I had been a savvy shopper with the fridge.  With the washer, I didn’t care.  The next day I drove to a local store, the same store that was charging me $89 for 15 minutes of their repairman’s time.  I asked the sales-lady in the showroom if they had a washing machine in stock.  Any washing machine. I didn’t care about the brand, the color, whether it was high efficiency, was programmable or came in an on-trend Midnight Charcoal Brushed Quartz finish.  If it was in stock and affordable, if it meant I wouldn’t be beating underwear against the rocks in our creek, I would write a check that very minute.  If, I added, they would waive the $89 fee for the fruitless refrigerator visit a couple of weeks earlier.  For some reason, that had become important to me.  Getting that fee waived had become a symbol that the universe was still fair, my recent experiences to the contrary.

She explained that $89 was their minimum service call charge, even though they were 5 minutes down the road from me and the guy merely stopped by on his way back to the shop at the end of the day.  But I think she could tell that I was at the end of my rope.  My chin was quivering, despite my best efforts, my eyes were filling with tears and I was having a hard time keeping it together.  She agreed to waive the service fee.  She wrote up the sale – I don’t even remember what it cost – and scheduled delivery; I paid and practically ran to my car.  Fastest major appliance sale ever.

I lost it once I was safely in my car.  I put my head down and covered my face so people outside couldn’t see me, wouldn’t hear me wail as great, gulping sobs wracked my body. I couldn’t stop crying.  It was too much. 

The water softener, the well, Bill, the refrigerator, the trees, and now the washing machine – it was the last straw.  It was too much loss, too many deaths, all in a few, short months.  I didn’t know how I could bear it. 

Eventually I stopped crying.  I took deep, shuddering breaths, wiped my streaming eyes and nose with my sleeve, and slowly calmed down.  At last I felt able to put the car into gear, back out of the appliance store parking lot and drive home, tired to my bones.

I know life will go on.  I know that eventually the pain of loss will lessen and I won’t cry all the time, as I am doing at this very moment, as I type this.  But I loved my 23-year-old Top Loading Maytag Washer – I don’t think I fully appreciated how deeply until it was gone.  And, dear God, I will miss it every day, for as long as I live.

READ THIS PLEASE: While the bits about my appliances are all true, hiding in the fluff is the only loss that I give a damn about.

Bill, my dear husband of 38 years, died.

It was my bad if anyone felt uncomfortable because they missed the main point. Humor has long been my way of coping, and it is so difficult to say it, straight out. It’s still so difficult to believe.

Rest in peace, my love.

Bill Schulte

7/9/1954 – 3/27/2021

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , | 41 Comments