WARNING: Ill-informed rant ahead. More so than usual, yes.
Shut up.
I got another quarterly statement from MetLife today. I have something called a 401A. I phrase it that way not because I’m trying to be cute or lead into an explanation but because I really don’t have the vaguest idea what the shit a 401A actually is. I know it has something to do with retirement and I know that it is pathetically small; I’ve supposedly been paying into this thing (or maybe someone else pays into it, I dunno) for, what, seven years now?– something like that, and the total amount in the account is still less than the amount of a single paycheck. They helpfully inform me that I can look forward to a monthly retirement income of $64 (that’s not a typo) based on what I have in my account.
I have some other account with some other company; it has even less money in it. I think I started paying into that in Chicago, maybe, and then I left that job but I still have the account? I should probably “roll it over” into something; I hear that money can be “rolled over” in some circumstances and I think maybe this might have something to do with that.
And then there’s my TRF, or Teacher’s Retirement Fund. Off the top of my head I have no idea how much is in that or what it’s good for, but if I’ve gotten my quarterly report from MetLife I’m probably due to get a statement from them soon too.
That, right there, constitutes the entire sum of both my knowledge of how investments work and the current state of my “retirement fund.” I just actually tried– I think about this every time I get a quarterly statement, but this time I actually did something about it– to log into MetLife’s website to see if I have the option to be “more aggressive” (that’s a money thing, right?) with how they’re allocating my money, because the $8 that my fund increased in value over the last quarter seems… paltry.
The site is insisting that I give them my PIN. I don’t have a PIN, or at least I don’t think I do; I’m certain I’ve never logged into the website before. I clicked the button helpfully labeled “Lost your PIN?” and they have informed me that they’re mailing it to me. Because it is 1986.
Here’s the thing: I know, intellectually, that I probably ought to care about and be paying close attention to this stuff. I also know politically that my generation is not going to be allowed to retire. That’s an illusion; retirement is basically done as a concept in American society for anyone under 40. That TRF money? I’ll eat my own dick if that’s still available to me in any meaningful form when I’m 65, or 70, or whatever age they think I ought to be working to by the time I supposedly get to be that old. That shit’s gonna be stolen, no doubt by some rich ratfucker who deserves it more than I do. It’s funny money; I don’t believe for a second that it’s actually real or that it will ever actually make its way to me. I don’t particularly trust the 401A either, for much the same reasons.
I’d like to increase the amount that is getting put into this 401A plan (the corp is kicking in a contribution– at least, I’m pretty sure this money is coming from them, not me– but I’m pretty sure I can tell payroll to pull more out for it if I want) but the state legislature has made it their goal over the last several years to make sure that no teacher in Indiana ever gets a raise again, and so it’s not like there’s extra money becoming available that I could dedicate to investments.
I think I’ll go buy some lottery tickets. Or– ooh! A Bitcoin!
Here’s the math standard (singular, supposedly) my eighth graders are covering during the middle third of next quarter. Challenge: make this sound more obscure than it does:
CC.8.SP.1-4 Construct and interpret scatter plots for bivariate measurement data to investigate patterns of association between two quantities. Describe patterns such as clustering, outliers, positive or negative association, linear association, and nonlinear association. Know that straight lines are widely used to model relationships between two quantitative variables. For scatter plots that suggest a linear association, informally fit a straight line, and informally assess the model fit by judging the closeness of the data points to the line. Use the equation of a linear model to solve problems in the context of bivariate measurement data, interpreting the slope and intercept. Understand that patterns of association can also be seen in bivariate categorical data by displaying frequencies and relative frequencies in a two-way table. Construct and interpret a two-way table summarizing data on two categorical variables collected from the same subjects. Use relative frequencies calculated for rows or columns to describe possible association between the two variables.
I was all ready to start a new post, right? About, like, I got a new laptop because the old one’s gone to shit, so I have a Macbook Pro now, because I’m that much of a wanker and Apple owns my soul. I literally own every kind of device Apple currently produces, although my iPod is older than dirt.
Except as I was reaching for the keyboard of the desktop, this spider like flew across my desk– I’ve seriously never seen a spider moving this fast– ran right off the edge, webbed his way down to the floor, and disappeared. Like he hit the floor and became invisible.
And all of this happened in like two seconds. I may have even imagined it.
So, new computer yay, teleporting high-speed inviso-spider… less yay?
So for the last couple of days the boy has been all
and, frankly, it’s starting to look really unpleasant. He’s clearly not terribly happy with the situation either.
My wife gets home from work today and tells me she has a mission for me. I’ll be honest: I was tired (again) and hungry (again) and more than a little aggravated already for reasons that I don’t plan to go into and the thought of a mission was not entirely pleasing to me.
“Describe the nature of this mission,” I requested.
“I need you to get butt paste,” she said.
“Butt paste.” I replied. I made sure to phrase it in such a way that she heard the period at the end of the sentence.
“Butt paste,” she says. “I’m hoping you can get it at Martin’s.”
(Context: Martin’s is our local grocery store; it’s a chain but I’m pretty sure it’s limited to north-central Indiana and maybelower Michigan.)
I look up Butt Paste on the Internet, which sadly is probably not the oddest search I’m going to perform on the Internet this week. It turns out that there is a product specifically called Butt Paste. Check the URL: you find it at buttpaste.com, which should not be a website for medical supplies. However, frighteningly, that is not the Butt Paste that I’m looking for.
What I’m looking for– what the pediatrician apparently explicitly suggested my wife try to locate– is actually called Dr. Sirlin’s Bottom Ointment, which still sounds inappropriate. Dr. Sirlin’s Bottom Ointment is, near as I can tell, only sold in one place on Earth, but more on them later. Needless to say, that place isn’t Martin’s. My wife calls Martin’s anyway, just to be sure, and asks the pharmacist who answers the phone if they carry, no shit, this is a direct quote: “Dr. Sirlin’s butt paste. For butts. Baby butts.”
I consider protesting the use of the phrase butt paste for this query, because we aren’t looking for butt paste, we’re looking for bottom ointment, which is clearly very different. I do not actually voice the query. The person on the other line comes back quickly with an affirmative. We have butt paste! Go for butt paste!
And I’m off to Martin’s. It’s not far away from home, which is the reason we’d rather go there. Once I get there I arrive timed perfectly with a car leaving a very choice parking spot, which I wait for. The driver of the other car, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to get that I want her parking spot, and keeps trying to wave me on past her, thinking she’s being polite, and no amount of flailing and pointing at the empty goddamn parking spot on my part convinces her otherwise. So instead I park here:
And into Martin’s I go. To be greeted with a conundrum! Cute Cashier Girl is for some reason working at the pharmacy counter. Cute Cashier Girl, I hope to God, is in her early twenties. She’s a cashier, though! She’s not supposed to be at the pharmacy!
I cannot ask Cute Cashier Girl for butt paste. I’m gonna try and be all suave, like
but I know me. It’s gonna come off all
I cannot do this.
I spend a moment considering other options and can’t think of any. I approach the counter. She smiles cheerily and asks if she can help me, with no idea of the horror of the request I’m about to make of her.
“I’m looking for something called Dr. Sirlin’s Ointment?” I omit the word bottom, because I cannot say bottom to this lovely young lady. “I understand it’s supposed to be behind the counter for some reason.”
She looks quizzically at me, then looks around for a minute.
“I don’t see it. What’s it for?”
Don’t say butts.
“Diaper rash.” Ha! I win!
She lights up, smiling again. “Oh! You’re the butt paste guy!”
Oh hell no. I am a lot of things, Cute Cashier Girl, but I am sure as hell not butt paste guy. No. Uh-uh. No goddamn way.
The butt paste, apparently, is not behind the counter. It is actually in the baby aisle. I swallow what is left of my dignity and head for the baby aisle, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt what is about to happen. And my worst fears come true:
God dammit. That, you will notice, is not Dr. Sirlin’s Bottom Ointment. That’s fucking butt paste. I don’t want butt paste. I want bottom ointment.
I pick up the box, cursing God and all creation, and return to the pharmacy counter. She’s still there, of course, it’s not like the goddamn baby aisle is that far away.
“I have a, uh, follow-up question?”
“Oh, okay!” oh god she hates me so much she’s actually got her bright cheery smile on her face, and a bit of a twinkle in her eye that suggests to me that she’s enjoying my pain.
“I assume you are the one my wife talked to.”
“Yep!”
“She asked for Dr. Sirlin’s… (makes a face) Butt Paste. The stuff we want is actually called
Bottom ointment. I thought this might happen. Do you have the ointment? This isn’t actually what I’m looking for.”
She looks around again and then signals the actual pharmacist, who has been hiding behind a rack of drugs and trying her damnedest to keep a fucking straight face. The pharmacist confirms that, no, they don’t have Bottom Ointment. Just Butt Paste. So I have to go to the other place.
I thank her for her time and apologize for my own nonsense. Off to the car!
There are two reasons I don’t want to go to this other establishment. One I’ll get to later. The other is that they are a million miles away. They are literally not in the same town I’m in. I don’t want to go to another town for butt paste or bottom ointment. I want to be home, eating dinner. In my town.
But I love my wife, and I love my son, at least the non-butt parts of him. So off I go. I drive past this place on my way home from OtherJob all the time, so I know where it is, and I head there– to OtherJob, not quite realizing until it’s slightly too late that I drive past it on the way home from OtherJob, and for reasons that are not interesting I generally drive home from OtherJob via a different route than I take to get to OtherJob. So I’m going the wrong way.
Once I realize this and correct my course, I still manage to make two fucking wrong turns before successfully arriving at Pharmacy Two. On the way over to the pharmacy, it occurs to me that I am so fucking blogging this shit when I get home. I take a moment in their parking lot and compose an entertaining Tweet to that effect. Then I get out and go inside.
Well, I try to. As I’m reaching for the fucking door, an employee locks the fucking thing from the inside and points at a sign next to the door. The sign cheerfully informs me that this fucking place closes at six, as pharmacies do oh wait no they fucking don’t, ever.
I look at my watch.
It’s five fucking fifty-eight.
At this point my mood somewhat transitions.
I was entertained with this bullshit up until this exact fucking second.
You did not just LOCK A FUCKING DOOR IN MY FUCKING FACE TWO FUCKING MINUTES BEFORE FUCKING CLOSING AT A FUCKING ***PHARMACY***. It ain’t goddamn 1983 anymore. My fucking watch ties into a goddamn satellite that tells it what time it is. I can’t even adjust the motherfucker. It ain’t goddamn 6:00 yet, which means your ass isn’t fucking closed yet.
Listen, bitch, this ain’t fucking Barnes and Noble and it isn’t fucking Applebee’s. I am not fucking here to browse. You’re a pharmacy, motherfucker, and no fucker anywhere goes to a fucking pharmacy unless they motherfucking need to. I am there to get my shit and get the fuck out, and don’t you dare fucking thing for one fucking second that I can’t see that there is at least one motherfucker in there who isn’t dressed like he’s at fucking work.
I have two fuckin’ choices here. One is to go home. The other is to go to jail. Jail will no doubt feel better but either way there will be no fucking Bottom Ointment.
Not. Happy.
I went home and had dinner. A bit more research after dinner indicated that Dr. Sirlin’s Bottom Ointment is apparently produced by this pharmacy. It’s literally the only place you can get it other than the Internet. Well, fuck them.
Butt Paste it is. I return to Martin’s.
I collect my Butt Paste. I go back to the pharmacy counter, because I’m buying this with a damn flex account and it’s easier if we just use the pharmacy counter to buy anything medical-related. She’s still there, naturally. And she, I swear to God, says:
“There’s a story here, isn’t there.”
Oh sweetie. You have no idea.
(ADDENDUM: I didn’t include this in context because it kinda kills the tone of the piece, but the other reason I don’t like this pharmacy? They tried to kill my dog. My dog in high school/early college developed epilepsy, and rather than try to get a canine version of the drug they needed the vet just contracted through them to produce his medicine– which happened to be in liquid form. He was on the stuff for quite a while, and at some point we went in and got a bottle that was a radically different color and consistency than every other version of the medicine we’d gotten. The pharmacist not only argued with my mother about whether the medicine was different, at one point he actually said the words “Look, it’s just for a dog.” So this is the second time this place has nearly resulted in a member of my family going to jail. Merrill Pharmacy in Mishawaka, Indiana? Go fuck yourselves.)
(FINAL NOTE: As I was finishing this post up, my wife, who has been bathing our son, sticks her head into the office. “Hey, babe? There’s poop in the tub.” Because of course there is.)
Yesterday’s classes were pretty simple: one period of instruction and one period of guided free time; in other words, “so long as you’re working I’m going to leave you alone,” and oh by the way all late work for the quarter is due by the end of the period or you get to keep those zeroes in my grade book.
So the kids are chatting, right? My 8th graders (also known as my honors Algebra group) are actually a pretty pleasant group most of the time, and I’m rarely the type of teacher to insist on absolute quiet unless I’m directly instructing the class. I’m at my desk, intermittently helping kids who need it and working on some grading and lesson planning and email and whatever else it strikes my mind to get accomplished while I actually have some time.
The phrase “hydraulic butt” floats into my ears.
I have a brief moment of no, you did not hear that, and even if you did hear that, you didn’t hear that, and you don’t care. Keep your head down and keep doing whatever you’re doing.
I ignore my brain and look up. There’s a table of four kids sitting near me. Three of them are staring at me with horrified looks on their faces. The fourth is doing his damnedest not to make eye contact, but has perhaps the largest shit-eating grin on his face I’ve ever seen.
A brief note on this kid: I love the hell out of him. Smart as hell, funny, athletic (wrestling, football, and I think whatever running sport– track or cross-country– doesn’t interfere with the other two), polite, and– not for nothin’– a bit of a heartthrob as well. I’d let my daughter date the kid, if I had one.
He goes, again, without looking at me, “Pzzzzzzhooooooooop!” and quite deliberately raises the right half of his body, butt-cheek first, off of his chair.
He goes “Pzzzzzhooooooop!” again, and the otherhalf of his body raises out of his chair. At this point, for no clear reason, the room has fallen completely quiet and everyone is staring at him. He is, at this point, balancing in what looks like a seated position but he’s actually got his ass hovering about an inch above his chair, which I imagine involves rather impressive control of his leg muscles.
I do not speak. Neither does anyone else.
He goes “Psssssssssss…..” and slowly lowers himself back into his chair.
And, on cue, the boy sitting across from him farts. Explosively. Like, loudly enough that we’d have heard it even if the room hadn’t been utterly quiet.
Hey, remember this post, where I was trying to sell a whole bunch of comic books? I’ve finally gotten everything separated out between what I want to keep and what I don’t, and unfortunately as of right now I’ve had no luck getting ahold of the fella who expressed interest on the original post. I don’t blame him; it was months ago and for some reason people don’t like waiting forever for internet yahoos to do the stuff they say they’re gonna do and get back to you.
Anyway, I feel like there was at least one more nibble in comments somewhere (which I can’t find, or I’d have emailed you already), and maybe there’s somebody who’s not aware that I’m trying to move a large number of unwanted pieces of paper who hasn’t seen it yet.
Check the original post, if you like, and drop me a line if you’re interested.
(I don’t actually have anything to say about Chris Christie right now; I just found the picture at random and I think it’s hilarious.)
I feel like I have had an exceptionally long day, and I can’t really figure out why; it started off with my wife handing me a beverage, a beverage I had expressed excitement about tasting the night before, that turned out to be a horrifying disaster once I attempted to put it in my mouth. There may be people who are smart enough to avoid something called a “kale and kiwi smoothie,” but I am not one of them. Or, at least, I wasn’t.
I like both of those things! That should have tasted okay!
It did not.
Work was normal. I had a new girl in my homeroom; she seems nice, and today was the last day to turn in anything late for my classes, meaning I had a relatively stress-free day: I made them pay attention to me for a class period and then gave them the rest of our time to work on anything that might be missing. The buses left more or less on time, there were virtually no discipline issues beyond incredibly minor stuff all day long…
…and now I’m home and I want to die. Like, I could seriously go to bed right now.
Blarg.
(While I’m putting up what is already an entirely pointless post, I’ll throw this detail out: I suspected traffic might taper off once school started again and I stopped being able to post before 4 or 4:30 each day; I was precisely correct. I may have to try and build up a little bit of a buffer and try and get a pre-scheduled post out in the morning each day. Because all sorts of terrible things will happen if my meteoric traffic increases lately stop. I can’t actually think of what any of those things might be but they are legion and they are terrible.)
WARNING: Ill-informed rant ahead. More so than usual, yes.
I was all ready to start a new post, right? About, like, I got a new laptop because the old one’s gone to shit, so I have a Macbook Pro now, because I’m that much of a wanker and Apple owns my soul. I literally own every kind of device Apple currently produces, although my iPod is older than dirt.
