Friday, October 07, 2005

What the heck?

I am in one of those moods. You know those moods where you find things bothersome, are easily annoyed by silly little things. I have been there for a few days. So in order to get myself out of the funk, I will vent a little bit on some things that I noticed recently, I'm sure I will feel much better after that.

1. The weather: Okay, 2 days ago I had my air conditioner on and last night I had to turn the heat on in my house because it was below 60 degrees inside. Yuck, what's up with that?

2. Today when going back to work, I pulled into the parking lot to see one of the lab technicians helping a 108 year old (just guessing) woman into her car. She had wheeled her out in a wheelchair and was almost lifting her into the car (which by the way was parked all cock-eyed in the parking space). This was an ordinary car, no special hand controls or anything like that. Now tell me please, if you can't walk 50 feet to your own car and are unable to lift yourself into the car, how are you going to move your foot from the gas pedal to the brake in order to stop in a timely matter? Perhaps it is time to stop driving when you get to that stage or get yourself a special car with hand controls. Hopefully, I will know when it is time to stop when I am old {probably not I'm stubborn 8-). }

*Just thought I'd insert this: I really don't mean to offend anyone with these thoughts.....again, I'm in a mood*

3. Saw this article in the paper awhile back and it sort of amazed me and irritated me. Now don't get me wrong, should I ever find a hair stylist that can tame the mess on top of my head, I will forever love him or her and speak nothing but lovely things about them....but when you put an article in the largest newspaper in Iowa comparing hair dressing school to medical school....I just have to comment. Please excuse any sarcastic comments I might insert, most will be seen between the {}. First it discusses the training. One student said, "I've practiced on clients Monday through Saturday, including nights, {....any 36 hour shifts with 1 hour of sleep that was interrupted by the pager going off 7 times? and 30 days straight without a day off of 12 hour days plus being on call every 3rd night? } and I have a thousand different note cards with every possible question I can think of that I study." Preparation includes countless pedicures, manicures, haircuts an stylings. Then there are the tenets of salon products, consumer safety and customer service to memorize. {hmmm.....I guess that is a bit similar to anatomy, physiology, dissecting cadavers, biochemistry, histology, pathology, microbiology, embryology, to name a few, plus rotations in practically every specialty} The state licensing exam will include a battery of questions about ethics and business law, diseases of the nails, even the types of electrical outlets needed in the salon. Livelihood hinges on a passing grade. "You have to pay $150 to take the test, and they have to pass it to practice" {I guess that too is similar to the 4 tests I had to pass that tested me on every basic science related to the human body, diagnosis of diseases in every specialty, treatment of diseases in every specialty and the grand daddy of them all the peds boards, testing everything under the sun relating to pediatrics costing about $1200 -- the other three were a bargain at about $500-600 a pop} . There is more. At the Iowa school of beauty would be cosmetologists spend 1000s of dollars for tuition {not $100s of thousands?} [The students] have practiced colorings and permanents, facials, makeup application and the finer points of nail design -toe and finger {egads! not toe and finger....yes those italics were really there}. I think this is the part that got me going......"[The students] say they might not be doctors or lawyers, but they've worked just as hard and endured a comparable amount of stress, albeit over a much shorter period of time." {Ahhhh!!!! Did they really just say that? Let me give an example of stress. Stress is when a <1 pound, dead looking premature baby is handed to you and you are supposed to save it, stress is a kid in the PICU that just came back from open heart surgery and is swollen and is on 3 medications just to keep their blood pressure high enough to live and have a tons of tubes sticking out of their body, stress is taking care of a kid who shot himself in the head with a gun and isn't going to make it or the baby that was shaken by an angry parent and now won't stop having seizures, stress is performing CPR on a kid and not having them respond, stress is watching an anguished parent weep over their dead child. All right, I'll get off my soapbox, now, but again since I am in a mood, had to comment}.

4. And last but not least, I am mad at Target {gasp!} Please see the portion of the picture below of my lovely Emma, do you see the thing I circled? What the heck is that? It was not on the proofs that I saw. On the real pictures, it is so completely obvious and very obnoxious. So I ask the lady at the Target portrait studio if it can be fixed. She said "no". I asked why not. She really couldn't come up with a good reason so she called her "boss" to check. Nope, can't fix it. So I spent a gazillion dollars on pictures and christmas cards and I have to have this obnoxious black thing in the background? So why exactly have a digital studio if you can't fix a minor thing like that. She offered to let me pick some new pictures....I don't want new pictures....I want that one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So FRUSTRATING!!!! She gave me some coupons for 4 free portrait sheets for next time....but my pictures are ruined! So look at this next one....I sort of fixed it. Do you know how long it took me to do that? About 2.5 seconds and I don't even know what the heck I'm doing. Hmmm.....maybe I'll just have to break their warning on the back saying that it is illegal to scan or reproduce your portraits if they aren't going to fix them.
Well, thanks for letting me vent. Sorry if I offended any old people or hair stylists {both groups I really do have great admiration for}. I feel much better now and can sleep in peace.

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