I was just watching Judge Judy. Shut up. Don’t judge. Tell me there aren’t more than many times you don’t point at the TV and yell “Yes! Yes! Get a damned job, right after you get a clue! And a haircut! And a pass into the witness protection program so your family doesn’t have to admit you went on Judge Judy!”.
Ahem. Anyway. Some woman is suing some kid for stealing her CD collection. 120 CDs or something. Really? How tiny is your world that you would sue someone for stealing such worthless crap? Even I know that we are already at the point where movies and music and books just flies around the air, on fly around internet. My kids have taught me that. My Visa card is logged on every computer. The small card, with the tiny limit to make sure nobody steals our fly around credit card. The days of paying 60 bucks each for every James Bond movie (::cough:: seemed like a good birthday present at the time) are long gone. Who would sue for something so dumb? Is your self worth really so strangled up in a bunch of junk you collected?
I worry about people who do this. People who are dead set on getting every single Precious Moments figurine ever made. I knew a woman once who had kids before I did. She used to call me to yell “the Disney vault is opening! Bambi is coming out for a limited time only!”. Seriously. She used to say that. And run and get Little Mermaid and Peter Pan and whatever they told her was going back into the vault in two weeks. I hate to tell her, but I was right. There is no vault. You can go to any garage sale and pick up any of those for a quarter. If something makes money, it is never going away. You can Disney Vault and Franklin Mint me all you like. It’s just a fact. If you are about to buy a car or a fridge and the salesguy says “sign now, or lose it forever”, walk away. It’ll be there in the morning. It’ll be there a week later. Trust me.
I do not care for things I have to dust. I do not care for dusting. I don’t even care much for things, unless they are boots. I can’t imagine suing someone for making off with my CD collection. My kids can’t imagine anyone stealing it, but that’s a story for another time. I watch things like that Hoarders show (it lets me put off cleaning my house indefinitely) and try to understand when the overload of consumer goods got so crazy. I know it’s a mental condition; I just ask myself some questions. If Tourettes Syndrome makes people yell out curse words at inopportune times (as opposed to opportune ones), what did they yell out in the 1700s, when the first documented cases of the condition were recorded? “Foresooth, motherf***r?” I’m serious. When we had very few consumer goods, and no collectibles, what did hoarders hoard? I mean, my Dad hoarded twist ties and bits of string and rubber washers. But that was called “being a farmer”.
Things like eBay have taken all the fun out of collecting. When I was kneehigh to a grasshopper (I only say that because I can hear the cicadas chirping out back; I love that), if you collected something, the whole damned point was that it would take you a lifetime to accumulate every piece, to search and barter for every lost ark, every Honus Wagner, every Loch Ness monster. Now you can surf, whip out a credit card, then sigh and wonder what you should start collecting now.
I worked at Consumers Distributing in the late 70s – early 80s. At the time, all these kitchen accessories came out featuring chickens. Or hens. Some bird. Wait. Geese. It was geese. And what happened? People who had previously had, say, a small ceramic goose perched on a shelf in their kitchen were deluged with gifts from people who decided they were collecting geese. Now, we had goose towels; goose paper towel holders; goose oven mitts; goose dishes; goose trivets; goose plates; goose mugs; goose teapots; goose kitchen tools; goose plaques; goose aprons. You get it. And people who had that original goose? They’d come into the store, look at me with blanked out zombie eyes and beg me to make it stop. I would take their hands gently in mine, and tell them I’d seen the new catalogue, and to warn their friends who had an innocent cow or pig on their shelf. The only thing worse than getting caught up in a stupid collection of your own is having others get caught up in it for you. I learned my Goose Lesson up close.
Alright. I have to go feed the kids something. School starts tomorrow. And I really need to turn off the TV.
I once had a Disney vault friend. Their tapes were stored on a high shelf. Mom or Dad would put a tape in, the kids weren’t allowed to touch the cases. In our house, the kids watched the tape, mangled the box, read the notes, and enjoyed. As is the landfill now. Grandkids won’t be watching our tapes, I wonder if she still believes hers will?
O.K. Some of us Luddites still use CD’s. I don’t have an IPad, IPhone, IPod, IPee’d or whatever.
Hoarders have existed for years. I remember pictures of a home down the street from us owned by a couple of ‘odd’ sisters back in the 50′s. There were piles of molding newspapers, books, cardboard etc clogging up every square foot in that house. I think it’s a more modern phenomena of collections getting out of hand. Witness the new series called Collection Intervention.
Heh. I still use CDs, too, PJ. I just can’t imagine freaking out if anyone took them, unless it was my Lonesome Dove DVD. That, I would probably kill over, and let Judge Judy send me to TV jail. Actually, I think the show was about DVDs. I get mixed up.
Tricia- yes! Not letting the kids touch stuff! Really? My house is furnished in hardwood, leather, wrought iron, stone and wood. Not too cuddly, but definitely kid proof;)
So who doesn’t remember Consumer’s Distributing? The coolest way to shop ever invented. You’d write down the catalogue number of the item you wanted and they’d spend 20 minutes scouring every square inch of the warehouse and then tell you they didn’t have it in stock and please come back in a month and it would be there.
Unless it wasn’t.
I’ll bet if someone stole your boot collection you’d have judge Judy’s a**….. er…. sit-upon all over whomever stole them. As a wise person once said (in their head, I think) “one persons CD collection is another person’s boot collection.” Or words to that effect.
PS I still have to revert to putting pictures you can see by clicking on my name. How did Tricia get a picture up over her silhouette? Judge Judy needs to know.
I have no idea..it was nothing I did. Magic maybe?
I am commenting on my favourite comment from Judge Judy and will have you all know the only reason I was watching it is because I was off work for two weeks with a concussion and had to stay pretty quiet. I think the concussion also explains my choise of shows to watch. The woman had dragged some poor guy in front of Judge Judy, accusing him of all sorts of terrible things in their relationship. She was obviously deranged but I did get a kick out of Judge Judy putting her in her place. After talking about every intimate detail of the relationship on national television, with a horrified former boyfriend looing like he wanted to die, she stated “well I am a very private person”. I bet she has a house full of Franklin Mint collectables she hopes will make her very rich one day, because after all, they are limied edition and higly collectable.
I love my cd’s and still have a giant book that holds them in my car when I can listen to them in peace from my judgemental teenagers. I have fought with my ipod too many times to bother with it. It is those times that I shake my head and feel like I am getting old.
I took your word on Lonesome Dove and borrowed it from the library last week for my vacation. So far have gotten half way through and it is great but I am really going to have to work to find time to read it now that we are back to reality. Saw the DVD in at the rental store on the weekend but refused to get it until I finish the book. Knowing that Tommy Lee Jones is in it, I will make sure I get through that book, and the DVD may just end up on my Christmas list!
By the way, is Ari back to school this year or off to new adventures?
(My 18yr old is running the victory lap….he says for marks but I have my doubts and think its more for another season of football because once its over, there is no more)
If you cherish boots, Lorraine, then you’d love Mrs Nobbs. She lived in an old farmhouse in Marham, in the days when there were less than 30,000 people in the whole township, not a quarter-million as there are now. Mrs Nobbs (not made up) had the definitive collection of porcelain, china and glass boots; she must have had a hundred or more, overflowing the china cabinet onto the occasional tables and the overmantel.
I wonder who inherited them. It wasn’t you, was it?
I know there’s a Cinderella joke in there somewhere, if I just had the wherewithall right at this moment to sort it out…
Funny you should say that, Zena. I was thinking more along the line that her first name was probably Bedheathrow (but everyone would call her “Bed”) and her husband’s name must have been Brume Sticcs. (click on my name if you need help visualizing.)
Hey… I don’t know what happened to the picture up there. Try this one.
Heh, heh – looks like you’ve been black-listed (insert sound of WGJ laughing maniacally in the background). That last Consumer’s Distributing snapshot must’ve sent him over the edge.
Maybe Einstein will have more success…
So there.
Nope.
Still not…
(Don’t fret, Chris: I think there are still a few spaces left in our Luddites Anonymous group. New faces are always welcome.)
I have found one of my new all-time favourite sayings. When I looked up Luddites in Wikipedia (don’t judge me. I realize that’s two faux pas in one, swift, hammer-toss) a very apt description of what the Luddites did was “collective bargaining by riot.” As the federal Government elected to take collective bargaining off the table when I was trying to get a new contract with my present employer, I think I will take this up as my battle cry.
Although I’m not certain that one lonely pilot, quietly rioting in a corner will illicit much sympathy. I don’t think I hear any quaking in any boots.
Sigh.
Oh, hey – you fixed it!
Not to worry – Wikipedia has its uses. I actually like reading the notations section in some of the entries – where people argue back and forth over their various corrections and why their particular wording is better than all the others. Lots of “insufferable know-it-alls” out there in wiki-land, that’s for sure.
What you need to do to get noticed is stand in a corner listening to Quiet Riot. Humming and strumming along will get you extra points. Your prospective passengers, at least, will definitely be quaking in their boots.
Speaking of boots…
(and so we come full circle)
You know what I don’t understand? Well, O.K. that is a lot of things but why is it when pilots or anyone associated with keeping planes flying try to go on strike the government steps in right away and stops them. But let the Posties go out and sure go ahead, have yer fun fer awhile then we’ll send you back. We don’t fly anywhere but I sure need to receive our bills and my mother in laws bills and staements. (She’s currently in a home.)
So to make a short story long, Chris you should become a Postie. Better hours and probably comparable pay.
PJ… you’re brilliant.
Went out and got me a new postie outfit. I can now strike to my heart’s content.
But the dogs worry me. And I might get wet. And I’m not really good at walking long distances. My feet hurt already. Poop.
Collective bargaining by riot it is. Guess I know what I’ll be this Hallowe’en.
Well, PJ, I beg to differ: I don’t need to receive my bills. Ever. So let ‘em strike forever – as long as I don’t get the bill I don’t have to pay it. Right…?
Hey. Found a great app for the iPod. It’s called Songza. Great playlists. My hubby and I listened to it for hours while painting this weekend. And now, back to your nuttiness…
PJ – I have often given much thought to the fact that it could be a very pissed off pilot piloting the plane I’m on. And if, like me, he refused to eat Air Canada manicotti 4 times in 2 days, and another stale little finger of bread that tastes only of sugar, he might just plunge this plane through the clouds and into someone’s swimming pool. I always picture that, mostly because while flying over land, I count the swimming pools.
DO YOU REALIZE I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYONE SWIMMING?
Sorry. Got a little yelly. But you must admit, that is a very odd fun fact.
Roz and her husband listen to music containing the word ‘peeps’. I will never forgive them for that. She also has had a kitchen reno that I could only dream of, so I really can’t forgive her for that.
I worked at Consumer’s on and off for 9 years (started at 15), and ended up quitting after a stint as assistant manager at Six Points in Mississauga and was told “just call the police detachment to walk you out to your car each night.” Yeah, no.
I just picked up a gorgeous little yellow 2013 Boxster S. Stick. Finally. 38km on the speedo.
JoJo is on my lap, because I’ve been out most of the day. Maggie is upstairs perched on a pillow, adjusting her tiara because her picture was in the paper yesterday and there’s been no living with her ever since.
Sandy: Ari is doing a few courses first semester.
Padraig: the boots must be leather. I do not like things that need to be dusted. It’s why I’m not married.
I have a speedo with less than 38km on it.
omgomgomg there are no words.
Remember Shop Rite?
Do we assume you were flying biz class and not steerage?
I remember Shop Rite.
You may assume anything you like. But if I admit it, you’ll only make fun of me and cue the violins.
Jeff – no email. Can you call me when you have a moment? Thnx.
Spare us all. Don’t call her, Jeff.
Cogeco? Their email has crapped out again so I hear.