It's the weekend, thank goodness!
My car battery light started coming on earlier this week. I took it to a place up the street and they wanted to charge me $300 (parts and labor) to change it. I took it to a place I don't normally go but I was afraid the battery would die on me if I went too far. So, I paid them $35 for looking at it and drove it home with no problems, telling them I just couldn't afford it right now, which is the truth. I've been taking SEPTA to work and back, which is no big deal. Takes me an extra 30 minutes because I have to go where they to and transfer, but it's OK and could be a lot worse. My friend's husband is coming over today to look at the car and see if he can fix it and I'll pay them back in babysitting hours :) I have a gut feeling that it really is just the battery and these guys saw me coming. I can't explain it, and I may be way off. If it was the alternator, wouldn't it give me problems starting, and would it let me drive more than a few minutes without completely draining the battery? I don't know the answer, but I'm definitely getting Deron's opinion on this.
I have a job interview Monday afternoon and hope the car is fixed by then. If not, I'll take SEPTA. It will take me a lot longer to get there but that's OK. I'm not going to reschedule an interview because of this. As it is, the day they wanted me to see them I couldn't go because I had meetings, then the meetings were postponed anyway so I could have gone. Oh well. I don't like the idea of changing meetings and such where I work now for an interview somewhere else. That just seems wrong to me. I don't want to say too much about it yet, but the job description looks perfect for me -- allowing me to use my talents and also challenge me a bit -- and it's for a nonprofit organization that does a lot of good things in the area. The benefits look good, also. I'll have to see about salary, as I can't leave where I am for less than a certain amount.
Some online friends of mine are doing a great thing for me and my friend's son. Sean (age 14) has been collecting snowglobes for years, from all over the place. Whenever his parents' friends would go on vacation, we'd bring back a snowglobe for him. He had some from all over the country and a few from Europe. Well, apparently the shelf they were sitting on couldn't take the extra weight of the last few and fell -- landing the globes on his computer, so now the computer doesn't work, either. Tim made him that computer and can eventually get him another one, that's not the problem. I just felt awful about that collection.
So, I posted about it on a board and quite a few people are buying a globe from where they live and are sending them to me for him! I'm completely overwhelmed. Let it be known that most of these people (not all) are childfree like me. We tend to get a bad rap, with people telling us how selfish and abnormal we are. So, I guess I feel like sticking this in the face of all people who like to assume things about others who don't make the same choices they do. Yes, they are doing this for a child, a child who I brag about and who is a wonderful kid.
Speaking of which, I cannot believe the nonsense we got on that board because we had the nerve to NOT like a person spamming baby jewelry that doubles as a choking hazzard on our board. All sorts of people came in there, having never read any of the threads except that one, telling us how awful we were for calling the woman's baby ugly. The thing is, NOWHERE on that thread did I see anyone saying the baby was ugly, we just thought it was stupid to spam such stuff on any board. Spamming on message boards is just NOT the way to get customers, but if you do it you at least want to target the correct audience. Then the admin got an email making sure she knew about how awful we all are. LOL, like she really cares. Of course we got the usual, "You must be fat/ugly/stupid/abnormal/pyscho/buck-teethed/selfish etc. since none of you have husbands who are willing to sleep with you and give you a child" stuff. I found it funny that this thread was running side-by-side with the one about the snowglobes. So, we're all being told how awful we are (and there are many parents on that board, too), while the next thread is full of amazing generosity for a child they have never met.
Maybe some day people will get it into their heads that we don't have to be the same religion, have the same political beliefs, decide to marry and have kids, etc. to be considered decent people. Decency has nothing at all to do with the above, it has to do with how you treat people on a daily basis.
I have a job interview Monday afternoon and hope the car is fixed by then. If not, I'll take SEPTA. It will take me a lot longer to get there but that's OK. I'm not going to reschedule an interview because of this. As it is, the day they wanted me to see them I couldn't go because I had meetings, then the meetings were postponed anyway so I could have gone. Oh well. I don't like the idea of changing meetings and such where I work now for an interview somewhere else. That just seems wrong to me. I don't want to say too much about it yet, but the job description looks perfect for me -- allowing me to use my talents and also challenge me a bit -- and it's for a nonprofit organization that does a lot of good things in the area. The benefits look good, also. I'll have to see about salary, as I can't leave where I am for less than a certain amount.
Some online friends of mine are doing a great thing for me and my friend's son. Sean (age 14) has been collecting snowglobes for years, from all over the place. Whenever his parents' friends would go on vacation, we'd bring back a snowglobe for him. He had some from all over the country and a few from Europe. Well, apparently the shelf they were sitting on couldn't take the extra weight of the last few and fell -- landing the globes on his computer, so now the computer doesn't work, either. Tim made him that computer and can eventually get him another one, that's not the problem. I just felt awful about that collection.
So, I posted about it on a board and quite a few people are buying a globe from where they live and are sending them to me for him! I'm completely overwhelmed. Let it be known that most of these people (not all) are childfree like me. We tend to get a bad rap, with people telling us how selfish and abnormal we are. So, I guess I feel like sticking this in the face of all people who like to assume things about others who don't make the same choices they do. Yes, they are doing this for a child, a child who I brag about and who is a wonderful kid.
Speaking of which, I cannot believe the nonsense we got on that board because we had the nerve to NOT like a person spamming baby jewelry that doubles as a choking hazzard on our board. All sorts of people came in there, having never read any of the threads except that one, telling us how awful we were for calling the woman's baby ugly. The thing is, NOWHERE on that thread did I see anyone saying the baby was ugly, we just thought it was stupid to spam such stuff on any board. Spamming on message boards is just NOT the way to get customers, but if you do it you at least want to target the correct audience. Then the admin got an email making sure she knew about how awful we all are. LOL, like she really cares. Of course we got the usual, "You must be fat/ugly/stupid/abnormal/pyscho/buck-teethed/selfish etc. since none of you have husbands who are willing to sleep with you and give you a child" stuff. I found it funny that this thread was running side-by-side with the one about the snowglobes. So, we're all being told how awful we are (and there are many parents on that board, too), while the next thread is full of amazing generosity for a child they have never met.
Maybe some day people will get it into their heads that we don't have to be the same religion, have the same political beliefs, decide to marry and have kids, etc. to be considered decent people. Decency has nothing at all to do with the above, it has to do with how you treat people on a daily basis.
2 Comments:
At 10:15 AM,
Dianne said…
Hey Mindy!
It's so nice that you are helping Sean regain his snowglobe collection (plus some!)
I don't bother with boards or groups much. People are so two-faced and hide behind the facade of the computer. Whatever you like and do is your own business as long as you aren't hurting anyone. Geez. And I agree about the bracelets-no one should put anything smaller than a large marble near a baby.
Believe it or not, people want to know why we only have one kid. So you get nagged from all directions.
Good luck with your car (sounds like the battery-with the alternator the car would just shut down.) My brother is a mechanic at Iacono's in Springfield if you want to try someone new).
And lots of luck with your interview too!
At 10:56 AM,
Mindy said…
I know a lot of women who only have one kid who get harrassed about it all the time. Don't know why others think it's any of their business.
I thought that about the car, too. I just had one of those gut feelings that they were trying to take me for a ride because I'm not a guy. We'll see -- Deron won't steer me wrong.
Thanks for the info about your brother. Somehow, I'd missed that before. I've been looking for a nearby mechanic I can trust, and Springfield is pretty darn close. When I worked in Bryn Mawr, I took my car to King's, and they were fantastic, but just too far from where I now work and live.
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