She had just joined an online dating site and had met a guy who seemed to be nice but turned out to be a paranoid freak and she had ditched him.
"Yeah. The guy sounds like a freak," I said.
I only recall this because I was absent-mindedly browsing through their wedding photos on Facebook today. I don't think my friend talked to me much since. Maybe she was not a close friend. Which raises the question does one write.
A - congratulations
B - Isn't this the guy you said was a freak?
C - Not bother to comment.
Now most of us would opt for A or C and indeed I oped for C. But alarmingly I would have taken rather a lot of pleasure in B.
So my daughter was meant to take 10 tins of food into girl scouts.
I asked her why.
"So as I can get a badge."
"Oh so we give away most of the week's food so as you can get a badge."
I receive a terse text from my wife asking me why I wasn't emptying the whole of the larder. Do I answer.
A - Because I don't give a flying about a sew-on badge
B - Because the Girl Scouts is essentially an evil organization.
Well neither because I get another text saying the tins are for the homeless and I should have known that. So I compromised on six tins, mainly items like diced tomatoes, minced tripe etc. I have no problem with it going to the homeless but I really detest the Girl Scouts and not just because all of their cookies are sucky (apart from the chocolate mint ones).
Girl Scouts meet in a dingy church hall, most of the people there are trashy and it's run by two terminally grumpy and rude women who grunt at me when I ask them a question. The one time my daughter wore her uniform nobody else did.
I am throwing these random and mismatching factoids together because they sum up my mood of petulant defiance today. We are expected to do things a certain way and if we don't do them people frown at us.
It's like going to church. In many parts of America people look at you like you have a small aerial coming out of the back of your head and are receiving messages from the Planet Zob if you don't go to church.
Well I can tell you I have attended church in America and it's mostly the same old dull dialogue I used to snooze through in Britain, although you may actually see someone under 70 years of age.
A lot of people seem to be giving up their blogs lately I've noticed. I wonder if this is because they have become passe and no longer cutting edge and exciting. Maybe blogging has gone from being a bit daring to being another bloody chore like going to church.
I've certainly thought of giving it up. Or refocusing it. Or finding some kind of niche. Like restricting my blogs to a particular species of South American centipede.
Someone said to me "keep trucking" the other day. It seemed a curious thing to say to someone who doesn't have a truck but I suppose it's decent advice. What other choice do I have?
Well Mr Grumpy, you can do as you please. I like my blog for wittering and keeping an account of what I get up to, instead of physically writing a diary (because who actually puts pen to paper any more?). And because my memory is so bad if I don't write it down it'll be gone forever.
ReplyDeleteMy son tried to join the scouts here in France but it was an unmitigated disaster. They told him they were short of leaders and would contact him when they had enough to take him on. They never got back to us despite 3 emails from me. Not a peep, so they can keep their hyper-Catholic sodding scouts. My son declares himself an atheist anyway so he would have hated it.
I said something similar to a friend of mine (the freak remark) when she started going out with a man. She never spoke to me again and they've been married for 20 years. From that I learned that what people say about someone and what they think about someone do not necessarily correspond.
ha really Sarah - this is an insight to the psychology of women. Yeah never could see the big thing with the boy scouts who outlaw gays here.
DeleteFollowing the expected social convention. Yes that's a difficult one. So she married Creepy Creeperson eh? Ew. So you guys are FB friends or her profile is open? B/c you said she's not a close friend. And I like the girl scouts better than the homophobic & religious boy scouts.
ReplyDeletewe are still FB friends - not of the commenting variety, tho. You are probably right re the GS
DeletePS Please tell me that's not one of their wedding photos! If so they are both freaks.
ReplyDeleteha, ha - no JoJO
Delete(They were far more scary)
Please don't switch your blog over to being about centipedes. I hate those leggy little beasts. Seriously creepy.
ReplyDeleteDonating cans of food to earn a badge seems kind of strange to me. I mean, I think it is good to donate food to the homeless, and to encourage it is good too, but I'm assuming the parents are the ones who paid for the food not the daughters. If the girl scouts worked odd jobs to make the money to buy the food that was to be donated--that would seem more like they are "earning" the badge. That's just my two cents worth. I wasn't in the girl scouts myself.
yep the parents empty their larders do they don't earn as such...you aren't a fan of the centipedes idea then Daisy?
DeleteHmm - I was a Girl Scout, but never got the "donating cans of food" badge. I did, however, get a badge for cross-stitching a little jewelry bag... nevermind that my mother did 90% of it (shh - don't tell! they might take it away!)
ReplyDeleteI implore you to keep blogging - your insights always give me a giggle!
aw thanks - glad you get a giggle out of them Valley Writer :)
DeleteHmm, I'd tune out the wedding bells. I mean, I don't think the bride really cares. She's got her man (a man?) and life's good. This is also one of the reasons I don't do FB. To quote Katie Couric, "I don't think anyone gives a rat's ass if I eat a tuna fish sandwich." About the Girl Scouts: I never joined so don't know. But, ahem, organizations have rules/goals/etc. when one joins. About church: I'm quite sure I'm in the 'lost souls' arena, LOL, and neither worry nor think about it or go to church to pray about it.
ReplyDeleteYou've got a dynamite blog. Have you thought about your blog's title being the title of a book as well? Stretch your focus a bit. I'd thought about dropping blogging too before I started writing my stories. Hey, you know how to wield a pen! Go for a jog and think about it.
hey thanks Kittie - I try. Well life may be a beach, tho you can never tell from the wedding pix
DeleteYou're very entertaining when you're being petulantly defiant! I must be in a petulantly defiant mood myself because I found myself laughing and nodding along to just about all of it... x
ReplyDeleteYou know there's much to be said for petulant defiance - that mood could catch on Kitty :)
DeleteI suppose, instead, you could find a paranoid freak on-line, introduce him to the girl scout leaders to fight over, break up the fight, earn a Peace Maker badge and wear it to church. Or just keep trucking.
ReplyDeletexoRobyn
Yes I could do that Robyn - but as I'm probably too lazy I'll keep trucking x
DeleteHey now . . .I was a girl scout for 8 years, and loved it! Of course, my cat decided to spray down all my badges one day . . .so I know what her thoughts were on the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there's the dating/marriage thing - first impressions are always weird. I didn't like my hubs the first day I met him . . .but then I gave him a second chance, and we dated for five years and have been married for 16 . . .so I totally get the whole change of heart thing.
As for blogs, well, they have to change to keep living - it's like a language, no change = death.
uh uh - well not so much the scouts themselves being evil (ahem_ Tyrean. Well here's to second chances..
DeleteI'm not writing anything because now I have actual things to do and no time to write. For example; a new friend invited me to see a movie with some of her friends and now I'm involved in the making of a short film with them. It's exhausting but I love all this activity. Anyway, try to say what you have on your mind sometimes, you could end up with bumps on your neck or something :-)
ReplyDeletewell yay Starla - short film writing is probably more fun than blogs, actually just about to get a decent vid camera
DeleteMebbe the reason why the women from the Girl Scouts are grumpy at you is because they don't understand the words that you are saying? You are in the South...
ReplyDeleteAlso I hate the girl scout cookies as well.
I guess that's all we can do, keep on moving forward. With or without trucks.
ReplyDelete1. Lord, I WISH you'd done letter B in the case of the wedding photos.
ReplyDelete2. *I* was a Girl Scout, so it's clearly a font of eeeeeviiiiil.
3. In NYC, I get smirked at because I do go to church. :)
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