Peevish

I am beset by my pet peeves, so I thought I'd share a couple of them with you.

1. Medical Studies

Every day, there are countless medical studies made public just so we can all have the shit scared out of us. They are all contradictory, and none of them make sense. Even so, there are headlines, there are stories. According to things that I've read recently

... because my waist measures more than 35 inches, I will most likely die an early death from cardiac disease.

... if I lose more than 20 pounds within 20 years of turning 70, I will most likely suffer from dementia. (That was one of my favorites.)

... if you smoke anywhere in the proximity of a child, you are most likely dooming that child to a lifetime of illness, most likely asthma at a young age. Also implied is that you are a sick criminal, and should be locked away from polite society for ever and ever and ever.

Now. I was exposed to smoke as a child, as were most baby-boomers, because our World War II parents were all smokers, and no one knew differently than to smoke around your children. My parents smoked in a closed car -- hey, it was cold -- on our 5+ hour trips to visit grandma in Massachusetts every other month, not to mention at all other times. My father apologized to me for this in his later years (he had actually quit when I was five or six.) Nothing to apologize for. That's the way things were then. Anyway, we lived, and relatively few of us had asthma as children, as I recall, or were unable to play high school sports, or ... you get the idea.

Those medical studies have got to go. I'm not pro-smoking, as such -- okay, I love and miss it, but that's another story; I know it's bad for you -- but this is probably a study done on rat-children anyway, since doing it on human children would be highly suspect, so, true or not, it's worthless shit to me.

2. Voice mail

Having personal voice mail, like having an answering machine, is one thing. When businesses use voice mail in place of having people to answer their phones, it drives me crazy.

I called to make a doctor's appointment before. The receptionist -- live -- answered the phone and asked how she could direct my call. I said I needed to make an appointment with Dr. X, and she put me through. The phone rang six times, and then I got the voice message of Dr. X's assistant, who schedules the appointments. She couldn't talk right now, and invited me to leave a detailed message, and she would call back. Well, you know, I called when it was a good time for me to talk. Maybe when she calls back, it won't be so good, like I could be busy at work and I don't really want to explain why I need the appointment when there are kids standing around me (although this is not the butt doctor, at least.) And I don't know when I'll be home, exactly. I finally did call from home, and left a detailed message -- it's a foot issue -- and K, making a sandwich in the kitchen nearby, called out "EEUUW!"

I don't think it's too much to ask to speak to a live person, or for a live person to call you back as soon as they get off another call. (Hours later, still no call back.) I'm not in this for their convenience. I am literally in this one for my health. Come on.

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K's car is making a horrible noise -- what else is new -- so I'm walking to school tomorrow again, and she'll pick me up. I like walking there in the morning, and I need to be walking more, so I'm fine with that. I hope her car is ready by the time she has to go to class tomorrow night, but if not, no big deal, she'll take mine.

Sometimes, five years from now looks like a good idea.

Tomorrow I'm being trained to use a "Smart Board," which is best described as an interactive blackboard (except it's a white board.) When you project a webpage onto it, you can just touch the buttons with your hands, as if you were a mouse. It's an interesting technology.

I am the hungry. Wonder what I can go nuke for dinner?

WATCHING DR. PHIL :: ENTRY #1584