mid-life crisis – Page 4 – HappyStinkingJoy

High School Graduation

I spent a weekend about a month ago going to a couple of high school graduation receptions. Man, I can remember back to my high school graduation. Remember those days… when you still partially believed that life was fair and you could accomplish any goal? You were going places and had a lot of success in front of you? Then, life smacked you upside the head and — POW— life not only is not even close to being fair… it spends a large portion of time stinking.

Once we realize that success seems to only be for someone else, and then we start justifying crap to ourselves to make it seem like we found some measure of success… you know… “I have a great family, therefore I am successful”… “I get to go to work every day, and there isn’t much more to success than that”… “I don’t live in a trailer house, so I must be successful”… “I can put food on the table for my family and my kids love me; success, success, success!” I’m not saying that these things are bad; I’m just saying that these things are not a measure of success. These things are a measure of not being complete and utter trailer trash… which is the antithesis of success.

Success is a measure of worth. Worth is a value that you place on yourself and that others place on you. For example, people living in trailers (or low-income housing, or where ever) who feed their family exclusively with food stamps and don’t have job because, well, they can make more living off of the tax money paid in by people who actually work for a living, and a job may interfere with their addictions to medicaid-funded painkillers and Budweiser… I see these people as having very little worth. These people, however, may see themselves as having a lot of worth. Therefore, they are delusional. No… they have a feeling of self-worth but no actual worth, because they do nothing of value to society. When your feeling of self-worth and society’s value of your worth are both in the positive… Ta-Da… SUCCESS! It really isn’t hard to find something to do that society values. Society values a good Big Mac… and somebody has to flip it. Society values having trash collected and removed from houses once a week… and someone has to remove it. The problem is, as individuals, can we find a measure of self-worth in doing these “lowly” jobs? Maybe if these “lowly” paid paid more…

Our society is so majorly screwed up. I know this is going off on a tangent, but why aren’t the jobs that create the most value to society the ones that generate the largest income? Alex Rodriguez is a great baseball player. In other words, he is really good at playing a game. He makes millions of dollars a year. If A-Rod died tomorrow (and I am not wishing this on him by any stretch of the imagination), how would our society really be any worse off then it is today? In fact, if baseball completely disappeared off the face of the earth, other than lost marketing revenue and maybe a few people who make a living manufacturing baseball bats and stuff losing their jobs, society really wouldn’t be too severely hurt.

Now, let’s consider a garbage collector. These noble steeds who drive the big trucks around and take away all the stinky stuff you no longer want probably make around $30,000 to $40,ooo per year. Imagine if these people suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth. How much more would society suck without these guys collecting your crap. There would be a dramatic increase in the suck-o-tude of society without garbage collectors… yet they make only a small fraction of what a baseball player makes.

“Supply and demand” you may scream. “Anyone can be trained to collect garbage, but not everyone can hit like A-Rod!”

Right… not everyone can be trained to play a little kids game and be really good at it. If baseball never were, A-Rod would most likely be a lumberjack (one of the few “real world” places where the ability to “swing” has a payout). Anyway, it is hard to find the self-worth in your job when society deems you be paid only a small, small fraction of what someone who plays games for a living (or, in the case of an actor, pretends to be someone else and looks pretty while doing it) makes.

Okay, tangent over, back to high school graduation. High school graduates are people to be emulated. They are cocky and full of life. They are ready to succeed. They are, for the most part, full of delusions and will be bitterly disappointed with what life actually offers them, but they see the glass as half-full as opposed to half-empty. Me, I see the glass as not full. I don’t give a rat’s patootie if the stinking glass is half-empty or half-full… the glass is less than full and that sucks. I want a full glass, but a full glass is reserved for those who either were blessed with the ability to play games with an extreme amount of athleticism, people who are unnaturally pretty, people who are so full of self-confidence that they make the rest of us sick to our stomachs, and politicians. Working hard doesn’t cut it. Working smart doesn’t cut it. You have to work both hard and smart (and being pretty or tall doesn’t hurt) to succeed… and doing both at the same time gives me a headache. I don’t like headaches, therefore, I am not successful.

To all of the recent high school graduates out there who are reading this blog (seriously, there might be one!), keep your head high and keep dreaming of success. If you give up now, you are utterly screwed. If you remain positive… well… there is a chance you won’t be disappointed.

For the rest of us who are not recent high school graduates: if you haven’t found success yet, you probably never will. If success isn’t important to you, I’m sure you have a special spot in heaven with your name on it. If success is relatively important to you and you haven’t found it in your many years following high school… welcome to the happy stinking joy that is your life 🙂 It could be worse; you could be living in a trailer. If you are living in a trailer and have no future hope of getting out of that trailer as you improve your circumstances, QUIT USURPING MY TAX MONEY!!!

Man, I miss high school…

Do You Know Who I Am?!?

You are dealing with a customer-service-type-situation. The person you are dealing with is asking you for things that are above and beyond not only what the rules and regulations of the company which employs you dictate as acceptable; the things this person is asking of you are beyond what a normal person would expect.

“Do you know who I am?”

Or better yet, “Do you know who you’re dealing with?”

Of course, if you have heard one of these phrases or something similar, the first thing that popped into your mind is probably pretty much the same thing that pops into my mind:

“Uh, yeah, apparently you’re a jackass!”

Of course, you don’t say this. You try to explain why what the moron is asking for is unreasonable and, after talking down to you in more ways than you ever imagined possible, he or she ends up tromping off in a huff (or hanging up if on the phone). They then work their way up the chain-of-command above your head until, 99% of the time, they get what they wanted in the first place. Would have been kind of nice if you were given the power to grant their request, but you weren’t; so you will always be the peon who “didn’t know who they were.”

People who throw out the “do you know who I am” spiel should all lose their ability to speak… immediately; this is my wish. Just the fact that someone would use this phrase shows that he thinks he is more valuable to society than you are. Wow, who doesn’t like to be talked down to? Who doesn’t like some arrogant jackass making demands and belittling you in the process? The thing is, these jerks often complain loud enough and hard enough that they get what they want, which only reinforces their unbearable behavior. These jerks have had “the customer is always right” driven into their heads for so long that they actually believe this “rule” is the gospel in each and every situation they come across in life. The fact that these morons have a position which they perceive as power-filled does not help the situation.

I live in rural America. The snobalicious people I am referring to in rural America usually hold some sort of political office. Small town mayors are notorious for being butt monkeys. Small town mayors make almost no money by means of their office, so they apparently think they need to get lots of “perks” from businesses that serve their community. It’s kind of like the mayor of Littletown, WY. Now, Littletown has a population of about 8 people, and for some reason they have a mayor. The mayor probably makes around $7.28/year for being mayor. The mayor also happens to raise (and smoke) meth (bet ya didn’t know meth could be grown, huh? Well in Nebraska and Wyoming, meth grows on the prairies like stink grows in Rosie O’Donnell’s armpits.) So, Mayor Littletown calls you up ’cause he buys a service from your company and he has a perception that something isn’t right. Let’s say it’s satellite TV.

Littletown: My TV ain’t workin’!

You: What seems to be the problem?

Littletown: My kid chucked his baseball through the front of the TV and now it ain’t workin’.

You: Uh… what does that have to do with your satellite?

Littletown: Look, I pay you guys for service every month and I want something done!

You: But, Sir, we just provide your satellite. We don’t have anything to do with your kid throwing a ball through your TV…

Littletown: DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO? I’M THE MAYOR OF LITTLETOWN AND I HAVE A LOT OF INFLUENCE IN THIS COMMUNITY! YOU WILL FIX THIS OR YOUR COMPANY WILL BE DONE IN LITTLETOWN!

Ok, so the Mayor Littletown has a lot of influence… over 7 other semi-inbred rednecks (who are also the mayor’s best customers for his meth crops). Being the mayor of a community of 8 people does not mean that you were elected due to your impressive electoral campaign or your innate ability to reduce deficit and balance a budget. Being the mayor in a community like Littletown means… uh… it was your turn. Next term, your neighbor Jedidiah with the rotted front teeth and the constant tweaks gets his turn.

In rural America, it doesn’t usually seem to be the successful business people who are the butt monkeys (although there is a cafe owner in small town Wyoming that I would like to punt for a field goal.) Most rural American butt monkeys are usually paid with taxpayer money or “volunteer” to help the community: city council people, county commissioners, school board members, school administrators, city management, community development leaders, etc,etc,etc…

I’m not saying that all people in these positions are butt monkeys; I’m saying that a large percentage of the particular type of butt monkey which I am discussing (the “do you know who I am” butt monkey) can be found in one of the aforementioned positions.

You may wonder why I refer to people who I have issues with as “butt monkeys”. Well, it’s funny 🙂 Just the mental image that “butt monkey” conjures gets me giggling. You know, little monkeys… in your butt… peeking out every once in awhile and annoying the CRAP out of you (figuratively… or not…)

We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, need to destroy all butt monkeys! Whose with me? C’mon, let’s grab our butt-monkey guns and bag us some butt monkeys… wait, that would take effort… ok, lets just agree to make a crapload of fun of all butt monkeys. Agreed? And small town butt monkeys need to realize that they are butt monkeys and that they annoy the crap out of most normal people. So, if you know a butt monkey, make sure to slap them every time the butt-monkiness comes through. I think I’ve even come up with a slogan for the new anti-butt monkey campaign:

Give “spanking the monkey” a new meaning – slap the crap out of a butt monkey today!

Safeway SUCKS!

Anyone who has spent any time on my blog knows that I am pretty much good for nothing. I complain a lot, and I’m relatively good at complaining… in fact, if complaining were an occupation, there is a good chance I would finely be at the top of my game career-wise, ’cause I am, in my humble opinion, a top-notch bitcher. Ok, so I’m not good for nothing! I’m a good… no, a GREAT… bitcher! Man, if only the world could compensate me for this talent. That’s what I want on my tombstone: “Not Good for Much, But Boy Could He Bitch!”

Anyway, I had an experience a couple of weeks ago that got the complain-mechanism in my brain all fired up and ready to go. In fact, I was so torqued, I had to wait a couple of weeks just to prevent this post from becoming a spewing geyser of venomous hate… which it still runs the risk of becoming. I promise, I’ll try to be civil.

I was feeling adventurous and was going to try our a new recipe. In order to follow this recipe, I needed some Italian sausage links. Since we had none of these links at home, I was forced to drive to a grocery store. The closet grocery store to my house was a local store called Panhandle Coop, so I drove to Coop in an attempt to save time. I figured I could pick up about 3 packaged of Italian sausage for about $3.00 each.

I walk into Coop and head to the meat department. I walk up to the section that contains the Italian sausage and the crap is like $5.00 per pack. I turn around, grumbling loudly to myself and I leave the stinking store. “Hometown friendly my $#*!,” I grumble.

I drive a couple of blocks over to Safeway. I almost never shop at Safeway, because I feel like their name should really be “Wanna-Shop-Here-Then-Bend-Over-And-Take-Our-Exorbitantly-High-Prices-Like-A-Convict-Reaching-For-The-Soap-Way.” But maybe… just maybe… they are having a sale or something. After all, I have one of their pain in the $#*! Club Cards! I like to think of people who shop at Safeway as mostly mentally-deficient, because only those with brain damage would pay twice what something is worth just have the store pretty much to themselves while they shop.

Ok, so I walk into Safeway and I make my way to the meat department. I walk up to the Italian sausage section and… GLORY… they have Italian sausage on sale for $2.99 a package. I grab 3 packs from right behind the sign (this is particularly important and will come into play a little later) and I head to the counter.

I’m fumbling through my wallet searching for that stinking Club Card as the pimple-faced checker rings-up my sausage. I hand him the card and he swipes it.

“That’ll be $17.97,” croaks pimple-face.

“Should be like 9 bucks,” I tell him. “It’s on sale.”

He looks over at the cashier next to him and holds up my sausage, “Is this on sale?” he asks.

“No, not that one,” says next-door pimple-face.

“I’ll show you,” I say and I start walking back to the stinking meat department.

Me and my pimple-face get to the meat department and I point triumphantly at the sign which boldly proclaims that Italian sausage is on sale for $2.99 per package… and then I notice in very small print that it’s the Safeway brand of sausage that’s on sale. I had grabbed Johnsonville, which isn’t on sale even though the Johnsonville is the only sausage I can find in the meat cooler.

“I want the stuff that’s on sale,” I say.

“Yeah, we’re out of that,” says pimple-face rather a little too smugly for my taste.

“Then why is the sign still up and why is the Johnsonville piled up behind the sale sign?” I ask. “Can’t you honor the marked sale price with the product that is displayed?”

“No, that sausage isn’t on sale,” says Smugly van Pimple-face.

“Screw Safeway,” I say and make for the door, grumbling and unleashing expletives as I storm past the manager at the customer service counter as I realize that Safeway having a customer service counter is somewhat like Payless Shoes having an airplane repair counter.

“But Payless Shoes doesn’t offer airplane repair,” you may say.

Exactly.

I get in my car and I drive five mile to stinking Walmart. I get out of the car and hike like 1/2 mile to the meat department. I grab 3 packages of $3.00 Italian sausage and go to the checkout. I don’t have to get dig out any stupid cards, I pay my $9.00, and I leave. If I had just gone to Walmart in the first place, I would have saved time, I would have put less wear and tear on my car, and my blood pressure would have stayed within a safe range.

Ok, so the safe bet is to avoid all of the other retarded grocery stores and shop at Walmart, right? Moral presented in a solid fashion, correct? I thought so, until a couple of days later.

The family and I decide that the dry, itchy skin we are all experiencing needs to come to an end, so the oldest boy and I head out to buy some water softener salt for our water softener (which has been out for awhile because… uh, well, because I’m lazy, I guess.) But the boy and I play it smart. We don’t go to Coop, we don’t bother with Wanna-Shop-Here-Then-Bend-Over-And-Take-Our-Exorbitantly-High-Prices-Like-A-Convict-Reaching-For-The-Soap-Way, we head straight to Walmart. We park the car, head into the store, and make our way right to… where… the… water…softener… salt… used… to… be…

“Where in the crap is the water softener salt?” I ask the boy.

The boy shrugs and gets that oh-man-Dad-is-getting-mad-and-is-going-to-embarrass-me-in-public look on his face.

Our Walmart recently went through a remodel, which means that they put down new floors, moved everything in the store to a different location, and cut their selection way back… after all, they have already capitalized on offering a great selection and low prices and they have most people in the area trained to shop there, so why would they want to go through the expense of offering any sort of selection anymore? Walmart know better what you need to buy than you do… trust them, they are Walmart!

Finally spying an elusive Walmart employee, I ask where the softener salt has been moved to. The employee points out that the salt has been moved to the opposite end of the store, so the boy and I trek that direction.

After loading our cart up with softener salt, we head to the checkouts (which, it is not easy to push a cart full of bags of water softener salt through Walmart.) After paying for the crap, we start to make our way out of the store, struggling with that stupid cart full of heavy softener salt. I’m about to leave the building when one of the ‘greeters’ yells, “Excuse me… sir… sir…” and I finally realize that the dude is yelling at me “… I’m going to need to check your receipt!”

“What?” I ask.

“I’m going to need to check your receipt.”

“You think I’m stealing a cart full of water softener salt?” I ask.

“I’m sorry, I need to see your receipt.”

“Of course,” I spew. “I’m shopping at Walmart, therefore, I am the kind of person who would steal, right.” I’m pretty hot. Go into flipping Walmart, spend your hard earned money, and be treated like a criminal for it! I HATE Walmart.

“Well, if you are shopping at Walmart, you are the one that is being robbed,” says greeter-dude. He smiles. He puts his hand on my shoulder as he delivers his lame attempt at calming me down.

The boy pulls the hood of his hoodie up over his head and heads straight for the parking lot.

I’m not a violent man… mostly because I’m kind of a wimp and fear getting the snot kicked out of me… but this Walmart dude is about to lose his hand! And then, in a brief moment of clarity, I realize that this poor sap is stuck greeting ticked-off Walmart customers and making sure that the thieves aren’t running rampant through the front doors of Walmart. His employment at Walmart is punishment enough for his hand touching my person. I let him check my receipt, proving to him that not every nincompoop that graces the front stoop of Walmart is out to rob the stinking store blind (but… if you’ve ever looked around Walmart, you must realize that many of the shoppers in a Walmart are the kind of people that you would search if they spent a few minutes in you house, and by shopping at Walmart, we apparently put ourselves in the same class as this trash, and we should feel happy being treated like thieves by the greeters at Walmart after we’ve spent our hard-earned money to support their employment!)

The boy and I get home and I relay the experience to the wife.

“You shouldn’t act like that in front of the boy,” she says. “You’re setting a bad example… and it embarrasses him.”

So, I’m coming to the holy revelation that I am meant to stay away from grocery stores, and the final anchor in this feeling was pounded home the other night. My favorite ice cream in the entire world is Ben & Jerry’s Pistachio Pistachio Ice Cream. There is no better treat on the planet. We seldom have this treat. I know that 2 of the 4 grocery stores in our little berg do not carry this particular slice of heaven because they suck! That leaves us with Walmart and… heaven forbid… Safeway. After a great meal, the wife says, “Wouldn’t some Pistachio Pistachio be good right about now?”

“Oh yeah, that would be AWESOME,” I say… because I am a dorky product of the 80s.

“Well, Walmart doesn’t carry it anymore,” says the wife. “Since their remodel, they went from carrying about every flavor of Ben & Jerry’s to, I think, like, six flavors.” After all, Walmart knows better what you want to buy that you do yourself.

“What!,” I cry. If Walmart doesn’t carry my Pistachio Pistachio… and stinking Panhandle Coop doesn’t carry my Pistachio Pistachio… and the stupid Nash Finch store doesn’t carry Pistachio Pistachio… that leaves stinking Safeway, where I recently swore not another of my hard-earned pennies would be spent!

Needless to say, I called Safeway, they had Ben & Jerry’s Pistachio Pistachio Ice Cream, and the wife ran to their store and spent, I believe, about $20.00 for a pint of my favorite ice cream.

The moral of the story is… who knows?!? Corporate American SUCKS! Walmart SUCKS! Panhandle Coop and Nash Finch SUCK! I would honestly consider voting democrat if it meant our local grocery stores would stop being so stinking SUCKY and actually put the wants… no, I say, needs of the customers right up there alongside their stinking PROFITS (uh… ok, me vote democrat… hahaha… that may be pushing it… hahaha… I’m upset, I didn’t have a lobotomy.)

I guess the moral of the story has to be the same as the title of this post: Safeway SUCKS!

Dave Ramsey’s Stinking Financial Peace!

My wife and I recently finished up Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. I am not going to dog on Dave’s system too much… ’cause I think it works and is pretty much worth the effort for anyone who wants to gain control of his or her finances. Dave teaches a lot of common sense stuff (and makes a buttload of money teaching it… how much is a buttload… well, it’s more than most of us will ever see; an amount of money that verges on the border of being uncomfortable.)

Dave teaches “baby steps” that anyone can follow and everyone could benefit from implementing. Dave’s little catch-phrase is that you should “live like no one else” (i.e. sacrifice having any sort of life-joy now,) “so later, you can live like no one else” (i.e. so if you find a way to avoid death and make it to 70, you can finally start realizing some of the fruit of your labor.) Yeah, doesn’t sound real dreamie to me either, but it sounds a lot better than completely depending on the soon-to-be-extinct Social Security (damn democrats… instead of finding more ways to spend my flipping tax money, like health care, why don’t you guarantee that I’ll get back some of the stinking Social Security benefits that I have given those who went before me!) Dave paints a much rosier picture than what I believe is truly possible for average folks out there. I think Dave may be a little unrealistic and misleading in some of his assertions and examples.

Dave Ramsey: “If you start investing $2000 per year beginning at age 12 and can make a simple 20% interest, by the time you retire at age 90, you will be a millionaire!”

Ok, this example may be a little far fetched… a little. Maybe Dave didn’t actually use any examples that were quite so retarded. It is funny, however, that whenever he gives an example of the average guy, he picks some 30 year-old schmuck making an above average income(’cause I think you have to make above average to really “live like no one else” in the long run,) and Dave proceeds to tell us all of the sacrifices this guy is going to have to make to (which usually involves, for some strange reason, a night job delivering pizza?!?); this is the first part of the “live like no one else.” Then, when we get to the second half of the “live like no one else,” Dave is throwing out examples of multimillionaires (like himself) who can drop cash for about anything because, well, they’re multimillionaires. The thing is, that 30 year-old schmuck isn’t going to get Dave Ramsey-rich just because he delivered pizzas. The only way to get Dave Ramsey-rich is to make a lot of money through your career (maybe by charging honest folks $100 to take your class where you can teach them how to find financial peace…,) which those of us living in the remote, rural areas of this country will never do. So, although Dave never actually comes out and says that the 30 year-old schmuck will get Dave Ramsey-rich, the way the “live like no one else, so later, you can live like no one else” is presented could be interpreted as a little misleading by anyone who is actually paying attention.

In most of his examples, Dave starts with a savings plan starting at or around age 30 and a retirement age of 70. He gives several examples of how you can amass a ton of wealth (MILLIONS) by investing X amount of money at age 30, making 12% on that money, and retiring when you are 70. First of all, I don’t know what the average age is of someone going through Financial Peace University… but I’m guessing it is well above 30. Crap, I’m 40, so I guess I would have to retire at 80 to hit Dave’s projections. Second, 12% earnings on a retirement fund may be slightly unrealistic in today’s market. I’m going to cut Dave a little slack on this one because the video series I watched was made like 2 years ago (I think it was made in 2008), so things are a little less financially rosy at present time than they were 2 years ago, and who know, maybe the markets will completely rebound and no other major damage will be done to the markets again (but I think the radical Muslims may have a thing or two to say about that.) Finally, even if I had started working toward financial peace 10 years ago, I have no intention of working until I’m 70! Hell, I have no intention of living until I’m 70, so why would I base future plans on retiring at that age?

Dave Ramsey is, first and foremost, a salesman. He tries to sell his ideas, and his books, and his program, and his swag (it kills me that Dave preaches that we shouldn’t spend money on unnecessary crap and there, right in the middle of his workbook which tells you not to buy crap, is an add for all kinds of Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University CRAP that Dave would love for you to buy… ’cause God knows that coffee is going to taste a helluva lot better while you’re doing all this personal sacrifice stuff if you’re drinking it out of a Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University coffee mug!) Dave portrays himself as, you know, just this dude who is trying to help others. He is so willing to help others that it only costs like $100 to take his course that will help you gain control over… uh… your money. But seriously, no harm, no foul. The dude needs to make money, and the course is well worth the money it costs to take… but the “I’m just here to help you” front doesn’t fly. Dave, if you are going to be honest with us and yourself, let’s try, “I’m here to help you, but it’s gonna cost you about 100 bucks because that’s how I got Dave Ramsey-rich and I ain’t ever going back, you’re gonna have to sacrifice more than you are probably comfortable with and you are going to miss out on a lot of crap for now, and you will NEVER be as rich as me. Want to buy a Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University fanny-pack?”

Dave works a biblical approach into his plan, which I like. He actually seems sincere when it comes to his faith, so I’ll give him props for that.

One of the portions of the course I really enjoyed was Dave’s philosophy on insurance. He starts out this section of the course talking about how insurance agents HATE this part of the course. Dave then goes on to talk about why whole life insurance is for idiots and all kinds of other things that I’m sure most insurance agents would not like the average person thinking about. Well, Dave gets done, the DVD player gets turned off, and the one insurance agent we have in our class goes off about how Dave Ramsey is not “all knowing”; about how Dave Ramsey is a salesman more than anything, after all we all paid for his class… he isn’t doing it for free… and about how each individual’s insurance needs are different and we can’t all base our needs for insurance off of what Dave Ramsey is trying to sell us on. In other words, the insurance agent in our class HATED this part of the course. The thing is, the “crappy” stuff that insurance agents try to do which Dave discussed are not things this agent does. I think Dave ended up pissing every person off in our class with one point or another… and it wasn’t that I really enjoyed Dave’s teaching so much as I enjoyed watching how right Dave was about insurance agents not liking this part of the course. Our insurance agent (who is, by the way, a good, honest person… and I like the dude) made this section enjoyable just by how much he let it upset him. It’s always fun to watch someone unnecessarily defend what they do for a living! I know, I used to work for a cell phone company… and there are few jobs that require more defense than when you represent one of the cell phone monsters:

“Isn’t cell phone insurance a rip-off?”

“Well, it makes it easier to replace your phone if something happens to it.”

“But you don’t get a new phone, do you?”

“No, you don’t. You get a refurbished phone.”

“How can you push cell phone insurance when it puts a customer in a refurbished phone?”

“Because I have had the people without insurance come up to me with the 2-day old phone that they dropped in the toilet and which now does not work, and I have had to explain to them that they are under a two-year contract and they have no insurance so their only option is to spend $200 or more full-retail price for a replacement phone. These people almost always yell at me, like I make the rules or I have the power to just give them a brand new phone because they have, after all, been a customer for three years or something. I don’t like being yelled at, I have no control over the policies and procedures of the company, you’re the retard that dropped a $300 cell phone in the toilet, I don’t make any more commission just because you have been a customer for three years… in fact, I don’t make any money unless you actually purchase something… and did I mention that I hate being yelled at… so buy the stupid insurance and quit wasting my time.”

Yeah, working at the cell phone company sucked… the money was good, but people are pretty stupid when it comes to their cell phones. Anyway… long story short (too late), I understand the insurance dude trying to justify around Dave Ramsey’s observations. No one likes to have what they do called into question by a “professional” like Dave Ramsey. Thank goodness there were no credit card customer service reps in our class 🙂

Probably my favorite lesson in the Financial Peace University course was the one on careers. Dave said some stuff that I thought really made sense. He spoke of finding a job that utilizes your natural talents. He said that those who tell you that you can “learn” to overcome personality traits that work against certain aspects of your career… well, those people are full of crap (ok, he didn’t say crap, but it was implied.) If managing people, or outside sales, or whatever, is not something you are good at or comfortable with, you will not “learn” to be good at this stuff. You need to find something you are naturally good at or enjoy and go full forward with that. I love this advice… and I agree wholeheartedly! Those people who tell you that you need to “work outside of your comfort zone” to be successful have no idea how extraordinarily craptastic the area outside of the comfort zone can be for many of us!

Dave refers to using personality tests to help you figure out what careers you can be successful in. Upon completing the Gary Smalley test, I have determined that I am almost 100% pure golden retriever, which means I have no self-confidence and do almost anything to avoid conflict… wow, big surprise there. There aren’t exactly a ton of high-dollar jobs available to golden retrievers.

Librarian was one that I think I would actually love… but that would mean, probably, another stinking bachelor’s degree PLUS a MLS degree to actually be able to make ok money… so, at 40, sell the house, take out some student loans, go back to school, and hopefully by the time I’m 50 I can have a career I love… and a crapload more debt. Yeah, that ain’t gonna happen.

I can’t really remember what other jobs a golden retriever could excel at, but I know they all paid CRAP! For example, I would probably make an excellent file clerk. I don’t care how long I work as a file clerk… or how GREAT I get a being a file clerk… or how indispensable I become to my employer as a file clerk… I ain’t ever topping about 12 bucks an hour as a file clerk, and I REALLY ain’t gonna get even close to Dave Ramsey-rich at $12 an hour. Ok, so the “follow your personality trait” deal sounds golden… but in all reality, I think it’s really just a stinking pile of pyrite.

Dave Ramsey has some great ideas, and if you are having issues with your personal finances… or have no idea how you are ever going to be able to retire… you might want to check Dave out. Dave’s system is not get rich quick (and he stresses that it is not get rich quick.) Financial Peace University is touted as a get-rich-very-slowly-system, and if your earnings are above average, you can get there. For those of us with a little less income coming in through the front door, Financial Peace University may offer us the hope of not having to reverse-mortgage our homes to survive when we retire!

Brett Favre Sucks!

I have been a Minnesota Vikings fan since I was 10 years-old. I saw Tommy Kramer make a game-winning Hail-Mary pass to Ahmad Rashad against the Cleveland Browns, and from that point forward I have learned to live with the major disappointment and depression that goes hand-in-hand with being a Viking fan. In fact, I partially blame the lack of professional success that I have found in my life on the misery the Vikings have caused me.

How can a person find success when they are associated with a bunch of losers like the Vikings. I mean, even with outstanding players like Fran Tarkington, Ahmad Rashad, Randall Cunnignham, Chris Carter, Robert Smith, Randy Moss and even Dante Culpepper, the Vikings have never been able to find a way to win it all. In fact, the Vikings hold the prestigious record of most-trips-to-a-Super-Bowl-without-a-win… something we can all be proud of.

So, much like my Vikings, I have found little satisfaction with my professional life. Like the Vikings, I have never gone all the way to complete success and seem to settle for mediocrity. It sucks, but it’s the way of the Viking.

And then, at the end of last year, 40 hit me like a tons of really old, crusty, worthless bricks and I settled into a funk. Mid-life was upon me, and suddenly I realized that the Vikings were having a pretty good year. And at the helm… Brett-Stinking-Favre: past nemesis, one of the all-time greats at the position of quarterback, and a dude who is (like me) dealing with just having entered the mid-life crisis of the 40s.
Suddenly, there was a light radiating from the end of the tunnel which had existed in nothing more than shadows these last 40 years. Suddenly, there was hope where hope had never existed. Suddenly, being 40 wasn’t so bad because if Brett Favre could lead my Vikings to a Super Bowl victory at 40, who was to say I can’t find some sort of success in my my own small way. 40 be damned… Brett Favre and I were going to show the world that turning 40 wasn’t an end of anything; Brett and I were about to show the world that turning 40 was actually the beginning of the best years of our lives!

And then tonight, Brett Favre and the lame, turnover-happy Minnesota Vikings destroyed this fantasy. Brett showed his age, and it wasn’t pretty. Brett let me down, but, more importantly, he showed me that turning 40 isn’t the beginning of anything good. The NFL is not kind. Being 40 isn’t easy. Being 40 in the unkind NFL is for nincompoops!

Brett, you nincompoop, you let me (and all of the Viking-faithful) down. It wasn’t for a lack of effort. It wasn’t for a lack of ability. It’s just, when you hit 40, the effort and ability rarely connect… and disappointment is never too far down the horizon…

Crap… man, the odds of Brett Favre reading my stinking little blog are about 1 in 10,000,000… but I want to get a message out to him! If any of you are in close personal contact with the 40-year-old grunt, let him know that he needs to give it one more shot! The Vikings need to win a Super Bowl some time before I die… and that stinking 40-year-old Favre is still the best bet of that happening…

Restore my faith, Old Man! Restore my faith…

40 :(

It had to happen. It’s approach led to this started-with-good-intentions-but seldom-written-in blog. It has been the Moby Dick to my Ahab. It has been a black cloud on the horizon of my life for the past 10 years. “It” is 40, and it finally overtook me last Saturday.

Turning 30 sucked. Turning 30 meant the end of innocence. No longer a naive 20-something, I felt like my 30s were meant to be my true entry into adulthood. It was during my 30s that I felt I was meant to create my career-life. 30s are meant to be a career building decade and if you play your cards right, you will be well on your way to building wealth and flowing into your “prime income earning years” (40s and 50s) with ease.

Of course, turning 30 sucked. Did I mention that already? As I approached 30, I panicked. “What are you doing with your life?” I asked myself. I was in my late 20s and realized that I was not in a good position to enter anything that involved a long-term career plan. I panicked. I talked my wife into researching franchises so we could open our own business and start down the road to financial independence. We chose a business, we moved to Craphole… er… Scottsbluff, NE, and we tried to make a go of it. All of this panic was caused by the turn to 30.

A few things went wrong.

1st: The franchise we opened did not do bad… we made a small profit in our first year. The franchise did not, however, make enough profit to support my wife and I and our young son. The franchise did not live up to our calculated expectations. We ended up selling it.

2nd: We personally financed the person we sold the business to… and within a couple of months she declared bankruptcy. Guess there was a reason the banks weren’t lending to her…

3rd: After getting shafted by the person that we sold the business to, we could have probably declared bankruptcy as well. But NO… we decided to take the high, moral road and pay back all of our debt. So, instead of taking a lump to the old credit almost 7 years ago (which would have resulted in much less scrimping over the last 7 years and a better quality of life for my family over the last 7 years… and the lump would be healed by now), we have reached a point where we are only a few months away from finally getting rid of all that debt. I know I’m supposed to feel good about this, you know, for having repaid my debts… but I’d really much rather avioded the past 7 years worth of stress and that money, invested, would mean that I would have had a chance to retire some day. Oh well, retirement is overrated, right? Who doesn’t want to work until they die. At least I owned-up to my responsibilities… again, that just isn’t doing anything for me. Retirement would have meant more than making sure the stupid credit card companies got their money. Who’d a thunk that doing the right thing would suck so much?

4th: The wonderful panhandle of Nebraska is not a good place to attempt to open a specialty retail business. Not only is there little disposable income here, if you can’t make a living with the new business, your job opportunities in the Craphole are, well, quite limited. Let’s just say that bright futures aren’t created here. The Craphole is a retirement community… the Craphole is an agricultural community… people either come here to grow corn or people come here to die. People shouldn’t move here to open a little business (in an effort to avoid the stress of turning 30)… because the odds are that you will fail.

Turning 30 may not be a walk in the park, but turning 40 after getting yourself stuck in stinking Nebraska… I don’t know much about growing corn, so I guess I’m part of the retirement community in the Craphole just waiting to die. At 40, it’s really kind of too late to start all over again. Guess I’ve kind of just given up on having the kind of career making the kind of money I went to college to make. At least I have a loving wife and two great kids… if only I could provide for them the way I always imagined I’d be able to. And it’s not that we’re doing bad… it’s just that I always thought I would be financially successful… not fighting to remain middle-class.

I usually try to make these gripe-sessions at least a little funny. You know, cynically tongue -in-cheek. I just really can’t find anything too amusing about the entire situation… not this time.

Rocking the Podunk; Deaf Pedestrians and Egypt Central!

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a really good concert. This is very surprising considering the fact that I live, literally, in the middle of nowhere. Most concerts that come to this area are country performers. For example, this past summer for a couple of the big fair-type events, the performers that were brought in to entertain the masses were LoCash Cowboys, Terri Clark, and Jaime Fox. I know, I know, if you are anything like me, you’re thinking to yourself, “Who?” No clue, can’t help you with that one. All I know about the previously listed performers is that they perform country and I have never heard of them. You will notice that I refer to them as “performers” as opposed to “musicians” and that I refer to the style of performance as “country” and not “country music”. I think of country much the same way I think of the Barney theme-song; technically, it may be considered “music”, but no one with the intellect above that of a 4-year-old really enjoys it much. Just my opinion.

Oh, they have tried to bring some good old rock and roll to our area, but they seem to usually fail miserably. They either bring in acts so washed-up that it’s not even funny (think Pat Benetar) or they bring in those sudo-classic bands. You know the kind of bands I’m referring to: Credence Clearwater Revisited where the only original CCR musician is, like, the drummer, and the drummer did not CCR make. Or, one year they brought in someone with a name like Classic Rock Greats, which was like the guitarist from Air Supply, the drummer from 38 Special, a bassist from The Alan Parson’s Project, and a lead singer named Bob who they picked up from a cover band in Des Moine… or something like that. Anyway, they are bands that do not interest me.

Needless to say, I was ecstatic when I learned that Egypt Central was going to be opening for Deaf Pedestrians… in Crap-pile, Nebraska. I was STOKED! I wanted to see this concert more than anything I have recently desired. Now, I’m not a major follower of either of these bands, but I have heard music from both of them, and they kick some serious booty.

I feel obliged to mention the local cover band that opened for Deaf Pedestrians and Egypt Central: Six Shot Lullaby. There… I mentioned them. Just kidding. They really weren’t bad for a cover band from the Podunk… plus the lead guitarist actually came out into the crowd to try to get people into the concert… and he was kind of big and scary… and I live in the same town as him… so Six Shot Lullaby kicked butt, Mr. Guitarist Dude.

Now on to the main acts. Neither of these bands have hit the “Big Time” or had a “major” hit… you know the kind: the song that keeps getting airplay on the adult contemporary station play after play because it was featured in a Super Bowl commercial for Geico where that stupid British lizard gets his heart broken by the sizzling supermodel who decides that “size” really is important as Rob Thomas sings his ever-loving heart out while a full orchestra accompanies the whaling guitar of a past metal-great-reduced-to-Super-Bowl-half-time-status-hero (no offense to Aerosmith, but doesn’t this define them:) Man… I hate that kind of music!

Both Egypt Central and Deaf Pedestrians, however, are amazing talents with tunes you may have heard (unless coloring pictures of Baby Bop has given way to music time and it’s time to sing along with Taylor Swift until teacher says it’s time to lay down on the blankie and take the nappie before recess).
The Deaf Pedestrians (or ‘Deaf Peds’ as they are lovingly referred to by their fans) were the headliner for the show. If you have never heard of this Texas-based band, please click the videos following to get a feel for their greatness. Seriously, both of the bands I’m talking about are from southern states where I would expect nothing more than country-crap could escape the borders… yet these two rock?!? And from Texas… the Deaf Peds may seriously be the best thing to come out of Texas since… uh, given the lack of anything great to have ever come out of Texas… the Deaf Peds may be it! Deaf Peds have a semi-hit with “Hail to the Geek.”

They actually had a real-life video with (my favorite song of theirs) “15 Beers.”

The Deaf Peds also have an almost-brand-new cd out entitled We’re All Gonna Die.
This CD rocks. My favorite tune on this disc is “”Doomed To You”, but “We’re All Gonna Die”, “Tick”, and “I Hate This Place” (plus more) are well worth gracing the presence of your ears’ time:) The Deaf Peds were near-perfect… ‘near’….

The only thing that could have made the Deaf Peds better than they were would have been if they would have picked a less AWESOME band than Egypt Central to open for them! The Deaf Peds played a flawless gig. Very entertaining. The problem was that their opening act, Egypt Central, was a high-energy, get-the-crowd-involved, in-your-face act that leaned more toward metal than the Deaf Peds quirky alternative hard rock. Egypt Central has spent a little time opening for acts such as Korn and Disturbed… so they know how to ROCK! The crowd was too pumped to calm down and enjoy the more intricate styling of Deaf Ped’s music. People actually started leaving during the main act, which is disappointing. It will be hard to get any bigger-named acts to come to Podunk, Nebraska when word gets around that crowds disappear during an acts performance.

Anyway, Egypt Central has a semi-hit with the awesome “Taking you Down.” Here is a video someone created for the song with some pretty cool fantasy CGI stuff.

Even better was the band’s final song, which is a little less intense than some of their other stuff but is the kind of song you would expect to get some serious radio airplay without turning into drivel! I was waiting for this song the entire show and was pretty stoked that this is how they wrapped things up. The song in “You Make Me Sick,” and it rocks way more live than it does recorded, but here you go:

I really hope that the rapid fan-disappearance doesn’t discourage the local radio station (and others) from bringing in more contemporary, non-country performances. I’m tired of all the country crap coming this way. However, I feel a little bad about the comparison I made of country fans to 4-year olds… so I’m throwing in some typical country to make country fans feel at home on my blog:

Ye-hah?

Man Toes :(

The family and I just got back from a much-needed vacation in Colorado. There were so many wonderful things to do and to see. We saw all kinds of animals at the Denver Zoo, we got to pet stingrays at the Downtown Aquarium, we ate what apparently is the best salt-water taffy in the world in Estes Park (I’m not a big fan), and although my favorite Italian restaurant of all time (Valente’s in Wheatridge) has disappointingly closed, we had a final farewell-to-Colorado meal at Cinzetti’s… which rocked (for Italian). And with all of these wonderful memories, my mind is clouded with one stinking thing: Man Toes!

You know… Man Toes; guys out in public wearing any number of freakishly designed shoes that allow other people in the near proximity to see their toes. No person should have to see a man’s toes while out in public… unless said person is at the beach, the pool, or in a public shower. The toes of a man are a thing to be hidden in socks and shoes and shadows and not to be seen by other human beings. Sadly, Coloradans do not agree with my philosophy. In Colorado, the Man Toes were out like bees on lilacs in the spring… except Man Toes don’t make sweet, sweet honey and they don’t smell like lilacs… they stink!

I grew up in Montana, and I currently live in Nebraska. In the places I have called home, men, for the most part, keep there toes where they belong: covered in tight-fitting shoes all day, festering and sweltering with heat into abominations of stinkiness that are only released either right before a cleansing shower or right before being tucked under the covers of a good night sleep. The toes of a man are not a thing meant to roam the daylight freely. The toes of a man are like vampires… hideously deformed creatures of the night that can suck the life out of other humans with a mere glance. I kid you not; Man Toes suck!

I have a little bit of an aversion to feet. Feet stink… period. But, being a guy, I have little problem with a female of relative normalcy wearing sandals or flip-flops while her dainty little toes with painted nails dance about in the daylight. Normal female toes are, I hate to admit it, cute. If one single person out there in my reading audience can show me a picture of one single male toe that belongs to a male over the age of 10 years-old that even somewhat resembles cute… I’ll give you a free one-year subscription to my blog. Yeah, ok, my blog is free anyways, but when I hit the big-time and can start charging you for the priviledge of reading my drivel… you’ll get a year free.

The average male toe is, to say the least, hideous. Large strands of hair stand out between grossly deformed knuckles. Often, the yellow nails growing off the ends of the toes are severely neglected. I have actually seen instances where the toenail is longer than the toe. Of course, there are countless instances where the toes themselves are monstrously long. Seriously, have you ever seen these dudes with the freakishly-long toes? You expect that, at any moment, these dudes will spring from the sidewalk and thrust their legs up towards the heavens, grasping the nearest tree branch with their elongated toes. They will then swing above you from the branches, spitting and urinating and defecating and doing all of that nasty stuff that monkeys and other nasty beasts with freakishly-long toes do! Ohhh… I shudder whenever I see these toes. Another common Man Toe that is visible on a trip to Colorado is the Preppy Toe. You know this toe: the soft foot skin, the delicate outline of white tipping the beautifully manicured nail, the trimmed hair resting peacefully between the still-freakishly deformed knuckles… this is a toe to be respected. This is a toe that the toe’s owner has actually paid another human being to maintain. Can you imagine being in such a low post in life that you would spend your days with a grotesque man-foot between your hands as you fruitlessly attempted to turn those orangutan-like appendages into something that can be displayed before the common humanity on a daily basis? Oh, you poor souls; the tips will never make amends for the damage assaulted upon your psyches.

Ok, so back to stinking Colorado. All throughout our peaceful vacation, I’m assaulted by Man Toes. In Estes Park, it’s Man toe after Man Toe, Berkinstocks be DAMNED! In Denver, flip-flop after flip-flop revealed the inhumanity of the Man Toe. Finally, I can take no more. We are finally going to head for home back to Nebraska where men hide their toes the way God intended (in fact, after Eve talked Adam into taking a bite of the forbidden fruit, wasn’t the first thing that Adam did after discovering his nakedness was he throw on a pair of Converse Chuckie T’s?) Ohhh… but wait! We have our final lunch before leaving Denver… and it a lunch not to be forgotten.

So we sit down at Cinzetti’s and I got Man Toe on the mind. But, I’m thinking to myself, ‘we’re in a restaurant… what kind of guy is gonna expose Man Toe to other diners during a meal?’ Apparently, lots of them! On my right, I got preppy-boy-freak-long-toe in his $125 Birks with his chica with equally long toes and their chowing on the freaking antipasta! On the left, I got Mr. 65+ on a business lunch with two young whipper-snappers who are trying to sell him the farm while he’s sporting flip-flops and grimy-nails filled with black-sock crud and other unmentionable black things that apparently he’s not willing to pay some high school drop-out to clean out every 3000 miles… I want to scream! Thank God for the stomach of iron that He has given me as I proceed to fill my gut with the most unbelievable pizza and eggplant parmigiana that my tongue has ever tasted. If those infidels had ruined my lunch (… seriously, I’ve cleaned puke off of myself from my son’s gag-reflex during a meal and not missed a bite of Tuna Helper… these geeks and their Man Toes ain’t stopping me from scarfing World-Class pizza…), I would have complained to management… or something.

You know how they have those signs as you enter a restaurant: “No Shirts, No Shoes, No Service!” ? These signs were created because most people don’t want to see a dude’s back hair or Man Toes! Seroiusly, if women were walking into Taco Johns with no shoes and no shirts… do you really believe that, even for a second, business wouldn’t be through the stinking roof? Guys would be standing at the counter ordering six-pack-and-a-pound after six-pack-and-a-pound until the police showed up… which means they’d be standing there FOREVER… ’cause no one would call the police because topless, shoeless women are invading Taco Johns! Those signs are directed specifically at males. Men are sucky, unattractive beasts, and many a weak-gutted person would not be able to ingest a meal with certain man-parts available for public viewing (I, for one, am blessed not to be included in this weak-gutted group). If the sign says “No Shirts, No Shoes, No Service”, take a look at your feet. If any part of your foot is exposed… and you are a male… you should not enter the premises! I couldn’t give a crap how comfortable those ugly flip-flops you picked up at Sports Authority are… NO ONE WANTS TO SEE YOUR MAN TOES!

Man… isn’t a vacation supposed to be relaxing?

Advice from the office sage…

I was having a little trouble going back to work today. After a vacation or a holiday it’s always a struggle to go back to the day-to-day monotony of work-a-day life. At work, I was doing a little venting to a wise coworker.

“Wouldn’t life be perfect if we could wake up every day and work at something we’re passionate about?” I asked. “When you get a job working for someone else, you are most likely trying to turn someone else’s passion into your own. Life would be so much easier and more fulfilling if we all worked on our own passion instead of trying to become passionate about someone else’s passion.”

The wise sage looked at me with a slight smile gracing the corners of his lips. “We humans grow tired of things so rapidly,” his deep voice rumbled as he shook his head knowingly. “If our passions were our means of earning a living, we would quickly grow tired of them and they would no longer be our passions. By keeping our passions separate from our means of economic survival, we maintain the passion that is our passion and our lives retain their meaning. After all, a job provides the sustenance we need to live… but a passion provides the fullness of heart and soul each of us need to live well.”

I looked at the wise sage and began to contemplate his wise words. This man, with his hair half-way down his back but contained in the most majestic of ponytails, had a lot of time to contemplate the meaning of life. This man… this 32 year-old hulk-of-a-man, lives in the basement of a house he shares with his brother and his… cat. This man’s passion is World of Warcraft and conquering that online games world with his band of misfit brothers. This man almost peed his pants when the new Mountain Dew Game Fuel (in tribute to World of Warcraft) came out… and he came close to punching me in the face when I told him I thought the “blue” tasted best (“Blue represents the pesky Alliance, a grouping of mere humans and their ilk, who are far inferior to the majestic, raging power of the Horde,” he had said to me in a raised voice with a fist at half mast. “Ok, Dude, the red is better… take a pill,” I responded, not really thinking the red was better but not wanting to get into a debate, or my butt kicked, over a stupid video game.) This is the guy I’m taking advice from on the idea of following one’s passion? This is the guy who, for one brief instant, I am considering a sage and one worthy of listening to? I’m an idiot!

Man… coming back to work after a holiday can really SUCK!

Stinking Walmart!

My wife was at Walmart earlier today getting a little of this and a little of that. When she got home, she told me know Walmart has its summer stuff on clearance… and they have some back-to-school stuff out. IT’S JUNE 30TH…JUNE IS NOT EVEN OVER… SCHOOL GOT OUT IN THIS AREA ABOUT ONE MONTH AGO!!!!????!!!! For crying out loud, Walmart has sooo changed the way we live life in this country… and not for the better. It used to be that you could buy a swimsuit at the end of the summer, you know, in case you actually lost that weight you were planning on losing. Not anymore. By the middle of July, no stores will even be carrying swimsuits anymore and it’s all Walmart’s fault.

Ok, I don’t know if this is all really Walmart’s fault or not, but I have a pretty strong feeling that it is. Walmart always gets rid of seasonal merchandise slightly after the season has begun. Walmart also always brings out the next season’s merchandise freakishly early. Does anyone really want to think about back-to-school when school just got out? Does anyone really want to think about fall holidays (Halloween and Thanksgiving) before school even starts? Does anyone really want to start planning for Christmas at the beginning of the school year? I’m sure the answer to these questions for some people may be “yes”… but those people need to be tied up with Christmas lights in the middle of July and whipped senseless with jack-o-lanterns until they come around to my way of thinking.

Have you noticed how time seems to go faster than it did when you were a kid? I used to think this was just part of the aging process; I don’t think this way anymore. I think time seems to go faster than it used to because Walmart has back-to-school supplies out in their stinking stores before June is even over. I think time seems to go faster than it used to because Walmart (and every other stinking store that has to follow Walmart’s stinking tactics in order to survive) forces consumers into thinking about the next major shopping season many weeks (often months) before that season arrives… all in the name of stinking profit!

So a big THANK YOU to you, stinking Walmart, for your contribution to the increasingly insane pace of life in the United States. After all, who really wanted to slow down and try to enjoy summer anyway? Thank you for forcing me to buy what I want and need when YOU want me to have it, not when I really want or need it. Thank you for making me hate you more than I hate a pair of underwear that is too small and constantly rides up and constantly has to be pulled back down at the most awkward moments… and I really hate that. And, finally, thank you for keeping your prices just slightly lower than your competition so that I feel like I would be throwing my money away by shopping somewhere besides Walmart!

Well, enough griping for now. I think I’ll head out to Walmart. I’m gonna need a new sled for next winter and there is a pretty good stinking chance Walmart has them on an end-display. It is the last day of June, after all.