It occurred to me today that I have a few things to complain about. Now I know some of you out there have some legitimate things to complain about and I really don’t, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have things I deal with or hear about that, as my mother used to say, really get stuck in my craw. I used to have another blog, called Coloring Outside the Lines, which essentially was nothing but me complaining about stuff that for whatever reason pissed me off that day. It was a lot of fun to write and judging but how many followers I had, a lot of fun to read. For reasons not worth going into now I stopped writing that blog and when I started this one actually broke down and deleted it. I’m sure in part that is because I am a lofty doctor now (yes my nose is a bit higher right now) and wanted this blog to be a bit more, I don’t know, serious? Well more something anyway. What actually occurred to me today was that I find myself with nowhere to vent the random frustrations I encounter and well that ends today.

So without further ado, what my grandfather used to refer to as a good old fashioned bitching session……

Self Check out

What is the deal with self check out being everywhere these days? I don’t work for your company and you give me no discount or uniform of payment for me checking my own, grocery store, CostCo, or hardware store items so why would I do it? Simply put, I don’t.

I understand the basic premise, according to the retail organizations, is that self check out reduces shoplifting. I am not at all sure what crack head at the meeting came up with that bullshit but not only is it obviously wrong the data shows that stores that implement a self check out option for shoppers actually see an increase in shoplifting. So the harebrained scheme hasn’t worked, in fact has backfired, so why does it persist?

Well I will tell you my opinion of why it exists. It saves the companies who implement self check out money. I don’t know the math but I will bet large sums of money that if you look at what the average employee costs a company it will be much lower than whatever amount of increased shoplifting they see.

and since here in the good old US of A we worship profits at any cost, why the hell would stores not implement self check out? Money saved is profit and that is good for everyone right? well everyone except the people who need to work in those jobs.

I wonder if the companies implementing the self check out option are the same ones complaining that “nobody wants to work anymore……?”

The Human Body

Fine I’ll admit it, I’m getting old. I actually passed the half century mark almost three years ago without more than an added candle to the old cake but this last year has been a bit much.

To start with my teeth apparently have decided they no longer need to actually be in my mouth, and when they are still located in ONE PLACE ON EARTH DESIGNED FOR THEM TO BE the protest the inconvenience with sharp pain every time they are forced to do their job.

To be clear I am, and always have been, a twice a day brusher and a regular flosser. I see my dentist twice a year for cleanings and exams, even when my insurance policy only covers one such visit, because teeth are important and you only get the one set.

I have had cavities which needed to be filled but I was told at the time this sort of thing happens even with regular brushing and flossing.

Oh and I have in adulthood attested to maintain a health, mostly plants diet but I did like my ice cream for sure (more on that in a minute).

Well each of those cavities (two) have cracked, something else I was told by my dentist “happens.” In fact it apparently happens with such regularity that one could almost think it is planned.

anyway about the time I get one cracked tooth repaired, which for those truly interested required their removal because apparently you can’t repair a tooth that has cracked to the root, another tooth starts to hurt. For those who don’t know when a tooth actually hurts that ain’t good. It can mean the enamel has worn away or it can mean that the gums are inflamed. If you are me that means there is an infection at the root level where all the pain causing bits of a tooth centralize and the tooth is going to either need a root canal or to be removed. So far I am two for two needing them removed. Yay my mouth.

At least this last time I managed to get the endodontist (dentist who does root canals) to do some extra x-rays so we knew the tooth could not be repaired before I got injected with enough Novocain to numb an elephant.

The second of my two extractions is scheduled to come out Monday but what do I detect yesterday morning? you guessed it sensitivity to cold. By the end of the day I had the old familiar dull ache and pain whenever I chew on that side of my mouth.

fabulous. another tooth needs to come out. but before that I will need more antibiotics which always mess my guts up and my dentist will likely want me to try and “save the tooth” which means root canal which if you have been paying attention I have never actually been able to get because my teeth like to fuck themselves up right down to ground level.

Did I mention that both of these teeth were already repaired once and have crowns on them so new they likely still have that new crown smell???? I suppose I forgot to mention that.

Lactose

Still under the heading of the human body comes lactose, or more specifically lactose intolerance.

For those outside of the medical field, the human body makes a hormone which digests lactose. Lactose is the sugar which is in most dairy products, in particular my favorite summer time treat ice cream. When one does not have sufficient quantities of whatever that hormone is called, eating even very small amounts of dairy will cause extreme digestive distress.

For some reason not yet understood by science the human body will stop producing this hormone in adulthood, either altogether or in quantities large enough to do anyone any good.

and guess what? My body has decided in the past oh eight to ten months to to stop producing this hormone which means two of my favorite foods (ice cream and cheese) are officially off the menu.

while this sucks in ways I find difficult to describe to people who do not have lactose intolerance, you want to guess what else about this…I don’t know….condition….also sucks?

the good chemists of the world have decided to put lactose in just about everything. Not just dairy products either or things you would expect to have lactose in it like butter for example (which does not have lactose in it). Everything from dry roasted nuts to medications have lactose in them and honestly I have no idea why. there are plenty of sugars in the world, we manufacture enough corn syrup in this country to float a battleship, so why the hell do we need lactose in antibiotics?

Honestly I have no answers to that one, I got a D in both of the chemistry classes I took…..

Politics

The political system in my country is at best weird and at worst completely useless. Oh sure we have freedom but that is not true for everyone. I don’t want to go into that right now as I am sure there are those better qualified than I to do so. In fact I don’t want to go into it much more than to say we no longer have a political system in this country, we have political theater.

Those who make their way into elected office don’t even seem to be trying to hide the fact that they don’t intend to do anything but collect a paycheck. Some are even actively subverting the attempts by other politicians, even those in their own parity, from doing anything but collect a paycheck.

Worse than that there are entirely too many politicians who don’t seem to remember part of the reason we fought two wars in this country was to break free of Britain and a state run religion. Of course it was also for taxes because, and lets be honest here, rich white men have never wanted to and have always actively attempted to avoid paying taxes.

Medical Insurance and WordPress

I had intended on bitching a little about the medical insurance industry in my country but another issues which has been crawling under my skin has been happening for the last five minutes or so as I type. Screen lag.

You know when you type and the words on your screen don’t keep up? that is, or used to be known as screen lag and it annoys the shit out of me. The main culprit used to be the keyboard buffer (tiny bit of active memory used to store information coming in from the keyboard) was too full or not cleaning itself out properly.

That is not, I don’t think anyway, what is happening here. First of all I could never type fast enough to make my keyboard buffer overly full and if that was the case I am fairly certain I would still hear the alarm noise (though I don’t know if that alarm exists on a MacBook) and two it only happens when I type out a longer post on WordPress.

I don’t know what you need to do WordPress to get your shit together but I sincerely hope you do so soon. It is beyond frustrating for me to have to deal with this and though I also intended on bitching a little about Substack, if they or some other blogging site can assure me I will not have to deal with screen lag anymore I may consider moving my blog to a new home….

I may bitch more later, I’m not sure, I suppose it will depend on whether any of you like this post…fucking screen lag

After several hours consultation a quote from Confucius comes to mind, “it is better to light a candle than to curse the dark.”