The Complaint Thread

[Damien]

That's weird. How do you cultivate resentment then?

Mostly by being more popular than her with the cats.

 

[AceofKnaves]

I’m generally happy to watch what my wife is watching. She has great taste . . . except when she doesn’t.
Rom-coms are generally the divider. Like she unironically loves How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days. She thinks Channing Tatum is funny. She will enthusiastically watch *anything* with a member of the cast of Friends in it, *especially* if it is Jennifer Aniston.
Now this woman is the most awesome and aggressively supportive human ever, so, like, sometimes I just go with it, like when I let her talk me into watching Just Go With It. Also she used to do a lot of this stuff with her bestie who now lives upstate, so I feel like I want to keep her company while she watches this stuff, even if I really think it’s crap. I mean, I watched half a decade worth of the Bachelor franchise with her until she finally became disgusted with it and stopped watching.

And my wife will come home to two ML Sentinels standing in the living room and be like “cool cool baby, all Jack Kirby like you like”. And I’d watch a LOT of Jennifer Aniston movies for that.

 

[Red Ogre]

That's weird. How do you cultivate resentment then?

You owe me a new keyboard.

 

[docsilence]

Yikes what is going on? Did they consult AI?

Did I mention I'm talking to an expert after the holidays about automation apathy, where medical pros are just believing whatever AI spits out instead of verifying before issuing a diagnosis? SOMETHING ELSE to keep me up at night

Mostly by being more popular than her with the cats.

Must be a Boston-native guy who plays D&D thing. Steph is perpetually pissed off that the cats like me more. The cat she raised from a kitten decided I was the center of her universe when we moved in together. Was never more than ten feet from me for like a decade.

 

[Damien]

Must be a Boston-native guy who plays D&D thing. Steph is perpetually pissed off that the cats like me more. The cat she raised from a kitten decided I was the center of her universe when we moved in together. Was never more than ten feet from me for like a decade.

I feel like we keep getting more cats specifically because Raven is looking for the one cat that will pick her over me or my son. One day. One day.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

Mostly by being more popular than her with the cats.

Been there. Of our three cats, two are decidedly mine. My wife believes the third cat (something of a family cat, but also mine) is hers. Letting her think so is a victimless crime.

Like she unironically loves How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days. She thinks Channing Tatum is funny. She will enthusiastically watch *anything* with a member of the cast of Friends in it, *especially* if it is Jennifer Aniston.

Two out of three ain't bad. I'm not touching Friends with a 10-foot pole.

 

[Justice]

One thing that really annoys me during the holidays is the one lane checkout. I first encountered it at the old Fry's Electronics store. It wasn't too bad there. It wasn't until other stores started emulating them or whichever store started it that it became very bad.
I think it was TJX(TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Home Goods) stores that really annoyed me about it. Ridiculously log lines to checkout made even worse when it is also the returns location. Ross stores have the same thing.
Toys R Us started it too before they went under.
Just recently Kohl's department stores adapted the same dumb system.
One of the most complaints about store checkouts is the line and this system really emphasizes that complaint.
These are the stores I avoid during holiday shopping time.

One line truly is better. You don't pick the wrong lane and get stuck behind Granny taking 10 minutes to write out her check. Next person in line always gets the next available checkout. Otherwise when they call for backup you ALWAYS have that person that just walked into the store with a return who hasn't been waiting even a second, jump into the newly opened line. One line funneling into multiples fixes that too. Plus the line just appears long but it is actually moving faster because multiple cashiers are chipping away at it.

 

[DarthDre758]

One of my local grocery stores attempted to do the one line check out, and had employees directing you where to go as you got to the front. That lasted about a month. I had actually forgotten about it until just now.

 

[AceofKnaves]

Two out of three ain't bad. I'm not touching Friends with a 10-foot pole.

Friends is the only one I’d willingly sit through.
HTLAGITD is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, and Channing Tatum is funny like a child’s funeral is funny.

 

[docsilence]

Comedy is always a matter of taste, but Channing Tatum doing a funny accent is 25% of the reason I haven't watched DP&W. I also can't stand Ryan Reynolds' humor either so that's 50% of why I haven't watched it. Burnout on nostalgia-bait and knowing how much of it is dogpiled into the script is the last 25%. I suppose I need to see it at some point but I'm waiting for a day I'm already grumpy.

Speaking of taste, though, particularly how our tastes differ from our spouses, Steph's favorite Xmas album is that one Sia put out a while back and... I legit can't STAND it. I don't even mind Sia overall, it's the combination of Sia and Xmas that is just nails on a chalkboard for me. (Nothing against pop stars doing holiday songs in general though, I THINK I heard Olivia Rodrigo doing a rendition of Frosty the Snowman when I was in the liquor store the other day that was hilariously catchy)

 

[Damien]

So it's Christmas Eve and we let my son open one of his gifts (he's 11). One of the things he wanted really badly is a toy sword from one of his favorite new games; Silksong (he's a gamer kid and loves toy swords). Well, it's not exactly the hot new item and toy swords based on the main character's weapon basically don't exist. BUT, I found one on Ali. You probably know where this is going.

We've bought him toy swords on Ali lots of times - mostly of the foam type. They actually hold up amazingly well, all things considered, and I never have a problem going back to that well. This time I was a little concerned because it seemed obvious that the toy was plastic instead of foam (it has like a telescoping feature like those shitty toy lightsabers). BUT, it's literally the only version of this toy that exists so....

When it showed up, I noticed it looked 3D printed. Again, though, it's the only version of this that existed at the time (possibly still) and it felt fairly sturdy. Fast forward to this morning and the moment he opened it, it cracked almost completely in half right above the handle. Like, he hadn't even swung it yet.

Luckily, my kid is super easy going. I 'repaired' with a tight wrap of white electrical tape (closest we've got to making it look repaired with 'silk' to tie in with the game character, at least), and he's off running around with it and having a good time. But I'm still really pissed off at how low quality this thing is. Really glad this was just a random 'for fun' present and not the main thing we were getting him.

 

[Ru1977]

Comedy is always a matter of taste, but Channing Tatum doing a funny accent is 25% of the reason I haven't watched DP&W.

But he only has like two scenes.

I also can't stand Ryan Reynolds' humor either so that's 50% of why I haven't watched it.

Well that's a bigger hurdle.

Burnout on nostalgia-bait and knowing how much of it is dogpiled into the script is the last 25%.

I may have rose colored glasses but I thought any nostalgia stuff was folded in pretty well. I dunno, it's not Callback: The Movie like Happy Gilmore 2 was or something.

I suppose I need to see it at some point but I'm waiting for a day I'm already grumpy.

Heh.

Also, I'm still shocked at how much I like Sia and her Christmas album.

 

[docsilence]

But he only has like two scenes.

Well that's a bigger hurdle.

I may have rose colored glasses but I thought any nostalgia stuff was folded in pretty well. I dunno, it's not Callback: The Movie like Happy Gilmore 2 was or something.

Heh.

Also, I'm still shocked at how much I like Sia and her Christmas album.

Yeah, didn't help those scenes were memed into oblivion so it feels like half the movie from the online chatter.

I also have to admit I just don't share comic tastes with what's mainstream these days. Like I don't find the Cavillrine or Short Wolverine jokes even remotely creative or funny. I've also found Reynolds insufferable since his Van Wilder days, but 90% of viewers worship the ground he walks on, so I know I'm n the minority.

Also my favorite Xmas song is by an openly trans alt-country rock singer so I know my taste in MUSIC is also weird.

 

[AceofKnaves]

D’aww I liked D&W well enough, even though Tatum was wretched. He wasn’t any worse than in any other thing he’s terrible in, though. I’d rather watch him in this than in one of those dippy 21 Jump Street movies.

My complaint for today is that a client was really mean to me behind my back but accidentally not behind my back.

I’ve been treating this serious addiction case, trying to taper off bad stuff. This client was my first new client for my new business, as opposed to the clients I took with me from the place I used to work. Client is having a rough go, and I’ve been seeing them since October. Monday, they had trouble signing in for their weekly virtual appointment, then yesterday they sent a terse text asking me to cancel the next appointment. I said sure see you the week after, and they were like “I’ll tell you when I want another one”. Red flag. I asked if anything was wrong, they said all was well, so I said no worries and I’d keep the file open until they were ready to get back to it. All that is pretty normal, it’s the holidays and I get a lot of cancellations at this time and a lot of ambiguity about future schedules.
BUT.
I woke up this morning and my work number has a text from like 3am. It was the client, and it was a screenshot of our conversation and then words to the effect of “I cancelled further sessions, he wants money more than to help people”. I’m guessing this was meant for their “sober coach” who they say they meet with daily. Now that’s another red flag: a lot of those “coaches” are running soft cons to keep vulnerable addicts on the hook. And I know that addicts are resistant, and the client did say they were struggling with the taper last time we talked.

But fuck: that hurt.

Without going too much into it, helping addicts is a personal quest for me, I take it very seriously and I desperately just want to help and would absolutely do all this for free if I could. And also without going too much into it, I am really struggling getting my client base up where I want it because my old boss MAJORLY screwed me on my way out, sold my old office out from under me and turned off her referrals to me before I was even licensed: she was hella shady, but dammit I worked for her for five years, giving her half my income (as is customary for associate therapists working for licensed therapists in private practice). Every client counts right now, and to lose one like this, one who really needs me and who somehow got seriously poisoned against me, I don’t know what to do with that. Add to that my wife was laid off from her job a few months ago and has been laboring in retail for the holidays with no guarantee of even keeping that shitty job, and it’s a lot.

But mostly, I’m crushed that this client in need would come to think I didn’t really want to help. I thought we had a great therapeutic relationship, my “therapy radar” has never been so off before. I keep telling myself that addicts are volatile and this person is likely getting bad advice. But it still stings so hard. I even sent a reply text acknowledging I saw what they accidentally sent me and basically bending over backwards to make it right, which I really shouldn’t do because I’m supposed to have iron-clad boundaries and actually be kinda cold or even ignore this kind of thing.
But, like, this poor human is in a desperate struggle for their life.
All I wanted to do was help.

And now I’m trapped in the rain, another client is gonna call rather than show up because they basically ran away from home last night. I’m feeling incredibly down and honestly kinda hopeless.

 

[Ru1977]

Also my favorite Xmas song is by an openly trans alt-country rock singer so I know my taste in MUSIC is also weird.

Who is it?

My favorite Christmas songs right now are a couple of Darlene Love songs, Bill Nighy's from Love Actually, Lennon's Christmas song, and the original Bandaid Do they Know It's Christmas.