Arkansas Blog

Having just returned from a quick shopping spree, I think there should be a fine for children screaming for over 3 consecutive minutes. It was a madhouse at Kohl's this afternoon, multiplied by the fact that there were about half a dozen ill-behaved screaming children to boot.

Now, I'm not saying my children were always perfect, but if the child is screaming, the parent should remove the child from the store. And, most of the time, my kids are well-behaved while shopping. I had my 8-year-old in tow, and he was great.

What about bare feet hanging out of vehicle windows? That one's iffy to me, but some folks (especially my husband) find it totally disgusting.

Maybe a fine for being the leader of the free world and not being able to string three coherent sentences in a row?

I'll continue brainstorming.

How about those people who shop two or more abreast, stopping frequently to examine and discuss things, all the while completely oblivious to anyone else who needs to get by?
Or those folks you haven't seen in 20 years who learn someone is in the hospital and stop by to catch up, and catch up, and catch up, and catch up . . . ? Short, (and I do mean short!) visits from close friends and relatives are usually welcome. All others stay home. Dammit, people in the hospital are sick. (No, I didn't have the nerve to say this but I should have.)
And on a similar note, visitors who supply graphic details of every medical procedure they've heard about and how it went horribly wrong should be shot.

How about a law prohibiting men from wearing hats or caps indoors, especially in restaurants?

joggers who ignore sidewalks and run in the street, esp 2 or 3 abreast, It is dangerous.
People who teardown and build Mac Mansions that block out the sun.

Fines for people who get into the 20 items or less lane with more than 20 items.

Fines for people who name their new baby a totally made up name. Double fine if they don't know how to spell the name they made up such that others can read it and pronounce it correctly. Pity the poor kids who have to spend a lifetime correcting people on the pronunciation/spelling of their name.

Fines for people who don't know the "l" in salmon is silent.

Fines for people who don't know the "t" in often is silent.

I have many more, but I fear some of these might actually pass the Republican congress, so I'll stop now.

*you should only drive in the left (passing) lane if you are passing

*you should wear only enough perfume/cologne to be smelled by someone giving you a hug

*park your shopping cart in the designated place; better yet, take it back in to the store

*if you are in retail or a service industry and your client/customer says "thank you", don't say "no problem"--say, "thank YOU"

*if you're driving, give pedestrians the right of way

*if you're walking and a driver slows or stops for you, don't drag your feet crossing

*say please and thank you

charles,
i am a jogger and i dont jog on a sidewalk. typically they are made of concrete and streets are made of asphalt. concrete is horrible on your joints. just my $.02 though.

There should be an appropriate fine for wearers of those pretentious Star Trek ear thingy phone deals when you hang one on the side of your head in public.

Also a fine for the goober that parks his car sideways across a parking space on the far side of the parking lot.

When you park that far away, nobodys gonna park next to you ya twit!

People! Listen to yourselves! The answer is not more police or fines or rules or laws or spies or snoops. The answer is thicker skins.

America worked pretty dang good for us white people for about 200 years and then things started tightening up and these days I'm having trouble just breathing. (OK no smoking jokes)

My kids go to schools with cameras watching their every move. I am 100% certain I would have never graduated if there had been cameras in school back then. The new traffic lights have little cameras on them, but no one is saying how they'll be used yet. They're just sitting there awaiting instructions from the Master.

I agree things irritate the hell out of me but the last thing I want is sound police, or cell phone cops or 10,000 signs telling me when to stand, sit, breath, cough, spit......NO SPITTING EVER!

A couple of years ago I took the kids the same old public pool I grew up in. And just about the time we were having fun the lifeguards started blowing their whistle like mad and people headed for the edge of the pool. Hell, I thought a shark was coming. Turns out there is a new rule that every hour everyone has to get out of the pool while the lifeguards take a 10 minute break. This close to Easter I hate to say Jesus.....but Jesus!

My kids worry about a cop catching them without a seatbelt with the same terror that I used to have when the Scamardo brothers would catch me walking alone after school. Sure it's good for the kids to wear seat belts, but should they have such a high level of terror in their lives when they forget?

I must point out I was raised sleeping in the space under the back window of a car filled with smoke being driven very fast by a man with a beer in his hand. Looking back, yeah, it was a little nuts...but man....I can smell the joy of freedom 40 years after the fact.

We need to be safe, but we also need to be happy and free. Something has given every one of us the idea that the world was made only for us. All everyone does these days is complain and bitch and live every moment sure their rights are being violated. Makes me tired to my bone marrow.

Cat brings up a good point. Our national health craze has produced baby boomers lining up for record numbers of knee and hip replacement surgery. There is a story about it in the NY Times today. I'll have no joy snubbing out my cigarette as I look for the closest parking place near the front door of the rest home as I go to visit some of my old friends that took up jogging 10 years ago. Sure I might cough now and then, but I can still walk straight and true with no joint pain.

Every adult moment is some kind of trade off. You're either the jerk honking the horn or the loser being honked at. Life is a crap shoot, some will die early, some at 107, some in the middle. We must enjoy the days we have.

Every time I pass a TV I can't help but think there is the reason we're all so unhappy today. Prime time TV continues to amaze me. It's past violent, it's sick. And I'm not a Mormon. Death, murder, grizzly dismembered bodies. These CSI's and Criminal Minds and Cold Case things are inventing ways to chew up a body that I don't think have been invented yet.

If you spend all night watching murder after murder you'd have to feel a little snippy the next day when someone bumps your cart at Wal-Mart. Used to when I'd get mad at my wife I'd just think about hitting her over the head with a ball bat. Now I have these detailed flash forwards where I use an exotic drug in her meals, increasing the dosage over time until she falls asleep with her face in her dinner plate. Then I wrap her up in a rug, bought months before just for this purpose. I take her to the basement, fire up my Troy-Bilt chipper/shredder while playing Free Bird as loud as I can on the stereo to cover the noise so the kids won't notice. Then when I have her in little pieces I whip out the Red Devil Drain Cleaner, careful to don a mask over my nose of course. and I dissolve her right in the sink! I'm thinking this method also works on fellow bloggers that piss me off.**........... Sheesh......see.....too damn much violent TV!

Anyway.....why don't we spend from now to November concentrating on how horrible the Bush administration is and not pay so much attention to those around us. Let's see if we can get over this minutely inspection of the flaws and failures of our co-workers, strangers and neighbors. Make Love Not War...Peace Out....Hang Loose...and all that other 60s stuff.

** I have been advised by my lawyer of the need to point out this line is satire. In the event I was planning to off my wife or any fellow bloggers you would be instructed to another site where emergency information would be provided. Again, this is only satire, however poor.

How about people that park their cars on the southbound side of a street facing north and vice-versa. Little Rock could fund a lot of needed improvements if it would exercise it's right to ticket people that do this. And how about installing lights on the entire length of I-630 - you know to make it SAFER at night.

DBI made a good point -- we all need thicker skins -- and stop fretting over the petty stuff.

That said -- I can get irked over people who sound the "l" in salmon and the "t" in often -- especially when its done by those insufferable type of people who let everyone know they think they are better than others.

And this box IS tiny...but I guess I can get used to it. I do miss the email addys -- sometimes its nice to pass along an encouraging word to a poster you agree with, without cluttering up the blog with it.

A heavy penalty should be imposed on people writing lengthy comments on blogs.

These must be the same people that drone on in their endless one-way conversations, unaware that the hearer?s interest has dissipated.

If your comment takes more than a few short paragraphs, it probably doesn?t get read . . . and usually kills the thread.

GIVE US THE READER?S DIGEST VERSION PLEASE!

Serial bloggers, take your Ritalin. It works for me . . . sometimes. (Or maybe take a little less . . .)

I noticed that no one mentioned what could be considered the bad manners of trollers who make baited posts to this blog and others.

And it was rather refreshing to realize that we all revere freedom of speech so much that we willingly give voice to those who we think are less informed or less mannered.

Aw, c'mon Don Kehotay, if you don't like reading through a long post then skim over it and go to the next one.

Stating that a long post kills a thread doesn't make sense.

And frankly, in my opinion its that kind of thinking that saddled us with Bush as president.

Too many people didn't pay attention to what was written and said about Bush before the elections -- a mistake that our grandchildren will still suffer.

"Aw, c'mon Don Kehotay, if you don't like reading through a long post then skim over it and go to the next one." - Arkhobbit

Dang - I never thought of that!

So on a long windiferous post (DBI for example), I might read the first sentence of each paragraph, and when there's too many paragraphs, move on?

Great Idea!

"There should be an appropriate fine for wearers of those pretentious Star Trek ear thingy phone deals when you hang one on the side of your head in public.â?�

I second that...watched a woman chat her way through the store as if she was in two completely different worlds. This was not an example of how technology has improved our lives.

"Every adult moment is some kind of trade off. You're either the jerk honking the horn or the loser being honked at."
Dang it DBI, just when I know everybody has it in for me you come up with this. Just when I begin to fantasize about backing up and getting a running start with my shopping cart -- or better yet, one of those fast! electric carts the stores provide for those who don't want to walk a few hundred feet* -- and bust through the aisle traffic jam, sending assorted dawdlers and kiddies flying, you bring me up short. Now you have me analyzing my response to others.
Heck, it's more fun to think of some folks as stupid twits and give them nasty looks -- behind their backs of course.
* A necessary convenience for a few, but far overused by many, much like the folks who use Granny's handicapped tag when she's not around, or even long gone -- AKA, the opposite of jogging yourself into a nursing home.
Keep up the posts, long or otherwise.
(And someone up around Fort Smith who knows DBI might give his wife a heads up just in case he's nuttier than most of us.)

"Every adult moment is some kind of trade off. You're either the jerk honking the horn or the loser being honked at."

I disagree...there are a few of us, for the most part, doing neither.

But then I HATE MY NEIGHBOR this morning so I'm obviously cantankerous.

Loved your rant, DBI. You mentioned living every moment sure that our rights are being violated. You got it...that's the problem. Our rights ARE being violated.

The death penalty for people who toss dirty diapers out in parking lots. I realize this thread was about manners, but sometimes you just have to be harsh.

Those stupid commercials where they pronouce "diaper" as "dye-ahh-per." Damnyankees.

People who leave their children under ten years of age home alone while they go to town and tell the kids to go to the neighbor's house (that would be me) if they need anything.

From now on, if I hear my neighbors playing "Free Bird" at any time, I'm going to think it's deathbyinches and call the cops before he wood-chippers another body.

I hate the people who will not turn left at a stop light when the green arrow changes to yellow but they still have the right-of-way because the damned sign says "left turn YIELD on green." There is no oncoming traffic to which they need to yield. Go!

How about a law against Goober from Mayberry being president of the United States?

Fine people who are apartment residents who go on vacation for a week and leave their stupid cars parked in spots that are closets to the building. e.g. the white chevrolet and ugly blue suv (at RP apts) that have been parked in front of my apartment for the last 10 days. If they don't move them soon, I AM GOING TO HAVE YOU TOWED!!!!

and another thing...
Fine people for bringing their annoying squealing kids into any public place.

"Fine people for bringing their annoying squealing kids into any public place"

I'm guessing you don't have any kids..

Please let me know when and where you will have your next public outing so I can show up with my 3 "annoying squealing kids!"

Donna...you go right ahead.. Kids mean nothing to me, I can't stand them around my apartment, b/c of the noise, and I cant stand them in public. FYI..someone has the right to make you leave a public area b/c YOUR IDIOT CHILD is making too much noise!!

propertyofus00@yahoo.com

wud up every one holla back

I've managed to save up roughly $56452 in my bank account, but I'm not sure if I should buy a house or not. Do you think the market is stable or do you think that home prices will decrease by a lot?

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