…I’m more worried about teenage girls, already finding a disturbing relationship romantic, will start mooning over Heathcliff. “He strung up a puppy, he must really love me.” … Someone gets these girls some Jane Eyre before it’s too late.
- Jessa Crispin

Ok, I’ll be the first one in line to look at Heathcliff and say “bad idea, do not want”. And yes, compared to Cathy, Jane looks good; but only because now you’ve set up the classic good girl/bad girl dynamic. They’re both morons. One flames out in a co-dependent trainwreck and the other buys into the “only you can save me from my man-pain” line of drivel. I don’t consider either one to be a particularly healthy role model.

“…I read the record, which is written not just by men, but often by men who hate women. It’s an incredibly misogynistic record.”
Philippa Gregory

You don’t say. The bulk of early western history was recorded by the (male) clergy, being the only consistently literate class in Europe until well into the renaissance. Really, I would totally expect cloistered monks with little to no practical knowledge of women and a holy book that says flat out that they are the source of all bad things in the world to have a balanced view of gender politics. Yup.

Today’s dose of the painfully obvious (to me at least) has been brought to you by the letter Q and the number 3.

edit: As has been noted in the comments on DW, I was actually way off on most of the particulars. My own damn fault for engaging keyboard before brain.

Me: *working*
Power Surge: *happens*
Fire Alarm: *Goes off*
Me: WAAGH!!?

Me: *Dials Boss*
Boss: Yes?
Me: WHAT IS THIS?!
Boss: Be right down.

Boss: *fixes fire alarm*
Me: That’s much nicer. We’re not actually on fire, right?
Boss: No, everything’s ok.
Me: Cool.
Boss: Calls alarm company, others.

Fire tuck: *arrives*
Me: Uh, boss?
Boss: I’m on this.
Me: Cool.
Boss: *talks to nice firemen*
Fire truck: *departs*

In conclusion, the NFD’s response time is not too bad, fire alarms are very loud, and power surges lead to nothing good.

I understand that you are stuck behind an ass trying to make an illegal left turn, and you would really like to get past him now if not sooner; but obviously, he doesn’t care about your convenience. It seems that he also doesn’t care about the horn you’ve been laying on for the last minute and a half.

I, on the other hand, care deeply about your convenience and would firebomb the scofflaw, if such were possible (as I lack explosives) and legal (as I have no wish to go to prison). However, I think intentions should count for something, so taking our mutual hatred for the illegal-left-hand-turn-making-idiot into account, could you do me this one eensy favor?

Lay. Off. The. Horn.

Obviously, your horn is not producing the desired result. The scofflaw has not moved, and it seems he will not do so until such time as he gets to make his mother-loving, donkey-fellating, left hand turn. Your auto horn, on the other hand, is impacting MY day rather directly, and both I and the customer on the other end of my phone would be eternally in your debt if you would take a few breaths, find your zen, and remember that, auto karma being what it is, the scofflaw will most assuredly get his, probably in short order.

No, really.

Customer: I’m looking for ::Insert description of item we don’t have anything even close to.:: would ::item:: be a good match?
Me: No. ::item:: is really nothing like what you are looking for, but we could run up a custom quote for you.
Customer: No, my customer is OUT of ::non-existent-box:: and needs more NOW.
What I do not say: Well, obviously it already exists somewhere. You can’t just ask them where they bought it last?
What I do say: I’m sorry, but we don’t have anything that matches what you’re looking for. Here’s the info to begin a custom quote request, if you want to go that direction.
Customer: Allright. I’ll order samples of ::item:: anyway, just to check them out.
Me: You have a good day.

We’re not like a shoe store. There’s no special back room where we’re keeping the one item you really really want. If it’s not listed, we don’t have it. We may be able to magic it up out of nothing, but that does take time and money.