Ha!
First, to explain the group name:
WYFP? means, What is Your F-ing Problem.
It’s a joke, because, traditionally, when someone speaks that phrase, it’s an angry, verbal attack. “What’s your f-ing problem!??” means, “Why are you annoying me?!?”
But here at Daily Kos, we are all about puppies and kittens, and we express mostly concern, and a desire to give each other emotional support.
So, when we ask that question in this Saturday night series of diaries,
we are truly asking if you have any problems you want to tell us about, and we will be your sounding board, your group therapy group, your peer support group.
That’s why the sign board above says, “May we find peace and healing here.”
There.
I took care of one of my problems: folks asking what does the WYFP? stand for.
Now, on to more problems.
Problems at home:
Wife:
More comfort than problem, but there are times, when she hurts me deeply.
I just calm down and essentially ignore her.
Niece:
Terrible two.
I keep reminding myself about her potential.
She is aggressive, so she may do great things, when she grows up.
Such as, her own catering service, catering weddings, funerals, family reunions, Christmas parties, Fourth of July, etc.
Brother-in-law:
Bossy.
Eh.
Cars all need work.
8 humans, and 8 cars, at our house.
Dog needs grooming, really needs it. Ten pound dog, with Pomeranian fur.
Time is always on a budget.
Pain: I just pop lots of cheap Sam’s Club ibuprofen and acetaminophen.
Coping methods:
Post here about my problems, and I know all of you are saying, “poor baby!”
Problems at Daily Kos:
I solved them all by giving in.
I am okay with Sanders or Biden, even though I want Harris or Booker.
No problems at my Walmart workplace. I say to the customers, “Can I help you find something?”
My customers like me.
My bosses look at me funny, and tolerate me, since I work pretty hard, sometimes.
My co-workers look at me funny, and tolerate me.
Let me fill in a few details.
But first, another round of pain pills.
Two rusty red ibuprofen pills, washed down with generic DayQuil, and two long, white, acetaminophen caplets, washed down with more liquid medicine, adding up to a lot of both pain relief and anti-inflammation, to ease the pain in my right foot, and my lower back, etc. None of my pains are that severe in the first place, but I end up pretty much pain free, if I take all that medicine, and do it again in two or three hours, before this round fully wears off.
Now, to fill in a few details, in reverse order, starting with my efforts at my Walmart workplace.
I know I said I have no problems at work, but I want to paint you a picture, to show you how hard I work. I feel I need to work this hard, to make certain that no one at work has a reason to feel I am lazy, and milking the clock.
We have a large machine, in the back room of the store, that we use to make our cast off cardboard and plastic into large bales. Each bale ends up about six feet long, by three feet tall, by four feet wide. We make two to four bales of cardboard each day, and one bale of plastic every two or three days.
This past Wednesday, the 13th of March, in the last hours of my shift, I made a cardboard bale, and then I made a plastic bale.
The cardboard bale is much easier and faster, since any worker who has any cardboard, from unloading boxes of items onto the shelf, which is called stocking the shelves, or putting out freight, any and all workers who do that, come to the back room, and put “their” cardboard into the baler. So, for me to make a bale, I do not need to put any thing into the baler. I only need to wrap baling wires around the cardboard, open the baler, eject the bale, label it, and roll it out of the way.
But making a bale of plastic is a great deal of work, not too strenuous, but it takes enough time, that it wears me down, a lot.
To make the bale of plastic, I must first put a sheet of very durable plastic, made for this purpose, in the bottom of the baler, then close the baler, (this was just after ejecting the cardboard bale), and start loading plastic into the baler. The plastic is nearby, but it’s in the form of large bags of plastic items, each bag different sizes, with the largest bags about three feet long, and two feet in diameter. Way bigger than your kitchen trash you take out each day at home. After two hours of loading these bags of plastic into the baler, it’s all in, and it’s time to put another of those thick plastic sheets, across the top, and wrap the wires around the bale.
There are two tricks to this, tricks I only learned recently. I have worked there eleven years, and I just learned these tricks within the last month or so. The first trick is, stop the piston just above the bale, insert the eight baling wires into the slots, form the end of each wire into a hook, and hook it to the edge of the piston, then run the piston down to the right spot, then shut it off and open the baler.
The second trick is, do not let the piston go down as far as it can, because that makes the bale too small, and a certain lever will not catch with the piston that low, so I stop the piston, at the right spot, then shut it off, and open the baler.
If you have read all this detail about making bales in the back room of a Walmart, I must say, thank you very much. I realize that for some of you, all this detail may be boring. But I am writing diaries for this group, in order to:
1. Entertain you.
2. Entertain me.
For some reason, writing all this detail about making bales, has been very entertaining, to me.
I hope that, somehow, it’s also entertaining to you.
Next topic:
My brother-in-law.
At our Bible study session, he quoted a verse about asking god to show us our faults.
I said, I like that, because we always need to stop and reflect, and ask ourselves how we can improve our behavior. (I’m an atheist, and he knows that, but I like the Bible, since it has lots of useful advice.)
He said, no, we cannot see our own sins, we need god to show us our mistakes.
This gets right to the core of the difference between a thoughtful Christian, and a thoughtful atheist. I simply know, that no matter how hard he tries to let god show him his failings, if he sees room for improvement, it was his own brain, stimulated by the idea of searching himself, his own brain did it. If he imagines that god showed him, that is his imaginary friend. It is not real, it only exists in his imagination. But he preached so hard, about how we humans are garbage, and we cannot possibly examine ourselves successfully. We need god to do it. But even if that were true, the human still would need to understand god’s message to him. It would still be the human, doing something right, even if a god were involved. I get sick and tired of hearing him say how humans are garbage, without admitting our potential. We have potential. But he ignores that, in his angry rants.
Next topic:
My wife, Tonia.
She is very finicky, about what she eats, and when and where, and she cannot tolerate some of my small talk, and she cannot stand me talking about politics, or the weather report. She yells at me to stop talking. But when she’s in the mood to ramble on and on, about celebrities? Celebrities? She talks, all excited, about the latest bickering between celebrities, on and on, she talks. But when I try to talk (not everything, but much) of what I say, she shuts me down, and says, in an angry tone, stop talking! She micro-manages me way too much, to get precisely what she wants, with no compromise. As we drive to get some nice eating out food, she insists on using the drive through. I hate drive through. I hate it. I love eating in dining rooms. However, she is disabled, so it’s not practical for her to get out of the car, and go inside, and sit in the dining room. But, she could tell me what she wants, and let me park the car, and let me go inside, while she relaxes in the car, and then I would bring the food out to the car, and that would make me feel so much better. But no, she insists on using the drive through. It was cold outside, and, on the way there, she turned the car heater on full blast. It’s not cold enough outside to need the heater on full blast. I tried to turn it down one notch. She turned it back up, and insisted it stay on full blast. I found myself thinking, when we get to the cafe, I could get out, and call a taxi, and go back home that way, and she could drive our car back home. I did not do that, but it felt comforting to consider it. Made a nice day dream.
When we got back home, we snuggled in the bed.
Thanks for reading.