A Sad But True Tale of a Country Boy in a Big City
12So for the majority of my life, I grew up on a farm and went to a very small school. To put into perspective on how small, my graduating class was 64 people, and my nearest neighbor was 1/2 a mile away from me. So, growing up I have been accustomed to not worrying about packages, cars, or anything really from being stolen. Well, today I just learned how untrustworthy people are. I ordered, while on Christmas break, the 2-for-Tuesday and the meh shirt that went on sale a while back. Well stupid me forgot to think of two things, meh ships faster than I thought and two, packages sitting on a doorstep in a biggish (Champaign-Urbana isn’t that big, but it is to me) would more likely get stolen after sitting there for over a week. Hindsight, I should have changed my shipping address, but I thought I would be back much sooner than I was. So basically, I spent some good money to learn a valuable lesson. I’ve been kinda flakey on here lately due to being sick, but I’m glad to be back. I missed you guys!
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FWIW, meh will deliver to a PO Box (which is what we have out here in this small town.)
Welcome back.
@2many2no, noted for future times I’m out of the area.
i have family in urbana-champaign, pursuing PhD at UofI
sorry to hear you got stolen, perhaps filing a claim will allow Meh. or FedEx or UPS to absorb the loss?
@Yoda_Daenerys I’ll see tomorrow. I just got back at like 11:30 pm. I haven’t talked to all of my neighbors either, maybe one of them grabbed it since it was sitting there for a while.
@YourLazyButt so if your neighbor grabbed it to save it for you, will you change the title of the post to “A happy but…”?
Here’s hoping so. I’ve kind of gotten depressed lately by some people’s actions. For example, in addition to actual bad people, when did shows etc decide showing graphic detail of the worst people can be is “entertainment” (real housewives-style shows, Netfix The Magicians, …) Sorry for off-tangent and I know this isn’t a new trend, but it bothers me more and more.
So I could use a happy but true story.
@mollama So much this! I begin to wonder if people remember that moral aspiration is even a thing…
I thought The Magicians was Syfy.
@mollama If my neighbor has it, then I will definitely change the title.
@mollama
It’s my impression that at least some of the “act bad in camera” type shows wind up filming otherwise decent individuals who set out to behave badly on camera for the sake of the income or perks.
I heard rumor of one family who tried to get into one of the “bridezilla” type shows as an alternative to paying for the wedding out of savings. The bride and groom and their families, along with the wedding parties, wrote, practiced, and reversed terrible conduct in hopes of getting into the show.
This was a rumor - I not know if it’s real, and if real, I don’t know if the ploy succeeded.
I regret that these shows have audiences and make $.
@mollama There’s been such a miasma of anger and despair of late that I think many of us are suffering a similar bleakness of the soul. (And many of us who are feeling smug will likely not feel that way within the next year.) For good news and hopefulness, search for hopeforpaws.com on youtube or on their own website. Every story has a happy ending. It’s my go-to place when I need a quick feel-good moment. You might also lift your spirits by reading good and funny animal stuff at thedodo.com.
Then check the news of the last few days and rejoice that a baby stolen from a hospital mere hours after her birth has been found, 18 years later, and she’s well and happy and has begun to get to know her birth parents, who never gave up hope of finding her. This took place in my home town; I remember clearly the desperation of the parents and the police over the kidnapping. And while the local police have a lot of flaws, there were some officers who continued for all those 18 years to keep an eye out for anything that might be a clue to what happened to the infant.
Go here http://www.giraffe.org/about-us and read about Ann Medlock’s idea of finding people who stuck their necks out to do something to fix a problem or meet a need they’d found in their community and give them some sort of media recognition. Click the tab for “Giraffe Heroes” and read of Ann’s 30 years of small stories of amazing people. Thirty years, and she still runs Giraffe on bailing wire, duct tape, bubble gum, and whatever donations she can get. I’ve been sending her money for several years now; it’s not much, but it helps.
And lastly, take heart in the fact that no one you know has ever been on the Jerry Springer show.
Try to focus on the fact that the sourness and hostilities of the last 12-18 months may get a little worse still but after a while they’ll begin to evaporate. One way or another, change will happen.
Be of good cheer, mollama. You’re not alone.
@f00l I think you’re probably right on target. One of the Brideziilla shows was filmed in my hometown. In one scene the bride went to order her wedding cake at a deli/bakery I used to go to fairly regularly. She had very specific (and yucky, over-the-top) plans for her cake. The guy she was talking to was agreeable and priced it out at $150, if my memory is correct. Bride went bonkers over that and did her best to argue him into charging about half that amount. He was very polite in his refusal, and after throwing half a dozen insults at him she stormed out of the store, still shrieking as the stomped across the parking lot and then drove away.
I talked to the guy a year or two after the filming about the experience. He thought it was hilarious and had the impression that her side of the event was over-played intentionally and that she’d been determined to get him to cut her a good deal. Aside from having been asked if the TV show could film the incident and then being asked to sign a release giving the TV people permission to air it, he’d been clueless about what direction the conversation might take until bridezilla blew up in front of him. When I complimented him on holding his composure, he shrugged and said some customers are just like that.
@magic_cave
Some Bridezillas or their Bridezilla family members are quite real. I know some florists who have a big city branch and a small town branch 40 miles away or so. The small town shop happily does weddings for the locals. People are nice in small towns. The big city branch won’t touch weddings.
Even if the customers in the city are nice, polite, considerate, and willing to pay, someone in the bride’s family wants to second-guess, worry over, and change the wedding order every other day. The city branch has corporate customers and doesn’t need the “my perfect day” headaches from weddings.
I might be able to replace the shirt. Would a Men’s XL work for you?
@KDemo Thanks for the offer unfortunately that is a bit too large, and I wouldn’t take anyone else’s meh apparel.
@YourLazyButt - Too bad. Sorry for the bitter lesson. It’s a sad thing to lose your trust in people.
@KDemo your offer makes this a happy but true story for me.
If you tell us what two for tuesday it was, and if we ordered it, we can tell you how crappy the items turned out to be to make you feel better.
@thismyusername it was the two knife’s for 10 dollars
@YourLazyButt I have a Men’s Large in each color, and the remington fast open knives (one is not in the packaging anymore) – my husband is concerned they are not legal in CT – it is soo close to legal
But he is not willing to risk it. You are welcome to A shirt (I want one…don’t care which)… 
@mikibell thank you for the offer. I do appreciate it a lot, but I wouldn’t feel right taking someone else’s.
@YourLazyButt oh well they were dull and they stick when opening them… just terrible. (I didn’t get them but those sound like common chinese knife complaints
)
You realize, of course, you are going to see the fucker wearing your shirt at the grocery or pharmacy or filling station…
@PocketBrain I can only imagine the persons look when they open the stolen box. “…someone paid for this crap? All it is is bluetooth earrings…”
@PocketBrain I feel like they will open that box and be like who wants a shirt with a face thinking meh and throw it out.
If you live in a rural area or small town, don’t you routinely offer some small acknowledgement to people you see or pass - with a nod, a wave, a greeting, or at least a friendly expression?
In really empty areas it’s common to make a friendly gesture as you pass other drivers headed the opposite way, which makes sense if you only see another vehicle a few times an hour.
Locally, I don’t usually make direct eye contact with people I don’t know and have no business with, but I do often glance at faces as I go about - and if i make eye contact, there’s an automatic friendly acknowledgement on both sides that is part of this culture.
When I first moved to NYC, I had to learn not to do this - either to make eye contact, or even to visually pause to note a face turned straight in my direction - unless I wanted to wear some degree of arrogance and challenge into my expression, or else to cultivate a closed and private expression.
Glancing for more than an instant at people one has no reason to deal with with a friendly, open expression marks one as an out-it-towner. Most locals, who are perfectly nice and honest, find it a bit intrusive and don’t particularly like it. Persons who are a bit more aggressive may take you for a potential “mark”, or take it to mean you are open to being hit on.
At first I was disconcerted about what seemed to be a form of “NY attitude”. After being there a few weeks I started to get the point. I think it’s common in normally crowded places or places where there is little privacy that local customs develop to indicate a preference for individual privacy in a given situation. I have read that in settings where personal privacy is almost unknown even in the home, people turn their backs on each other (without it being considered rude) to indicate a desire to be left alone for a while.
In NYC, not only is the city crowded, the streets are often very crowded, and most people travel for most of the day on foot or using public transportation. Amid that constant wash of humanity, the local custom has developed that you do not gaze at others, and particularly that you do not allow your glance to linger for even an instant on a face turned in your direction, and by abiding by this local default, you are indicating that you are protecting your privacy in a public place.
If you gaze directly at another, you are indicating your openness to interaction. If you are attractive, the other party may feel they’ve received an invitation.
None of this means New Yorkers are unfriendly. If you have a reason to address a stranger, you do so, politely and directly - tho you offer less personal info than you might elsewhere. (Offering excessive information or friendliness again indicates you may be a potential “mark”).
I found I was able to automatically switch back and forth on this face-glancing, and on my facial expressions, without giving it any thought, based on locale. Sort of like two different behavioral dialects. I think that’s pretty common.
@f00l That reminds me of a scene in Crocodile Dundee wherein Mick is walking down a busy street in Manhattan, tipping his hat and offering a “G’day” to everyone who looked his way (and, being the spectacle he was, there were plenty). In his case, I suppose, he would get a pass on such behaviour.
@PocketBrain
If you look like you can obviously take care of yourself, and you watch where you go, it’s a bit diff. But despite the film script, a real guy like that might be in trouble in certain neighborhoods, and might get jerked around in a friendly way, or have his time wasted a bit in normal areas if he played his “outback” image too hard.
He was practically in costume in the film. NYkers in Manhattan have a high tolerance for people in costume if they can carry the role well - NYkers like a bit of “in character entertainment”.
While I was there, a retired Texas Ranger and wife were visiting in one of the fancy hotels. I forget the exact story, but somehow he was in a place where a firearms robbery/assault took place. Civilians aren’t supposed to carry firearms in NYC, and since he was retired, he wasn’t supposed to be carrying. He didn’t know or didn’t care about the law.
Whatever the firearm robbery/assault thing was, he was carrying, I think his wife, not ex-Leo, was also. And he took care of the perps in action, while she had his back? And the cops were called, after the action was over. I don’t think anyone was badly injured.
So there was a to-do about his and her illegal handguns for about 5 seconds, until someone upstairs in the DA said “let this alone, he’s a damned hero” - and the NY Post and Daily News put the couple in the front pages as frontier John and Jane Wayne celebrities for a few days.
After that, the couple could not pay for anything anywhere, and were showered with free tickets for whatever was hot and got invited to famous-people events.
And a few folks who wanted to ride along in the publicity put on cowboy boots and a big belt buckle and tried to play the western lawman role for free stuff a bit. I think it worked for a while, until they got known around town.