Yeah, STBX’s sister has mental health issues and gets SSI and blows through the money very rapidly, including a lot of unnecessary gifts for Mini Me. Some is clothing that Mini Me will wear, some is too small (and there’s no returning anything) because ex-SIL doesn’t appreciate the rate at which kids grow and she also doesn’t comprehend that shoe sizes and clothing sizes are not the same so the shoes are always many sizes too small.
There’s really only so much you can say and do. But she gets paid once a month and if she could somehow get paid weekly that would be so much better for everyone. She can in no way manage the money to last her a whole month. If she got paid weekly she’d spend more on food and gas for her car and less on gifts that other people don’t actually need.
I know that the mental institutions that were shut down in the 80s were full of abuse but there exist people, like ex-SIL, who need that level of care - minus the abuse of course. Still, just changing the SSI payments from monthly to weekly would accomplish a lot, and that seems like a change that the government could make. At least make it an option.
I was just joking, but we did spend a decent chunk of change on a pre-lit fake tree. My wife was very much a real tree person so it was going to take something pretty high end to satisfy what she was looking for. We are on our 2nd tree now (I think the first lasted close to 10 years), but both have looked pretty close to real and ultimately spent less than we would have over the same time period buying real trees.
Plus, I no longer had to deal with wrapping the damn tree in lights. We spend some time each year replacing burned out bulbs but significantly less than it takes to deal with strings of lights.
I bought a non-pre-lit tree as I was concerned about the quality of the lights and then if the lights die before the tree does then you have to replace both.
Plus I like to put red lights on the tree and all the pre-lit ones are either white or multi-color.
Ugh, we bought a pre-lit tree (kind of a cheap one), and like half of the lights failed, and I lost my shit. I hate it when things don’t work, and I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. We still have it but I think I’ll replace it this year with a non-lit one. And then swear every time I have to untangle the strings of lights.
Thank you both for reinforcing my decision to spend the $$$ on higher quality.
The first tree we bought had about 5%-10% of the lights go out each year, fewer in the first couple of years and more in the later years (I am pretty sure it was 900 lights so less than 50 bulbs in the first couple of years and closer to 75-100 bulbs near the end). We have had the current tree for 2 Christmases. I replaced no more than 5 bulbs last year.
I’ve whined about my neighbour before, he’s a tool. But his wife is a good friend of my spouse, so I keep the peace.
Other than that, my so’s friends are fine and even if I’m not fond of their spouses, I can tolerate them in short bursts.
Even the neighbour, I haven’t unloaded when they started in on being an atheist. Thankfully I wasn’t there when they started on about trans people, though I think I would’ve just pushed back forcefully rather than adverserially.
My spouse and I are in agreement generally when their friends act like ding songs, so not much of a problem.
Sorry for the derail. I have no complaints at this point on most of my SOs friends. We tend to gravitate towards similar people and both have limited patience for too much stupidity. We get enough of it from our families.
I bought a Christmas tree light storage bin from The Container Store which is perfect. It has plastic things you wrap the lights around as you take them off the tree and if you take them off from the correct end then you can just unwind them right onto the tree the next year. Highly recommend.
Update: Friend was invited to our D&D campaign a while back. The entire time, their character has been grumpy/angry, and basically roleplay consists of them yelling at us and in-game “leaving the room.”
They just sent a multi-paragraph message to all on Discord saying we’ve been unfair and we ignore them and also apparently talk shit about them behind their back. Note: the other players are people I’ve known for 15+ years and we haven’t talked any shit. We have also been attempting to include them, but due to their backstory they want to kill most of the other people at the table. Which is not conducive to being a party.
My partner who is DMing wants to cancel the campaign because they’re bringing up so much drama. Nobody’s responded. There’s no point, it will just be an argument. Engaging in drama just makes more drama, and I’m not about that.
An SO’s friend texted a group of us about a change to the UNO rules (because I am the one in the group who prefers we play by the rules, so I read them to make sure we do).
It was such an unusual change that I had to look it up.
I could not find the Rule Change on the internet at some more valid website that she brought up.
Rule change was allegedly: Can no longer discard a Draw 2 card on top of another discarded Draw 2 card.
I asked for clarification, as the current rules are: if the person before you has discarded a Draw 2 Card, you must draw two cards and your turn is skipped. The person AFTER you can then place a Draw 2 Card. Now, if people are playing their own version of Hoyle’s Super Crazy 8’s where you can play a 2 on the prior 2 and the next person must draw 4 or play yet another 2, etc., and thinking that those are UNO rules, well, they are sadly mistaken.
She was interpreting the new rule, if it exists, that the third person (#1 discards Draw 2 card; #2 draws two and is skipped; #3 is next to play) is NOT allowed to discard a Draw 2 card.
Also, did UNO come to my house and change the rules on my UNO deck? I mean, sure, for NEW decks being sold, sure, change rules. They even have a new speed-up rule that allows you to put down all your eligible cards on your turn. Someone could conceivably win on the first turn. Cuz that’s fun!
Anyway, she got all butthurt at me because whatever she read online wasn’t actually true.
And, why would a company change rules just so that they sell more decks and make more profit? Wait…
I wasn’t going to complain too much about my SO’s friends when the thread was created, but one of her friends husbands was arrested Monday night, so I think I win something, right?
