Stranger-Danger

We were young teens having a sleepover at my house in Ste. Anne. It was a beautiful night out, so we decided to sneak out after midnight and go for a walk. It was something I'm sure we'd done together before. I'd even done it by myself. We weren't going to vandalize property or make any trouble, we just wanted to walk around a dark, ghost-town, giggling and talking in hushed tones.

I lived just outside of town. Not even 15 minutes after leaving did we reach the edge of town and turn down a family friendly street I often rode my bike down. Suddenly there was a van coming up fast behind us. We moved to the side of the street and the van pulled up a few yards ahead and blocked our path. The sliding door opened and I could see the back seats had been removed. There were so many beer cans that they fell out of the van as several older, drunk guys we didn't recognize ambled toward us.

Frozen on the spot, my fight or flight response hadn't kicked in yet. I just stared at them trying to figure out who they were and what they wanted. I quickly became afraid, but I couldn't look away or move. I didn't even notice my friend had started to back up until she yelled out to me. Chelsea! Run!

It just so happened that we were beside our classmate's house and I followed my friend as she ran up to the door and started banging on it, whispering to herself, please answer the door, please answer the door. Our classmate's mom opened the door looking very annoyed. My friend begged her to let us inside and pointed toward to the boys. The drunk guys took the hint and piled back into the van and sped off. The mom scolded us for being out late, accused us of causing trouble and quite rudely told us to go back home.

I was still pretty shocked, but we quickly scurried back to the main road that would lead us home, trying to stay out of the light and constantly on the look-out for the van. We saw headlights and hid in a ditch. It was dry and the grass was long. There was no street light, so we were well hidden. It was the van. We thought maybe they were circling back, looking for us, so we just stayed in the ditch, but the van drove away and we never saw it again. My fucking heart was pounding so hard, I was panting.

We hurriedly walked in the ditches the rest of the way home, completely on edge, and when we got to my yard we ran as fast as we could to the front door and got inside. We turned off all the lights and hid out in my spare room. She curled up on the bed and I was across from her in the swivel chair. The computer monitor was our nightlight. Every so often my friend would peer through the blinds. I was still so stunned. I said, we almost got raped or something. If you hadn't called my name....

It was one of those moments where I wanted to laugh out loud with relief, like we got away with something and it was exhilarating, except it was so freaky, I didn't know how to react. The realization that something bad could have happened to us blew my mind.

We didn't talk much about it and I never told my parents.

May 25th was Missing Children's Day. The RCMP has some tips on how to street-proof your kids and after reading them I think my mom taught me well. We had a code word. I knew who to call and where to go if there was ever an emergency or if I was in danger. I was taught it's okay to talk to strangers, but not okay to go with them. I was taught to kick, hit, bite, anything to get away from someone trying to take me and to scream out loud, He's not my dad! She's not my mom! We played license plate games.

But when I was frozen in that spot, watching those guys clamber out of that van, it was like everything I learned was out the window. If my friend hadn't called out my name, who knows what would have happened. Maybe nothing. But there's the very slim chance I could have died. You never know what people's motives are. Especially drunk people.

I think of my sweet, little baby with her angelic face and I just want to drill her with my version of stranger-danger information until her ears bleed. I want her to sneak out of the house after midnight and take a breezy stroll in the summer air with friends because I know how fun it is, but I also hope that if she's ever in a situation like I was in with my friend, she'll take after my friend and not me.

This is a Bitch-Fest

So fucking annoyed with life right now.
My GPS replacement I ordered still hasn't come in the mail and I can't get a hold of a human on the telephone and I can't create an account online like the telephone operator suggested because every time I try to create the account, it says there's a duplicate file. Every time I try to log in, it says I'm not registered. What the fuck? I emailed someone, but we'll see how long that takes to get a response.

I owe the government nearly a thousand dollars. When Bob and I declared that we were living common law as of September when we filed our taxes, all that money the government gave me is now being taken back. My savings account is totally depleted. What a huge mistake it was to tell them the truth.

Tesla's photo shoot is costing us more money than we can afford and it was supposed to cost us nothing.

I deep cleaned the carpets and couch and the next day Tesla decided to start randomly puking again. All that work is ruined.

I spend all day cleaning up the kitchen and at the end of the day it's a fucking disaster again. Laundry is a perpetual cycle of bullshit that I can never keep on top of because we literally don't have enough quarters. I keep smelling "cat" and I don't know what to do to get rid of that animal smell in the air.

Everywhere I look there is a mess, toys, clutter, disorganized shit. I'm worried about my grandma, I'm worried about my dad, I'm worried about Bob. My daycare is stressing me out. I just want to drink 2 bottles of wine, cry, and then take a month long all-expense paid vacation to somewhere beautiful and exotic, where there are no children, and I don't have to lift a finger.

A Lesson in Self-Control

Some people's parenting.... Some woman punished her daughter by sending her to school wearing ugly clothes. Read about it here. The jist of the story is that the daughter had been making fun of another girl's outfits at school. She told her that her shorts and tank top made her look sleazy and was teasing her about it for almost a month. The school deemed this behavior to be bullying and told the parents about it.

The step-mom didn't think grounding her judgmental daughter was enough since the daughter stood by her convictions that the classmate was dressed in poor taste and deserved to know about it. The step-mom decided to bring her to the thrift store and bought a few of the outfits that her daughter deemed ugly.

Then she made the daughter wear these outfits to school. Then she took pictures of her daughter wearing these outfits and posted them on Facebook.

The girl was so embarrassed and was obviously teased like crazy by her classmates. She felt so bad, she apologized to the girl she was bullying and thanked her mom for teaching her such a valuable lesson.

Barf.

Are you fucking kidding me? This is a much better punishment than making your kid hold a grammatically incorrect sign on the side of the road for a few hours, but it's still a terrible punishment and I don't think it really fits the crime.

When you get down to it, the daughter's crime was her lack of self-control. She opened her big, fat mouth and made hurtful comments to another person's face. If she had self-control, she would have kept her hurtful comments to herself, or maybe shared them with a friend when they had a moment of privacy so they could giggle and gossip out of earshot.

She is entitled to think that the girl's wardrobe is sleazy. She is not entitled to tell her that. That is the lesson she needs to learn.

Dressing her up in hideous clothing and sending her out into the world isn't a punishment and doesn't teach her self-control. Maybe she'll stop bullying that girl forever, maybe she'll finally realize what it feels like to be on the receiving end of teasing, but she wasn't being teased for being herself. She was being teased for wearing a costume to school which is totally out of the ordinary and a one-time deal. It's not an organic life-lesson.

What would I do if it was Tesla? I would probably give her a normal punishment like taking some privileges away and we would definitely talk about what it means to be tactful. I wouldn't force her to apologize, but I would request she do it. I would never publicly shame her by sending her to school in a ridiculous get-up and taking pictures to post online and blackmail her with later. People are sick.

A and F For The Homeless

I'm sure you've all heard about the Abercrombie and Fitch news from last week about how CEO, Mike Jeffries, made some comments a few years ago that his brand is exclusionary and only marketed to the cool kids

Enter Greg Karber. He made a nice little video about the whole thing and then decided to do a little unauthorized re-branding for the company to help out its image. Check it out!



This video is awesome! I don't consider it to be social activism, I just think it's funny! What a hilarious and unique way to put Mike Jeffries in his place. I don't think homeless people are losers, but I'm sure Jeffries does. None of the people on that street looked like they were going to sign any modelling contracts any time soon. They definitely don't look like your average A and F wearers. It just goes to show that anybody can have whatever they like and it doesn't matter what demographic you belong to.

It's so silly because we all know it comes down to money. It doesn't matter how fat and ugly you are, if you've got the money, you can walk in and buy whatever you like. If Jeffries was serious about excluding those who he didn't think fit the A and F image, he would have some sexy looking guards standing by to turn away those people so they couldn't even enter the store.

I've never worn any clothes from Abercrombie and Fitch before. It's not my style. If I ever come across any Abercrombie and Fitch apparel while off on one of my Value Village binges, I'm totally going to be it and donate it!

Cheating The System

I sort of got into an argument with my father-in-law on Mother's Day. It wasn't heated, just a heavy disagreement. He was upset about some insurance claim he filed. He didn't receive all the money back he expected to receive and he was fighting with them to get that money he thought was rightfully owed to him. When I heard his story, (and the ways he was planning to get the money) I felt as though he was trying to cheat the system and that he wasn't owed that money at all. This did not impress him.

Without going into the details of his particular case, I submit to you an alternate case, one drummed by my father-in-law to prove his point.

You have a $200 prescription to fill at a major retailer. You know you will be reimbursed 100% for the prescription. You decide to pay for half of the amount due with a gift card and the other half with cash. When you submit your claim and receipt to the insurance company, they only reimburse you for $100. Do you think you should be entitled to receive cash back for the gift card you spent?

I think no. The insurance company agrees with me and said they will only reimburse you if you can prove that you bought the gift card yourself.

Here are my reasons for siding with the insurance money:

• When you buy a gift card, you are buying store credit. Store credit is not cash out of your pocket. It's prepaid. It's cash out of some other person's pocket, (unless you bought your own gift card.) Ergo, the insurance company isn't going to reimburse you for money that isn't yours.
• Gift cards cannot usually be redeemed for cash, only product at the store. Most gift cards actually have that printed right on them. When you pay for a prescription with a gift card, getting reimbursed is like getting cash back for it from the insurance company. That's illegal.

Here are the reasons my father-in-law thinks he should be owed that money.

• Gift cards act like cash, so they should be treated like cash by insurance companies.
• It shouldn't matter what method you pay for something, you should receive what you are entitled to when asking to be reimbursed by an insurance company.

He also feels like the money has been stolen from him and the insurance company is "richer" because of this gift card scandal. He feels so strongly that he is right, he's willing to go to court over the matter. He's the type of person who would follow through on that statement too.

I feel like the only person who's out money is the person who bought the gift card. Everyone else is all squared up. I also feel like the insurance company saved some money, but they didn't actually gain any money. The retailer is the only place that gained any money.

So, I emailed the Consumer Protection Office to find out what they had to say on the matter and I never heard back from them. EDIT: I just heard back from them! They suggested I contact the Insurance Branch of the Government as they deal with complaints regarding insurance. Or to just contact the insurance branch who denied the claim in the first place to review their policy.

I tried finding more information online, but when I ran various phrases in the search engine nothing relevant came back. I posted the question in Yahoo! Answers and had 2 people tell me that I was right, but they didn't cite any references.

My father-in-law is in a losing battle and should give up on the issue and take it as a learning experience. I've never been in his situation before, but now I know never to pay for something with a gift card if I want to be reimbursed by an insurance agency. There's no sense trying to cheat the system and figure out a way to get that money through illegal loopholes. At the end of the day, he still hasn't lost any money and everybody's squared.