I have one hour, so let’s get into this thing without delay. Well, right after I pour myself another cup of coffee… OK, I’m back. Yum. This Wegmans store brand is pretty damn good. What kind of coffee do you drink? Do you jump around from brand to brand, or are you loyal to one? We used to be loyal to Eight O’Clock, but they’ve raised their prices to a point of ridiculousness. What am I, Ted Turner? Ha! The next item will prove that clearly ain’t the case.
Yeah, I need to address something unpleasant here: the t-shirts from 18 months ago, or whatever it was. A few of you are asking me about them, and I owe you an explanation.
The whole thing was botched, obviously, and I handled it poorly. I’m embarrassed, and offer my apologies. My plan is to honor all orders, and never sell anything directly to you guys again. If there are products in the future, they’ll come from a middleman, like Amazon or Zazzle. I’ll be out of the picture. I can’t have something like this happening again.
In a nutshell, I chose two shirt designs that I liked. One was fine – the black one. But the gray one was a BIG mistake. It was so detailed, and had so many colors, etc. nobody wanted to touch it. Or, they said they’d do it for something like $24 per shirt.
During that process, which dragged out for weeks, there was some kind of household disaster. I can’t remember what it was, possibly the exhaust system in Toney’s car. We were in a situation where we had to pay for thousands of dollars in car repairs, or she wouldn’t be able to get to work.
So, like the U.S. government raiding the Social Security fund… Yeah, you can see what happened. And you can probably see why I don’t like to talk about it. It’s humiliating. But please know this was never my intention. I mean, seriously. I’ve had dozens of nightmares about this, and every time I think about it, my heart sinks.
I have the black shirts, and will mail them out as soon as possible. And I have an old quote for the gray shirt, and will see where we stand with it. It was just under $1000 to have them printed. Obviously, I chose the wrong design. Holy shitballs! But I will juggle things around in the budget, and get this thing rectified, once and for all.
I’m sorry this happened, but please allow me a little more time to fix it. Money is tight here at Chez Kay, but I’ll figure out a way to make this right. I don’t want this return to TheWVSR to be tainted, and feel like it is. I’ll fix it, I promise.
Now on to more pleasant things…
The older boy is back in school, and is taking a Sociology class. On the first day the professor – a woman – came waltzing in wearing a black shirt with the word CUNT printed on it. She was trying to make some kind of point that sailed right over everybody’s head. Can you imagine what that class is going to be like? Should be interesting, for various reasons. Insanity can be fun!
And when I was planning to go to West Virginia a couple of weeks ago, I took my car to Sears Automotive for an oil change, and to have the tires rotated. I bought the tires there, and figured I’d take advantage of their free lifetime rotation offer.
I told the guy I would be doing a great deal of driving, and asked him to make sure the tire pressure was correct, etc. He assured me they do that automatically.
Fast forward to a couple of days later… and my tire light is on. What the? I checked the pressure, and the ones on the front had 38 pounds in them, and the ones on the back had 29 pounds. There’s supposed to be 33 in all four. Bastards!
I brought the ones on the back up to 33, and let the ones on the front go. The light went off, and a few days passed. Then it came back on, while Toney was driving. She took it straight back to Sears, and told them to get that shit under control, once and for all.
One of the tires was damaged, they said, and needed to be replaced. I have Road Hazard, so it cost almost nothing. But, get this. They lectured her about the front tires being over-inflated. I wasn’t there, but I know Toney could barely wait for the guy to take a breath before she let loose on him. I’m sure it wasn’t pretty.
But, what the hell? I specifically told the guy I’d be traveling and needed them to check the tires. And… I don’t even know what they did. It’s inexplicable. Can somebody explain it to me? What in the skidmarked hell?
And I need to go to work now. For Questions I’d like to know the brand of coffee you’re partial to, at home. And I’d appreciate it if you could tell us about the most batshit crazy teacher you’ve ever encountered. The good kind of crazy, or the bad. It doesn’t matter. Also, any guesses on that Sears crap will be welcome.
I’ll be back soon. Probably tomorrow.
Have a great day, my friends!
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I get my coffee from a place in the Strip District in Pittsburgh. Their mail order service is great. I usually buy Ethiopian of some sort or Hawaiian Kona.
I had a lot of professors in the early-mid 1990s that were soon to be put out to pasture. Some of them would use the class period to tell stories from WWII, come to class drunk, not show up a week or so at a time, etc. I don’t think most of the sort of stuff would fly today.
We had a history teacher in Junior High who was a full blown lush. One day, for whatever reason, she went to put her foot on top of the trash can, but it went IN the can instead and she tumbled ass over teakettle down an aisle full of horrified students. This was probably 1975 or 6. That shit would not fly nowadays.
In one of the classes I had with those drinking during the day guys – the class was mostly football players for some odd reason. I recall that at least one of them threatened him more than once. I sometimes felt I was in some remedial high school class when those guys would show up. This same professor also smoked in his office.
I buy organic shade-grown fru-fru coffee from Camano Island coffee roasters.
I was never much of a coffee drinker since I have acid reflux and coffee makes it worse. Apprently this stuff being shade-grown helps keep the acidity low, so it’s much more tolerable for me. Its fresh roasted too, within 24 hours of shipping it to me, so it smells incredible with it arrives. I often wonder if the FedEx man doesn’t just drive around with my box of coffee smelling up his truck for fun. I’ll sometimes just keep the box a few extra days, moving it around the house because it smells so good.
It’s $15-19 per lb, depending on what you get, and we have autoship of 2 lbs every 6 weeks.
La Colombe (www.lacolombe.com/coffees). If Eight O’Clock is too dear, I’m afraid La Colombe just isn’t in the cards.
Whatever was on sale of the fancy shit, like Dunkin Donuts or Gevallia,or Starbucks (gasp). Now that I’m not working, we came home with Folgers (sigh). Tastes like Mrs. Olsen.
If you like strong coffee, try the Folgers Black Silk – it’s tolerable.
That’s what we picked up and you’re right, it’s not bad.
Mr. Q and I are on a New England Coffee Colombian Supremo kick at the moment. Publix puts it on sale buy one, get one free every so often and I stock up. This week, I bought six bags. If we run low and need coffee when New England isn’t on sale, Folger’s it is! Sometimes, I’ll buy something different just to mix it up, but Mr. Q never really appreciates my attempts to branch out. That man gets grumpy over his coffee.
Crazy teachers – I may have had some, but none that stick fresh in my mind. I guess school was too long ago, or maybe having a batshit crazy mom had an effect on my tolerance for batshit crazy teachers.
If a professor truly wanted to get a rise out of their students they’d wear a shirt with some kind of conservative slogan on it. Mere profanity on a t-shirt isn’t going to make the kids blink; it’s just there to give the professor another helping of intellectual smugness.
I don’t drink coffee, maybe I should.
I am not much of a coffee drinker and can tell very little difference in the good stuff and the free Days Inn lobby stuff.
I don’t coffee, but that’s only because it tastes terrible. I get nearly 100% of my hydration from Vernors Diet Ginger Ale.
As far as the shirts go, while it would be nifty to have, don’t worry about it. It was some time ago and in the time since I placed the order I’ve pissed away more than that on a whole lot less. Keep the dough for beer money and stop torturing yourself on my behalf. Again, I absolve you.
Crazy teachers, oh I’ve had them.
One psych professor came in ranting about how “kids today don’t take their education seriously” and then asked why. Apparently I was in a class full of morons who’s angry parents hadn’t ever asked them a rhetorical question, so people started coming up with reasons and he just got madder.
I had enough and called him out. I asked him to tell us, since it was likely that it was not a phenomenon that started with people born after 1970. He walked up to me and told me he was teaching because he had a 3.5 GPA as an undergrad and 4.0 in his masters program. I told him I was carrying a 3.8 in a business program and was interviewing with a fortune 500 company. He went away and started his lecture.
Same school, I had a sociology professor ask me in front of an entire lecture hall (I sat up front and was chosen randomly) how much my father made a year in order to illustrate some point in her lecture. I apologized and said I was not able to answer that. She actually pushed it. Then some kid in the back hollered out a number and I was off the hook.
There are a few more that stand out, but I think that’s enough for now.
Coffee tastes terrible, but you like Vernors Diet? Oh, my!
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We use Folgers. I prefer the Black Silk variety, but my husband bought a different variety. It’s good, but I like my coffee dark as a harlot’s soul.
As for teachers, I’ve had many crazy teachers, but all good ones. My first grade teacher loved Wheel of Fortune; we played it a lot in class, and she always sang the theme song. BUT…she also always pulled out a huge, Big Bird yellow feather boa to wear while she did it. Awesome.
See now? That would not have seemed crazy to me: yellow feather boa, Wheel of Fortune theme song… my mom was always doing stuff like that, so I wouldn’t have blinked an eye to see my teacher do it, too.
Although the harlots I knew have all retired (from harloting: some now work for Starbucks, some do piecework or, I guess you could say STILL do piecework, but of a different sort), but when they were harlots 1) none of them self-identified as a harlot and 2) none of them had particularly dark souls. Admittedly, this represents a very small sample.
jtb
And the Harlettes are a different matter entirely.
Yes, and I understand the Raelettes have hit the road. Jack.
jtb
Black Silk is really good considering it is Folgers. I prefer Dunkin Donut brand and usually buy it at Sams Club. Back in the day, I had a civilian instructor at one of the Air Force tech schools I attended. His name was Mr. Aucoin. He was a cajun from the backwaters of Mississippi. The first day he told us his name was Mr. Gold Coin (Au) and it got crazier from there. He was known to use all different colors of chalk. Anyway, one day he comes in and proceeds to write this enourmous equation out on the chalk board. It took him almost 45 minutes and he used up the biggest part of 3 boards. When he was finished, he turned around and said that if anyone could tell him what he had just completed, we could all leave for the day. He gave us 15 minutes to talk about it and come up with an answer. We had no idea. So after berating us and telling us how ignoraant we were, he told us the correct answer was blue chalk. Then he told us all to get the hell out of his classroom and come back later. One strange dude.
Usually Starbucks as I can almost always find it on sale. Always whole bean and self grind. It gives me the most kick and that’s important for my morning runs/workouts. Don’t like paying the full $9.99, though.
Occasionally I’ll treat myself to a bag of Kicking Horse out of British Columbia. Really, really good stuff as it has the kick of Starbucks but is a lot more flavorful and not as harsh. About $11 for the 12 oz. package.
Love the Kona but true certified Kona is nutso unless I put it on my Christmas list, so it is rare.
Don Francisco and 8 O’clock are OK. DD bugs my stomach. Seattle’s Best, Peet’s and Gevalia can tongue my anus.
Have to correct the record. It is not Dunkin’ Donuts that bugs my stomach. It is McDonalds. DD falls into my “pretty decent” category.
I just bowed to Don Francisco’s at the store this weekend as it was on sale for $4.99. Hard to pass up for a half decent coffee, especially since my money went towards drinking like a Viking for the last two weeks.
Is “Tongue My Anus” a particular roast? Haven’t seen it.
At home it’s Eight O’clock Columbian Peaks in the Keurig. When I’m feeling fancy the local grocer sells a local roaster’s brand. At work it’s just a cup of sadness.
Walter, one day you’ll win the “National Teenage Haiku Contest” and I’d be honored to be your corner man. Just spit into the funnel.
John
No coffee for me, that’s some nasty crap, now tea on the other hand…
Chemistry teacher taught us how to make pipe bombs, which we denoted underground in a far corner of the school property. It was predictably awesome. A student the year after me made one at home, and blew his leg off with it. The teacher stopped teaching how to make pipe bombs.
It’s all fun and games until someone blows a leg off…
If you eat at Arby’s, there’s a guy who will tell you Arby’s has the worst roast beef in town; if you shop at WalMart, there’s a guy who will tell you you’re supporting the Chinese economy and that you’ll end up buying everything twice; if you drink 8:00 coffee, a guy will tell you you’re drinking shit, because 9:00 is the real deal because it’s grown in the fucking shade and thus won’t give you the vapors.
Yeah, I don’t want to be that guy. But what the fuck: Sears Auto Centers and the Justice Department (and almost every state AG) have spent so much time together, that in many states they’re legally married. I know there are no Discount Tire locations in PA, but there must be some auto/tire places that aren’t under indictment. I know it’s NEPA, but for God’s sake, are there NO honest businesses there?
I’d rather have Rand Paul blow me than have Sears Auto Center get within a dozen paces of my car. And word is, Rand bites progressives. I’m just saying.
John
I drink Coscto brand (Kirkland) Columbian Supreme. If it’s on sale, I buy McDonald’s Columbian. Best coffee I ever had. For the Keurig, I’ve tried a bunch of them and I prefer the Gevalia or Melita. But I HATE the Keurig. I haven’t perfected a cup of coffee fromt hat thing yet and those pods are fereaking expensive.
Whacky teachers? Went to Catholic Grammar School and had a few oddball penguins as teachers. Our principal, Sister Mary, fell down a flight of concrete steps and bashed her head in pretty bad. She was never the same after that and would fly off the handle over the simplest thing. Come to think of it, the first and fifth grade teachers (both lay teachers – not nuns) were horrifying. During a fire drill one day some first graders became confused and weren’t moving fast enough. She spun around and screamed at them “I HOPE YOU ALL BURN TO DEATH.”
Daughter went to Cath-o-holic school in the 2000 and never saw a nun. Whole friggin school and the only representative of the church was the priest. First one was a drunk and was relocated, second one was close to death and relocated, the third one was an ex-episcopal priest with wife and kids, John Paul had something to do with that, anyway he begged a BJ from a 21 yr old parishioner and he was relocated. The fourth was a wonderful man but he left to become a monk. Thats it!! We need more bat shit crazy nuns!! PS, I’m not Catholic.
I’m not a coffee drinker, sorry.
And I don’t remember any crazy teachers. I must not have had any. But I remember quite a few awesome ones, so there’s that.
I’m the worst commenter ever.
Surly you must be joking.
….and don’t call me Surly.
Fuck coffee… smoke meth
🙂
I drink Cafe Bustello… Or NYC Bodega coffee….
I remember my Highschool film teacher. He showed a bunch of projects kids Goodfellas. The assistant principal called him out for that in front of the class. His response was “Fuck off. This is a classic. You’re a shit head. Never come to my classroom again.”
When asked about the incident none of my classmates remembered it that way. We all remembered the assistant principal saying the N word…
Husband got into a fight with Sears Auto over a battery that had a ghost charge, I think thats what its called. They said it was fine but husband kept getting stuck at the airport with a dead battery. He let loose on them and suggested that if they were so sure of the battery they should give him their cell number so he could call them at 1am from the airport. Eff Sears.
We bought tires from a Firestone store. Car has been back twice and still shimmies at 70 so dont go there.
I like Dunkin Donuts coffee but any swill will do.
Hi revashane,
1) At Sears, a ghost charge is the second to last item on the invoice. You pay somethin’, you get nothin’.
2) Here we go again with the Blizzaks and the Hakkapeliittas. Eli’s coming and so is winter.
John
revashane,
This is likely not useful information for you, but I don’t shimmy at 65. Once again, I’m just saying.
John
When I wrote that I imagined Tina Turner the Acid Queen. Damn she knocked my socks off when I was at such an impressionable age.
Oh… don’t even get me started on Sears. They have fucked up a refrigerator order since Father’s Day. First one they sent was all banged up. Sent another one without the ice maker we paid for. Then they called and said they couldn’t fix our broken refrigerator. We told them we just need a swap. A month passed and they send another one more banged up than the first one. I told him don’t even take it off the truck. Then Sears called us and told us the were delivering an ice making kit. Not installed – just a kit. We told them to stuff it. Beloved called AMEX and had them withdraw our payment back to us. Now I have an unpaid for refrigerator in my house with no ice maker 3 months later. F Sears.
At home I mostly drink espresso, which I’ve been mail-ordering from Counter Culture in North (or was it South?) Carolina. For regular coffee, I’m a brand-hopper these days. These days Wegman’s doesn’t have much that isn’t store brand, but they had this coffee called Intelligentsia. I’m working through a bag of that. It’s pretty good, although there is a lot of chaff among the beans.
About the best I can do on the education front is my high school math teacher; his catchphrase was “on the other hand… you have a thumb.” What a card. Later I had a thermodynamics prof who was a strange old Dutchman. Not wacky, just strange.
Jeff, I’m glad to hear the shirts are happening. If you’re looking at outsourcing this in the future, maybe check out topatoco.com or cafepress.com. There are others that I can’t think of right now. Or maybe you’re talking about outsourcing just the sales and fulfillment, rather than the shirt production?
Sears used to be where America shopped; no idea what they’re up to lately. My last couple of oil changes have been at Valvoline Instant, and I like them a lot.
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It’s dark roast coffee for me. Carobou’s Mahogany is my personal favorite, but the cost limits my intake. For the money, I think CostCo/Kirkland have it figured out – great quality at a more than reasonable price. The Colombian and Sumatran are particularly good.
1. I’m at work now in a meeting. b. I’m on a perpetual search for the Ideal coffee like underwear. Thirdly,. What did you expect at Sears? Four:. You have a lot of car issues. 5) If I had purchased a t-shirt I’d tell you to relax and stop losing sleep. XI. His teacher sounds like a “see you next Tuesday.” 7) there is no seven.
I took an evening college class from a professor who always brought a white gym bag from which he removed a pint of vodka, a stainless steel cup, a white hand towel, a bottle of Sea Breeze astringent lotion and a bag of ice. He drank vodka/rocks for 90 minutes, and constantly rubbed his face and neck with iced Sea Breeze while delivering an increasingly rambling lecture. Didn’t expect, or get, much from his students.
The only folgers I see on the shelves here is the classic red can. Don’t like it a bit, not enough coffee flavor, tastes more like warmed up already used coffee grounds no matter how much coffee you put in the basket.
Melita is alright. At least it still has a good aroma and some flavor.
8oclock does not stand out particularily either.
Whatever is on sale, unless its folgers, then I’ll pass.
In case we did not mention it in the past, stay away from chain stores for auto repair. Even an oil change is too complex for some of them not to fuck up.
My grade 9 high school art teacher was a bit off kilter. Probably close to a nervous breakdown looking back at it as she’d lose it if the class was unruly. Too many paint fumes we figured back then.
Grade 10 chemistry teacher was only “crazy” in that he hammed up his reputation for blowing shit up in class (much like the pipe bomb teacher). And we did make things go bang in class. The funny thing is, the main office was above us, so anytime we did make things go bang he’d call up just to say it was a controlled experiment.
Grade 10 geography teacher ate chalk, and would also throw chaulk at people not paying attention.
Thanks for saying something about the shirts. I don’t give a dingle about the money, but nobody wants to be taken. Just bringing it up must be tough, but that’s all I need, an explanation. I’m sure glad I’ve never had too apologize (ahem!)
I remember my fifth grade teacher going on a rant about how everyone was saying Roosevelt wrong, and it was actually Rooooooooooosevelt with the long O. He said he’d fail anyone who didn’t say it that way. He also told us that the only reason we passed fourth grade was because we were too big to stay. What a shitstain. He “retired” suddenly at the end of the year.
Owning, maintaining, and insuring automobiles is a costly endeavor. I shake my head whenever I see one of those ads that promise to save you money on your auto insurance, because that is a wrong-headed approach. I carry extra insurance with one of the major companies, with the uninsured/under-insured driver coverage set at the maximum amount. If you ever require medical care after a serious accident, you will likely be unhappy with a decision to go with the cheapest auto insurance that you could find.
My craziest teacher was Miss Fisher in 4th grade at Spring Hill Elementary. Miss Fisher had a very bad fear of germs. She would only open doors with a paper towel in hand. Being a 4th grade teacher may have not been the best career choice for her.
I figure every elementary school has a family of stinky kids. Well Doug and Roger were brothers and they were the those kids. Ms. Fisher held much contempt for them. Towards the end of the school year Doug approached Ms. Fisher’s desk saying he was sick and in a supreme cosmic gesture Doug throw up a spectacular stream of gag inducing partially digested food on Ms. Fisher and her desk.
I don’t think we ever saw Ms. Fisher after that.