Getting it off my chest....

[Willow2]

Anyone want to join in on a thread just devoted to sounding off about (non parenting) things that have annoyed you? Well here goes...
I would like to say a big thank you to the absolute xxxxxx that pranged my car while it was parked outside my house sometime in the last 48 hours. The fact that you didn't feel it necessary to leave your details just adds to my love for you. You are probably one of the caring commuters who parks in my road (for free) all day before taking the train to town - glad that we can be of service. Nor should you let the
fact that your journey has turned our quiet little cul-de-sac where kids play footie in the street into the fifth lane of the M25 worry you in the least. And don't be perturbed by the fact that I, and all the other mums in the road, can now no longer park anywhere near our houses when we come home with the supermarket shopping and a car full of screaming kids. Hey, it's all just helps make our day even more fun. So thank you, nameless stranger, for completely annihilating the front of my car and losing me my no claims bonus. My week had looked really boring, now, thanks to you, there's so much to do... I have to go to the police station, get insurance quotes, fax my insurers and then wait for them to send an assessor round to view the damage. And then, if I am really lucky, I will lose the use of my car for several days. Gee things are looking up. You have really made my day.
Sorry chaps, just had to let it out.

LOL Enid - I bet he was fuming!!

Enid, that made my day!
While I'm here I may as well have a gripe too. Coming home in a black cab from work last night at 11.30pm I'm stunned to see not one, but TWO cars, with toddlers in the back of the car in not so much as a car seat or strapped in with a seatbelt - I was just SO ANNOYED at the parents' couldn't care less attitude. AND what were they doing up at that time of night anyway!
PS the cars were driven by women!

Jodee, I'm with you. That is one of my biggest pet peeves. Anybody not wearing a seatbelt, but particularly children and babies. We saw a couple today with a little baby in the driver's(!) arms on the North Circular (a main road). My husband was ready to call the police, but decided they probably didn't care (unfortunately). They should give major points on the license of any driver with a child without a seatbelt.

Just have to add my stressful week, firstly dh off in far east for 4 1/2 weeks, 2 days after he left smallest dd gets a bug so chuking on every available duvet in the house, then pooing everywhere. then the next day I end up throwing up all day/night whilst trying to contain 2 active dds. Then for the icing on the cake, thought we'd take a quick trip to a soft play place on Fri as we were all better, and the **ing car breaks down on a major junction!! So there I am with 2 hot, tired dds standing on a triangle of grass with 6 lanes of traffic around us, trying not to panic! Had to phone 999 as the car was causing big jams, who took 20mins to arrive! And had to pay 130 quid to join AA, as I wasn't covered for the car (dh had said I was!!), who then took 45mins to arrive.
In the end we managed to stop all the traffic as we had to get towed home, and it seems like the cars electrics have had it! Anyway at least we were all fine, and I have to sing the praises of 2 kindly neighbours who helped this week and a lovely lady who stayed with us until the police arrived. Would you believe though someone asked the police if they were going to book me!!! Like I did it on purpose! One final note, on the thread about mobile phones, I'd have been totally stuffed without mine yesterday.
Feel better now, off to have a beer!!

Two rants today, both mentioned before in this thread I see:

Driving home yesterday, car in front had 1 adult passenger in back seat & little girl, can't have been more than 2 yrs old, facing ME, sat/stood on adults knee! If that car crashed, she wouldn't stand a chance. It absolutely disgusts me how parents can have such disregard for a child's safety. Even if they didn't have a child seat, there's no excuse for not putting her in the adult seat belt (the car was a Y REG MERCEDES, btw, so I very much doubt there'd be no rear seat belts). I did take the registration number - anyone think there's any point reporting them to the police? I'm unsure.

Also less serious, but still annoying, saw TWO cars pulling into parent & child spaces in Safeways on Saturday with only 11/12 yr olds. I'm sorry, but surely a child of that age is perfectly capable of getting out of a car in a normal space, whereas my 6 mnth dd can't just yet...grrr. Could supermarkets maybe rename them 'Parent and Toddler spaces?

Not advisable to put small children into adult seatbelts as in the event of a crash, the seatbelts can actually cut right through them. I have been guilty of getting into a car with my dd and no car seat - sometimes when getting taxis for instance or lifts, there simply isn't the option of a car seat. So I sit in the front with her with my arms wrapped around her tightly, unless there is an airbag in which case I'd sit in the back.

My rant is the bloody builders who have failed to come today, my dh got in touch with the boss of the building firm and told him to call round at quarter past four, when dh won't be in! So I have to deal with this guy myself (as I have done for the past 3 weeks they have been there, I only ask dh to do one thing..) I am coming out in spots all over my neck, back and legs but cannot get appointment with doctor for today as builder guy is coming round. Dd refused her dinner and then screamed constantly for 1/2 hour after I got fed up and took it away from her. Have just ordered a printer cartridge to be told it cost £30, and this is for a charity I'm working for - no discounts at Office World miserable gits!

I'm now going to have a Bailey's.

Elwar, just read your posting, you have picked two of the things that really get up my nose too. I don't think anyone should be allowed to use a parent and child space unless they have a small child with them! I am sick of complaining at my local supermarket to be told there is not much they can do, it's a courtesy thing and they rely on people being kind enough not use them if they don't need them. One particular run in I had was with a woman in her fifties or so on her own in the car who when it was pointed out to her that the space she had parked in was specifically for people with young children and she shouldn't use it if she doesn't have any children with her turned and said "I've had kids too you know" and then walked off! Aaaargh!

Also the car seat thing, I will walk or get a bus before I will put DS in a car without his car seat, I think I drive my friends crazy with this. I have one friend who I have had to refuse to take her DD in the car as she did not have her DD's car seat, we got the bus instead. This probably doesn't make me very popular but I do not know how I could live with this on my conscience if something happened.

Ah yes Demented - I mearly fell out big time with MIL and SIL l;ast year when they were taking little ones onhols and were talking about sharing seat belts and no car seats. i don't care how much I offend anyone, if they're not in the proper seats, they're not getting in!! And isn't it always the oldies who park in the parent and child spaces? my parents are pretty old and they don't do it - sorry for being ageist! A Bailey's at 1 in the afternoon Rhubarb you lucky girl - are you in the same time zone as us?!

re the "parent and child" spaces - it wouldn't matter what they were called, selfish thoughtless ignorant bs would still use them, in the same way as they use the disabled spaces too.

As Demented was told, it is a "courtesy" (ha!) thing. There really is nothing the supermarkets can do - they used to slap hard-to-remove stickers on side windows of cars without orange badges in disabled spaces, but aren't even allowed to do that now. There are people who park in the mother and baby spaces at the supermarket where I work and they don't even come into the store - they leave the car there ALL DAY because it's free. It is very frustrating.

It's not a public highway so police and traffic wardens can't help either.

janh, ever get tempted to let their tyres down?

Huge confession - I used to use the 'Parent and Child' spaces when I was pregnant on the basis that it didn't specify if the child had to be born or not. Sorry, sorry, sorry!

Demented - yes! yes! yes!

95+% of customers are nice, kind, thoughtful people, inside and outside the store. The rest I wouls cheerfully swing for (but we have to be polite to them anyway!)

Tinker, no worries there, our local Sainsbury's used to hand out special passes for pregnant women - and by the end of mine it was far more difficult for me to get out of the car than it was later to load a newborn in a car seat.

Had a big ruck with a bloke at our local leisure centre the other day:

'Excuse me, you've forgotten your child'

'Huh, what child ?'

'Well, you're parked in a parent and baby space so you've presumably got a child in your car ??'

'No but thank you for pointing it out to me'

I marched inside to complain, only to get the standard 'oh, it's so difficult to monitor'

I wrote a note and stuck it on the windscreen, just so he knew what an inconsiderate, selfish individual he was being. Is it just me but if someone is going to the gym to keep fit/lose weight etc walking that extra few yards should help them in their goal shouldn't it ??!

My big gripe - even worse IMHO then the supermarket space hoggers - is the people who sit in their cars reading in the A&E dropoff spaces at our local hospital because the main carpark is full during afternoon visiting times (and if I'm cynical perhaps because if they stay in the A&E bit and then only drive through the main carpark in 10 mins or less they don't have to pay).

When 6 month old DS decided to dunk his hand in a cup of hot coffee and I needed to get him to the hospital pronto (after having his hand in cold water for 20 mins or so of course) there weren't any spaces in the 15-mins max A&E dropoff slots but several had cars with elderly occupants in who were sitting reading magazines. As the main car park was full (and a bit of a non-moving traffic jam) this was a real problem as he was screaming madly, and the longer his hand was left obviously the worse it was going to get. So I asked one of the people in the cars if they needed to be in the A&E slot - and she said she was waiting for someone who was visiting a friend ..... I asked her if she really needed to be in the emergency space and she said there weren't any other spaces (which I could see for myself) and they always parked there. By this time I was in as many tears as DS - I ended up blocking her in to take him into A&E becaues with nearly 2 hours to the end of visiting I could have been trying to park for that long otherwise. I explained to the A&E reception staff what she'd said and what I'd done, and left my keys with them - and would you believe that she even came in to complain about me....

(DS made a full recovery btw, but thinking that he could have been scarred for ever because of her selfishness still makes my blood boil.)

Have to get this off my chest! Went to the local bank this am, ds (2.5) was happily playing under a counter and I was in the queue waiting to pay in some cheques. The woman in front of me was, it turned out doing a complicated transaction involving euro's. Anyway, big man walks in,and stands over the counter, blocking ds's view of me, to fill in something. DS totally freaks out,and wails because he got frightened for a minute. I pick him up and resume my place in the queue. Lady with euro problem, turns to me and says 'I can't hear because of his screaming, can you move him?' Not wanting to give up my place in the queue after an age, I replied 'Well, I can't stop him crying right this second' and remained rooted to the spot. Got dirty looks from bank staff and they then proceeded to SHOUT ridiculously LOUDLY to each other through the glass. Other staff then appeared as there was a huge queue by now, and as I was only paying in cheques, they let me go to a side area to do so. Then the bloke who served me said, 'You've no need to queue, you can pay cheques in through the machine you know'. Does anyone else find this comment annoying.. I ended up having to justify why I hadn't done that..'oh, yes I know, but I wasn't expecting the lady in front to take so long, I didn't know ds was going to start crying, I can't comfort him, get my card out, fill in the envelope and hold all the shopping at the same time..etc etc. Honestly! Would that have pissed anyone else off? I would be interested to know!

Yes jessi, I would have been. Dont think I would have been as calm as you though.

Jessi, I like to think I'd have said to the man behind the counter: "Do you want my custom I wonder?" with a raised eyebrow and a you-will-be-turned-to-stone-if-you-take-that-tone-with-me-young-man look. I would have been mightily peed off too. If it makes you feel better you could always call the bank, speak to the manager and ask why they didn't have more staff on the minute it got busy. As for the woman asking you to stop your ds crying, the cheek! I'd have said sweetly, you can always leave if it's irritating you. But hey, I wasn't there, you were and it's easy for me to talk

I recently got my bags carried to the car by a security guard at Sainsburys since I had an aching neck and had been advised by NHS direct not to lift anything if I could help it. When I told him this he said "well you shouldn't be driving then". When I replied that I was fine to drive Thank You he said "They all say that until they black out and hit someone and kill them". I was furious, phoned the manager 5 minutes later and told him that I did not appreciate the unqualified medical opinion of their damn security guards and please could he ask them to keep their unhelpful comments to themselves in future. He probably put me down as a pre-menstrual harpie with too much time on my hands, but was suitably placatory. Even though I suspect he didn't say anything to the guard, it made me feel better and that was the main thing!

I love this ranting thread, great idea!

My rant for the day is that I hav just discovered that Legal & General have taken £7000 (!!! ) out of our joint bank account to set up an ISA that I have not applied for! They did it last week, but we've been away in Germany (another story: a surprise holiday for me, organised by dh, to a family reunion that I'd wanted to go to, but he'd resisted as "we're always visiting the Z side of the family". It was great fun! ), so hadn't realised.

The only reason we had so much in the account was because I had just shut a ShareSave scheme and dh hadn't got around to transferring the money into our savings account (which he was going to do last night - just as well we found out!)

What's really worrying is that Legal & General were able to re-use, without question from the bank, the debit card details I had given to them when I HAD bought an ISA from them at the end of last financial year. Legal & Genral have said "it'll take a few days for the files to come through from Bristol" (the Call Centre is in Cardiff) - so that they can then see for themselves that I have NOT applied for an ISA this tax year. And the bank has also said it will take around a week to investigate our complaint about the "duplicate use" of the debit card details.

Meanwhile, we don't have OUR money. My dh says he considers this to be fraud!

This is the last thing I want to be dealing with on return from an unscheduled (albeit fantastic! )
holiday, when I'm trying to catch up on all my work and all the things my boss had agreed with dh to pick up while we were away.

Jessi, don't you just love these holier than thou people, I feel like joining my daughter in screaming at the top of my voice in situations like yours.
A point for the arrogant bank teller, if you do pay in through the ATM machine, the money takes a day longer to clear into your account as they only empty them at the end of each day (well the Abbey National does anyway), so not only are you saving them time you are losing out on your money for another day.

Leave L & G and join First Direct! Nothing to do with my previous posting I promise, but I'm sure they'd never touch your account without permission. Can they legally do what they did?

My rant for the day is that I opened my visa bill to find that some b***d had been having a good time on my account filling their fat stomach!

Not your dp was it Meadow?

Oh THANK-YOU!! So pleased that you agree! Was wondering if I was being hyper sensitive. Great tip for next time Viv! Prior to this incident I was in Tesco's doing a big shop, at the checkout the lady commented on almost everything I bought. When she came to an empty crisp bag which ds had consumed on the way round, she said 'you could feed him before you come out shopping you know'! Once again, I ended up saying how he's had his breakfast earlier etc etc.. its unbelievable isn't it. My one consolation with the lady in the bank is that ds really let rip with the wails right by her.. hope it pissed her off as much as she did me! WWW what a complete tosser that guard was,honestly!

Jessi, I would have been furious after that collection of irritations. I have a great tactic that really winds people up - whenever I get any unwelcome 'advice' (eg veiled insults) I just look at the person, smile vaguely and laugh as though I am not really listening to them at all. They think I'm slightly mad, but realise that I am not taking any notice of their crap advice and it usually makes them look stupid and irritable. Ditto waving cheerily and smiling at aggressive, angry drivers.