Totally off topic to the blog, but I need to bitch.
Readers may remember on Friday when I mentioned having tax return monies. Saturday in comment to same post, I mentioned having dropped a stack of said monies at Bed, Bath, and Beyond on bed stuffs.
I figured I had some money, and I sleep (almost) every day anyway, so why not make the bed more comfortable. I sleep best under fur, but can't afford the real thing.
Seriously. A queen-sized real fur blanket will set you back enough to buy a passably decent used car.
So I tend to go for the next best thing: "faux". Usually get the cheap stuff that's 100% polyester. Nice enough, machine washable - only drawback is the size. The stuff is only available locally in "throw" size; 50x60". Being as I'm a nominal 71" tall... this is not ideal.
So I splurge. King size, 104" W x 90" L, 75% modacrylic/25% polyester. So. Soft. Glorious. I love the weight, I love the feel... I'm not crazy about the dry clean only bit... but whatever. It's not like a blanket needs washing every week.
Saturday night, Sunday night, both great. Last night... I wake up at 0300 on an unrelated reason, and after settling back in to try and at least sleep until dawn (didn't happen.) I'm pulling the blanket back up, since I tend to move around a lot in my sleep and dislodge such things. Something catches in my hand. A loose thread. I search, and find the source: the $150 "duvet cover" I've been using for three whole days has already come unstitched at one end.
Fuck. Well this was money well spent.
Haven't even christened the damned thing yet... when I say 'slept under' that's all I mean.
Now, I could fix it. Drop in a couple new stitches. Yes, I'm a straight man who can sew. Try not to faint.
Trouble is, if the quality was this shoddy in one spot... why should I believe it's any better elsewhere? Where do I draw the line? How much re-sewing must I do myself before I consider something defective?
On a $15 throw, the answer would be a considerable amount. On something ten times the cost... the answer is none.
For the record, though: I own four of those cheap throws. The oldest of which has more than two years of use on it. Not a single popped stitch anywhere in the lot.
So, my little piece of opulence has to go away. I still have the receipt thankfully, though I hold out little hope of an exchange - they only had the one in black; and being as this isn't 1985 and I don't live in Atlantic City, I have no interest in one in leopard print.
Seems like every time I try to buy a little piece of something nice it blows up in my face. A fur blanket, a good pair of boots, glasses frames that have some style and fit my face without digging into my ears... it all goes to shit within a week.
Gods, I truly hate my life.
Okay, whine over. I'm sure there's something more productive I could be doing with my day. Not that it'll accomplish anything.
Apparently I was more pathetic than usual today.
ReplyDeleteReturned the duvet cover to BB&B. They refused to credit my bank card and instead insisted on cash refund.
Was in Target later, picking up some tea; and happened to cruise through the bedding section. King size 100% polyester faux blankets on clearance for $39.95. No black; but did get one in a sort of off-white/bright gray of a winter wolf. Not quite as soft as the other one... but it's nice, and big.
Gassing up on the way out of town, I stuck my head into the quick shop to grab a rockstar and a coke, and the girl behind the counter recognized me by sight and laid a case of pomegranate rockstar up on the counter. Since I couldn't get one anywhere else, I'd asked one of the clerks to get me a case through their distributor. Said she couldn't promise, but would talk to the manager; and to check back on Thursday. Today being Tuesday, I wasn't expecting it. Also wasn't expecting to be recognized by name and sight by a totally different clerk.
I was so pathetic that the universe felt the need to cheer me up with dangerous amounts of caffeine and tartaric acid. I'm not sure whether to be flattered or ashamed...
Also got to handle a SPAS-12 tonight. I can tell you why they quit making them. Most complicated fucking shotgun I've ever touched. Damned thing almost requires three hands just to get the action open.
Handled a SPAS-12 myself, agree wholly that it's waaay too complicated and the folding stock model is ooogly.
ReplyDeleteAs for the rockstar windfall - consider it a bit of karmic compensation for dealing with your nexus PM's without going on a rampage, and soldier on. :D
I guess I had the wrong impression about the Franchi guns.
ReplyDeleteI owned a Benelli M4 for several months last year, and it was the very definition of sleek and user friendly.
At first glance, I thought that's what the SPAS was - an M4 that someone had put some weird aftermarket handguard on (it had a fixed pistolgrip stock, and wasn't one of those folding jobs you always see in the movies). Picked it up and wow. The SPAS is the very antithesis of the M4. There's nothing user friendly about it whatsoever.
And Karma, huh? Well, assuming what I've read of karma to be true, I should have a hell of a backlog of good stuff built up, awaiting opportunities to happen to me. (which is an admittedly roundabout manner of saying I don't actually believe in any balancing force on a cosmic scale)
When I tell people my beliefs on karmic fate they tend to argue that it can't possibly work the way I believe it does. They claim it's like good and evil or a god and a devil; if you believe in one you have no choice but to believe in the other. However, contrary to my generally cheerful and sunny demeanor, I don't believe there's such a force as "good karma"... just bad karma. I've done enough disreputable acts in the past to tell you from experience they will ALWAYS come back to "bite you in the ass", if not sooner then most assuredly later. Yet if I do good deeds I'm not showered with exponential wealth and good fortune... I'm just allowed to continue to exist without the "ass-biting". THAT is the way karma works.
ReplyDeleteSorry... I don't know where that came from. I'm going to go find some pictures of rainbows and unicorns to look at...
eh, karma doesn't work like that on the "good side" You can't go around doing "good things" for the sole purpose on banking on getting a 1:1 exchange back. But on the bad side, yeah, it'll come home to bite you in the butt fast. Karma is a bitch. Good karmic rewards get parceled out in drips and dribbles. Bad karma tends to hit like a Mack truck. :|
ReplyDeleteWell, granted I'm a cynic on a scale that could shatter small planets... but as I recall my metaphysical meanderings of years ago, the actual Hindu concept of "karma" is not "you get good stuff for doing good". It is, as I said, a balancing force on a cosmic scale.
ReplyDeleteLots of good happened to you last week? Have a flat tire in a flash flood.
Not so much a reward as the universe beating you down into line.
That said, I don't personally believe in it. I choose to believe that life just sucks no matter how you slice it, and managing to steal something good now and again is the only way we manage to feel a sense of accomplishment or joy.
But then, I've always been a rather morose person...