Legal Quandary

Thursday, March 03, 2005

GET to Know Me!*

Alt Title: Why I am the Way I Am.

Recognizing that I only wrote one lame little self-depreciating post yesterday, I feel like I owe you all something. Since I wrote 2 days ago about my frustrations with my father, I thought I'd highlight some of the reasons why "nothing in my family is easy." This also offers some insight into why my kitchen cabinets and pantry are the way they are. Can you imagine the fun of being a child in this house?


Some of my dad's little foibles:



  • He tracks his currency by serial number. He lived in Europe for 10 years and did this for D-marks (and later Euros) and Dollars. I think I might be partially responsible for this since I went through a period in Jr. High where I routinely occasionally took money from my parents. (What kid doesn't - and hey - they didn't give me an allowance! Not that it makes it right. Nor does it change the fact that EC would be soooo grounded if I ever caught her doing this.) Every morning, he prints out a list of the serial numbers of the currency he's taking with him wherever he's going, broken down by denomination. As he spends it, he crosses off the bills he hands over and writes down the serial numbers of the bills he gets as change. Obviously, coins don't get tracked like this, but he does write down what coins he gets in return.
  • We clipped coupons while I was growing up - something I still do because I am cheap like that. The part of the process I have dispensed with, however, is filing the coupons by 12 digit UPC - you know, the little bar code on every product. So, in my parent's house, if you had coupons for, say, Campbell's soup, you would have to file it under 005100. Of course, every Campbell's product has another 6 digits (5 are the product code, 1 is the check code). You'd want to file those numerically within the brand code. If you're interested in knowing more about this (I can't imagine why), go can look it up here.
  • After we went grocery shopping, every item had to be stamped with the date it was purchased, entered into the computer inventory (yes, even when we only had an Apple 2+, we had a computerized inventory - by UPC), and then put on the shelf, newest items in the back.
  • All automobiles have a logbook for tracking mileage. To this day, whenever I drive one of my parents' vehicles, I have to write down when I leave one location, when I arrive at another location, and what the mileage is on the vehicle. Locations are recorded by zip code/Postleitzahl (plus house number if there are multiple places you go in one zip code), and all times are recorded in Greenwich Mean Time. Go here to figure it out.


Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder anyone? Being a total control freak provides fun and entertainment for your kids' entire lives!


* Any resemblance to the title of a Jon Lovitz SNL skit is purely intentional.

Comments:
Um, the only thing I can say is "Holy fucking shit!" Your dad apparently puts every other OCD to shame.

And I don't know what Jon Lovitz skit you're talking about, so maybe I'm just a moron.
 
Holy fucking shit is right! And, here I was feeling sorry for my kids because of their father's foibles!
 
"The national budget is so complicated, you have to be a genius to understand it. You also have to be important, famous and successful. You say you're none of these? Well, then, I have one piece of advice for you - Get to know me! Get to know my likes, my dislikes. What makes me tick? What makes me me? What's my favorite color? Do I always come to life in the Spring? Get to know me! Now, here's a letter from a man who lives in Manhatten: "Dear Jon, before I got to know you, I was nothing, nowhere, nobody. I didn't have a cent to my name. In fact, I didn't have a name - I couldn't afford one. And then I got to know you, and today they call me Donald Trump!" Get to know me! What do I do in my spare time? Have I always had this much hair? Where is my secret freckle? Get to know me! Now, here's a letter from a woman who lives in Europe: "Dear Jon, before I got to know you, I was nothing, nowhere, nobody. I had bad teeth and couldn't afford braces. And then one day, I got to know you. Well, I never got those braces, but today they call me Queen Elizabeth!" Get to know me! Now, here's a letter from someone who didn't get to know me: "Dear Blank, I didn't get to know you, signed Nobody." Now, I know some of you are probably thinking, "What a jerk!" Congratulations! You're getting to know me! So, remember, if you want to get to know me, get to know me!" swiped outright from http://snltranscripts.jt.org/87/87lupdate.phtml, but I think it was a running JL thing.
 
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