And just when you thought it couldn't get dumber...

The dumbest audience yet...I have found them! Well, I have found ad copy *targeting* them. They must be out there, because I saw the following printed on a plastic bag:

"Do not use in playpens, cribs, or strollers."

Excuse me? That's even better than packages of peanuts that say "warning: contains nuts." (If I bought a package of nuts, I sure as hell hope so.) But back to the bag message. Are there really parents that come home clutching said plastic bags and say, "Honey! Great news! I found a cheap way to amuse the baby!", or, "Hey, let's use this plastic bag for Junior, instead of a blanket!" I guess there must be. Or maybe there's a fear of lawsuits? No matter how dumb the person is, they're apparently coherent enough to finding an attorney. Isn't that amazing?

My other new favorite is a sign at Fred Meyer (for those of you outside of the Northwest, it's a grocery/clothing/drug/electronics/every fucking thing you could think buying of store), near the boxes of pumpkins outside:

"Do not roll: Pumpkins Can Be Heavy and Cause Injuries."

I do not want to know what or who inspired that sign. But given the God-awful driving in this state, I'm sure it's someone local.

Even more clever than copy editors

...are the people who work at Washington Mutual, apparently.

Those of you who know me know full well how I *hate* bad customer service. I've experienced plenty of that, and ripped plenty of new assholes, and generally gotten my way.

But I think today is the first time I've experienced illiterate customer service.

Because I am anal retentive about my checkbook, I check (no pun intended) to see when checks are cashed. Today I was surprised to hear that WaMu (as they call themselves) paid my credit card a whopping $1, even though I wrote the check for $100.

The customer service rep (boy, is that a misnomer) told me - and I am not making this up - that "the zeros were really hard to see."

Were they hard to count? Were the words "one hundred and 00/100" really hard to read as well, or was the person who processed the check illiterate?

Never mind the 2+ hours I spent on the phone trying to figure out the situation with WaMu and my credit card company. Never mind the fact that the first rep at my credit card company sounded like she was on crack, and the second was virtually silent and unhelpful. (Thank you, third guy, who actually helped me - I told your manager what a rock star you were and if this had happened while I was single, I'd have practically blown you to show how grateful I was.)

Never mind the extra $80 I spent in the form of an extra payment because WaMu can't get its ass together in time to give the card company the extra $99 before it's too late and all hell breaks loose, at least temporarily, with my APR, fees, etc.

Never mind all that...what I want to know is, how do I get a job where I'm not required to read?

Headlines are for...well, written by, idiots

Anyone who has worked at a newspaper can attest to the fact that most copy editors are 1) arrogant, and 2) dumber than they should be. Basically, they suck. C'mon - who decided that the guys and gals who layout pages are also wordsmiths, and should be in charge of writing the headlines? Someone with a single-digit IQ, clearly (in other words, management.) I've never understood the lure of the copy-editing position. If you're gonna work at a newspaper (e.g., long hours for low pay and little reward), don't you at least want to break stories and write, as opposed to sitting at a machine until the wee hours of the morning?

But I digress.

Mind you, reporters get the brunt of it - calls from livid and insane readers bitching about why "you" wrote a certain stupid or libelous headline...ah, but we WISH we had written the headlines! They'd at least be grammatically correct. And very possibly accurate. But anyway. Here are some recent gems:

Fatal Tour Boat Unsafe (no, really?)

Republicans Want to Turn Over a New Page (I'll bet! You bring the vaseline?)

Priest's Relations With Foley to be Probed (See former comments)

Boring Man Dies in Car Crash (Interesting Man in Hospital)

Back, because I can't shut the hell up

OK - this blog is back up because I'm driving my husband crazy ranting out loud instead of on a computer. But before you get too happy, keep the following things in mind - I'm setting ground rules, if you will.

1. Don't expect me to post daily. There's not enough coffee in the world to induce me to do that.

2. If you are GOP-friendly, this probably isn't the blog for you.

3. Expect lots of ranting here. And I mean LOTS.

OK, everybody! On with the show!