...Really?

You gotta always love those moments in life where you just have to go "... really?"

You know...the moments where someone does or says something that makes you look around to check and make sure that 1. everyone just saw/heard the same thing you just did and 2. that they're having a hard time believing it as well...

There's also the ones that aren't as mind blowing but that are just...annoying. irritating. Unnecessary.

I'd like to share some of my recent "...really?" moments :


1. This is a pretty common one but it bothers me more than is warranted:
Someone sends an fyi email at work- an update on a situation or whatever. and two or three people feel the need to hit "reply all" and say " thanks!" or "got it" or whatever. Seriously?? the whole office does not need to thirty emails a day that say one or two words and that have nothing to with them. My personal favorite is when it goes on even longer than that. Example. A co-worker emailed a bunch of us asking for someone to cover something for her. Someone hit reply all to say they'd do it (that's understandable because now we all know it's covered.) But then we all got 4 or 5 more "reply all" emails as they worked out the details. ...really?


2. So that one is kind of dumb but here's one that's far more serious.
As many of you know I work for a domestic violence and sexual assault agency called Voices Against Violence. I'm specifically their rape crisis counselor but most of our clients primarily identify with domestic violence over sexual assault so I do both. This week I took a client to court. She has a baby with her perpetrator and she'd had a year long restraining order against him for herself, but not their daughter who he was still allowed to have visits with. However recently there'd been a lot of evidence that he was being abusive to their daughter as well ( who, by the way, is officially the fattest, cutest, little ball of baby pudge I've ever seen in my life. 22 months old and has to weigh like half of what I do.) So we were going to court to hopefully revise the visitation so that his visits had to be supervised. This whole event led to several "...really?' moments.

First of all, both the father and the court were being ridiculously difficult. First there had been an entirely different court date that he claimed to know nothing about ( despite the fact that she'd told him several times). The court then decided that since they didn't have an address for him and he refused to give one that it was HER job to serve him the papers to appear. That's right. This little 18 year old girl, who had a year long restraining order on this guy that expired 1 week ago is supposed to SERVE this guy papers stating that she's claiming he's abusing their daughter and she's taking him to court. Oh, and they suggest that she do this when she's meeting him to give him her daughter for a visit. So get him good and mad JUST as he's taking your 22 month old daughter. ...really?

So the poor thing is brave enough to serve him. We get to court. and the woman we have to register with says that it has to have a sheriff's signature saying he was served ( ...but a sheriff didn't serve him...). When I pushed it, she says that if he's willing to sign it stating he received the papers, and IF he has ID and IF she can find a notary we can go forward. But, she says, if he wants to claim he was never served he can do that. So she basically GIVES him the idea to lie. .......really?

Now this punk kid is STANDING there....AT his court date. Meaning he knew when and where to come. And not only that, he's HOLDING the copy of the papers in his hands. Where else would he have gotten them? As soon as this woman says he can claim he never got them, he puts the papers behind his back ( if they can't see them, they're not there....) and says " She never gave it to me" ........really?

So I say " she never gave you what?" and the kid (as I was hoping he'd be dense enough to do) pulls the papers out from behind his back and says "the papers. She never gave them to me." .......really?

SoI ask him where he got them then and he gets all flustered and I just have the kid on the ropes when the stupid registry woman says "well he still doesn't have to sign it if he doesn't want to." ...are yous till talking??? So I give him my teacher/mom look...the classic "you-will-do-what-I-say-or-something-unspeakable-will-befall-you" look and say " are you seriously going to drag this process out longer? Sign the paper. Or we'll all just have to come back yet again because we're not dropping this." So he shows TWO forms of ID...to a friggin' notary...and reads this like..three lined document over for about 30 minutes he finally signs it and we're allowed to proceed. ...really?

Believe it or not...it gets better...

So because they were trying to settle it without appearing before a judge they met with a probation officer first. Since the restraining order is no longer in effect I wasn't allowed to go in with her. But she comes out and tells me that the father took the opportunity to ask to be awarded 10 more hours of visitation per week. Not only was this not the forum for that, but we'd all DRAGGED ourselves down there in the first place to determine if he was even going to be ALLOWED to see his daughter without supervision. And he decides that NOW would be a good time to ask for more visit hours........really?

3. A lighter one: A couple of months ago my boyfriend and I went out to dinner. As we were waiting to be seated a man came out who had just finished eating and was leaving. As he passed the hostess station, without slowing down or missing a beat, he sticks his whole, rather large, hand into the dish of after-dinner mints, and pulls out such a large handful that he has to use both of his hands to contain it, and then continues to walk out without so much as batting an eyelash. I almost peed my pants I was laughing so hard. I mean...really?

4. People who use the break down lane as their own personal fast lane during rush hour. ...really?

5. An honest to goodness line from a resume (and no I didn't get this from a website or something) " I have been passionately thinking about volunteering for the last 10 years." ....really?

6. So. y'all know about my cat, Max. Because I seem to believe that he is actually my child, and in order to keep him very healthy and me free of huge vet bills, I buy him rather expensive cat food. If you buy it in the super large bags it's not that much more expensive and keeps him healthy. I used to feed him "Science Diet", but then once after he spent some time with my parents whose cats eat an even slightly more expensive and healthy brand called "Blue", my mom mentioned that he had really liked it and I might want to consider switching him to that. Well, boy was she not kidding. I purchased a huge 15 lb bag of it but was continuing to feed him the science diet until I ran out. Without any front claws, so all with his teeth, that punk ripped around the entire circumference of the bag to get to the blue food. and I didn't realize it until i went to pick it up one day and this 35 dollar bag of food went EVERYWHERE...really Max?

Since then he's been on the Blue and I'd tried to keep the bag out of his line of vision and we'd had no further problems. Until recently. One day I apparently didn't leave him enough food and he ran out before I got home ( before you feel sorry for him, please realize that he's a little piggy and already eats way too much.) He found the bag of food and started to rip it open again. So I put it up on a shelf , put a bag around it, and put a towel over it. In the middle of the night I heard him getting into it again, so I re wrapped it all up, and wrapped the entire bag with three blankets. Wrapped- not just laid the blankets over, but wrapped all the way around so the weight of the bag was holding the blankets in place. I woke up to find that he had somehow managed the get it unwrapped from three blankets, had bitten through the bag and had chewed a huge gaping hole in bag of food as well. Now only if I could get him doing all this on tape I could sell it to "Blue" and it could be a commerical showing what a cat will do to get their food...

Oh. And by the way...his bowl of food? Totally full.

...really?

The Parable of the bed sheets

So I'm about to admit something that I probably shouldn’t tell ANYONE....but we all know by now that I'm an idiot, so really....I might as well continue in my self-incrimination....


I had a full sized mattress/bed. And then (long story) I ended up with a queen sized. For free, no less. That's my kind of deal.


Now...here's the thing I shouldn't admit....for SOME reason, I had it in my head that full and queen sized sheets were the same. Yeah. I know. I have no idea why I thought that made sense. I still swear I've seen on some kind of packaging the words "Full/Queen" and I thought it had been on sheets. I figured that they were pretty close, and that on full sized mattresses they were a little loose, and then on queen sized they were tighter....or something. Truly, my logic didn't go very far. Clearly, I hadn't thought it through.


So. I set up my new bed, completely on my own by the way. (that's right, I moved a full sized box spring and mattress out of my room, and moved a queen sized box spring and mattress into my room all by myself. Leave your messages about stubbornness and stupidity at the tone..... *beeeeeeeep*)


Believe it or not, that was the EASY part. I then proceeded to try and put my full sized sheets....on my queen sized bed. In retrospect, I REALLY REALLY wish that I had a video of it. I think that was the best work out I'd had in A WHILE.... For some reason, it took quite some time to sink in. I kept thinking that I had the sheet placed wrong, and would turn it 90 degrees in the hopes that I had just done it wrong....but (obviously) to no avail. Now most people at that point would have admitted defeat and realized that they needed to get different sized sheet. But I am not most people. I am Ashlie Stitt. I live to make a complete fool of myself.


I'm sure those of you with active imaginations can picture me flying all over my room...hitting the wall...falling off the bed....etc. I don't need to report that this did NOT end well. Again, a You-tube video of this event would've been a BIG hit. I wound up lying on my sheet-less bed, sweaty, out of breath and utterly defeated.


Then, and only then, did I call my mom and say "hey....are full and queen sized sheets NOT the same thing???"


Now that I probably have you laughing hysterically at my expense, allow me the metaphoric moment:
This made me thing about all the times in my life that I really thought I knew what I was talking about, or I really thought I knew what was best. I would be so intent to make something work- just so incredibly sure that I could make something I wanted, happen. I just had to want it bad enough. And be willing to get a little sweaty...and bruised...


And all the time Heavenly Father was watching me try to force a full size sheet onto a queen sized bed, shaking his head, thinking, " Good grief, Miss Ashlie, when will you learn??"

I'd also like to point out that, other than making me stupid, thinking that the full and queen sized sheets were the same thing was actually NOT the problem. The problem was that I waited until I'd declared war on my mattress to actually call and ask the simple, and at that point, already answered question. Yes, I'd still look like an idiot, but at least I wouldn't be an idiot covered in sweat.


It was a great reminder to myself to not force things. And to be willing to concede that I might now know what is best. I should just let it ride and have some trust. And buy some queen sized sheets. :)

ooookay....

Okay wow.



So I have started a bunch of blog entries...and not QUITE finished them....and it's just stupid. So I'm about to post a couple in a row.



The first one- " In the service of love" was written in October



the second one-"the parable of the bed sheets"- was written in November.

and there will be another coming soon... :)