B!TC# IT OUT!

[Mermaid Stark]

I didn't.
I yelled "do NOT bend it that much!!" and he gave me that disbelieving "geez, hysterical girl, sheesh"-look.
Some people just lack any kind of sensitivity.

I had a friend once who ruined my laptop's keyboard by hammering the keys like he wanted them to come off despite my entreaties to press them like a normal person.
He just said, "what's the problem? just buy another keyboard, geez. No need to fuss about an object lol!"
(note: we're no longer friends )

So...I'm kinda touchy when others mishandle my stuff. grrr....

WHAT?!... WHAT?!
Oh my God! I literally screamed at my computer while reading that. I would have punched him in the face! Kudos to you for holding back, Caltuna! Yeah, I agree, you should definitely contact someone about that. That is NOT right.
I hate it when people do that to your stuff! You should have made him buy you another one! You break it, you buy it.

[Mermaid Varshana]

I swear to the universe, all the money issues we seem to run into while living in Akron are going to end up taking decades off my life, killing me sometime before I turn 60. I hate being the chief money manager in our marriage. The idea of starting a family after this gives me hives.

[Mermaid Nerinae]

My turn to let it out:

After I'd gotten my monofin, my husband and I made an early-morning trip to Lowe's to get the supplies for extending and modifying it. All-in-all, it was about $40 worth of supplies. Good haul, I thought, I'd have enough to make my fluke and have extra left over for stabilizing fins, etc.

When I go to do everything, today, I work to do all the measurements on my fluke, cut the shape out, and cut an additional shape out of the sheeting for some stabilizing and support of the fluke (I don't want it super floppy, but I don't want a stiff fluke, either) and get up to go over to my collection of supplies so I can bolt the extensions onto my monofin and... They aren't there. :|

My husband and I recently did an overhaul cleaning of the apartment, but I'd asked to keep all of my mermaiding supplies and tools in their bags in a neat little corner by the lizard's terrarium. All of the other bags are there, but not the Lowe's bag with my modding supplies. Sigh. So, now, what I thought I was going to have done today and cured tomorrow will now have to wait about five more days to even go buy more supplies, and money is still tight.

I'm so frustrated right now because that's $40 worth of tiny little screws and washers and glue and clamps, etc, that I have to re-buy all over again and hadn't even been able to use ONCE!

[Mermaid Kalliope]

Financial problems that cause you to lose your things in your storage unit and feeling backed into a corner with practically no options.

[AniaR]

I think we need to all bitch about money in general. lol. money problems suck

[Marlin]

I think we need to all bitch about money in general. lol. money problems suck

I fully second this!

[Merrow Erie]

Blerg. I used to work at Gamestop and they hired some girl who was bent on letting everyone know
that she loooooved videogames.

First of all, this entire thread is hilarious. As for this girl in question, she definitely stretched it too far. I'm heavy into gaming, and getting challenged for 'credibility' is a huge slap to the face. Maybe she wants to beat the critics to the punch, or maybe she's just an attention-seeking whore.

Either way, when it comes to gaming, having ovaries automatically means you're lying or you suck at it.

[Mermaid Lilium]

I think we need to all bitch about money in general. lol. money problems suck

aye but we just stole the head of your national bank, to run the Bank of England :')

[SeaGlass Siren]

@loner: Unless you're Celeste, female Canadian pro gamer, AND crowned first season king of the nerds.

[Mermaid Isabela]

Okay. I really don't rant but... Here it goes...!

This weekend, on Saturday, was my very first public event. The Pirate Invasion of Belmont Pier. Everything turned out so very smoothly! Or so I thought. While I was greeting many kids on the shore; a family walks up to me, ( Mom, grandma, two girls, and a boy). They all seemed fine, and they were extremely cute kids. They boy was playing with, what I thought was a toy sword. He was swinging it around, and slashing at the air, at one point, I notice that the blade did an extremely clean cut in the sand. ( Seriously, it made the sand look like butter! ) That's when I noticed that these parents had given their children a REAL sword to play with! WHO DOES THAT!? THE KIDS WERE NO OLDER THAN 6 YEARS OLD!!

I made a point to tell them to be careful with it. But, the kids didn't listen to me, and their parents weren't paying any attention to them at all. I kept most of the other children on the opposite side of the siblings with the sword. ( Rowdy kids and sharp objects? No thanks! ) It wasn't my responsibility, but I did NOT want to see a child get hurt!

And this is when it gets ugly. At some point, one of the girls got a hold of the sword. And she began stabbing it on the ground RIGHT next to me. She swung it a few times too! I told her to move back if she was going to play with it and luckily she did. But, apparently not enough. Shortly after, a canon went off, and most of the kids got scared. So, to make it fun, I lifted my hands and went "Boom!" Which seemed to calm them down... But as my hand was going upwards, I KNEW exactly what had happened. The girl had swung her sword at me at the exact moment, and I felt my finger being cut... I honestly started freaking out internally, but I kept it calm, since I didn't want the other kids to get scared....

I rolled my hand into a fist while it was up in the air, and brought it down, and dug it in the sand and waited for the majority of the kids to fade away. I called my friend over, and calmly explained what had happened. At this point, I hadn't seen the damage the sword had done to my finger, but once my friend brought out a towel... well.. we kind of both freaked out... My WHOLE HAND, was COVERED in pools of blood. The sand next to me was drenched, and the waves were washing off a trail of blood, my tail, sash and belts, had blood in it. It was very gruesome! I'm guessing the family noticed what had happened because me and my friend didn't see them at ALL after that ( And we stayed for four more hours! ).... I didn't need stitches.. luckily... And I'm glad it happened to me, and not another child... But.. I could have lost a finger... or worse!!!

WHO THE HECK GIVES THEIR KIDS A REAL SWORD TO PLAY WITH!? WHAT THE HECK!? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!

[MerEmma]

OH MY GOD. WHAT? What the hell happened? I mean, I'm COMPLETELY with you there...wtf? I hate to curse but just, damn, I am just...dumbfounded. I was afraid while reading that he slashed through your tail but gosh, a finger is worse...damnit, I'm so sorry that happened!

[SeaGlass Siren]

Oh my god Isabella!! Are u ok? You didn't get an infection??

[Ashe]

Wtf Isabella? What is wrong with those parents?! And why the hell did they do nothing about it afterwards???? I am so sorry, I really hope it gets better soon! <3

[Mermaid Isabela]

A lot of people were saying that. "They could have stabbed your tail!" Lol! The thought never occurred to me. My main priority was to keep the other children away from them, and I guess I forgot about myself in the process. I'm guessing the parents ran away to avoid any confrontation/lawsuit etc. After the whole ordeal I washed it and treated it well, so it didn't get infected. I'm not in pain or anything... I'm just baffled by some parents... Honestly...

[Echidna]

WHAA?!

That's just...incredible.
(wow, all our other rants suddenly sound petty lol)

Somebody (security there? lifeguards? anyone?) should have taken that thing away asap.
It's as much a weapon as a gun.
Would they have allowed someone with a gun there?
I'm speechless, really.

You should sue them.
The guys who gave their kid the weapon owe you recompensation at the very least, since you were hurt.
That they just left makes them equal to the perpetrator of a hit-and-run accident.

[Mermaid Isabela]

Well that's the thing... My friend / mertender was going to talk to them, or point them out to security. But no one saw them after that... So we deduced that they DID realized what happened, and to avoid charges or confrontation, they booked it out of the beach..

[AniaR]

yeah I have had many situations at public events where parents do not watch their kids. You don't have to be accommodating, you can throw on the teacher voice and tell them exactly where to go. And if the folks don't like it, you can direct them to the manager is security. I once had a gig where I was left on a tarp in the pouring rain with a class of junior high kids. The teachers were off chatting and the kids were going nuts and finally I had to scream for one of the teachers. As a teacher myself, and having been also injured as a result of the kids, I was mad enough to not care what happened from putting a few clear boundaries down. I told them if they weren't going to actively supervise their students they had to leave my tent, as I clearly, couldn't move from my spot and was not responsible for watching them or behaviour management.

[Mermaid Isabela]

I used to be an elementary school teacher's aid, so I basically used my "teacher voice" to tell the girl that she should not play so close to us with a sharp object. I guess it was my fault too, for not paying so close attention to her. Though, live and learn.

[deepblue]

As a parent, I can see why you did what you did, you saved a number of innocent little eyes from possible trauma. At the same time, a kid behaving like that makes me think there's very little parental guidance of the intelligent kind going on, so I hope that somehow, that child and her parent saw at least the blood. Something has to shock people like that into reality. Such an injury could have been so much worse, I shudder to think of it.

Absolutely unbelievable the way some people parent. GRRR.

[Little_Orca]

I am so tired of being depressed. I am tired of feeling worthless and trapped by factors that I cannot seem to change. I don't want to be me anymore and I am powerless to change anything about it. I don't want to be this disgusting blob of a person whose only existence so far is to help other people and inspire other people while I continue to die inside and turn into a husk of a person with some permanent dolphin smile to keep those around my blissfully unaware of my suffering.