Why I flip the radio station when they start talking.

     I heard something on the other day on the radio that reminded me why I dislike 95% of all radio personality. I was listening to the radio and the DJ/Host came on talking about a jury verdict in a case where a man sued the Royals after he suffered a detached retina from getting hit in the eye by a hot dog thrown by the team mascot. Apparently the jury found against the plaintiff and the host found the whole thing joke worthy. All I could think is laughs at someone getting a torn retina...how is that funny...and how is the fact that he has had suffer the cost on top of the injury funny. Maybe it's me, maybe I just don't have a sense of humor.

     The whole thing reminded me of a things in the past that had me turning off the radio or changing the station every time they started talking. One of those things was the infamous McDonald's coffee case, the never ending jokes and gross misrepresentation of the facts kept me entrenched in my CDs for ages. Even now when I hear a comment or joke about that case my esteem for the speaker plummets and I change the station. So few of those who talked/joked most about it took the time to educate themselves about it.

   Another incident happened while I was in college in Kearney Nebraska, a high school girl was abducted from the local mall. It was talked about constantly by local TV and radio, the girl was instrumental in her own rescue. She managed to leave clues and sneak phone calls to her family and police. When she finally returned home she declined to answer questions, the radio personalities turned on her. They talked about how she "owed" them an interview, they had (in their overly inflated opinion) kept her story in the lime light, and now, according to them, she owed them. It was revolting and after that I kept the radio off for months.

   Over the years there has been plenty of other things to give me pause...homophobic comments...jokes made at the expense of people or groups. Personally with the exception of a few radio personalities the whole lot of them could be replace by a computer personality. However, as that is not likely to happen anytime soon I will just continue to change the station when they start talking or listen to my CDs.

Eczema is the new evil word in my household!

So my daughter has had what I thought was a diaper rash for nearly four weeks now. For the first two weeks I treated it with over the counter product. It would get better for a little bit but then get really bad again until her skin was cracked and pealing. I provided the daycare with Pampers brand diapers and again there was improvement. After two weeks I took her to the pediatrician who prescribed an oral medication and special Butte Paste. Again there was improvement but not enough. After giving her the medication for the two weeks it was prescribed her skin was still peeling and cracking. And to make it worse she was scratching at it. So I took her to a dermatologist, turns out that she had a diaper rash and it caused the eczema to flair up. I knew there was a chance she would have eczema, her “dad” had it, she had some signs when she was smaller but the pediatrician said it was just baby eczema and she would grow out of it.

Doesn't look like she is going to just grow out of it. :-( So now we have a prescription for a steroid cream and have begun a round of testing what products will be right for her. I am determined to make her as comfortable as possible. I am also determined that my child will not run around scratching her skin off. For now I have trimmed back her nails and dress her so she can’t scratch…I am thinking a nice pair of fuzzy-silky gloves.

UPDATE: Between medical treatment and potty training we managed to get the Eczema cleared up and have not had a relapse!

Confessional: Giving Karma a Helping Hand

     Everyone has done something in their life, at one time or another, that probably wasn’t very nice but they for whatever reason don’t regret. Perhaps the most devious, possibly wicked, thing I have ever done was get a coworker evicted from his apartment…terrible I know but he deserved it.

     I had a coworker who was a real jerk. Even though we had the same job description and duties, he never did his share of the work. I was always cleaning up his messes. He took all sorts of smoke breaks and conversation breaks, he was a slacker and he got away with it because him mother was friends with our supervisor. I put up with all of this and more without ever complaining to the supervisor.

     He had recently moved out of his parents’ home and gotten a dog. He was constantly bragging about how he had a no pets lease but was keeping the dog in the apartment. The one time he nearly got caught he lied and told them he was dog sitting. He was so smug that he got away with it and thought he was above rules. He bragged that the dog was tearing up the apartment, peeing everywhere, and even had fleas. But what did he care he was above the rules.

     Mind you I never would have done what I ended up doing it if it weren’t for the fact that he verbally attacked me several times and made it personal. I didn’t feel my direct supervisor would do anything because of her friendship with his mother. So when I noticed one day that he left a bill on his desk I copied down the address. About a week later I made up an excuse to ask him the name of the management company and he freely gave it to me. I went back and forth about what I would do with the information until about a week before I left that job. He got particularly ugly with me one day and that sealed the deal. I wrote a letter to his landlord letting them know about the dog and his willingness to lie. I found out a week after I left my job that he had been evicted. To this day I can’t help but smile when I think about it. He deserved what he got; I just gave Karma a helping hand to speed the process up. I also found out he eventually got himself fired…I smiled at that as well.

     Life lesson don’t mess with someone who’s smarter that you are.