Do you know, it is very hard to complain about asking for advice and getting The Wrong Kind, for free, and with no real negative consequences—but I’m going to do it anyway. [Swistle from the Future sez: “This sentence is ridiculous. What refers to what here? Is it hard to complain for free and with no negative consequences? Because that’s how the sentence reads.” Swistle from the Past: “Meh. I don’t see an easy fix. They’ll figure it out.”]
Here is what happened. My town has a Facebook page for residents. I need to buy three particular related items, and I need them for tomorrow, so I asked on the local Facebook page if anyone had seen any of the items in a local store and specified that I needed to buy them today; I mentioned the one local store where I’d already looked. Of the twelve answers:
• Five suggested I look online
• Four made guesses of stores where they hadn’t seen the items
• One suggested a store two hours away that “might” have them
• One told me the manufacturer of the items
• One suggested the specific store I had specifically mentioned in my question
• One speculated the items would be hard to find
• Three, and three only, mentioned stores where they had seen one or more of the items
(Those don’t add up to twelve, because some comments did several things.) Out of twelve answers, THREE answered the question I asked. (Though I went to the store two of them mentioned, and the store no longer has the items. And the other mentioned a store 40 minutes away that has only one of the three items. But I’m counting all of those as successful answers, because they answered what I’d asked.)
It’s not like it ruined my life or anything: clearly I can just IGNORE the useless answers, at no real personal cost. And I’m certain I’ve accidentally “answered” questions in this way MYSELF, because I have CAUGHT MYSELF DOING IT—and who KNOWS how many times I DIDN’T catch it. But it’s exasperating to ask a question and get non-answers to it—and not an INTERESTING question, where even discussion that didn’t answer the question per se would still be interesting, but just a specific, factual, boring, “What retail establishment carries this product?” question. It makes me feel as if I have to be super-super insultingly specific before I ask. Like, “I need these three items, and I need them today and I don’t want to pay whatever it would cost to have an online place ship them to me by tomorrow morning, so I am looking for a local store that has them. This store should be within reasonable driving distance, which I’d define as ‘half an hour away.’ I would like to know if you have, with your own eyes, seen these actual items I am asking about, in a store that meets the qualifications I just mentioned. WITH YOUR OWN EYES. I’m not asking you to research this for me, or to make a list of Stores That Exist In Our Town, or to give me more information about the products I’m looking for, or to discuss the products in general; I ONLY want to know if you have ALREADY found them.”
So there is my Small Complaint About Something Small for today.
On to salads! I tried another really good one. I based it loosely on the Spicy Chicken Caesar Salad that Paul had at Wendy’s the other day. Very, very loosely—like, just used the “spicy chicken” and “Caesar” words.
I started again with a lot of mixed spring greens. I added some shredded cheddar because I didn’t have whatever that pretty white shaved cheese is that Wendy’s used. Then tomatoes, and sunflower seeds because those were so amazing in the other salad and I’m not sure I ever want to eat a salad without them again, and some leftover chicken/herb-flavored couscous, and Caesar dressing. Meanwhile, I cooked five Tyson boneless buffalo wings in the toaster oven, then cut each one into nine pieces and put them on top. YUM.
yum! I think you’ve inspired me to get back on the salad train as I read this post while eating a somewhat greek/nicoise salad of: rocket, grape tomatoes, diced cucumber, thinly sliced raw zucchini, chopped fresh parsley, a bit of red onion, a few kalamata olives, a bit of feta, lemon juice, olive oil and 1/2 a tin of tuna. Oh plus a dash of dried oregano to up the greek theme. and your mention of sunflower seeds reminded me I should put hemp hearts on it so i just got up, did that, and returned. And yes, totally you. Not the hot summer weather or anything :-)
Also, I TOTALLY get annoyed at similar advice you do, even though I also catch myself being completely guilty of it. In person or online, it always appears to me to be a “I just like hearing myself talk” type scenario without thinking whether or not your voice ADDS to the conversation.
I’m not sure I’ve ever got a useful response out of Facebook. All my friends are such sarcastic a-holes (and I mean that in the most loving way possible) that all I get are a bunch of one-liners and personal jabs. Sigh. Thanks guys.
If you’re still taking salad suggestions, here’s my fave! Spinach, smoked turkey (I just buy smoked turkey sandwich meat and slice it up), strawberries, walnuts, and blue cheese crumbles. I top it with store bought raspberry vinaigrette (any brand is tasty, I use Annie’s Organic because I’m a hippy like that. Although not hippy enough to make my own dressing, apparently.) Sometimes I add grapes, blueberries, and arugula too, depending on what I’ve got on hand. Super tasty and perfect for a warm summer day!
That’s like reviews that say, “I just received [item] and haven’t used it yet, so I don’t know if it’s good.”
Makes me insane. You don’t HAVE to say anything if you don’t have anything to say!
You and your salads are an inspiration, though!
OK but it IS exasperating! If you don’t have anything useful to say, just move on by! Come on now!
OH MAN IT’S LIKE WHEN I HAD THAT WHOLE THING WITH PRETEND SWISTLE. http://temerity-jane.com/life/bunshole-uses-of-well-thats-what-you-get/
Ha ha! I forgot about that! And the funny thing is, as I was composing the post in my head, I kept thinking, “This is the sort of thing Temerity Jane would write about funnier and then I could comment ‘YES’.”
Also: LOOK AT TINY 2-YEAR-OLD PENELOPE
As soon as I read this I thought, “I think Kelly wrote about this.” ahahaha
Oh jeez…do people even COMPREHEND what you’ve written? (In my experience, the answer is always NO!)
And sunflower seeds on salad? Yes. Always!
What were you buying? Because now all I can do is rack my brain for three related things I might need by tomorrow, but which might not be in the store.
Soccer cleats, knee socks, and a ball?
Party plates, tablecloth, and utensils in a specific color?
A snowblower, shovel, and rock salt?
This may be an after effect of getting up at 4:30 am with DS, who insisted it was day time. Sigh.
I believe the hyper-specific request is a fantastic idea! :) I especially love the “You have seen it WITH YOUR OWN EYES.”
And now I want salad.
I feel like even with that kind of hyper specific request, you’d still get people saying ‘I haven’t seen it MYSELF but my BFF/Aunt/brother/kid I babysit thinks that you might be able to find one in this store which is only 3 hours drive away.’
Here is my suggestion: phone the places that people said may have the items but they didn’t know for sure. It’s so much faster to eliminate/home in on options that way instead of driving all over creation chasing the rumour of, oh, a specific set of Skylander Trap Team crystals which turn out to be out of stock in the entire city. Just to give a random, theoretical example.