What I want to ask is if you’d feel comfortable letting your daughter sleep over at a house when only the dad was home and not the mom, but I feel like that could devolve into an exhausting “not all men,” “but women also,” “what if it’s a family with two dads,” “here’s a horrifying story you will never get out of your head, as an example supporting why I have the opinion I have” kind of discussion that I am not up for this morning.
It’s on my mind because Elizabeth is going to have a sleepover, and the plans are for a specific date for a reason (that is, the sleepover can’t be moved to a different date), but that’s a specific date I’ll be out of town. Paul is totally up to the task and is in fact better at this kind of thing than I am (he’s already planning to do make-your-own-pizzas for dinner and make cinnamon rolls for breakfast), but I was wondering if other parents would mind if they knew I wouldn’t be home. I’d mind a little. I’d almost certainly still let Elizabeth go, but I’d mind a little.
I am stressed this morning because Elizabeth has a dentist appointment to fix one of two cavities, and they’re going to give her Novocaine, and she hasn’t had that before (except when she had two extractions, but they didn’t give her the Novocaine until she was very very high on nitrous oxide, so she doesn’t even remember it), and I don’t know how much to prep her about it. And I’m so sad for her that she has to get this done, and also that now she has two molars with breached hulls. Also, I’m agitated that they’re having us do this in two appointments. They said it’s that they don’t want her to have to have work done in two quadrants at once, but I personally would HUGELY rather just get this kind of thing over with, and Elizabeth is the same, but I didn’t want to argue, and they didn’t really give me SPACE to argue: they just said, “Okay, so for the first appointment, any particular times/days that are better?” And then they spaced the second appointment a week later, so she’ll have a week to stress about it. And I’m mad because when we were there the last time for a dentist appointment, the dentist WASN’T THERE and they just shrugged it off as if sometimes the dentist just isn’t there when you have an appointment to see him and it’s no big deal and you can just see him next time, and reassuring me that I wouldn’t have to pay for that part of the appointment (WELL CLEARLY I WOULD NOT HAVE TO PAY TO NOT-SEE THE DENTIST), while I was like “WHY DID YOU NOT CALL ME SO I COULD RESCHEDULE??” (but did that part entirely internally), and now Elizabeth has two cavities that are big enough to need Novocaine, so I’m guessing they were present last time and would have been caught if the dentist had BEEN there. And I’m retroactively mad at myself for not being someone who would say “Wait, you’re saying the dentist isn’t here? Let me reschedule, then. We had appointments to see the dentist.” I just have to be such an Easy Patient all the time, even when it makes NO SENSE, and I am no good at dealing with sudden/unexpected things.
And Rob emailed to say oh, by the way, he accidentally shipped shampoo and body wash to our old address, and could I contact the new homeowners and see what can be done about getting those? Which: no, I can’t/won’t. We will take the loss in whatever form it happens (return shipping, the entire cost of the items, whatever). And also: WHY IS HE HAVING SHAMPOO AND BODY WASH SHIPPED INSTEAD OF GOING TO THE STORE??? And he doesn’t have Prime; does this mean he PAID FOR SHIPPING in addition to paying whatever jacked-up price he paid?? And I am seeing him in ONE WEEK: this was SUCH a last-minute shampoo emergency he had to SHIP things? And even if he had deleted our old address and put in our new address, he meant to ship things to his SCHOOL address, so why wasn’t he checking to make sure of THAT?
This is driving me crazy. It feels like there are so many levels of COULD YOU BE MORE ALERT that I need to discuss with him, I don’t even know where to start or how many of them to do. And it’s reminding me intensely of Paul, which is making me much more upset because it makes it harder for me to roll my eyes and say this is just a Kids Are Kind of Dumb But This Is How They Learn thing. Paul is STILL this unalert. He will run out of the little flossers he likes, and instead of putting them on the shopping list he will just get a packet shipped from Amazon. When I say, “Wait, were they cheaper that way or something?,” he shrugs: who knows? who cares? So then I’ll look it up and they’ll be TWICE the price of buying them at Target, AND I was going to Target before the package will arrive, so he could have had them cheaper AND sooner. It is maddening. MADDENING. I AM MADDENED. I AM SO MADDENED THIS MORNING.
I feel extremely maddened right along with you. ESPECIALLY about shipping toiletries hither and yon at greater expense and trouble.
For what it’s worth, I work for a dentist, and we always recommend only numbing one quadrant at a time for cavities too, but we ALWAYS let the patient opt out of that if they only want to make one trip! The patient gets to decide! And when our dentist isn’t here (which is a rarity), we always call the patients to let them know if they would like to reschedule. And frankly, our hygienists are just as good at spotting cavities as the dentists, so usually it’s a non-issue not having the dentist here. So all that to say- you are RIGHT in feeling stressed at the dentist situation!
And I have 4 “men” in my house (a husband and 3 sons), 3/4 of which are completely unalert. And it is MADDENING. Solidarity, sister.
I think the biggest reassurance about Rob that I can offer is that eventually his money will be his own problem and off your radar. I remind myself of this with my own teenagers. I imagine that at some point, they will care about those extra dollars, or not, and it will be entirely on their head if they spent $10 more on their basics than they really had to.
As for Paul, I wonder if there is something about our age that is like a stage all women go through where we are just. SO. DONE. With this crap—dentists who aren’t there, husbands who won’t change, having the same argument again and again. I have noticed a pattern with other women our age. I am looking forward to not being so cheesed off anymore, if that is the case.
I was going to say “I think you just have to give up on Paul” (Project much, Slim? YES I DO), but then I realized that this morning I told my beloved and incompetent spouse that he needs to stop putting sharp things in the pile of stuff in the dish rack.
But with Paul-like situations, I just tell myself letting him throw money away is cheaper than a divorce.
FWIW, my oldest spontaneously told me that he needed to do a better job budgeting this year and to start planning his summer sooner. And he volunteered to pick up his siblings from camp. So maybe shutting up and letting the next generation figure certain things out works? (I feel like I am setting myself up for a spectacular fall now.)
I wonder about the age and being done thing too. I could feel it starting to come on when I turned 40 and now that I’ve turned 50 I am SO OVER people not doing their jobs/being incompetent/not admitting they screwed up/not improving or changing when they screw up etc. I am not sure if this lower simmering background anger is because of my age, because of the current political climate, or both? Regardless, my patience is wearing dangerously thin.
At 70 years old now, I have to agree with you. Having to deal with incompetent people just makes my blood boil….how do they manage to get by in life!!??
I feel this: the SO DONE.
I’ve heard older women label it as, “my give-a-damn is busted.”
I’m 29 and in my age cohort this phenomenon is called “no fucks left to give.”
I would not have a problem with my daughter staying over a friend’s house when only the dad is home- it’s happened many times as my daughter’s best friend’s parents are divorced and the dad allowed more sleepovers. We have gotten to know him well over the years . There is another friend whose mom was always at work on weekends and only dad was home. Wouldn’t bat an eye.
This reminds me of the time I moved (in MAY!) and didn’t pay attention when I shipped the entirety of my children’s Christmas presents to our old address six states away. Thankfully Amazon was willing to repo them and ship them to the correct place. And yet I would still be maddened about the shampoo/flossers just because of the waste of money.
The dentist thing would ABSOLUTELY aggravate me, and yet, as a person who does not get angry until later, I would have probably done exactly what you did, and then been mad about it for months.
I only have sons so I’m not sure how I’d feel about a daughter, but. Here’s a story. Both boys went to a birthday sleepover, and there were lots of boys there, probably ten. The next day I was told that the mom wasn’t there, she’d taken the younger kids to her mom’s house and spent the night over there.
Now, on the one hand, who can blame her. 10 boys all around age 14 spending the night. I mean. BUT. The dad was in charge and he’s…let’s just say he’s a musician in a band and he smokes a lot of pot. Which, fine. And there were lots of boys and honestly, the dad just bought like $100 worth of junk food and just let them do whatever, which is ideal for boys of that age. So it doesn’t matter, there was an adult in the house, but still, I thought it was weird that the mom wasn’t there and I didn’t know. I mean, I would have let them go anyway but still it was strange not to be aware of this fact. But again, boys and they were in the neighbourhood and everyone had their phones so if there was an emergency they could have called.
Also wait, WTF, the dentist wasn’t there for a dentist appointment and no one thought to inform you ahead of time, WTF IS THAT
I KNOW! That has happened at my dentist too, more than once between my kids and me (and my parents, who use the same dentist). Once it was for a medical emergence, but the other times? Who knows? I keep wondering how I go about finding a different dentist that’s as good as the one I have.
I mean, it just makes no sense. “Yes, we knew people were coming in for dentist appointments and there was not going to be a dentist here, but ::shrug::”?
I know you were coming to pick up your new car, but it turns out we sold it and don’t have that model/color in our lot.
I know you have a reservation, but the electricity went out overnight and all the food spoiled. We haven’t gotten new deliveries yet.
I feel you on always being the Easy Patient – which is so frustrating in a case like this: WHERE was your dentist?! WHY didn’t they reschedule?! HOW was there no option given to choose a single appointment?!
And ROB. Omg. Pay attention, dude!!!!
I’d be sufficiently disgusted with the dentist’s whole office to find a new one. I mean that.
I’d be okay with the sleepover, because I know the families she would be staying with. If I had never met them I might feel differently. But I feel like I’d let it go forward.
I agree with everyone who said let your college kids fall on their faces with losing small amounts of money like this. But then I am not the great bargain hunter that other people are, and I can be a little guilty of spending to make my life easier in the short term, too. I pay for a monthly parking pass for work and it’s $100/month. It’s also a couple of blocks away from my office. I have slipped into a habit on bad weather days of paying for a day in the insanely expensive parking garage across the street ($12/day). Why yes I am wasting money. But sometimes it’s really ugly weather out, or I am just not feeling great and the psychological boost of not having the big walk feels worth it. I think your family members get some sort of emotional boost from solving their problem in the moment, with money that they technically don’t need to spend. The maddening part is that you could ask them why they choose this route, but they surely won’t be able to answer you. I raise my glass in solidarity to you with how much suckitude can be entailed in living with other people.
I can understand the parking thing. I personally would probably only do it very rarely, but I’d also suffer for not doing it and hating the trudge to the other parking space. So I get that it can be rewarding to just make that little part of the day easier.
How much is the regular monthly parking pass at Insanely Expensive Garage? If it’s like $170/mo, it might be worth it to simply book that and take the extra cost as mental health investment that you’d otherwise likely spend in total anyway on bad days, but then feel bad about it and also don’t get the nice parking on other days. It saves time out of your day, too. And if the other pass is subsidized by your employer it’s possible that subsidization is something you pay taxes on like it’s extra earnings, thus negating some of the savings that pass gives anyway.
Might not be worth it after all, but is something I’d sit down, do the math on and figure out how much that PITA parking is impacting my days vs. how much it would cost to remedy that.
I like the cut of your jib! I looked into it; they only offer new monthly parking sporadically, and it currently goes for $200/month when it is available. I can’t justify it at this time, but I can forsee that it will be more worth it when I get a little older. I have 9 years left here unless I get a reprieve from the lottery. There is no employer subsidy and never will be; it’s just a cost of doing business to keep the job I have. I might just make it a goal that when I have my daughter through college (5 to 6 years), that garage is MINE.
I only have a son, but I wouldn’t have an issue with a daughter going to a sleepover party at a friend’s house with just a dad there. Particularly if it’s a party, as opposed to just my daughter and his daughter. I wouldn’t even think it was an issue you’d have to tell folks about, but I see that others feel differently.
I am feeling FEELINGS about all of this. 😂
First, I would be fine with a dad-only sleepover. And also I am very clear when we are hosting play dates and sleepovers if I’m not going to be there, just because I think it’s best for parents to have all the info. I wouldn’t fret. Basically because I don’t do sleepovers unless I know the family well and if there were anything outside of my comfort zone I probably wouldn’t be up for a sleepover no matter who was there. WHICH IS NOT IN ANY WAY implying that when a bad thing happens, those hurt should have known something was off. I’m merely saying, that is not an area I expect omniscience from for myself and I would be fine and my kids would have a phone with them, etc. etc.
Secondly, the Amazon sitch. Now, I do have Prime, and I’m not a young adult, but I will say that the ordering would have cheesed me off less than the “you fix my cock up for me” OH HELL NO. I order way more off Amazon Prime than I need to and I surely pay markup for that AND ALSO I have come to a realization in my life that right now, I cannot count on planned shopping trips and lists and the surcharge is worth my being able to act on a need when I have that thought.
As to the whole raising children/living with husbands frustration…sweet baby Jesus. May the Goddesses of Perimenopause guide me through this because my life right now is an endless cycle of rage, heartbreak, and bourbon. And Amazon Prime, I guess. I mean, how often have I cursed my MIL for “letting” my husband get away with x such that he now thinks it’s acceptable?! I have an obligation here to my children’s future spouses!!! And I’m so frikkin’ exhausted with the immediate and the patriarchal bullshit. I also rage at the irony of my selectively, self-servingly blind husband yelling at our kids for doing things half-assed/being careless or unprepared/etc. when HE HIMSELF does those exact things! Please. There is not enough bourbon in the world.
I can’t even BEGIN with the dentist’s office. You’d read about me on the news. I’m so sorry.
Hang in there.
The Goddess of Perimenopause…!! Love it!! You had me chortling through this entire comment. THANK YOU :D
Husbands – ALL THE YES.
I love the whole concept of a Goddess of Perimenopause. I feel like we need household shrines.
So I’m used to seeing it as “cockup” or maybe “cock-up”, so my eyebrows shot up when I read “you fix my cock up for me”!
Yep, priorities…and everyone has what is important to them. With our kids (daughters now 46, 43, 39) it takes them a while to finally figure it out. It WILL happen. Maybe it’s because we wives tend to organize and keep track of everything that it bugs us the most!
Ahhhh, so glad I’m not the only one. I almost always have 2 of important things and all you have to do is tell me “I took one of my extra deodorants so I only have one left” and then I KNOW that I need to keep an eye out for a sale because we’re down to one. Same with shampoo and other toiletries. JUST NOTICE WHEN YOU’RE RUNNING LOW FFS.
I am very aware of the Dad-only thing at sleepovers because I’m sometimes on-call for my job and it’s just Andrew at home. I HATE that it has to be this way (and I DO tell parents when I’m on-call), but he is never alone with one kid – there’s always another or, better yet, 3+ – and our teenage daughters are here, too, as a kind of substitute me, I think. If my young kids were going to a house with just a guy that we didn’t know well, I would go with my gut, but also tell her to never be alone with him. I feel icky writing that, but there it is. With older kids, I don’t worry as much because they have had practice setting boundaries and I think (hope) they’d know what to do in a Situation. Plus, I’ve gotten to know their friends’ dads and don’t see any red flags.
I have been watching these comments roll in with absolutely bated breath because my daughter is too young for sleepovers, so this entire situation had never occured to me and i don’t even know what my own Feelings on it are yet.
Also, screw your dentist. UGH. I’ve switched various medical professionals for that type of reason – even if the doctor is good, if the front of house can’t get their sh*t together it eventually eclipses the benefit of seeing that doctor [rather than a different one] entirely.
Yes to everything that has been said here. One more thought: Doesn’t Amazon give a free Prime account to anyone who signs up with a school email address. Like if you have name@school.edu you can get a free Prime account. Maybe they don’t do that anymore or maybe Rob is using a specific account tied to someone else’s credit/debit card. But. If he has his own account/credit/debit/gift cards, perhaps he should look into getting a free Prime account and fixing his own screw ups.
I believe it’s still true, although i *think* it’s only free for the first 6 months.
I’d be totally fine with the dad-only sleepover (with disclosure), except at the one house where my husband and I both, for no justifiable reason, find the dad kinda creepy, have unfairly shared those concerns with our daughter, and don’t allow sleepovers at all. Going with our guts on that one.
In general, I’m not that into sleepovers where I haven’t at least met the parents, not that I haven’t made exceptions.
Yes! Same here. With the vast majority of my daughters’ friends I’d have no problem at all with a dad-only sleepover (I do like to know which parent is going to be there). There is one particular family (parents divorced) where my husband and I just…had a weird feeling about the dad. Absolutely nothing to back it up but–we didn’t let daughter do sleepovers at the dad’s. (Actually we don’t love the mom’s vibe either and have had to sort of subtly try to extricate daughter from being invited to the mom’s house, and the friendship in general, too, which is just as fun and not-awkward as you might imagine).
My husband orders himself stuff on Amazon all the time (shampoo he likes, deodorant, vitamins, etc) and tbh, me not having to be responsible for his toiletries way, WAY outweighs the extra money that we are probably shelling out. Yes, Target/Costco/Walmart might be cheaper, but then buying his shampoo would become MY responsibility when it is now HIS. I will trade less household responsibility for slightly higher price in a heartbeat.
As for Rob – hahahahahaha, young adult child, if you think I am going to deal with your Amazon order mistake HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Being asked to take care of that would bug me more than the online ordering.
I agree with all of this. Excellent answer. Especially making my husband buy all of his toiletries. That’s just brain power I don’t have anymore.
We have an open house policy, so I often wake up on Sunday morning and find random children sleeping in my house. Some I know, some I’ve never seen before. Teenagers, man.
My son has a friend whose parents are divorced and the mom happened to mention that the dad was physically abusive to his kids. There’s no way I’d let my son sleep at his friend’s dads’ place.
To be honest, I get a weird vibe from the mom too, so would probably discourage sleepovers at her place too. His friend is welcome to sleep at our place, but I’m not so keen on my kids being at their place.
For awhile my son was friends with a boy whose father got caught filming women in change rooms via a camera pointed under the doors. Forget sleepovers, my kid isn’t going to that house for any sort of gathering.
The sleepover thing wouldn’t bother me but if you want to tell the other parents you could present it as a contact info thing and give them Paul’s number in case of emergency. Then they know you won’t be there without it seeming like a big deal.
Oooh. I like this!
Oh, what a good idea. I am going to do this.
I like that, too. Especially because it makes it seem less like Oh, So You Know, It’s Just the Man Does That Bother You and more like, “hey, here’s some useful info that you may not have.” Plus if they do have an issue, they don’t have to be in your face about why they’re changing. They can just discover that they had other plans (or make them and then discover them) or whatever.
I think for me, my sense of my own kid’s personality and my sense of the parents’ personalities/characters would be the main factors deciding whether or not I’d be okay with it being dad-only. I’d want to think that my kid was comfortable with going to the dad if she had a problem and I’d want to feel that the dad was good with handling it in a decent way.
The dad-only sleep over would bother me. However, I’m a little wary of sleepovers in any capacity.
I would switch dentists over something like that especially since most dentists charge you if you miss an appointment. I hate it when people waste my time when it’s completely avoidable.
My husband thankfully doesn’t order from Amazon but he will buy things and I’ll ask him how much he spent and he’ll say he doesn’t know!! How can a person not know? I guess rich people just pick out whatever they want without checking the price but that for sure isn’t us. The other day he brought home a small chunk of cheese that cost almost 10 bucks. We are not in the 10 dollar, cheese buying, income bracket. Put. It. Back. Ugh.
I will add my voice to the minority and say I would not be ok with my daughter going to a sleepover at which the father is the only parent present. I am also somewhat wary of sleepovers in general, so.
For a long time my husband was a stay-at-home dad and we homeschooled. He did all the arranging of playdates, running kids around, etc., so when kids came to our house I was always at work. I always wondered if other moms felt worried about leaving the kids with only him at home, but it never seemed to stop anyone. It would not bother me either, to have my kids sleepover at a place where only dad was home, but of course I’m used to it.
The dentist was…not there? And they thought…that was normal? SMH.
I would feel vaguely wary about only the dad being home for a single kid sleepover EVEN THOUGH MY HUSBAND IS A STAY AT HOME DAD AND I AM BEING A HYPOCRITE. I would not, however, feel bothered if it were a multi-kid sleepover, for whatever reason.
My dentist’s office did that to me once. I don’t mind it in one sense because you’re mostly there for the cleaning. BUT! I was annoyed that they didn’t give me the option of rescheduling. If they’d called and told me he would not be there, I probably would have rescheduled. But I showed up and THEN they told me. I have not switched dentists because it’s only happened the once but if it were a regular thing then I might.
I have a daughter not old enough for sleepovers (what age is that, btw?) but I think I would only be comfortable with dad-only supervision if I knew the family well. I think a bigger group makes it better.
My guideline so far has been whether I feel my daughter is able to handle a frank(ish) discussion of what abuse is and looks like and what she can do about it, as well as if she has the *skills* (e.g., using a phone to call me) to handle it or any other emergency-type situation she might encounter (not that I would have this discussion immediately before the sleepover or anything, but generally). My oldest turns 9 in a couple months and has high levels of anxiety over certain things, so we are not really there yet. It’s a delicate balance between being forthright with her and not triggering some new worry that will keep her up nights unnecessarily.
And my youngest is basically hopeless. When she was about 5, having certainly had more than one conversation about who is and is not allowed to see or touch our private parts, I asked her what she would do if someone asked if they could show her *their* private parts. Her response was “Ummmm … say thank you?”
This made me laugh out loud. Bless her!
Also, re: dentist. My son’s dentist is the only dentist in the office, so when he’s out they call and let us know. But he’s seldom out because they schedule Tuesdays and Fridays as Orthodontist days, and schedule his vacations way in advance, so the only time they called, he (or the Orthodontist? I don’t remember) had the flu.
My dentists have always been partners in a larger dental practice, so I’ve only once been rescheduled, because there was a conflict. And again, that time they called a month in advance. So….
Also, my dentist wanted to fill my two fillings (on opposite sides of my mouth) in one visit, but my TMJ made that untenable, so we did it in two visits. And it was totally my call.
If it were me, I’d switch dentists.
(but then, I switched dentists because my former dentist had my opponent’s yard sign in his yard when I ran for office. My current dentist I met because she went canvassing with me.)
I’d like to add my maddened story from just one hour ago. I’d been planning for several days to get Burger King for lunch today (schedule wise it just made sense) specifically so I could try the new impossible burger. But when I got to the drive through I forgot the specific name, so I asked if they had “the new meat-free burger” and they said yes. So I said great I’ll have that. I ordered my kids their food, some chicken for my mom, and when they asked about sauce I told them what I wanted. Then I ordered a Twix shake—on a whim! I didn’t know they had these and I thought the kids would like it.
Turns out they gave me no sauce, a vanilla shake, and—this is the kicker—some lettuce, tomato, onion and pickles on a whopper bun. No meat or fake meat. Literally just condiments on a bun.
I didn’t have time to go all the way back (it’s about a 12 minute drive so round trip you’re looking at 30 minutes) so I called the number on the receipt…and it was a fax line.
I haven’t felt such pure rage in quite some time.
So the Lethal Weapon movie that had Joe Pesci in it had nothing to recommend it other than a scene in which they go to a drive-through burger place and JP gets completely worked up when they screw up his order and screams “they fuck you at the drive through!” I think of that scene every time something like this happens to me. Friggin’ drive through…
I seriously almost CRIED with rage and disappointment, reading this. This is TERRIBLE!
If it is any solace at all: I have tried the Twix shake and I found it mediocre. The caramel froze too much and stuck to my teeth, and there was insufficient chocolate flavor. This does not in any way diminish the outrage I feel at their total failure to fulfill your order so you could try the Twix shake for yourself. And the empty Whopper bun is just BEYOND. And then on top of everything else, NO SAUCE.
My initial reaction to the sleepover question is one of discomfort. But, trying to unpack that feeling I think it comes from the child-me feeling uncomfortable sleeping over a friend’s house when only the dad was home. I had just a few friends whose houses I would sleep over regularly and their dads were the same kind of distant, unengaged, leave-me-alone-after-work kind of dad that I had. Our moms were the caregivers, the ones who made the house warm and cozy and nice for a sleepover. So, if the mom wasn’t there and the dad was the only parent in the house I would have felt very uncomfortable.
My daughter’s friends’ dads are not at all like this. Some are the primary caregiver. Some freelance or work from home, so they’re around all the time. Even those that work full time like my husband are immediately on kid duty as soon as they’re home from work and all weekend. My daughter feels totally comfortable hanging out at her friends’ houses with their dads around, and that makes me feel differently about the entire thing. If we were hosting a kid or kids for a sleepover, I’d let the other parents know who would be home and how to get in touch, but I wouldn’t think twice about leaving my husband to do the sleepover stuff.
I was absolutely maddened at my husband the other day. I had very purposefully poked a SMALL hole in the foil top of the fish food so that I (or a child) could easily feed the fish by shaking the container without accidentally dumping a huge amount of food in and also without having to touch the fish food which smells terrible.
Then, without consulting me, my husband ripped half of the foil off in a way that made it hard to tell that the foil was now ripped off and then FORGOT that he did that and dumped a TON OF FOOD into the tank that I had JUST CLEANED mere hours earlier!!!!! WHY WHY WHY and now the almost new container of fish food is ruined and I have to deal with it for MONTHS. I knew it was a dumb thing to be so mad about but I was seriously so mad!
I would have LOST MY MIND
If it makes you feel any better, I had not even thought of this as a solution to (a) our daughter overfeeding the fish and (b) the cats being able to spill the fish food all over the couch and floor if the lid isn’t put back on correctly, so thank you so much for the idea. I too will have many months before I can put it into practice, but it’s such a great solution!
Daughter of a dentist here. I’m my state there is a law that you only need to have an exam with the dentist after every other cleaning, not every cleaning. So it’s legal for the dentist to not be there for your cleaning. But that never happens at my dad’s office since there is always at least one dentist there. And if a patient only likes a certain dentist, they put a note in the computer and call ahead if he or she is not available that day.
Also they don’t like to numb more than one quadrant because it increases the risk of you biting your tongue or cheek while numb. But I’m guessing they would allow it if the patient asks.
I am trying to imagine the receptionist explaining to me when I arrived that the dentist was “not legally required” to be there. Sure! We’re not doing this appointment by court order! He can take his full legal right to not attend our appointment! But in that case I would like to be informed that he will be taking that legal right, so that I can take my own legal right not to attend the appointment either. If I book an appointment with him, I do expect him to be there, and without needing to bring the law into it.
I switched dentists myself over a dentist who started a root canal on me in the office and wasn’t available to fix the pain control situation the next day because “he’s golfing.” The new dentists–who saw me on an emergency basis that day– said he hadn’t even finished the root canal. They sent me to an endodontist.
And the root canal happened because the dentist before that one apparently ignored a cavity and just let it grow. To the point at which the golfer dentist said, “you must not have been to a dentist in 5 years!” When I told the golfer dentist who I’d been seeing previously, he said, “oh, that guy? He’s crazy, I’d never testify against him.”
There are some sucky practitioners out there. We moved awhile ago and I have to find a new dentist, and I am so wary about it.
I had a totally maddening morning. My daughter goes to a Special Doctor for her Special Condition that is under control – we only go once a year now. It’s more than an hour away in traffic, on the expressways outside of Chicago (which I hate driving). I take the morning off work. Appointment made months ago, on her calendar for 9:30. We get up early, leave at 8 (PLENTY of time to get there, we’re gonna be so early!) Other daughter at home gets a call from the Special Doctor’s office – where are we for our 8:30 appointment? I have her call them and tell them we are 5 minutes out. They tell her we must reschedule because we will be late. I call them and they tell me the same thing. I tell them We Will See You In Five Minutes And You Can Tell Me That To My FACE.
When we get there I’m trying SO HARD not to Angry-Cry, something that I’m usually pretty good at controlling. I hold it together but am visibly shaking. They take the forms I need for school, her weight, and we make another appointment for OCTOBER.
It all ended well…we get in the car, I take a bunch of deep breaths, and drive away. They call 3 minutes later, before we are back on the expressway – a 9 AM has opened up as a patient has cancelled. Delightful visit after my blood pressure decreases – but we’re at a point in her care where this may be the LAST time we’re going there.
There is no way I would EVER make an 8:30 appointment for this doctor, it’s too far in too much traffic. They assure me that yes, this is the time I made for the appointment. At this point, WHATEVER. But I’m still so so so irritated.
I would have been FULLY anger-crying over that. You KNOW you didn’t make that appointment for that time; you WOULD NOT HAVE made an appointment for that time. And they ARE WRONG, and yet they are acting as if there is NO EARTHLY WAY they could have made that mistake, when WE ALL KNOW that would be an easy mistake to make, so WHY ARE THEY PRETENDING THEY CAN BE SURE?? Like, produce the voice-recording of me making the appointment for that time or else STOP PRETENDING YOU COULD KNOW!!
This happened to me once, and I was so glad I was able to pull out the card THEY GAVE ME with the appointment time written on it. The receptionist said, “Oh…huh…”
This memory would keep me happy for the rest of my life.
I think sleepovers are challenging anyway. I would probably be okay with it if I knew the parents really well, and there was more than one kid staying over. Not sure I would do a sleepover at all if I didn’t know the parents very well.
I usually go to dentist for cleanings and he comes in at the end and checks my mouth, but I think I would be unhappy if he didn’t put in an appearance. And yes give me the option. I have switched dentists because of the rude office staff before even though I loved my dentist. The whole only do one quadrant at a time could be important. My husband had 5 teeth worked on at once and had a reaction to the numbing agent they used. He never had a problem when they did only a quadrant at a time. Part of the problem there was they didn’t ask him if they could do all 5 at once.
My husband buys his own products (or asks me to pick something up for him), and since he is really frugal I don’t have to worry about what he spends. We don’t have Amazon Prime, so we will keep a running list until we have enough for the free shipping (so obviously won’t work for emergencies). What drives me crazy though is the empty cartons/bowls/whatevers in the refrigerator, like can’t you take it out?
No, he can’t. Only you can check and toss questionable items in the fridge.
At one point my sister had a nanny, an au pair, and a husband. She was the only one who ever dealt with the stuff that needed to be tossed.
In each household, There Can Be Only One. That’s you, so imagine yourself bathed in heavenly golden light as you do this.
This is the best response ever!!
Gosh, that’s me, in our household. I had no idea this meant I was blessed.
Last night, my husband informed me that he had wanted to have toast that morning, but the bread “looked moldy.” (Quiz: What makes break “look moldy”?)
Me: Did you throw it out?
Him: No.
Me: Did you buy bread when you were out today?
Him: No.
From now on I will shout “There can be only one!” Highlander style every time I clean out the fridge because, of course, I am the only one
Do Paul and/or Rob have social anxiety? This might make it difficult for them to go to packed places like grocery stores. I didn’t make many friends the first semester of my Freshman year so I always had a lot of anxiety around going to the dorm cafeterias because I had no one to sit with. These meals were free (well, a meal plan had already been paid for). I would walk out of my way to get Jimmy John’s or Qdoba for meals, which added up when I was doing it EVERYDAY for the first semester. To other people, it would make zero sense to waste that much money when you have a meal plan already paid for, but anxiety can make you do seemingly unreasonable things!
Also, I would only mind about an only-dad-is-present sleepover if I didn’t know the dad in the same way that I would mind if i didn’t know the mom. Not more or less.
I’m reminded of this: https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2019-07/24/19/asset/3e239a5f1a44/sub-buzz-4316-1563998386-6.png?downsize=800:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto
The text is:
Today I had my first ever unsolicited queer comment. I was holding hands with my girlfriend when a middle aged woman with very little English approached us. She smiled, nodded approvingly and said, “Men is too headache.”
This made me LOL. So true.
This would be the Chant of Serenity and Strength for the Goddesses of Menopause (I was imagining several, one for each of the MOODS) :
Men is too headache
Men is too headache
Mennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn is toooooooooooooooooo headache
Oh man, I SO feel the thing with Rob following in Paul’s footsteps on just buying whatever. My husband and I are compatible in lots of lovely ways, but one clear pitfall is that I am Quite Frugal and he is not. Fortunately, he acknowledges that I am much better with large-scale financial planning, and that is why I am in charge of financial stuff and not him. But what is infuriating is that he sort of…smirks? at my day-to-day attempts to save money. As in, he sighs patiently when I say for the love of god don’t leave the back door WIDE OPEN so the dog can go in and out, because we live in TEXAS and you keep the AC at 68 degrees and our electric bill is ASTRONOMICAL (pant pant pant with rage). Or, like, last month I complained that he had bought something at the gas station down the street instead of at the grocery and it cost six dollars more. And his friend who we were hanging out with rolled his eyes at me and said, “Look, you have six dollars, right? You’re fine.” And since then, whenever I balk at paying any amount for something, my husband says “Chill, we have six dollars.” Six dollars plus six dollars plus six dollars plus six dollars plus plus plus is A LOT OF DOLLARS, you know? And I am preemptively upset that our kids are definitely going to follow in his footsteps, because it’s clearly more fun to be the person who doesn’t fret about the electric bill and six dollar upcharges.
Now I am maddened too. Also WHAT the dentist wasn’t there??? That is NOT ACCEPTABLE for a dentist visit; that is the WHOLE POINT of a dentist visit. I am more maddened and have to go eat more ice cream on your behalf.
P.S. I wouldn’t be upset at all if only the dad were home, assuming I knew the family at all.
I feel like I would be somewhat bothered by the sleepover issue, but my daughters are still young enough that we don’t do any sleepovers, and I haven’t established many rules yet (other than, when you can put yourself to sleep without a parent and/or stop coming into our room if you wake up in the middle of the night, maybe we’ll consider it). I have no idea where I’ll be when the oldest is closer to what I consider acceptable sleepover age for her.
I do think I would be less bothered if the other family acknowledged the situation, though – “John will be the adult at home, I have to be out of town – will that be ok with you?” – because I think it shows acceptance of the idea that not everyone would find that ok, and that you won’t be mad if they are the type of people who don’t. I’m more bothered by people who take offense at the idea that I might not “trust” them than by people willing to accept that everyone deals with the unfortunate realities of the world we live in in different ways and not take it personally. My very least favorite comments in the exhausting battles you mentioned are the ones where people declare that if you don’t trust other people why should they trust you, as if my answer wouldn’t be “If they are not comfortable letting their kids sleep over at our house, I will be 100 percent ok with that, thanks.”
Firstly, about that dentist thing, that is so not on and I would have done the same as you and then been annoyed with myself for not being more assertive at the time!!
Secondly about the sleepover I think I definitely would pause for a moment about only the dad being there, but then my logical brain would take over and it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest. Our main rule is to “know” the family well enough so as long as I felt I knew the dad well enough it would be fine.
In our family I work FT and my husband is a SAHD so often he is the only one there for play dates, or looking after people’s kids last minute (we always let our friends know he can help out in emergency childcare situations as he’s at home all the time). So I have wondered sometimes if the “dad not mum” thing is a “thing” for people, and so think it must be sometimes, although no one has ever said so.
I’m always home to actually sleep there but my husband runs most of the sleepovers for my kids because I work at night pretty often. It wouldn’t bother me at all. I hate and despise when my kids have dental work, I really hate our pediatric dentist office – I feel they are always trying to make money, extra money, practically offering my toddlers braces! I don’t know if my kids will ever outgrow being such nincompoops and I’m so over it. Every age I keep thinking, really? Ten isn’t the age when they will pick something up before they leave the room? Eleven isn’t the age when they will turn off the freaking lights? It’s beyond annoying.
I came home last night, and was maddened by something ridiculous, so I am sharing here.
We have an attached guest casita at our house. As in, it is attached to the main house through a set of doors, but has it’s own AC system and all that. We don’t cool it in the summer, because it’s 400 sq ft that we just don’t use. During the winter, the kids started using the bathroom in there, because apparently having a bathroom by their bedrooms wasn’t enough showers or sinks or something. I came home yesterday and found my oldest showering in there. The doors were wide open, and the inside temperature of the casita was 97 degrees. So all of that hot air was coming into the main house, during peak electricity pricing times. Mind you, no one was using the kid bathroom. She just decided to use the other one. GRRR.
My Amazon shipping story: Immediately after having a baby, I realized that I was woefully unprepared for the nursing bra situation. (Many more were needed! Also different sizes! What sizes? Who knows?) Obviously I did not trust my husband to complete this task at a real store, and also I was never getting out from under the baby to do it, so I placed a LARGE order of nursing bras of all sizes and big underwear from Amazon.
The last order I had placed on Amazon was a baby gift for an out of state cousin’s wife I had never met. Even though Amazon had never done it before and has never done it since, it defaulted to that address when I placed my underwear order, and in my no sleep baby haze I didn’t notice. I got the confirmation email and panicked, immediately contacted Amazon, but they claimed there was nothing I could do about it because it had already shipped.
I had to email my cousin’s wife (again, I had Never met her) and explain the situation. She kindly offered to ship the whole thing to me but she had already opened the box (I mean, of course, it was addressed to her). I felt embarrassed for months. Even though she was so kind! And at least my male cousin didn’t open the box!
After that I vowed to only buy large underwear in a store, where I could hide it on the conveyor belt like a normal person!
But what a great story you got out of it! You made my morning!
Oh how I hate maddening mornings. I have been there. I am trying to find new families for my little in home daycare and people request info via FB messenger and I spend all kinds of time answering their questions and then they just STOP responding. Like ‘so interested’ – and poof they are gone.
I would be super annoyed about the no dentist at the appointment – guessing you PAID to see the dentist. Time to find a new dentist is my vote.
Not sure how I feel about the sleepover. My kids typically only sleepover at friends’ houses that we know really really well, so I think it would be OK assuming it was our people.
Lad, my oldest, had our credit card for years at college for EMERGENCIES and to buy books. He abused that privilege so much this year. I was not p;paying attention to the credit card bills because he used to tell me ‘I bought my books,’ so I knew when I had to pay it. Then I realized we missed payments and had late fees. Lots of uber and food. What the what? I was giving him money for food already. Then he signed up for something called resume-nerd – a website that helps with a resume I guess. He didn’t realize that he was signed up for a monthly service that he isn’t using. The card we gave him got charged several months for something he stopped using months ago. Him: shrug, Oh OK, I will cancel it.’ But has he? No! Honestly so frustrating.
I once worked in a job with teenagers who had experienced abuse, and it made me realize how hard it is to know who and what puts a child at risk for something bad to happen. Most of the time things are fine, but not always. That experience has made me very wary of sleep-overs in general, and I probably wouldn’t want them to attend if only the dad was home, even though the cinnamon rolls sounds fantastic! Still, my kids are little, so I’m only guessing what I would do when they reached that age…probably depends a lot on how well I knew the family.
I have never heard of going to a dentist appointment without a dentist on the premises. That would be super frustrating!
I’m very late to comment but I wanted to tell you that I read a book years ago (can’t remember the name -wish I could) that talked about hormonal changes over the life cycle. The bit that I really remember is that while pregnant/breastfeeding/caring for littles women are awash with Oxytocin (sp?) which biologically tricks us into caring for everyone all the time. I have 4 kids with a pretty wide age gap so I was literally awash with hormones for about 12 years. All the preening and crooning and hugs and making sure everyone has socks is innate and fed by this hormone. Then when the littles are gone and you aren’t getting the daily physical contact with them and you aren’t pregnant/breastfeeding anymore your body stops producing this hormone so much and the drive to care for everyone in your vicinity reduces. That is one of the reasons that women in their 40s/50s depending on when you had your kids throw their hands up and say ‘enough!’.
I think I’ve hit that state now. I just want to be able to have 10 minutes to myself and do some of my own thinking again. – Remember that middle episode when Frankie sets office hours and all of a sudden she can remember song lyrics again. That! I want to remember song lyrics again and drink a cup of tea while it is hot. And I want people to pick up after their own damn selves and book their own haircuts and not use my brain as their personal inbox!!!
Also, where I live you have to have a dentist present and I would be horrified by being asked to accept substitutes and it is RUDE of them not to tell you, a paying customer, that they can not provide the service that you booked.
This makes so much sense. I do feel like I was biologically influenced back then—and that I am biologically influenced NOW.
My son (age 11) was recently asked on a sleepover where the kids would be dropped off at laser tag and spend the whole night. The mom added casually that there would be no parents; they would go home and sleep, but laser tag locks the doors so no one can just walk in. But it’s not just the kids from the sleepover! Other random people would be there for the game! I was completely freaked out.
I answered politely that M could stay until 10 and then I would pick him up. Later, the whole thing got canceled and they had a normal sleepover instead, with movies and pizza. But…. !!!!!
Omg yeah because all the parents said uhhh no.
I think so!! At least I hope I wasn’t the “only mom” who felt this way, as my son informed me, lol.
I also work at a dental office and second what the above poster said – we don’t usually freeze more than one quadrant on a child because it’s more likely they’ll bite their cheek or lip (and bite it hard). But given that Elizabeth is not six, we would do it if she/the parent wanted to, albeit with lots of reminders as she left to be careful of the frozen areas.
We do sometimes have days where there is no dentist but it’s also not the norm here to see the dentist more often than every six to nine months unless there is a concern. So we schedule cleanings for people who would not be seeing the dentist even if he were there. It would be beyond frustrating to show up for an appointment with the dentist and have him not be there.
There Can Only Be One. Bathed in golden light. Okay.
You’re resisting, Emily, Don’t fight your destiny. Move into the golden light.