The One with the Questionable Campaign

So, I have a Morally Ambiguous Situation™ here, and I wonder the general opinion of my. . .2 readers.

This happened.  The gist of it is that this pastor said that all gays (and lesbians!) should be rounded up and locked electric fence-style, men seperate from women, so that the gay gene would die out.

Never mind this doesn't make any sense, as I believe (but don't quote me on this) that most gay people are spawned from hetero parents.  I believe that the pastor in question is a horrible representation of Christianity, and is one of the worst kinds of people.

But. . .I don't know if the article's suggestion of retribution is the best way to go.  He suggests that everyone send a donation to some gay-friendly organization in the pastor's name so the pastor will be innundated with thank you letters from the organizations.  The author provided the pastor's address, phone number, and e-mail with which to do the signing up.

Now. . .at last count, I saw 190 people who had said they were doing this, sending some donation to a group in the pastor's name.

This is where it gets a little sketchy for me.  Is this pastor dead wrong?  Absolutely.  Does he need to be prevented from speaking in public ever again?  Yes.  Yes he does.  Is he the reason so many people hate Christianity?  For sure.

But this seems. . .over-reaching to me.  I don't know.  I can't reconcile it in my head.  What, exactly, are these people hoping to accomplish?  It's awesome that all these organizations are getting donations, but. . .why does it have to be done this way?  I can't decide if someone as douchey as this pastor is also giving up his right to privacy and not wanting to receive literature from these organizations by being douchey.

And then there were a couple of comments left on this article that REALLY bothered me.

One lady ". . .did this for a 'Pro-Life' neighbor, made a donation to Planned Parenthood in his honor. They sent him a letter of acknowledgement. I never heard another word from him about the sinful pro-choice people;-)."

Like. . .it's the guy's right to be anti-abortion, and he's being sort of harassed about it.  What if the guy had sent pro-life literature to this lady?  Would that have been OK, too?  Granted, I don't know if he made a big deal about it or if he was a jerk or whatever, but I don't. . .think it should matter.

Then. . .

"This is an idea I did 30+ years ago to a preacher at a liberal arts college I was going to. Being Southern Baptist and feeling I needed to experience his god...got a postcard from the LDS church out of a magazine and filled in his information. Four years later...he was still wondering why he was getting twice yearly visits from LDS missionaries in the dorm. Last I heard...he had at least two copies of the Book of Mormon and one of the gigantic tome with all the writings in it."

This seems invasive, too.

But it was this one that really raised my hackles:

"I had a similar neighbor and he had a pro-choice bumper sticker on his car. I went over one veeery early morning and overlaid it with a pro-choice bumper sticker. It was weeks before he discovered it."

I feel like this one, if you want to be dramatic, borders on tresspassing and destruction of someone else's property.  At the very least, it made her even more douchey than the pro-life neighbor.  Why do people feel (on both sides of the fence) that if someone disagrees with them, they have the right to mess with the other person?

So what do you think?  Is it good to harass people through the mail?  Are you in the right?  Is the only opinion that matters yours?

This whole thing really bugged me, so I want to know what other people think.

The One Where I'm Not Working Full-Time

Note: I would like to add two alternates to my List of 5. Matthew Morrison and Justin Timberlake. Thanks.

So last Wednesday was my last day of full-time pseudo-employment. Thank you (THANK YOU!) to the people who left comments, wishing me luck and such. I felt. . .I don't want to say "loved,"

because that's a wee bit dramatic, but I really, really appreciated it. So thank you.

Since Wednesday, I've been. . .admittedly really, really worried about money, because, like when I lost my job in 2009, I had a lot brighter outlook on how soon I could work things out than it turned out to actually be. (That's an awkward sentence. I think you know what I mean, though.)

I have, however, cleaned pretty much the entire apartment, including throwing out a bunch of trash and bringing 3 bags of stuff to Goodwill.

I also made a cake on Sunday. I'd never made a layer cake before, so I used a box mix to practice on. It actually turned out really well. I made two layers of white cake and frosted it with chocolate (also out of a box. Or can.) I also decorated it with this can of yellow frosting D bought me a while back.

It turned out really well. It's almost completely gone, as D came home and had a couple big slices (he was a fan) and I'd eaten pretty much half of the thing since Sunday (thanks, PMS!). D's birthday is coming up soon, so I'll be making another one in the coming days.

I love my library job. Love. It. I worked a full day Saturday and the 8 hours there passed in about half the time that 8 hours passed in my old job. (Not. . .literally, obviously.) I'm going to be working another full day Friday, so that's cool. I've had only one really hateful person I've helped, and on Saturday, we had a guy that was flashing his junk to people in the parking lot, but other than that, it's been basically smooth sailing.

And finally, I bought a dress to get married in! It's not a. . .wedding dress, per se, but it is the dress that I am going to wear when we finally make it legal. I bought it at Goodwill, and I strongly suspect it was, in a former life, someone's bridesmaid's dress. I can't post a picture of it (because I might be getting married in green instead of white, but I still think the guy shouldn't see it prior to the wedding day) but it's like. . .it's what I imagine Tinkerbell's much more conservative sister might wear.

When I brought it to the register, the lady at the counter, who had a Fran Drescher voice and an Amy Winehouse bouffant, was like, "This. . .isn't for a Halloween costume, is it?" I told her it wasn't, and she was visibly relieved.

"I've been worried someone would buy this for a Halloween costume," she told me. "And it's just so pretty."

I told her I was wearing it to get married, and she said, "Oh, HONEY!" and was so excited. She then told me how practical I am, and wished me well.

And that made my afternoon.

Also, side note? It's been raining since D left on Sunday. I'd like to think that now that he's home, it's going to stop.

The One Where I Find My Calling

I discovered this morning that the community college here offers culinary programs. I'm. . .pretty excited about that, considering I checked out a culinary institute nearby a few months back, and discovered it would cost me roundabouts $50k a year.

That's, um, more than 2 years' worth of salary.

I understand the need for an education, but I feel like you shouldn't have to give up eating in order to learn how to feed other people. The institute's program was a great one, but the guy who gave me the tour and information and everything was trying. . .a little too hard. He gave me the usual statistics, X% of people who go here find work immediately.

Well, considering no full class has graduated from this particular location, I don't see how you could promise that.

"Oh," he says, "those are statistics from all of the locations combined."

I see.

So, basically you're charging me $50k to maybe possibly get a job.

I also read this article saying that culinary schools may or may not be kind of overrated and unnecessary. They say (like this one place did) that they can definitely get you employment, but what they DON'T tell you is that, yeah, they can definitely get you employment. . .maybe as a dishwasher or a bus boy.

Note: There is absolutely nothing wrong with washing dishes or bussing. I've bussed. But I, at the time, had not spent a ton of money getting an education so I could be the person who makes the food that gets eaten off the dishes which are then bussed.

So this program at the technical college could be a great thing. I could either get a certificate in Baking and Pastry Arts or an Associate's Degree in Baking and Pastry Arts. Since there are only 5 classes involved in the BPA certificate program, I thought (and D agreed) that I could do that, to have the certificate, and then start working. . .somewhere and go for the Associate's.

I read the requirements for the different things, and freaked out when I saw that the program required a 600 on the math part of the SATs. I freaked out until I realized that that is for people graduating high school right now, and I have enough college stuff (you know. . .a degree) for that not to pertain to me. But the conversation about it with D went like this:

Me: I was really freaked out when I saw that you have to have a 600 math on the SATs to get into the program.

D: Is 600 a high score?

Me: (pouting) Noooooo. . .

(I don't know if I've ever mentioned how much I hate /slash/ am bad at math. Hate it muchly. Am awful at it.)

The program for the certificate requires you to take Sanitation & Safety; Basic Culinary Skills; Baking I; Hot and Cold Desserts; and Cakes Design and Decorating.

Fun, right?

As soon as I win the lottery, I'll be able to pay for it, since I've passed the deadline for registering for financial aid until the 2011 Spring Semester.

I'm hoping I can make this become a thing.

The One Where There's Just Not Enough Money

So, every day that I get closer to the day we've picked for our wedding day, the more I go, ". . .but it's all So Expensive!"

I want to wear the dress that I've had picked out forever and I want to get the ridiculously awesome cake we've picked out. (Did you know that you can go in for consultations to these places and they give you free cake? Free. Cake.") But the more time that passes, the more I think about other things I could be buying with the hundreds (thousands, probably) of dollars we'd be spending on wedding things.

Par example, I just found out yesterday that the supplies for my insulin pump are going to cost me $785 for 3 months.

"Your deductible is $1,000," the chipper lady (who probably has great health insurance) tells me. "But that's not so bad, because you'd meet that deductible in an order and a half!"

That's all fine, dandy, and cupcakes, sweetheart, but where am I going to get the $1,000 to pay OFF said deductible?

I swear I didn't start a post just to bitch and moan about money. It's just that that's the first thing I thought of.

Oh, and actually, speaking of money, I went by Dad's house yesterday to pick up mail (because, since I moved out, for whatever reason, I still haven't forwarded mail to my new address), and I got this letter that about made me hit the roof.

I was in this car accident about a year ago (a year ago Thursday, actually), and after everything was said and done, and insurance took care of me (Nationwide insurance, by the way, is the way to go. Since the wreck wasn't my fault, they took really good care of me. They probably would have taken care of me even if it HAD been my fault, but they were ESPECIALLY nice and understanding since it wasn't.), I got this bill in the mail from the NC DOT.

Long story short, they were telling me that I owed North Carolina about $1,900 to repair the guardrail I'd hit. It should be noted that I hit the guardrail after the third rotation of my car flipping over, and it stopped me from going down a steep hill into trees. Just FYI.

So I was (understandably, I think) not too pleased about that. I feel like. . .that's the purpose of a guardrail, you know? To prevent steep hill flipping. And if I'd been driving drunk or something and crashed into said guardrail, sure, make me pay for it. But, in fact, I was minding my own business when some asshat on an "electronic device" tried to change lanes on top of me. And then he drove away without stopping.

I'm digressing. My point is, I don't think they should fault people who, through no fault of their own, hit guardrails intended to. . .you know, GUARD.

So Nationwide was like, absolutely, we will take care of that.

However, I kept getting letters telling me, in increasingly nasty terms, that I need to pay this God-awful amount of money to these people, or they will. . .actually, I don't know what they intended to do. They never threatened anything.

I'm like. . .if I have to pay this amount, I should OWN this section of guardrail. I should be able to paint it. Maybe build structures around it. Maybe open a highway-side discotheque!

I get one of these letters every 4 months or so, and there was one there yesterday. It informed me that they had been "very patient" with me and "exceedingly generous" with said patience, but I need to pay ASAP.

I. Hit. The. Roof. I was having a bad day anyway, and this just added to it.

I had everything in mind I was going to say to the people when I called. I was going to be One of Those People, who call customer service lines and are as mean and rude as can be.

So I call, and this guy with a British accent picks up and asks me how he can help me. I explained the situation to him, and he's all like, "Oh, well, that was taken care of May 4, 2010. The account balance is $0!"

. . . . . . . .

I didn't even get to yell at anyone. I wouldn't want to yell at a British guy anyway.

(Sorry for the anticlimactic ending to that story.)

God save the Queen.