rustynickel's Blog

Ever wonder why people have to take all their relatives to the doctor's office with them?   I went to the doctor today and there must have been fifteen kids sitting in all of the chairs, making it rather hard to find a place to sit and wait.   Other kids were playing on the floor and running all over the place.  You would have thought I was in the middle of a Day Care, not in a doctor's office.

One man must have had his wife, mother, sisters, daughters and all of their kids there.  When he left, so did about twelve other people who had been talking and sitting around him prior to his going in to see the doctor.    I wonder which bus they got on cause they couldn't have all come in one vehicle otherwise.   My, it must be wonderful to have that many people worried about you.  Either that or these people just absolutely have no life.

No proof of insurance  -- car gets towed.

What's the consensus on this issue?  I, for one, do NOT feel that towing a persons car for failing to have insurance is a just cause.    Giving the driver of the vehicle a ticket will move traffic along much, much quicker than to have the bald headed, muscle bound, egotistical, arrogant occifer sitting in his squad car doing nothing but holding up traffic for one to three hours waiting for a wrecker.

     Anyone other than me have a problem with the fund raising car washes?  Saturday afternoon, while driving from one mall to another, I bet that my wife and I passed no less than fifteen different organizations holding "car washes."    Skimpily glad young girls of ten, eleven, twelve (in matchbox size bikinis) strutting around with signs, whistling, yelling and stepping out into traffic in an attempt to catch your attention.  Young boys horseplaying into traffic and making just getting around an intersection rather difficult.

     Should one of these young people be injured, or God forbid, killed, would the proceeds from that one day of being stupid be worth the outcome?

     First off, I have a real problem with beggers.  And this is exactly what I feel these organizations are doing.   They are "begging" me to help in their financial needs.  Well!!!!    No one helps me or my family with our financial needs.   And, I'm not going to stoop so low as to go on a street corner and harrass or beg someone to help me.    I have a little too much pride for that sort of thing.

     Also, where are the sponsors, parents, guardians or the police?   These actions are dangerous, if not to motorist, to the participants who act like they just came in from the monkey gage.

     Am I alone in this?  Or, is this something that others have questioned?

If there seriously is concern over wasted energy - why is it that there are numerous commercial properties that are allowed to keep huge neon signs lit all night?  I can see the need for hotels, gas or convenience locations that are open -- and I'll even give in to having "security lights" (lights that allow the criminals to see better) but to see all of the huge neon lights lit at 2am on stores like Mattress Giant, Hooters, Sears, etc., etc., just seems like a gigantic waste of our energy.  Some of these companies have two or three large signs which are lit all night long.  Why?

I understand that these people pay less for their energy needs however I just still see it as a huge waste of our energy.  Sure, they can afford the cost, but it is still a waste.

A short while back there was some talk of limited this, but if I heard correctly it didn't make it past committee or something.

Sooner or later we are going to have to bite the bullet when it comes to our energy - why not start now and hope it gets better?

Banking Woes?

This seems to be a pretty good cross section of ideas and thoughts.  I’m wondering  about something.  Am I the only one who seems to be having trouble with a bank or credit union screwing me out of my hard earned money?  As stated in my bio, I really don't have two nickles to rub together.

Recently, I’ve taken to having an automatic withdrawal for my automobile insurance taken out monthly rather than writing a check each month.   This is not a paltry amount.  It comes to over $400 each month. 

The first month that they deducted this – on the fifteenth of the month as agreed in writing with the insurance company – everything went fine.  The second month, the amount was recorded as being taken out on the twentieth by the bank.  Then I noticed that there were seven small checks, all for about $30 or so, that bounced.  Each with a charge of $33.00.

I questioned the bank and was told that sometimes these things just get crossed and they agreed to charge off the return check fees.  This amounted to $231.00. 

When I questioned why the amount was being deducted on the twentieth instead of the fifteenth as had been originally arranged, they explained “that it sometimes took a little extra time for them to get around to making the automatic deductions.” 

The third month, the same thing occurred.  Unfortunately, I failed to catch it the first week or so and the same thing happened to me.  When I noticed, I went to the bank to straighten things out.  Same excuses, except they refused to ignore the return check fees, stating that this was a recurring situation and they just couldn’t ignore it again.  This time the fees amounted to $330.00, they forgave $100.00, but still charged me $230.00.

I feel that they arranged it to happen this way so they could charge late fees.  And, if these are actually “automatic deductions” why in the world are they having to manually process them in the first place?

Has anyone else had this problem or is this just an isolated incident?  Or, do I need to change my bookkeeping procedures or just change banks?  So far this change in my paying for insurance has cost me over $230.00 in fees.

Why can't we have more complete coverage concerning grocery stores and retail outlets that sell expired or outdated foods?  Just recently spent a few hours in a local grocery store checking some expiration dates and was shocked to find several hundred boxes of cereals and snacks with past due dates.  Some of the so called "dollar stores" are notorious for such actions.