November 3, 2012

  • What I've Been Thinking...About Things That Are Really Trivial

    TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

    I have this fascination with trivia.  My mind stores this trivia I hear when I think *How interesting!*  OR...*How weird!*  We had a friend of sorts that was a real snob about her going to college and having a degree and I only had a year of it.  She thought that made her smarter on some level.  It made her smarter all right.  She married a successful businessman so she didn't have to work. (However, when his business failed, she divorced him and married a VERY successful man that was older and she became a trophy wife.  Maybe she really WAS smarter...LOL)

    Anyway, we also had a mutual friend that raised Persian cats and they were a wonderful line.  Her prize Persian female had a litter of cats and at a barbeque held at her house (the cat lady), we found out the cat had finally had her kittens.  She said to us....*The first one born was pure white and the vet and I were so worried about it.*  I said to her (with snob lady standing there), *Oh no!  Tell me it doesn't have blue eyes!*  Snobby says, *Why would that be so bad?*  I turned to her and said, *Because a blue-eyed, white coat Persian would be deaf.*  When Cat Lady said, *Yes, but this one doesn't have blue eyes.  I was so relieved!*  Cat Lady turned to me and in an exasperated tone of voice said, *How did you know that?  You don't raise Persians!*  I told her it was a trivia thing that I had heard years earlier and I thought it was so sad because they would have looked beautiful with blue eyes but most breeders put them down when they were born because of the deafness.  When Cat Lady told her that was true, she *humphed* and walked away while the Cat lady and I just looked at each other, shrugged and then laughed.  We didn't really like the Snob but business between our husbands brought us together at times.

    Later on, I was talking to Snob's husband and we started talking about quasars which I had been reading about and I caught Snob husband staring at me.  When I asked him what was wrong, he said to me.......Wait for it........*I didn't think you would know what a quasar was let alone be able to pronounce it correctly.*  I laughed and said to him, *You know what, Snob Husband?  You are a really jerk, aren't you?*  I walked away and knew I would hear about that from my husband (the Beast) but he laughed when Snob Husband said something to him.  He never said anything about what I had called him but he did mention that when I was discussing quasars with him, he was really kind of shocked. 

    The Beast said to him, *She took the Mensa test years ago and could have joined it because she scored high enough but she really didn't take the test because SHE wanted to.  She took it because the guy she was partners with in real estate wanted to take it so he could become a broker without having to take the required classes.  If he had qualified for Mensa, she probably would have joined it with him but HE didn't make it.  What do you think, Snob Husband?  Could YOU pass the Mensa test?*  He never replied but the Beast just loved the fact that he got to show Snob Husband that HE was a snob, too.

    Such a trivial thing to cause a ruckus from people who think their college education means they are more intelligent than anyone who hasn't gone to college.  I took and passed the National Merit Scholarship test.  I was offered a scholarship to the college of my choice but it wasn't a full scholarship (my math score wasn't as good as it should have been).  My choice was UCLA Berkeley because it had the finest journalism course in the country at the time.  My scholarship would have paid my tuition for classes but it would have required me to pay for lodging and my books.

    My father had seven children.  I was the oldest.  He couldn't afford it.  When my uncle, who lived in California and not that far away from Berkeley, told my father to let me come and live with them for a year, become a California resident (that took a year at the time) and then the scholarship amount would pay for everything for me or close enough that I could work a part time job to pay the difference.  My father refused, thank you very much.  He was really kind of old school about a lot of things but he also thought I would be too far from home and I was too young to go so far away.  I cried but I had to turn it down officially so they could use the money for someone else....  Was I bitter about it?  Well, it DID make me get married to the Beast.  I think my dad regretted not letting me go and so did I.  I wasn't bitter.  But I WAS sorry that I married the Beast.  I just regretted that I truly believed in that *till death do us part* part.  **Sigh**  Which is why the Beast and I are married for 48 years now.

    I have a lot of trivia that I remember if someone brings different subjects up.  It will just *pop* into my mind and onto my tongue, sometimes before I can stop it.  It's weird and I think there's a little room in my brain with a door that's marked, *Trivia and Conversation Stoppers*. 

    Okay, time to go (again).  I went to bed a bit too early and woke up to find the Beast still up and totally unaware that it was as late as it was OR that I had actually been asleep in my recliner for a few hours.  He was fiddle farting around with his new Windows 8.  He's fascinated with it.  VERY fascinated.  What's scary is he said to me, *You can tell this was really developed for a touch screen.*  I know him.  I immediately looked up a couple different sites that offer touch screens to find out prices.  The cheapest one I found was a 14-inch one for $364.  I won't tell you how high they go because I had no idea that they offered a 52 inch one you hang on your wall.  Who in the hell would want to STAND in front of a huge screen like that just because it was a touch screen?  I mean, you really can't touch it for any length of time, can you?  How long would YOU want to stand in front of one?  No thanks.  That's just dumb.  But a decent size monitor can cost almost $1000.  I kid you not.  They have laptops with touch screens that are less but they also only offer 14 inch screens.  Oh well.  It's not in MY future but it may be in the Beast's.  He's selfish like that, don't you know?

    Love you all.  Going back to bed now.