The crows have got to go!

Yeah, I had some garbage out last night that I was taking to the dump today and the crows tore the bag to shreds. The thing is, there was no food in the bag, it was all old papers and ruined clothing. The bloody things have learned that black bags = food and they don’t even wait to see if the bags smell anymore. I suppose I will have to stage a bag out one morning and hide myself appropriately and blast the ringleaders as they land.

I was doing some research today about a European charity I was following on Twitter. It was recommended in a Follow Friday tweet an actor I follow sent out a few months ago. Since most of his tweets involve football and getting pissed I figured any charity that made it through the haze must be important. All I knew at first was that this younger couple had lost their only child and were starting a charity to keep it from happening to other families. Well, I did my research (prior to sending them any money) and was completely shocked by what I discovered. Their child was not struck down by any rare viral or bacterial disease. Their child was not the unfortunate victim of a rare genetic disorder that isn’t routinely tested for. Their child was run over, in their driveway, by their car when the parking brake slipped. Apparently they had a manual transmission and no one had ever told them they should leave the car in gear as a fail-safe to the parking brake. Of course, I’m assuming the manual transmission part. Surely they wouldn’t have had an automatic transmission and not had a "Park" setting.

I was completely floored. In a lot of European countries it’s harder to get a driving license than it is to get a pilot’s license in the USA and costs about the same. And through all of that no one thought to mention, "by the way, leave it in gear when you park." Unbelievable. I still feel for them, I really do. Losing a child has got to be hard enough but to know you could have prevented it by taking an extra half a second before getting out of the car has got to drive you near to madness. I don’t even think about it anymore I’ve been doing it for so long. And honestly, I don’t ever remember a time when I had a car with a manual transmission when I didn’t park with the transmission in gear. As a side note a lot of people say to leave it in first, but I find that with the cars I’ve owned fifth or reverse is a better option since they were so heavy. So anyway, I’m still gonna send them $20 US, not sure what that works out to in Euros, but I am going to unfollow them. I’m sorry, but is there really a need to set up a charity for something like that? Is there that large a deficiency in the education process that hundreds or thousands of people won’t know this? I just don’t understand, really I don’t. And before anyone asks, no, I didn’t take Driver’s Ed in high school, I didn’t have room to burn an elective on it and my parents’ insurance company didn’t offer a discount for it anyway.

Tomorrow starts my last overnight rotation. Four more shifts and I’m done!

Saw Critter today for a few minutes. She’s gotten her taxes back and is buying a washer/dryer set. She may need to borrow mine sometime this week since the delivery will take a bit but that’s the reason she’s got the combination to the key box, after all. I didn’t realize that the set she was using at her old place came with the place and that she’d let K’s daddy take her old ones with him.

Also in the news, there was a robbery over the weekend by a pair of people wearing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle masks. And they didn’t steal any pizza. Epic. Cosplay. Fail. Seriously.

After all ladies and gents, what does a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle like more than a slice of pizza? TWO slices of pizza!