GAD the Cranky Consumer

GAD 1 Comment

Many people like to shop, and I’m no exception, but I tend to shop for very specific items after doing a lot of careful research. I know what I want, I know how much it costs, and I’m not an idiot. That’s worth restating:

I know what I want

I know how much it costs

I am not an idiot

It would seem that everywhere I go, I am assaulted by retail employees and shop owners who cannot understand these three simple truths about me. I feel that I am not alone, as I have heard other people complain of the same sort of things I will rant about here. Still, the American retail experience is one filled with frustration, arrogance and sometimes downright anger.

If I walk into a store knowing that something sells for $399.95 everywhere, and the sales associate tells me that the store’s cost is $445.00, they obviously think that I’m an idiot. It’s not always the sales person’s fault of course. I’m sure many of the big box stores train their employees to treat us all like cattle being led to slaughter. I would hope that some poor retail sales associate might refuse to play this game, but my hope seems misplaced. Perhaps the associates that refuse to play are fired. That would probably make me sad if I weren’t so often angry at the way I’d been treated.

Gibson Les Paul R9 w/ Rare One-Piece Top

I tend to buy specific high-end items. If I walk into a guitar store and ask to see a Gibson Les Paul 1959 reissue guitar (commonly called an R9), chances are that I know it’s made in Gibson’s custom shop, and that it will be significantly better made than the Les Paul Standard. The mere fact that the reissue retails for over six thousand dollars while the Standard retails for less than half of that probably indicates that it’s a better guitar. Granted price does not always equal quality, but in this case it does. Please don’t tell me that the Standard is “just as good”. I know what I want, and I’m not an idiot. Just tell me that you don’t have any R9s in stock please.

At any rate I have a pile of these stories, and I’ll be sharing them here. I’ll eventually complile all my ramblings into a book or at the very least a pamphlet to hand out during parades and such, so enjoy them now while they’re free.

GAD

Grimace and the Smoke Detector

GAD 1 Comment

Original Newf-Net Post: https://www.newf.net/Forums/showthread.php?t=84421

I’m sitting in the home office working, when I hear “beep”. A short while later “Beep”. Hmm.. something needs new batteries.

“Beep” then the sound of thundering hooves down the stairs. In roars Grimace with a look of Oh CRAP on his face. He pushed by me, and proceeds to curl up under my desk, leaving no room for me.

Seems the smoke detector not only beeps, it says “Low battery” out loud in a scary man voice. Seems also that Grimace had tried to get in the shower with Lauren before he come seeking solace in my cave.

Such a brave boy.

He did not leave from under my desk for a good 45 minutes.

…and yes, I still call him Grimace. They wouldn’t let me change Annie’s name, I’m not changing his.Besides. He likes it.

Now he’s associated Lauren taking a shower with the smoke detector going off, so he runs and hides with me in the office until the shower is done.

GAD

Grimace is Home!

GAD Leave a comment

Original Newf-Net Post (By Lauren) here: https://www.newf.net/Forums/showthread.php?t=83862

Our big boy Grimace (possible name change to Guinness) came home on Thursday. (see NJ Newf on Petfinder in the rescue section). He looked sad and confused when his foster family left and sniffed at the door wondering where they went. This boy was only in his foster home for 2 weeks, after spending his first 3.5 years with what was supposed to be his forever home.

We were warned he might not eat, not take treats, etc. After about an hour of he and Annie playing outside we came in and it was lunchtime. I generally give Annie a lunchtime ‘treat’, (a few smelts or some cottage cheese, green beans, etc). I grabbed a few frozen smelts and gave Annie one, gave Grimace one and he gobbled it down. He ate the next 2 as well.

He ate all of his dinner with no problem as well. I’ve gotten a little undercoat off of him and taken care of a couple mats, I just don’t want to overwhelm him. He seemed fine with what I was doing.

Annie is still such a baby and loves to play. It’s as though this boy hasn’t played in a while but she is reminding him how to do so. They have chased in the yard, nibbled on each others ears and backs, and kicked around the soccer ball.

Annie, now 8 months also wants and demands to be the center of attention..much like our youngest daughter. 🙂 Annie seems to constantly approach him like ‘wanna play? huh, huh, wanna play’? When he appears to have enough I try to give him a break. He seems very patient.

He doesn’t appear great on the leash but right now our driveway and front are still a sheet of ice from the last storm. We’re working on that, I think he just needs some reminders. He also needs to be reminded to be gentle when taking treats. We won’t let the kids give him treats until we can be sure he’s gentle.

He’s really an awesome boy. Very sweet, a very square head, very broad, and very loose drooley lips. I think he beats our Cozy in drooling.

I’ll just post a couple pix since GAD is the official photographer of the house.

Welcome to your new forever home big guy!

Annie and the Cream Cheese

GAD Leave a comment

Original Newf-Net Post: https://www.newf.net/Forums/showthread.php?t=82063

So Annie is keeping us busy. She’s still trying to figure out her place in the new house. She’s still not sure where she’s allowed to go, but she learns quickly. In fact some things she learns so quickly it’s frightning – especially when you consider this; if she can learn so quickly, then surely she knows what’s right, and often chooses to ignore it.

A case in point:

The little one, age seven, made herself a bagel with cream cheese. She, being seven, happily wandered off with the cream cheese still on the counter.

A few minutes later I happened to go upstairs where I discovered an empty cream cheese container on the living room floor. It was perfectly clean like we had used it for something else, which I thought was odd, because we don’t often do that. I pick it up, look at the counter, and quickly figure out what happened. Little miss counter-nose grabbed it and had a feast. When I looked at her, she slunk away with possibly the most guilty expression I’d ever seen. When I went towards her, she slunk into another room.

If she’s learned one thing early on, it’s that I’m the alpha male. She knew the alpha-male boomy voice saying “Bad Girl” was coming. She knew it was wrong, yet she did it anyway. Interestingly enough, she didn’t eat the jar of peanut butter on the other side of the counter left by the nine year-old.

Annie doesn’t need nearly as much training as the two-legged variety it would seem.

After she got over her guilt, she discovered that the cream cheese container made the most WONDERFUL toy! When it was upside-down on the floor, she couldn’t quite pick it up, and every time she tried, it would bounce out of her mouth across the floor. She played with it for hours before we took it away afraid that she would cut the plastic. Made me remember Cozy playing with empty soda bottles at about this age.

GAD

Annie and the Bananas

GAD Leave a comment

Bananas
Lauren was cleaning and found a piece of a banana stem where there should be one. She went to check on the bananas in the bowl on the counter. Can you guess what she saw?

No bananas.

The entire bunch is gone. Nothing else disturbed on the counter, and no other signs of the tasty fruit to be found. The bananas are hard for the kids to reach, let alone a big dog who thinks she’s a cat. I seriously cannot imagine how she could reach them without destroying everything else on the counter.

Original Newf-Net Post: https://www.newf.net/Forums/showthread.php?p=593062#post593062

Evil Annie

GAD 1 Comment

Original Newf-Net Post: https://www.newf.net/Forums/showthread.php?t=84340

You want to know why there’s no updates? Because we spend all out time watching Annie. She is, to put it delicately, mischievous.

Lauren says she’s “naughty”.
I say she’s EVIL!

A partial list of things she’s destroyed thus far:

A Wii controller
Numerous carboard boxes
A beloved Nintendo DS-Lite game
A beloved book
Another beloved book
A camera case (for small cameras)
Numerous water bottles
A bicycle helmet
A “wedding bear” from our wedding (15 years old)
etc.

She has figured out how to open the “dog proof” garbage, and enjoys searching for treasures while were not home – and sometimes when we are!

She doesn’t just put her nose on the counter, she jumps right up and digs in.

She ate ALL of the Valentine’s Day chocolate I got for my kids. She was fine. BTW she had to get on the counter, then open three containers, then foil wrappers to get to the goods.

BTW she acted like a LUNATIC for about four hours thereafter. She was like the road-runner on speed.

She knows the rules. She simply ignores them. She’s jumped up on the counter right next to Lauren while she’s cooking. She’s grabbed for the expensive universal remote while I was watching. She gives me this look of complete disdain from time to time as if to say “I know you won’t beat me, so &%*#-you.”

She is LOADED with personality. She’ll walk by me and just jam her nose into me – for fun. She runs circles around poor Grimace, and bites his ankles when he’s not playing.

She is a 100% certified pain in the ass, and we love her to pieces.

We’re trying to come up with something to get her mind more engaged, because she’s clearly bored. I told Lauren that we should let her do crosswords…

GAD

Annie’s Thanksgiving

GAD Leave a comment

Original Newf Net Post: https://www.newf.net/Forums/showthread.php?p=547556#post547556

Annie had a wonderful Thanksgiving at the in-laws house.

There she met new friends the crazy labs Molly and Mo

ose. Molly and Moose are flight risks, so not only do they have a normal chain link fence, they have an invisible fence perimeter within the physical fence. Annie quickly learned that if she ran to the physical fence, the other dogs would just stand at the invisible fence and bark. Clever girl 🙂

Annie and her friends enjoyed some wonderful leftovers, and Annie slept like a log when she got home. Before we could leave though, we had to take care of something.

Here is a picture of pretty Miss Annie before… the hosing.

GAD