First off, I am not able to go home for the weekend for my niece's birthday. I his in the bathroom at work and cried tonight. I haven't made one of her birthdays since we moved away and I promised her I would attend this one. NOT gonna happen. We are scheduled to work. And even though I asked for this weekend far, far in advance- the bosses hands are tied. GRR!

So now I am letting down my niece. Which makes me want to screm. Before long, Aunt Sara will be Aunt Bitch, the aunt who always lets her down. But hopefully, I will find a way to make it up to her. Today at work in my spat of the blues, I started thinking maybe one of these weekends I will take just her for the weekend. I can take her out for Aunt/Noece outings... just the two of us. Since her brother has come along, we haven't had much quality alone time. That'd be a nice treat- if not for her, for me.

Then there's the past 2 days at work.... last night, i volunteered to stay to help cover a vacationing 3rd shift Q.C. until 3 a.m. Just as 3rd shift started we found that one of my operators had been runnign shit parts for an hour or better. We had to purge the system and go thru that big chaotic process.

Then, if I wasn't irritated enough, one of the regular 3rd shifters made me work a line I told the boss I could NOT! do because I hadn;t worked it in years and needed a refresher. Well the other guy wasn't having it. So I got stuck on that line. I could not figure out how to gauge, had so many problems I was losing my mind. I got iknto a yelling, cussing spat with another guy... (we apologized later and all is well there) But by the time I left, I was praying the place would explode or the Earth would open and swallow me whole. Neither of which happened.

But I left and it couldn't get any worse, right? Wrong! Oh so, so very wrong. Get to work today, find out the other line I worked ran shit parts also. To no fault of mine. THANK GOD! But enough to sink my already sour, bitter mood even worse. And yanno, people had to rub my nose in all the problems. And if that wasn't bad enough, I got wrote up for not catching the shit my operator ran the ngiht before. ARG!

However, I refused to sign the write up as there were 64 bad parts according to the write up. I've seen by far worse and just hwo much can I be accountable for. Not to mention the same thing occured on 1st shift I found out, who somehow neglected to note it or even tell me. Which could and would have put us on guard.

So now my crystal clear track record is tainted... and I'm pissed. Add that to the spats Shawn and I have been having and you've got one cranky bitch 2.5 seconds from spontaneous combustion. And I can promise you- it won;t be pretty should I combust. But tomorrow's another day.... hopefully, a better day too.

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I just read in the paper that 2 teens from somewhere in the great U. S. of A. have family members suing a video game company. Why? Because their idiot children, fans and gamers who play Grand Theft Auto (a playstation game) took the video game a little too seriously. The game is one where the person gets to car jack people, shoot up cars, cause accidents, be chased by police, etc. I watched Shawn's kid brother play the game (also an avid fan). There's even one aspect taht left me cracking up.

In one "mission", the guy had to pick up a hooker. She climbs into the stolen Jimmy and ya see it shaking like they're doing the nasty. Weee, what fun. Not your typical circa 1980 or even 1990's video game. But hey- this is a new millenium. We've advanced.

Apparently, the teens liked the game so much they got some guns (from where?!) and went down a local highway shooting up cars. Soemone even got killed. They said, they "didn't mean for anyone to get hurt." Well somebody's reality check bounced all the way to the fucking bank!

So now their parents or someone involved is suing. Can you believe it? This is as bad as the smokers who sued the tobacco companies because they were diagnosed with cancer. As if, people!

Anyhow... I am a firm believer that if you raise your kids right, give them good solid morals, teach them right from wrong, how to avoid peer pressure, etc., they will NOT turn into gun toting idiots just because they saw it in a video game and it was "cool."

I know that there are some cases, some reasons that this does not always prove true. But for most of the cases, it is.

Where the hell did these teens get the guns? Where the hell were the parents when this was going down? Who the hell was it that bought the video game for them as both were 16-ish and the game carries an adult warning. Shawn's brother could not purchase the game. An adult had to.

Have we become a people too busy in our own lives to make it a point to look into what our children are doing? Is it too much to be an active participant in our children's lives?

All too often I see parents who have very little to do with their children. they buy their love with bikes, cars, toys, video games to make up for the time they're working or off doing other "important" (HA!) things.

I don't care what video games teens play, what sexually explicit movies they watch, what expoitive music they listen to... that doesn't mean they should do what they see, hear or roll play in a game. And it's up to us as Adults to make sure they know it's NOT! right to think taht makes it okay.

If they wanna sue someone, sue the person who bought them the guns, sue the one who bought the damn game... and after all the suing is done... give them boys one hell of an ass whoopin'! Because they sure didn't get enough growing up!

Child protective laws be damned... sometimes ya just gotta "bust an ass or two in life" as I once heard said... But that in itself is another rant for another day.

This is me, Simply, Sara.

An oh so simply flabbergasted at this sue happy nation.

Thanks for tuning in...