Things I thought were stupid today.

1. My #1 complaint about Mississippi is the drivers. They're courteous... to a fault. Case in point: if you come to a stop sign at the same time as another person, what do you do? I learned that you're supposed to let the person to your right go first. Apparently, the Mississippi driver's manual states that you have to look at each other stupidly, then when that doesn't work, start waving the other person ahead, then when you both realize you're waving each other ahead, wait for the other person's will to completely break down. Who knows how long this will take.

I hit such a passive aggressive stop sign standoff today. I came to an intersection about 2 seconds after 2 other cars had arrived there at the same time. They were in stage one when I arrived. I learned how to drive in California. I went.

2. I went to the orthotics company to get Ace's new ankle braces today. (Here's a picture of the old ones, for reference in the rest of this post.) The orthotist put them on, measured them, then made a mark where he was going to cut them off just above his toes. This bothered me, and I said as much, because the braces he got last year were quite a bit longer than his actual feet, which has allowed us to go a full 14 months without buying a pair of braces. Now, my insurance company has miraculously deigned to pay 100% of the nearly $1,500 that they cost, but most insurance companies a) won't pay 100% and b) won't cover more than 1 pair of braces every 9-12 months.

The orthotist looked at me and said "really?" I said "Well, yeah. I don't want to have to come back in 4 months for another pair. You're marking them really close. I'd like you to just leave them as they are." He slumped a little and said "I'm so relieved that you just said that. For the past several days, I've had to argue with parents telling them the same thing, that we cut them so far from the end of the toes because we want them to last for at least 8 months. The people I've had to argue with say they don't want to buy more shoes because the shoes they have won't fit over the braces."

I was like, do wha? This boggles the mind. I have fully accepted that as soon as I got Ace's new braces that I would have to go and buy him a few new pairs of shoes that will go over the braces, which will probably set me back $40-$50. But I also know that I won't have to buy more shoes unless I want to until he gets new braces, and how many parents of toddlers can say they buy shoes once a year for their children?

"Well," he continued, what had happened was, "one mom bought a pair of $120 Nikes for her son shortly before his new braces came in. The Nikes didn't fit over his new braces, so she made me cut them down until they did."

That lady's gonna be screwed. Not only will those $120 Nikes not fit in a few months, but neither will this kid's braces, and she'll be out another $1,500.

To be fair, maybe the woman is hella wealthy. You'd have to be, to buy your kid a pair of $120 shoes knowing full well that the kid was gonna grow right out of them. So maybe a new pair of braces won't set her back too much. But the fact that this guy has had to argue repeatedly with parents and keep cutting their multi-thousand dollar braces down to fit their existing shoes? Really kinda blows my mind.