daisychain, We are educators as well. We hear these things frequently. The big one here (we live in a fairly poor area) is that teachers are paid too much. I wish everyone who thinks that teachers have it made would have the opportunity to volunteer in a school on a regular basis. These are the ones that never do. I am not talking about coming in to bring in goodies for a classroom party. What teachers do everyday can not even be described to those that have no experience in a school setting. There is not enough room to type it all! If you have not worked in a school setting, you can not possibly understand enough to make insulting comments on the profession. The "summers off" thing cracks me up. I think some parents honestly think that the job is done when their kids aren't actually in school. That is only a part of the job! Yes, the kids have the whole summer off, the teachers do not. But again, it is hard to make someone understand that if they do not work in this profession. We also have people in our family who have had corporate jobs that required a lot of hours and traveling. They were paid for it. That was the profession they chose. (If you are doing that kind of work for free and hating it, then I don't know what to tell you!) So when they make comments about teachers, it just makes me scratch my head. Anyone who had the ability to go to college had that option! People who choose to comment about teachers "having it made" are really insulting themselves, and making themselves look fairly silly. At least that is the way I have learned to look at it. If this is the ideal job, aren't you a fool not to take it?? (SImilar to what Olychick was saying...) There have been a lot of supportive comments from wonderful people here! We just have to understand that there are some people in this world that will never be convinced. Maybe we can even feel sorry for them that they missed out on the opportunity to be the most overpaid, underworked professional in the world ;-)

I have so many stories of contractors not showing up, not sticking to the plan, getting mad enough if I DARE question their methods or "expertise" that they LITERALLY never come back! One guy tiling our backsplash insisted, as he put the last piece up, that the tile store lied to me about the grey stone changing color when it was sealed. The sample I had seen at the store was brown, and they had said it was after it was sealed. He said "I've been doing this 20 years, and in my experience, tile never changes color when sealed" and he proceeded to take some of HIS sealer and show me. Sure enough, it didn't change color. He didn't say anything about any other products that could be used, but just insisted that they sold me the wrong tile or lied to me. I was mad -- at the store -- and realized if the tile wasn't going to change to brown, it really didn't match AT ALL. He agreed and said, very helpfully... "You need to work this out with the store (which was now closed for the day) and exchange this tile , but since this won't match, I'll need to take it all down TODAY before it totally sets. No problem... I'll take it all back down for you." How nice of him. He takes down the entire back wall of tile, which took him all day to do, and where we had painstakingly picked the perfect tiles for the perfect spots, and I now have cut, messy tile laying on my DR floor. Next day,I walk in the store, tell them of my complaint. They take one piece of my tile, use THEIR sealer (w/ enhancer!!!) and LOW AND BEHOLD... my tile turns brown. You would think that a tile guy, been in business 20 years, would think about a sealer/enhancer doing the trick. I called him back, very nicely, and said, "Hey, we were both wrong... the store was right. I bought their sealer, and it will indeed turn to brown! All we need to do it put all this back up." Not a problem, he said, I'll be out tomorrow! Guess what... he never came. And so I called. He said he got caught up, and he'd call me later. Next day, not a word. I called again. Left message. Still tripping over tile. Waiting for the final part of my shiny new kitchen to be done... I'm DYING to be done!! Still nothing. Next day, I called again. His wife answered. "Yeah," she said, "He's not really interested in doing the job now. He knows he should, but he really can't". Ummm... I'm tripping over tile that is already cut, the wall's a mess, and the ONLY reason it all had to come down is because he convinced me that the store was full of cr**, that they sold me the wrong tile, that no sealer exists that would do the job I needed, and that I had to take this down asap! I would think that he would at least help me -- literally -- pick up the pieces of this fiasco! I told his wife I wasn't mad, I hope he wasn't not coming because he had given me wrong info, that it was a misunderstanding, that all he had to do was complete the job and that I'd handle the sealing. "Yeah, well, I'll have him call you." Nope, never called. Had to shop around for someone who could finish someone else's work, and many refused to do it. I finally found someone willing to guarantee what someone else had started. What made me so mad (and gun-shy about trusting anyone else) was that he was so nice and understanding about all my other contractor woes I told him about. He had actually said on his first (and only) day, "Well, I treat people the way I like to be treated; I can't stand contractors that don't treat their customers right" and then he leaves me hanging and can't even get on the phone!!! BTW, if no one believes me, here is a picture of the backsplash with some unsealed tiles in front. Four years later, and the tile is still brown!! :)

Edited to add: Paxil is very handsome! You both will do fine. :) Also, to look at me I don't look disabled. So I did have one person call me out and she was just a customer in a grocery store. Basically she wanted to know how she could bring her "very well behaved dog who just got his Canine Good Citizen's certification" in the grocery store. She told me I wasn't disabled because she couldn't see my disability. Ha! Seriously, just like a poster above, I took the high road and just said that you can't always see disabilities and then extricated myself form the conversation. That was the only confrontation I had like that. Now onto my original post.... My Boxer was a service dog for me. You don't often see Boxers as service dogs so people could have had issue but only one store ever did and we went everywhere together. Grocery stores, restaurants, etc. The only store we had a problem with was Sears and it was because someone had been in with an unruly "service dog". I had heard about this other person before from other vendors but never ran into them. Once I explained to the people at Sears that Champ was, indeed, my service dog, the person asked her manager who was fine with him being there. Quite honestly, I probably wouldn't have left if they asked me to. Champ was his usual stoic, very well behaved, self and I knew the law was on my side. Champ was my dog before I needed a service dog and he was trained specifically for my disability when he was three years old. He was privately trained and I sent away for his service dog certification and card. I know some people abuse what is available online but some people do not. When I first started going out with Champ, I was self conscious of how he would be accepted or if we would be in people's way, etc. But before long, I was used to him and he was like glue by my side. The only issue I had with people out was them wanting to pet and or touch him. I would often talk to people who asked about him but they weren't allowed to pet Champ because he was working. He knew the difference. Every now and then I would run into an old friend and give Champ his "off duty" command and he would start bouncing around like Boxers do to say hi to my friend. Then it would be back to work when I called him to it. I did enjoy talking with people though, especially if they had had Boxers before. If there were kids present, I would sometimes put him through his paces so they could see what he did for me. If there were kids who were afraid of dogs (which we ran into often), I would have him lay down and let them come pet him because he would stay stock still for them. I guess my whole point is that the more you are out, the more comfortable you will be in the presence of others and the different establishments. People like service dogs. But most people know that they are not to interfere with the person and their dog and they respect that. That might have been part of the non-response you got from the people in the waiting room. I'm feeling melancholy reminiscing. Champ got cancer when he was was a few months short of seven years old and we lost him two months after that, just shy of seven years old. I have not replaced him. Here he is with my Grandson. The second picture is Champ at Target when he was first being trained by the trainer.

When we built in the country it never crossed my mind about what to do with trash. Then we found out we had to burn it or drive to a dump many miles away. We did both but it was a pain. About 20 years ago a company started renting dumpsters. I love it. The dumpster is emptied every other week, bright and early. I'm a bit peeved at them right now. Because the dumpster faces north, a good strong wind blows the lids open. No problem really, I'd get the mail and put the lids back. Until a raccoon decided to take up residence nearby. I'd lay in bed and hear one of the lids going up and down and the next morning I noticed he got into the trash. We found a big cinder block and put it on top of the lids and try as he might the Raccoon couldn't open it. Most of the time I remembered to take the brick off so the trash guys wouldn't have to deal with it, but there were other times I forgot and the brick would end up in the grass. The last time I forgot, they deliberately put the brick in their truck! How do I know it was deliberate? Because I was laying in bed hearing the lift thingy going up and down over and over and I couldn't figure out what they were doing. The brick was gone. Grrr. Anyway, if you live in the country where there's hardly any traffic, get a dumpster. I take the trash out when I get the mail. Easy.