Why Phone Companies Are Out To Drive Me Insane

I’m pretty sure I’ve ranted about the craptastic phone service before, I just can’t find any of these rants. Until we switched over the Verizon FIOS, every year EVERY STINKIN YEAR our phone lines would die a horrible death. Every year EVERY STINKIN YEAR we’d deal with appointments, technicians not showing up, or showing up at the wrong day/time, and one year we had them forward our calls to my cell phone, except they botched the number and were forwarding all of our calls to a Mitsubishi dealership. I hope they enjoyed all of the telemarketer calls.

Then came FIOS and angels sang from on high, bluebirds landed on our shoulders, rainbows appeared (RAINBOWS, I HATE RAINBOWS... chill out, its a South Park reference), and we had no problems.... or so we thought.

So on thursday I go into work and my work phone is dead. Doornail dead. Voicemail is equally dead. How odd (and peaceful) I figured it was a glitch that would get fixed. Around noon when I needed to call someone, it had become annoying. My officemate’s phone worked. Walking up and down the halls asking I found that it was JUST ME. FINE, I go upstairs to talk to someone and use their phone to call the helpless moron desk. I confirmed my number, confirmed that it was dead so asked that they send me e-mail instead of trying to call me (you shouldn’t have to remind a help desk that if your phone isn’t working, you shouldn’t call there... but the helpless desk is truly helpless), and went about my day without a phone... how special. I figured that when I came in on Monday, it would be fixed.

On Friday I check the mail and there’s a nastygram from MCI (our old long distance carrier) who is informing me that they’ve just cut off my long distance because I didn’t pay them $29 that was way waaaaaay past due. Um... I didn’t know I owed them $29, nobody sent me anything, not even a Christmas card, so how the hell was I suppose to know that I owed them $29, especially since we switched over to FIOS a few months ago, they shouldn’t even be handling my long distance. Of course, the number on the nastygram was closed, so I figured I’d call them on Monday from work.

Just out of curiosity, I went online to Verizon to check my bill... except I couldn’t check my bill or my services or anything, because they told me that my stuff wasn’t available... for some reason. They suggested that I should call them... except they were closed. Fine, I’ll call them on Monday from work as well.

Monday... my work phone is still dead, dead, kaput. Sigh. I walk upstairs to check my e-mail (if you are wondering why I can’t do that from my desk, well, I’m not going into the whole thing that I do, just trust me when I tell you that I can’t check “normal” e-mail from there.) There’s an e-mail from tech support asking me to confirm my phone number... the phone number I confirmed with the help desk minion on thursday... the number that is in all of the corporate address books, pseudo stupid company facebooky-like things, and in my e-mail signature line... same number. I e-mail the person back and confirm its the e-mail, log off, walk downstairs again.

Few hours go by, I go back up and check my e-mail, and there’s a response from tech support. What jack is my phone plugged into. Sigh. Sign off, walk downstairs, look at the jack, walk back upstairs, e-mail the tech support the jack number, log off, walk back downstairs, collapse in exhaustion.

Few hours go by, I go back upstairs, check my e-mail, there’s a response from tech support that says:

Peggy,
It seems that your phone was deactivated by mistake. I’ve reset your password and contacted a support technician to come reactivate it.

Oh... gee... so you are able to deactivate a phone without any sort of owner interaction, but to reactivate a mistakenly deactivated phone, you require a person to come do something... and my name isn’t PEGGY.

I dial in remotely to my voicemail, reset my password, rerecord my lame “I’m ignoring you and won’t return your call anyway, but humor me and leave me a message that I’ll laugh at and ignore” message... ok, its a bit more professional than that, but not by much, and then to my amazement... there’s a voicemail waiting FROM TECH SUPPORT! Some guy mumbles his name, rattles off a number and tells me to call him. I write the number down, dial it.... AND ITS NOT IN SERVICE.

I e-mail the tech support person a rather... nice.... response pointing out that my name isn’t Peggy and by this time I’m VERY angry and they should send the tech straight to my office to fix my phone ASAP as I will be waiting and sharpening some scissors.

I spend the rest of Monday cutting little paper tech support dolls and hacking off their limbs... ok, I just worked, but I thought of cutting little paper tech support dolls and hacking off their limbs. At the end of the day, no tech person. Before I leave, I go upstairs, log into e-mail and respond to tech person with: “Is the tech person coming today, this week, or this month?”

Tuesday morning I get to work, and lo and behold... my phone still isn’t working.

I go upstairs, log into e-mail and there’s a message from the tech person from yesterday saying she’s escalated the problem and I should hear from someone within the hour... except 12 hours have already gone by and my phone still isn’t working. I respond with “I’m still waiting”.

An hour later the tech guy shows up, punches 4 buttons and my phone works. He tells me that he JUST got the help desk e-mail and was scrolling through it thinking “oh man, she’s going to tear them a new one”, because he knows me very well.

Now that my phone worked, I called MCI and said WTF? MCI has been taken over by Verizon, and Verizon was suppose to be my long distance carrier, but apparently they are now Verizon, but still MCI, but not really, and frankly I began to drool with each explanation. I told them that I would just go yell at Verizon, paid them their stupid $29 and hung up, called Verizon.

First of all, I would like to say this to Verizon customer support: It is not a good idea to play the Muzak version of “Wind Beneath My Wings” over and over and over again while irate customers wait for a real person to pick up the phone... I’m just sayin.

I got a technician named “Hope”. Seriously... HOPE! Hope was very nice, and when I told her that I wasn’t getting bills, I couldn’t access my account online, MCI was still my long distance provider, WTF? She proceeded to read off my bill to me... line by line, each individual charge. I DON’T FRICKEN CARE WHAT MY BILL SAYS I CAN READ, I COULD READ IT FOR MYSELF IF YOU WOULD SEND ME ONE!!! Then I went on about global warming, why Keith Olbermann should be hung by his testicles (if he has any) and the annoying hang nail on my left hand until I nearly passed out from not breathing. Luckily I had closed my office door before I dialed. Hope was actually very apologetic (I’m sure she was cutting little paper doll customers as she spoke) and said she would make some adjustments based on all of the trouble I was having. She knocked off the FIOS installation charge, bundled my services into one for cheaper, and gave us faster internet for the lower bundle rate. Sweet.

The last thing she did was transfer me over to the official long distance permission to transfer service from one provider to another person, who asks you to verify information while being recorded, because apparently there is a lot of long distance carrier fraud going on and they have to make you verify everything on a recording... and yet will just tell you a password or PIN just on a whim... whatever.

So, now we have faster internet, a bundled service, didn’t have to pay for installation... how much you wanna bet I still don’t get a bill and can’t log into my account online... I’ll save that for next month.

My First 2010 Rant

First of all, I would like to announce that I will be pronouncing it Twenty-Ten, just because Two Thousand Ten has more syllables and is annoying. That doesn’t mean that I will mock you if you decide to go with Two Thousand Ten, but others may, so be warned.

Speaking of annoying, I would like to ask that our new Government Health Care system include therapy for those of us who are scared shitless by opening those annoying popping crescent roll containers. Oh you know which ones I’m talking about, and I’m sure the Pillsbury people that load those suckers do so while giggling and picturing people losing fingers or crapping their pants when they somehow make it explode like an errant IED, globs of dough spraying all over. To the butthead that sucked the air out of the “Grands” roll to create a lethal weapon that I opened the other day... YOU SUCK! (btw, that tale about the exploding roll can and the woman “holding her brains” is an urban legend... sorry to burst your bubble)

On another annoying fronts, I’m intrigued by the saga of the Asian Carp. Apparently these are the big fish that are taking over the world and love to leap out of the water and attack people on boats. There’s a war being waged to keep them from swimming up the Mississippi (and yes, I still do that grade school thing to spell that state correctly, so do you and you probably also do that whole knuckles on what month have 31 days thing, so shut up) because they will eat the other fish out of house and home and food.

But if you read the article, it seems that that’s not the only reason why they “aren’t good”. They have small mouths and don’t like to eat worms on hooks, therefore they’ll kill the recreational fishing industry (those who sell worms and fishing licenses because the damn things just jump in boats on their own). This has caused Federal and State officials to do whatever they can to keep the migrating fish from going any farther. Um, we can’t keep illegals out of the country, let alone fish, so I’m guessing this will be another expensive boondoggle that costs taxpayers and will fail.

So, why aren’t we eating these things? Aren’t there starving people all over the world that wouldn’t mind having a tasty bony fish? Of course they would, but we won’t eat them here because they’re CARP! Apparently “we” don’t eat carp, even though the rest of the world does, so why aren’t we exporting these things and making some money from them? Apparently some fishermen have started doing that, and are making good money from it... that’s how we adapt you see... unlike the Liberal Darwin lemmings who think that we have to keep everything the way it is by shutting off water to farmers in California to save a little fish, or spend a gazillion to stop the natural progression of Asian Carp. It seems that those who believe in Darwin (natural selection, survival of the fittest) don’t believe that species can do that by themselves and need “man” to help them survive, missing the whole point entirely. But that’s a whole nother rant about the godless who believe themselves to be god, and for another time.

So, lets rename the stupid things to something tasty sounding... like River Kittens (PETA would approve of that), or better yet: Mississippi Filet. Come on, good marketing made the Talipia (a poop eating bottom feeder) into the haute cuisine of 2009, we can do the same for Asian Carp.

Words Fail Me

This latest terrorist attempt... oh sorry, I mean this latest Man-caused near disaster has me speechless. I'm speechless with stupidity.

Apparently I don't get how denying travelers blankets and pillows will stop a terrorist.

I'm speechless at how Mr. Fiscal Responsibility, who is renting a Hawaiian compound for his friends and family manages to take time out of his busy vacation of golfing and partying to thank the brave citizens for jumping the killer and saving the flight (dude! The bomb was a dud, we should be thankful we weren't mourning the death of potentially thousands of victims on Christmas).

I'm speechless at how this cold blooded terrorist now has all the rights of the American citizens that he attempted to kill and is being treated as though he shoplifted.

I'm speechless how Mr. Golf praised citizens for thwarting an "isolated extremist"... how about citizens doing the job of your inept Department of Homeland Security who had him on a watch list, had a warning from his father, and still let him get on one of our planes.

I'm speechless about the money that will be spent to "review" the "incident" to find out how this happened. We've had a Major in the army e-mailing Al Quada, we've had the Crotch bomber e-mailing Al Quada and his father ratting him out... how do you think it happened other than your incompetence? Hello?

Granted, if the father had e-mailed the warning and said "Greetings, I'm a rich Nigerian banker and need your help..." I can see where that might have been deleted as spam, but still....

I'm speechless at "experts" getting on tv and broadcasting which seats are prime terrorist spots because of their vulnerabilities.

I'm speechless that our DHS leader thinks the system worked, then didn't work.

I'm speechless that somebody isn't pointing their finger at Bush yet (wait for it).

I'm surprised that they didn't say the pants bomber did it because he couldn't get health insurance.

I'm speechless that there is talk that providing x-ray machines that may reveal a passenger's yoohoo is being held up because people will be offended that some stranger will see their x-ray shaped yoohoo.

I'm speechless that our fearless leader has the gall to tell us that "we will not rest until we get those responsible", um, I thought we weren't going to rest until we had jobs, and we weren't going to rest until we had Bin Laden, and we weren't going to rest until we played that back nine... oh wait, that last one is probably the only one that will actually get done.

I'm speechless that the excuse from Gibbs is that there is 500,000 names on the terror watch list... we use computers you dolt, its not just one guy with a freakin pencil so it doesn't take that long to do a search on a name you idiot. And for that matter, if there are 500,000 people we suspect of wanting to kill us... shouldn't we be rounding them up and locking them up instead allowing them to show up at airports and saying "sorry, no ticket for you"? At the very least, the list will be much shorter.

so yeah... I'm speechless, can you tell?

Enough of the Snow, Someone come take it away

Part of the "fun" of owning Siberian Huskies is that they tend to wake you at 4am because they want to go play in the snow... and boy did we get snow. A ton of snow, 80 feet of snow... ok, it wasn't 80 feet, more like 2, but it drifted to like 4 feet, and then there's the wonderful snowplow that plowed the street which means we had 12 feet of packed chunky snow in our driveway... fine, it wasn't that much, but it felt like it.

So, bright and early, hubby and I were out shoveling out from all this crap, I mean; beautiful serene snow.

After 5 minutes hubby leans on his shovel and says: "Quick, go untie your tubes and squirt us out some 16 year olds to shovel this crap". I explained that the birthing process doesn't necessarily squirt out ready-to-shovel 16 year olds and in this day, they would be obese diabetic sloth children who would call protective services on us for even suggesting we put them to work. "Fine!" hubby snorted (which isn't a good thing to do in the cold because of nose icicle issues), then he proceeded to blame me for being selfish and not having the forward thinking to squirt out some kids 16 years ago so that we wouldn't have to shovel our driveway. I didn't hear the whole rant because I was distracted by someone driving by with a snow blower in the back of their truck and was trying to whore myself out to get them to come blow our cars free. Me, selfish? pffft. When the truck kept driving I turned to cursing them and flipped them off, but that's ineffective when wearing mittens.

After we had shoveled our drive, cleared off the trucks and reminisced about the good old days when neighbors came out and helped each other and people with snow blowers would spontaneously help their neighbors out, blah blah, bitch and moan... the neighborhood came alive with people with snow blowers helping each other out. THE BASTARDS!

So we left and went to Starbucks... and tried running them over on the way out of the driveway.

Oh, and you'll be pleased to know that my company's "holiday" party was finally canceled... so I bought a dress for nothing and don't have to teeter around in 2 feet snow in heels and freeze my butt off getting there... I'm crushed, which is why I'm sitting around in sleepy pants sipping hot chocolate. I'll get over it.

She's Fallen and She Got Back Up

Its been a while since I’ve ranted, but don’t fear, I’m still keeping a journal of rant topics. Unfortunately by the time I get off my butt and write them out, they’ll be so old that I won’t remember why these things made me so mad. Whatever, you’ll just have to suffer through them anyway.

Since I’m snowbound by the STORM OF THE CENTURY OF THE MILLENNIUM OF THE UNIVERSE, and thankfully didn’t have to go to a stupid company “holiday” party (because my firm is too much of a pussy to call it Christmas and face the wrath of morons that scream “SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND PRIVATELY OWNED FIRM” or something like that), because instead of screwing us out of $35 bucks for the party and canceling it, they moved it to Sunday, where I’m sure we’re now double-booked with someone’s wedding reception and all of the guests will be wondering A.) who are all the drunks, and B.) why do they speak in acronyms and describe the food like “That curry is a paradigm shift outside the box”.

So, instead of wearing uncomfortable heels and pretending like I actually LIKE the people I work with and am not at a party simply because its cheap food and free alcohol and the annual bet when someone wearing a WAAAAY too small strapless dress will fall out of it while doing the electric glide, I’m in sleepy pants with stew in the crock pot procrastinating on doing anything because we’re HAVING An UNPRECEDENTED BLIZZARD OF EPIC PROPORTIONS DURING CLIMATE CHAOS GLOBAL WARMING-VILLE.

Which reminds me of my blog title and you’re probably getting impatient and waiting for me to actually get to the subject... fine, be that way...

I called my mom. Well, actually she called my cell phone while I was pushing a cart filled with heavy dog food in the pet store, which isn’t conducive to answering a phone ringing in the bowels of my bag, but by the time I dug it out and removed the gum wrapper off the case, she had hung up, so I had to call her back.

She spent 20 minutes yammering about life in general while I tried to maneuver the wide load cart through the narrow crap filled aisles until she got to the part where she said “Oh, and I fell down and I wanted to tell you before your sister called and told you.” That stopped me cold in the aisle because the last time she “called before my sister called me” was when she chopped the tip of her finger off with a bandsaw.

Apparently, since she only had cataract surgery done on one eye, her depth perception is crap and she didn’t see that the sidewalk was messed up and she fell, but some nice people (one guy driving by stopped) helped her and made sure she was ok and then saw her to her house and sometimes its nice having your mom live in a small town because had she lived where I do, swarms of idiots would have picked her clean like pirana in seconds. Apparently she cut her chin and scraped her nose and messed up her hand a little, but she claims she’s fine. Of course in the aisle of Petsmart I’m all freaking out because old people bones are more brittle than those balsa wood airplanes you got as a kid and I was picturing one of her arm bones snapping like so much airplane wing with that sickening crunch noise. “Don’t make me put you in a home!” I said, probably too loudly because some woman walking by me stopped and glared at me. “I’ll put my mom in a home if I want!” I snarled at her.

Then I spent the next 15 minutes insisting that I would pay for her cataract surgery premiums but she had to call and make an appointment for the other eye ASAP or else I would put her in a home, which involved the usual “yes, I know you can take care of yourself, no I don’t think you’re senile, yes I know you can save up the money, but why owe an insurance company when you can just owe me money because I don’t charge nearly as much interest as an insurance company, and yes I know those government bastards are trying to take away your medicare benefits and no I promise that I won’t eat you even if you’re made into a tasty italian dish because you aren’t even italian I picture you more as a veal dish, but a lot tougher, and no I won’t break your arm if you don’t pay me back and yes I love you and would visit you in the home if I did stick you in one.” until I could convince her that I wasn’t sending goons to cart her away and she could go back to playing solitaire on her laptop with the tv turned up too loud.

About a half hour later my sister called: “Mom fell down!” she yelled at me all dramatic and freaking out.

“Well, get off the fricken phone and pick her up” I yelled and hung up on her.

It Must Be The Worms

Nothing reverts a grown up back to childhood like being sick. You wish your parents were there to bring you hot chicken noodle soup, put a hand to your forehead and instantly know by touch whether you have a fever or not, and wait on you hand and foot until you are well again.

Yeah, I miss the good ol days, now that I'm all adult-like and have to make my own chicken noodle soup, have no clue if I have a fever and the only thermometer in the house has been up the dog's butt, and the laundry sits and mocks me until I'm well enough to do it.

Today I felt well enough to take a shower. Actually I just couldn't stand myself any more and threw myself in the shower, my mom's words ringing in my ears "take a shower, it'll make you feel better and wash the germs off of you". Yeah, I did feel somewhat better. "Now don't forget to dry your hair, if you go out with wet hair you'll catch pneumonia". My mom really did think that going out in wet hair would cause pneumonia, ear aches, tuberculosis and all manner of other horrible things. Apparently that's not the case, but you can't convince her otherwise.

My grandmother felt that you could catch horrible "private" diseases and pregnancy just by sitting on a public toilet. She also felt that we would all meet the same fate as the Titanic if we took the Ferry over to Mackinaw Island. My grandmother was also the one that gave me the middle name "Lou" because I didn't have a middle name. Grandma took a lot of pills. She also thought that you could catch worms from a myriad of things, such as eating raw cookie dough. I guess this was why my dad thought that everything was caused by worms.

"What's wrong?"
"I have a headache"
"Its the worms"
"I don't have worms"
"That's the worms talking".

My husband has an upset stomach now, which he's blaming on the pepermint white mocha he drank earlier. I'm pretty sure he has worms.

The Economy

Despite the stupid title, I assure you that there's no need to run off and poke your eyes out with a fork, I'm not going to do one of those long drawn out, drawling, make ya wanna puke dissertations on the U.S. Economy or anything like that... although if someone paid me I could, but instead I'll just sound the alarm over something I found on the back of a Wheat Thins box that disturbed me greatly.

Oh sure, you've probably seen the commercials where people are telling you to rip the gold fillings out of your teeth and mail them to their company in this handy trustworthy envelope because the value of the dollar is in the crapper and you'll need something to barter with when the rogue element starts racing around in crazy looking cars and speak with Australian accents, and you only have so many viable organs to trade. I laughed at those commercials as well, until I was eating Wheat Thins (that delicious snack cracker, and yes, since I haven't received a semi trailer full of Butterfinger Crisps, I'm now whoring for the Wheat Thin people), and found this alarming statement on the back of the box:

You can clearly see here that the U.S. Dollar is now only worth 16 Wheat Thins and 2 Tablespoons of humus. Oh dear lord are we screwed!!! Well, I'm not too screwed, because I happen to have a whole box of Wheat Thins (that I only ate approximately $3.00 out of before learning how valuable they now are). I have no idea why the Federal Reserve wanted to go with a snack cracker as the next monetary thing, but whatever, I'll go with it. The toll booth operator apparently hadn't gotten the memo and yelled at me for tossing 36 hummus slathered wheat thins into the toll hopper. She's probably still using that paper crap, the poor thing.

My husband had called and left me a voicemail that consisted of a high pitched whine that is commonly used by one of our dogs when she wants something (oyster cracker, our dinner, a Lexus). Having been married for 3,000 years, we no longer leave real messages for each other like "Hey honey, hope your day is going well, give me a call when you have a chance". Nope, our voicemails consist of high pitched keening noises, sometimes a whispered "shoot me now, please, just shoot me", or the "I want noise".

I called him back:
"What do you want?"
"Um, I don't know, I forgot"
"Well, you left a voicemail that said EEEEEEEeeeerrrrrrrrr"
"Oh, I need to go buy a beard trimmer"

Yes, from EEEEEEEEeeeeeerrrrrr he got beard trimmer. Its now quite apparent that we've evolved into our own guttural language and we can just do away with english altogether.

In case you were wondering, he didn't get a beard trimmer, because I ate all of the wheat thins.

Why do I even bother with titles

Yes, its time for more ranting, but before I start my rant, I'm going to start with a commercial of sorts.

The Butterfinger Crisp. I bought one of those halloween sized bags of them, with no intention of giving them to children. Nope, I view Halloween as socialist propaganda, if children want candy they can get a job and buy it themselves, why should I work hard only to fork over good candy to kids who just want a hand out. Anyhoo, back to the Butterfinger Crisp. I would like to inform all of you that the only thing they could do to improve this candy treat is if they found a way for them to unwrap and throw themselves straight into your mouth. I can't vouch for the regular sized bar, but the bags o' little tiny bars are fantastic, and yes, I would definitely whore myself out to the Nestle company and accept a truck load of these treats for this stellar and unbiased review of their incredibly delicious treat.

I would also like to ask those people that design online courses that make you sit through an explanation of the "right" answer, even after you answered the question right, to immediately throw themselves off of a high building, and if you survive, crawl with your broken legs back up to the top of the building and jump again. You suck. You really, truly suck. If I get the question right, move on. Stop wasting my time by going over something I already know, I know it, I answered your stupid question, if I wanted to know more... well why would I need to know "more" if I answered the question right, you idiot. This goes especially to those types of courses that are mandatory and you have to take year after year. Sure, things may change, but ask me a question about the things that changed, and if I get the pre-test wrong, then make me suffer through the drivel, but for the love of GAH stop the madness!!!

There is a very big bug sitting near the ceiling of my living room. It hasn't moved for some time now, and since I'm too lazy to do anything about it until it swoops across the room and smacks me in the forehead, I'm inclined to let it just sit there. If you don't hear from me in a few days, please call the police and report that a large bug killed me. Of course, by that time the dogs will have eaten my carcass and frankly I'm ok with that.

I close tonight's very quick, yet efficient rant with the following: Facebook, I know you are free and I should be grateful for whatever I get, but lately I haven't gotten anything from you, other than a notice saying my account is under maintenance, and when I do get in, you won't let me do anything. You are about worthless for the past week and if you don't watch out, I'll just go back to the dark ages and start e-mailing people again... um... or not. Just fix it will you.

Just Plain Rambling

I apologize for the lack of funny cartoons with this post (and yes, I’ll be updating my Facebook icon soon with the new hairdo and some blood will be involved, but that’s another story for another day, shut up I’ll tell you when I’m ready), and this will also be a rambling diatribe (whatever that is) while I wait for my iPhone to download the latest update and hopefully fix the totally f’d up Facebook app that refuses to show me anything but a page that says “no comments” which happens to be the story of my life but does Facebook have to rub it in?

Apparently I’ve eaten something that has grown in my stomach, raised some children and is now fighting its way out via the only available exit and its not happy about the trip. No, I don’t know what it was, nor do I want to know, but frankly I’m going to find out eventually and I hope it doesn’t seek retribution for something.

I’m currently mad at my husband because he won’t let me blog things. Its to the point now that any time anything remotely funny and/or/not cool happens, he immediately says: “Don’t you dare blog that!” I mean, come ON! There’s so much material in our dysfunctional lives that telling me I can’t blog something makes me want to blog it even more and then I become fixated about it and actually blog it in MacJournal (MacJournal, the most wonderful piece of software known to humans and I highly recommend it and would love the makers of MacJournal to give me something for free). I’m all about the shameless promotion and frankly if you want to give me something, I’ll totally review it, but frankly if it sucks, I’m gonna say it sucks so you better only give me totally cool stuff or else I’ll rip it to shreds and run you out of business.... are you listening UPS?

Anyhoo, I’ll ramble in an entry in MacJournal and would it be my fault if I actually blogged about it in MacJournal (where you can set up different types of journals for different blogs and upload them, except it won’t allow you to imbed pictures and upload them, but I blame blogger for being a butthead about that, not the wonderful MacJournal. I also truly have no idea why I’m fixating on MacJournal tonight, perhaps its the 7 foot tapeworm in my gut about to burst out and take over the world, which I would totally blog about whether my husband asked me to or not and yes, I would upload pictures before I died of total blood loss.

Perhaps my stomach is all upset before of stories like this. Seriously? Converting hotels and old people homes into places to hold illegals while they wait to be deported? How about you find them, you determine they are illegal, you drive them to the border and shoo them back where they came from? Do we really need to hold them in hotels? I’m about ready to lawfully sneak into Mexico, then cross the border without my passport so I can get me a nice free stay in a hotel. I haven’t been on vacation in like 10 freakin years! I work my butt off and can’t afford a vacation and don’t have any accrued vacation time, so this seems to be the easiest and cheapest way to get me a vacation! I can’t think of a better waste of my hard earned dollars than to house people who break our laws in the comfort of a hotel. Frankly, I don’t see why all criminals aren’t housed in hotels, why should we just limit it to illegal aliens, don’t our citizen criminals deserve better accommodations?

Ok, I have to go get some paper towels because my head just exploded.

The Greatest Thing Since Coffee

I'm sure all of you have seen the new coffee thing from Starbucks, the Via.

I've said all along that someone needed to create this and leave it to Starbucks to steal the idea straight from my head and make a million bucks from it (I hate you as much as I'm addicted to you, you suck Starbucks).

Picture this: you are trapped in a well and without coffee, what do you do? I'm sure a lot of you have thought this, and went into a full tilt panic. How the heck are you suppose to survive in the bottom of a well without coffee? I wake up in a sweat every time I think of this, but thanks to Starbucks, the answer is simple: Via. The concept of a pixie stick-like coffee is pure genius and should have won the Nobel Peace Prize for keeping people from ripping each others' heads off when there's no coffee around... but noooo, they gave it to some guy that spent 10 days in office and didn't do a freakin thing except clog the airways with speeches about wonderful things he would do (and still hasn't done).

Simply rip open the top and pour that delicious powder straight into your mouth and TAH DAH you have instant coffee!!! I mean why did it take someone this long to come up with the concept. Pixie sticks have been around since 1952 so you would have thought that a company or person would have thought: HEY! If you can pour pure sugar down your throat from a little tube, then why not coffee? It took 57 years for someone to actually market this wonderful thing.

Hey, wait a minute... what do you mean you're suppose to pour it in hot water? That's stupid!

UPS, you still suck

I found my new purse. Yep, me. It wasn’t the squad of professional UPS detectives working on my “case” after an “investigation” had been opened up. I certainly didn’t see swarms of UPS police converging on my neighborhood looking for clues, frisking people, kicking in doors and searching houses for my bag in their “investigation”. Nope, I didn’t even see UPS anywhere near my neighborhood, it took little ol me to find it... without the use of weaponry or threats, although my screaming could have been heard for miles, but it had nothing to do with the fact that despite HUGE neon reflective numbering on our mailbox, the UPS guy left my box on the porch of the neighbors. Not just ANY neighbor, but the neighbors who abandoned their house and left it to rot and become a cesspool of weeds, mosquitos and I’m wondering if the PODS people even want their big metal box back. Yeah, hey UPS, did you stop to think that someone sending something to a totally obviously abandoned house (your first clue should have been wading through waste high weeds) might be an identity theft type or nefarious of some sort and should have been suspicious? Not only that, but the fact that the address of that house, in all its abandoned glory, DIDN’T EVEN MATCH THE ADDRESS ON THE BOX????

Ok, whatever, I happened to look on the porch of the infamous half filled in nasty muck pool water abandoned house and saw a box peeking out from behind all of the weeds. I risked my safety by leaping, gazelle-like through the grass and who knows what and grabbed my box, held it over my head, screamed with glee and did the happy dance... then ran in fear as I’m pretty sure a Bengal Tiger was stalking me from the weeds.

Note to self: although they’ve done expensive studies to determine that texting while driving is dangerous, because there are no expensive studies that say ripping open a Nine West box, ripping the plastic from the purse, then transferring the contents of one bag to the new bag isn’t dangerous, I’m here to say that you shouldn’t try that at home, on a busy highway, while driving to starbucks where we scored some free samples of that Via instant coffee stuff. Its a banner day: new bag thought lost, and free coffee samples.

The bag is totally perfect... after I cut off the annoying decorative loop things on the side that jangled when I walked and cut out the magnetic clasp thing because magnetic anything is bad for iPhones, just perfect. I don’t have a problem with most decorative things, but not decorative things that actually clank and make noise when I walk. Seriously, how can I sneak up on a terrorist and overtake them if my perfect leather bag is clanking and tinkling like a wind chime. Ok, its more like: how can I sneak down the hall to work late and not alert a supervisor type to my lateness, but still, both valid reasons to cut off the round things that make noise. Another reason was that when the one in the back was swinging around (because I walk like a dork and I’m blaming broken wii foot and not to digress but I tried wearing my big clunky heel boots yesterday and once broken wii foot really started to hurt and still does so apparently its only partially healed wii foot and I need to stick to flats, but I digress) anyhoo, the metal thing kept hitting me in the back and I kept thinking that someone was tapping me on the back and I kept turning around and screaming “WHAT???” to the point where people started whispering about me... more than normal.

So now that I’ve ripped out all of the annoying things... it really is a cool back and totally squishy (I made my office mate touch it and confirm that it is squishy, and yes, he admitted it was squishy and I have to give him kudos for actually touching a purse and saying its squishy and it could be that he may be afraid of me, but who knows).

So, I have my bag and I should be ok for at least a week... unless I’m stressed out again.

&*%$^%$$#@@#*&^^ UPS!!!!!!

I think it goes without saying that I have a purse addiction. Ok, I admit that I’m a purse HO, seriously... I am obsessed with getting THE perfect purse (which varies from day to day) and go to the ends of the earth trying to track down a bag I’ve seen in an ad or in a movie, or on someone to the point where I’ve probably been close to being arrested for stalking and taking surreptitious, lewd pictures of handbags.

Needless to say, when I’m under incredible stress, I tend to buy bags. When my dear sweet Sammy (the $13,500.00 dog) yipped and started limping a week back, I knew it was a blown knee and sure enough, he needed surgery (now the $15,000.00 dog). Without a smoke, with no boyfriend Chantix, what could I do... except buy a handbag... THE most perfect tote bag.... I happened to find that day. I wanted it, I needed it, it must be mine, dammit I can’t find it locally, I’ll have to order it and give it to me right now, or express UPS.

The weekend went by, no updated shipping status. Monday went by, no updated shipping status. I cursed nine west, I cursed UPS, then I forgot about it because Sam went in for his surgery and I was too busy pacing and chewing on my fingernails, but then the surgery went well and we were scheduled to pick him up today and LOOK!!!! My bag has arrived locally and will be delivered today WHOOOT!

UPS generally delivers around noon, and husband would be out doing something at noon, that I suggested he go do around noon, for no reason whatsoever I’m adult I can buy a handbag or two... or 1,200 (that’s not an actual count, I exaggerate and don’t listen to any comments attributed by a guy calling himself my husband, its all a lie).

No deliver around noon, or 1pm, or 2pm, then when we got Sam back from the surgeon, no bag at 4pm, or even 5pm. Rat BASTARD UPS lying sack of... oooh, there’s the UPS truck on the next street at 6:20 pm, happy dance, happy dance, stand in front of the big window like a pathetic soul not letting on to hubby that I’m actually waiting on the UPS guy to deliver a bag that I have to figure out how to get into the house without admitting that its a bag, blah blah... um, just how long does it take for a UPS truck to go around the corner and why does it now say that my bag was delivered?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Yep, the driver delivered it to the wrong house. I’m guessing that its on the next street, but its dark out and although I could pack my glock and go sneaking from house to house looking for packages on the porch that I would run up and grab and run away (probably only to find that I had stolen the neighbors depends by mail order), I opted to call UPS... those rat bastards.

Did you know that UPS makes it nearly impossible to talk to a human. They have one of those smarmy voice recognition systems that really make you want to go out and find the computer system and beat it with a hammer. “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you” when you screamed “YOU SCUM SUCKING BASTARDS DELIVERED MY COVETED PURSE TO THE WRONG HOUSE”. I’m sure you understood every word and you are probably a real human that is trained to sound like a computer and you probably laugh and laugh at people like me screaming obscenities in the phone trying to get a human to answer.

UPS Fact #1: if you scream “LAWSUIT” into the phone, it actually WILL connect you to a real person... how funny is that???!!!!

UPS customer service, my name is something you can’t pronounce or know how to spell so you can’t possibly report me for being rude, how can I help you?

Me - YOU LOST MY PACKAGE!!! (weeping now)

UPS CS: Oh, I am very sorry, let me track your package to see where it is.

Me - seriously? It says its at my house, but its not, its lost

UPS CS: it says that it was delivered to your house, are you sure nobody else accepted it?

Me - No, I’m positive as I stood in front of the window like a crazed loon for hours without blinking and peed myself so I wouldn’t miss the truck.

UPS CS: well, we will need to have you contact Nine West and have them ask us to start an investigation.

Me - this package was very important to me (weeping openly) you have no idea how badly I needed that liver

UPS CS: um... really, it was a liver?

Me - Yes, now I will surely die if you don’t find it tonight

UPS CS: Nine West sells livers?

Me- SHUT UP, its a purse ok? Fine, are you happy? Its an expensive purse, dammit and I paid extra just so you would lose it a day early than regular delivery and besides... YOU LOST MY PACKAGE!

UPS CS: have Nine West request an investigation

Me - FINE, FINE, you suck, your company sucks, I hope they lose your mother.

UPS CS: thank you for using UPS.

So I called Nine West, and the perky woman named Edith tracked my package as well.

Edith: it says it was delivered

Me: Well Edith, are you going to believe a delivery service that couldn’t care less if I died without my purse or me, the person whose credit card is paying your salary at the moment?

Edith: I’ll request an investigation

Me: I hope they take some DNA samples and perhaps interrogate all of my neighbors. I’m pretty convinced that the people on the other street have some person locked in their basement or something.

Edith: really?

Me: who knows, but I’m guessing they don’t have the purse because who would steal a purse to give to the person they have locked in the basement.

Edith: ok, well UPS should give you a call and let you know what they find and if they can’t find the box then they’ll pay you back the amount of the purse and the delivery fee.

Me: damn straight they’ll reimburse me... but that means I still won’t have my purse (starts weeping again).

I hang up.

Hubby: why were you on the phone, you never call anyone

Me: um... FINE I ORDERED A PURSE AND UPS LOST IT!

Hubby: figured... and you’ll probably need to go out and get another purse in the meantime.

Me: well, yeah

So here is the new bag that I’m obsessing about... if anyone knows where I can get one just like it, let me know, but seriously, don’t ship it UPS.

WTF

I think that's aptly titled, and frankly I don't think I should even bother with the rest of the post because I'm pretty sure that everyone knows what this means and probably don't have to spell it out... fine, be that way!

It started off with Oliver Cyst making an appearance. Hadn't been visited by Oliver in quite some time and frankly I have no idea why he decided to pop up and cause agony over the simplest of movements. Who is Oliver Cyst? My gah, really, I don't have time to go into all of that fiasco, suffice it to say its a cyst in my left wrist that decides to pop up once in a while and make me miserable.

Then Sam, our spineless, bionic hip puppy was outside running, yipped and now is limping. Every time Sam limps, its the sound of the cash register. Sam can't just sprain something, Sam always has to have some kind of bizarro injury that costs us large amounts of money. Please note that anyone posting a comment suggesting we are insane for spending thousands on a dog or suggesting we have him put to sleep will be hunted down and maimed, refused medical care, then put to sleep. Better yet, throw your child off the roof and then let me bitch at you for taking it to the doctor, and while you wring your hands nervously, I'll suggest you put your broken child to sleep... in other words, bite me.

So, on top of that, I go into the back room and discover that our water heater is leaking water all over. Well just spiffy keen shoot me now! Lucky for us, our water heater is covered under the expensive mondo warranty policy thingie that says they'll just replace that sucker for little to no money or fix it for the same pittance of money. Everything is covered... see the picture below and please point out to me what you think isn't covered (I made it easy with arrows), then guess what exactly is wrong with our water heater.
Yep, the water heater repair guy shows up, pronounces the water heater (that's covered) is just fine, the problem is the leaking pipe leading to the water heater, and the "reserve" tank connected to the water heater... both of which are NOT covered under our handy warranty program... of course. FINE, so fix these issues.... but he can't because he's not a plumber, he's just a water heater guy (I would think that you would need to be both, but apparently he's just a specialist on water heaters), but he was nice enough to send a message to the plumbers and tell them that its an emergency, that water is leaking all over, and since its Friday at 4pm... I should expect to hear from someone on Monday. Gosh, good thing he said it was an emergency, otherwise it may be months before I hear from someone apparently.

In the meantime, he told me that I need to turn off the breaker to the heat pump and shut off the hot water... um... really? I mean its actually been leaking for 2 weeks actually and seems to work just fine, what's the big deal... and what do you mean no hot water until the plumbers fix it... SONOFA....

Saturday afternoon rolls around and the plumbers call, all chipper and happy. Apparently the "reserve" tank is a special thing that the Anne Arundel County code enforcement people receive a kick back on and have made it mandatory that all homes have them, so that's why they cost $300. My 80 gallon water heater cost $300, so you're telling me that the itty bitty whatever the frick tiny mandatory piece of crap leaking goofy looking thing that does absolutely NOTHING is going to cost me the same as my water heater, that isn't covered in this repair, and the replacing of the leaking pipe is going to cost me. Its at this point, standing in the kitchen with a sink full of dirty dishes, reeking like a homeless person with nasty hair, pile of dirty clothes gathering because I have no hot water, I began weeping and laughing because the soonest they can come out is Monday afternoon.

Sure, why not, I've got some dog wipes that says they will make my coat silky smooth and some baby wipes for that deep down clean so I can go to work looking professional... ok, actually I never go to work looking professional, unless its professionally demented, but I do tend to smell like grapefruit extract and cucumber soap and some flowery shampoo stuff, not like I haven't bathed since Friday.

Needless to say, I'll be showing up to work long enough to say that I'm out for the rest of the day, then I'll be at home pacing and waiting for the plumbers to show up... then soaking in a hot tub once there is glorious hot water again.