The Day I Became a Moron

Dh and I went to the grocery store yesterday morning. Years ago, a visit to the grocery store was preceded by careful studying of the weekly ads, writing everything down carefully with the cost beside it. I no longer have any control over the amount of money spent in this household, so there's no point for my even trying to keep us to a budget. I'm not sure how to do it, without becoming a shrew.

At any rate we got to the store and it seems they are having this bizarre buy nine items get $9 off sale. First off, I thought you had to buy nine to get one free. So, ten for the price of nine. But I was wrong on that.

All over the store, there are ads like this:

Your Final Cost When You Buy 9... Buy 9, Save $9.

While looking at these crackers, we realize we can't use nine boxes in a year, so we don't get any.

At this point I called my boss and asked her if I should buy some for work. She asked me to pick up 18 bottles.

Here I'm wondering who in their right mind would buy nine super size bags of potato chips unless they were having a giant party?

At no time did I stop to read the fine print, which said, "Buy 9, Save $9 Instantly When You Buy Any Combination of Nine (9) Participating Products." DUH. Ding, I just turned into an idiot.

Apparently the limit of 2 credits, meant two per receipt!!

I'm entering the purchases into Quicken today, and realize they only gave us TWO CREDITS. I'm thinking, they cheated us out of FOUR credits! The 18 bottles of salad dressing was worth two all by itself.

So I call the store, and customer service explains we're only allowed two credits per receipt. I'm aghast and completely in shock by this statement. Thinking it can't be true. I laughed, and said, "Thanks, can I speak with a manager?"

Here's some more great customer service, as someone answers the phone:

"Hi, can I help you?"

Me: I was waiting to speak to a manager.

"You've got her, how can I help you?"

Me: Can I have your name, please?

"Rosemary."

Me: Okay, Rosemary, your customer service person is trying to tell me there was a limit of 18 items and all over the store and in the ad it says I have to buy NINE of one item in order to get the sale price.

She goes on to argue with me that it's in the ad, they have been handing out flyers at the door and telling people that is how the deal works AND they instructed the cashiers to tell people as they are checking out, how it works.

I was still aghast. I told her my cashier didn't say one word to me, and I even commented to him on how they must have brought in five truckloads in order for people to have to buy multiples of nine of everything. I think I even mentioned wondering how someone could use nine super size bags of potato chips. He didn't say a word to me. And there weren't many people in the store, so it's not like he was so busy and stressed out that he would have forgotten.

So finally she tells me they aren't restricting the number of items you buy, you just have to get separate receipts.

I'm still aghast.

Finally she sighs and says if I bring in my receipt they'll fix it for me.

Okay, here's how I would have handled that situation, as a manager.

"Hi, this is Rosemary, how can I help you?"

Me: Fuss, grumble, gripe, complain

"I'm sorry ma'am, we've had several complaints on this. We've been trying to bring this to our shoppers' attention by handing out flyers and our cashiers were instructed to mention it as well. I'm sorry if you weren't told about it, but if you bring your receipt in we'll be happy to fix it for you."

See how easy that could have been? Twenty-five years ago that's what would have happened, too.

I saw many other people with baskets loaded up with nine items of many things. I bet some people didn't even look at their receipt, just assumed they got the sale prices.

Dang it. Now we have to stop by the store after church tomorrow so they can fix the problem.

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The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

As I looked for the title to that book by Judith Voirst it occurred to me that today wasn't the ultimate worst ever day I've had in the past year, but it was bad enough that I wished I could have left work by noon and gone home for the day, crawled into bed and stayed there for hours with the covers over my head.

What happened is I went and let my feelings get hurt.

The place where I work had their 60th anniversary event on Friday. The invitation said, "The Board of Directors and Staff cordially invite you to attend our Donor Appreciation Luncheon".

Now wouldn't you think the Board of Directors AND the staff would be included in the luncheon, considered both parties were said to be doing the inviting? Not my job. It was decided early on that staff would NOT be included in the luncheon event. No. We would be offered "delicious sack lunches" (an oxymoron if I ever heard one!) including a "snack, drink and sweet treats". Those are the words included in the email. Very condescending if you ask me. And the person who wrote the email does think herself to be better than the "rest" of us.

I honestly thought our CEO would be upset to discover that people were very upset at being excluded. I emailed him to that effect and he was very polite, but firmly told me that staff was never going to be included in the event, from the beginning planning stages.

Staff was expected to WORK the event. I guess that's how we come in on the invitation.

And the person who planned the event is NOT AN EVENT PLANNER. I personally heard some positive feedback on the event, so to our guests things looked great. I guess in the long run, that's all that counts.

I am now trying to stop feeling upset over the whole thing.

I actually took off work yesterday, well most of the day. I had to attend a training for one of our upcoming proposals and went to that. But I decided early on in the day that I wasn't coming in for the day. Instead I ended up going clothes shopping. Yep. Me, clothes shopping. It's been nearly eight years since I shopped for office wear clothing, and I decided yesterday was the day. My MIL gave me $200 on my birthday last May to buy some new clothes and I'd only spent $50. So I spent the other $150 and actually bought myself some heels!

To be continued...

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The Too Big Swatch

The pattern calls for size US 6 needles. Since I don't own hardly any knitting needles, just to be safe I bought not only size 6, but also size 5 and size 7. I started the gauge swatch with the size 6 needles. Too wide. 1/2 inch to wide. I went down to the size 5 needles. Guess what? Still 1/2 inch too wide!! So then I went looking in my stash, I knew I had another pair of needles but wasn't sure of the size. They were size 3. So I started a third swatch. Well, the width is just a bit wider than 4", but now the length is almost five inches!!

Now what do I do? Do I just try to knit tighter? Won't that be a pain as I try to knit tightly throughout the entire sweater? Aren't I going to find myself off guard - heaven forbid - actually relaxing - and knit too loosely again?

You know what one of my pet peeves is? When people say loose when they mean lose. Like, I'd like to loose ten pounds. I suppose that could make some kind of sense, but it's not "LOOSE" people, it's "LOSE".

Okay, end rant.

Maybe I should try to find a forum that continental knits and ask there. I found a neat YouTube video today: Continental Knitting Demo

Okay I'm watching it again... she's talking about having more tension on the yarn. Maybe that's part of my problem? She also made a comment about how continental knitters knit more loosely as a general rule. She says that she always has to go down at least two sizes when starting a pattern. Like if the pattern calls for US 6, she automatically begins her swatch with size US 4.

I have not cleaned house or done dishes in days. Ds2 has been keeping up with the kitchen and he also defrosted and emptied the big freezer to make room for the beef. I just HAD to take a day off today and do nothing. I'm still not feeling 100% and I keep having a bit of a sinus headache. But my breathing is WAY better. I was having to use my Flovent twice daily (I can usually get by fine with only 1x/daily) and having to use my rescue inhaler (Albuterol) up to 4 times daily.

I am hoping to get some more work done on ds1's bedroom tomorrow. I am going to make a curtain for him out of the flat sheet, and I bought new blinds to replace his old filthy dusty ones. I also bought him a new locking door knob, with one of those things you put at the threshold of the door, under the door? Because the carpet in the hallway and his new carpet don't exactly meet up, so I want to cover that up.

I'm tired.

Until next time.

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One Thing After Another

And now this! Blogger won't let me post my pictures!

I keep getting a 502 Server Error and "The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request. Please try again in 30 seconds."

Thirty seconds, hah! I have tried several times now and I'm not getting anywhere.

Grrrrrr.

I am too tired for this. I will have to wait to blog about today, tomorrow.

Until next time.

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Riding Bikes

Last week sometime, ds2 and I went on a bike ride one night, then for a bit the next night. I think it was Sunday and Monday evening.

Anyway, I haven't gotten on my bike again until tonight. We rode between 4 and 5 miles. It wasn't too hard, but my wrists were hurting a lot. I have always had a bit of carpal tunnel syndrome problem. I put some Arnica Gel on them when I got home.

Earlier today, I was working on my blog, labeling some of my earlier posts. I was trying to think of a good label for the ones where I was griping and complaining. I looked up the synonyms for complaining. I have decided to use the label Aggravation. Because usually I'm very aggravated about something, hence my complaining.

Speaking of Aggravation. There is a game with that name. I wonder if it still exists. Ah, here is is, Aggravation, manufactured by Hasbro. It was my stepfather's favorite game, because he loved to aggravate his stepchildren. We (myself and my six siblings) were always being quoted that Bible verse:

Ephesians 6:1 KJV "Children obey your parents; for this is right."

Not until I was in my twenties did I know about:

Ephesians 6:4 KJV "And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. "

Okay, obviously my stepfather chose to blatantly ignore that passage. God rest his soul, he passed away a few weeks ago. He was not one of my favorite people, unfortunately. He caused me a lot of grief as a child. He wasn't very smart either. I remember being 10 years old and realizing I was smarter than him in many things. It's why the men in my life have to be smarter than me in SOMETHING, or I have a hard time having any respect for them as a person. I also remember listening to him blathering on at the dinner table, talking about things like how lucky we children were to be eating with the adults. Because when he was growing up, the children ate scraps after the adults had their fill. This was always said in a threatening tone, as if we didn't watch ourselves we might be doing the same one day. I remember thinking to myself, if there wasn't enough food for everyone, I'd go without before I'd make my children eat scraps. Then he'd tell us about how his grandmother used to beat him every day and that's what made him such a good person. And how if she'd beat him more, he'd have been an even better person. Whatever. Dude. Get. A. Grip.

Now you know why I don't believe in hitting children.

I hope I'm not sore tomorrow. And I hope I sleep well tonight. I did put on a few more rows of the baby sweater, but I'm not going to photograph it tonight.

Until next time.

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Fit to Be Tied

I was really irritated at the local library yesterday. When I was a stay at home mother, many years ago, we used to go to the library every single week. I'd keep a revolving list of the books we checked out, and the ones that were due. Now that I work, drive over 2 hours a day to that job in the "big" city, have livestock, etc., I can't even keep track of one book and get it back to the library on time.

So I owed the library some fines on books, about $20. Ds2 had also misplaced a book that he'd checked out, so anytime we'd lost a book in the past (which was rare, in spite of the messy house!) I'd just buy a copy and replace it. Half.com is GREAT for that, so I went right there and bought a copy. AGH, I was trying to find out how much I paid for the book, and finally found the confirmation email. I purchased it used from Amazon, paid $7.15 total.

The book arrived, I haven't had time to take it back to the library. I received a notice by email yesterday that unless I brought the book back, or paid for its replacement $11.95 plus $5.00 processing fee, they would turn me in to a collection agency. And they will do it. It happened to my sister, who has paid a small fortune in late library books to the library system.

I thought, "I had better get that book taken in."

So I went after I got off work yesterday. When the book arrived, I noticed it was a library discard, interestingly, from a library in another county in our state. I didn't think it would matter one way or the other, but I did take the time yesterday morning before leaving for work to remove the tape and sticker information which was pasted across the top of the book. I didn't bother to remove the spinal tape information, nor the first inside page which indicated it was a library discard.

As soon as the librarian saw that this was a library discard, she told me they could not accept it as a replacement book. I was really irritated by this and muttered and griped while she stared at her computer screen. I asked how long was this going to take because I had to go to a town 1.5 hours away and she told me I could come back another day if it would be better for me, since this was going to take a few minutes.

I told her I'd rather wait. I figured if I didn't just get the thing paid, they'd turn me into a collection agency...

I called my sister after this was over, to warn her about replacing books with library discards. She told me she had experienced it before, and she had learned to JUST PAY FOR THE BOOK instead of trying to replace it. She says they just want your money. She told me what will really drive you crazy is you just paid to replace a book, then as you are looking at the library's own cart full of discards, you find the very book you just paid to replace!!!!

She says they want brand new books. I told her I CANNOT believe the library would prefer to have one less book in circulation, than to accept a used copy. What if the book in question is out of print??? And as I just discovered, according to Amazon, the book I was trying to replace IS out of print!! I said yesterday I was planning to write a letter of complaint to the library (and we all know how much good letters of complaint do for us nowadays since customer service is dead) and now armed with this information that the book is out of print, I am definitely going to complain.

So as it turns out, with the fines on this book, paying for the cost to replace it, paying for the processing fee, plus the other fines, I ended up giving them $40 and some cents. I was FIT TO BE TIED!!

Here is the rundown of the fees on that one book:
$2.20 Fine
$3.20 Fine
$5.60 Fine
$6.95 Lost Item
$5.00 Processing Fee

$22.95 PLUS the $7.15 I paid to Amazon. $30.10!!!

ARGH!! Paying out that kind of money for late fees just about kills me!! I almost come unglued if I ever forget to pay a credit card bill and they add that ENORMOUS, OUTRAGEOUS late fee. Actually, I think it's happened twice, with two different cards, and I was able to get the charge removed as a one time courtesy.

As long as I'm complaining, I may as well confess to having missed on getting THREE, not just one or two but THREE rebates turned in, in the past few months!!! I have always been fanatical about getting rebates -- wait, I just remembered a FOURTH one -- SCREAM!! But, I have always been PERFECT at getting rebates turned in. I KNOW the companies offer them, betting that half or more of the people who buy the item will forget to do it, or will lose some piece you have to turn in, or will turn it in missing something.

I swear, they are using a new tactic to discourage rebating. All rebates used to end on the last day of the month. If you had to buy the thing within a certain time period, it was usually a month, say June 1 to June 30. The date the rebate had to be turned in was say July 31st. But now, they make the dates arbitrary, so who can keep track of them? The latest rebates I missed out on, you had to purchase the product between 5/30 and 6/24. The rebate had to be postmarked by 7/10. Well, I got confused, and thought the 24th was the last day for postmark. So I looked on the 11th, to find I'd missed the date. One refund purchase was a case of oil, $13.08, and the rebate was for $6.00. Luckily the other item doesn't work for us, a $26.99 jack with a $7.00 rebate, so we'll just take that item back to the store and get the money back on it.

The other rebates I missed out on, one was OUCH OUCH OUCH THIRTY-FIVE DOLLARS from when dh and dh2 bought a bunch of power tools from Home Depot. I think dh says we could take those tools back though, and buy them cheaper (about $35 less) from Lowe's. We may yet do that. The last rebate was a tiny one, for a set of automatic pencils I'd purchased and they would have been free. Something like $1.49.

I did manage to send in the rebate for $35 off when I purchased ds2's cell phone!!

One more thing, and I'll try to stop for the day. I have a credit card through Amazon, and I get 3 points for every dollar's worth of things I charge through Amazon, and 1 point for every dollar elsewhere. When I get 2500 points, I get a $25 gift certificate from Amazon. I get quite a bit of junk mail every week. So I am sure Amazon uses this ploy in hopes that people just throw away the gift certificate when it arrives in the mail. They make the envelope look like JUNK MAIL. It indicates the return address is "Reward Headquarters" and it looks just like junk mail! I ALMOST threw away the first of my $25 gift certificates, but I decided to just look and make sure of what was in the envelope. Because usually something that says "Reward Headquarters" is some stupid piece of junkmail telling you if you return something within so many days, you will WIN $5000 dollars but in small print (your entry will be placed in a drawing). You know? The gift certificate also has an expiration date. So Amazon offers the credit card, hopes you spend lots of money and pay lots of interest on the credit card, just to get $25 every so often, which the average person is too busy (I almost am too busy or maybe that's just braindead) to keep track of, and then the GC comes in a junk mail envelope, and then the person has to remember to use it and not misplace it.

I once did one of those offers where you get a gift card for $50. I actually managed to stay with it for the duration of the hoop jumping and got the gift card. It took WEEKS!!

I had to stop signing up for 3 month free offers through mypoints.com because I kept forgetting to cancel the membership before they charged my credit card some horrid amount like $79.95. They are great at refunding the money, but they talk your ear off trying to get you to realize what a great deal you are missing out on. "HEY, I only signed up for the stupid thing to get 200 points through MyPoints, okay?!"

I still get upset sometimes because Fry's Electronics never sent a $20 rebate. I wrote letters and called and called and called. Their customer service department sucks. Every time I'd call, they would have a new person working the rebate problems. I finally gave up trying because they would say they would look into it and call me back. Their whole store sucks. Maybe one employee at any given time knows how to walk and chew gum at the same time. Once, I went in looking for a microcassette recorder. The young man I asked where to find them, told me they had discontinued them and no longer carried them. JERK! I found an older man, and he took me right to the entire aisle's worth of microcassette recorders. I went to the manager and complained that time. I do have to say that when I bought our KitchenAid mixer, the young man who helped me was HELPFUL. I complimented him and come to find out his former job was working for his family's restaurant and so he actually knew how to treat a customer with respect. I told him that was so important and to keep up the good work.

I hate babysitting problems like never arriving rebates. I have a problem similar to this going on with our mortgage company. The second year of the mortgage, my insurance agent stopped handling one insurance company that was costing over $600/year, for one that is $429/year. Well, the $600+ company decided to take it upon themselves to bill the escrow company directly, who proceeded to pay BOTH insurance companies. I caught it quickly the first year it happened, when I received a notice that the mortgage was going up, due to the escrow being in the red. They reversed that. That was probably December 2003 that I got that straightened out. I never received an escrow schedule or mortgage increase in December 2004, so assumed all was well, I actually remember thinking "No news is good news" and assuming that since they'd done it once, they wouldn't do it again. End of May, I received notice that the mortgage was going up by SEVENTY dollars! I looked over the escrow schedule, and noticed that $625 had been paid to an insurance company in March, and coincidentally I had just received my insurance paperwork which stated my policy is $429/year. So I knew that was wrong. But then I noticed that the escrow account started out $616 in the red for the fiscal year. I called them and discovered that yes, the escrow company had made two insurance payments in June 2005. One for $616 and one for $429, within TEN DAYS of each other!!

So now my escrow company has paid out over $1200 to a second insurance company, and expects me to suck it up and pay more money on my mortgage every month. With the price of gasoline going higher and higher as I type, price of food and everything else rising, I DON'T THINK SO! I have been calling them every single Monday, and I paid the mortgage late this month, with a handwritten letter that indicated I am not in agreement with the higher amount, just because I'm paying it this month, and that I expect for them to get things straightened out with the month of July and have my payment back to NORMAL!!

Doesn't anyone pay attention nowadays to their job!? Or is everyone else's mind as foggy as mine? One of my relatives fiancee is a lawyer and is in the military. She says take them to small claims court if they won't reverse it. I know I'm going to have to keep calling every Monday, nagging, nagging, nagging them or they will conveniently forget it.

SIGH.

Until next time.

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Tax Fiasco

I have thought of so many things I wanted to blog about in the past three weeks, but never found the time. I am thinking part of the problem is I have trouble being brief... I like to tell the whole story, regale every feeling and essence.

But one thing I wanted to memorialize is the mad fiasco of preparing one's taxes on the very last day. But you see, that's exactly what gets me into trouble -- writing big long stories about nothing in particular!

All I can say is, if it is going to go wrong, it will!!

I had done a quick run through a couple of months ago, yes, a couple of months ago... I was waiting on a 1099-MISC from a family member who swears she has never done her taxes this late in the year. That's cool... but usually I file my taxes by mid-March at latest since I usually get money back. Anyway, finally she got the 1099-MISC to me. On Sunday, the 16th, I finally forced myself to sit down and start my taxes. I used the online tax preparer that I used the previous year, which brings in all your previous year's information.

Then I went to get my W2. It's been traveling around with me since mid-January, at the bottom of my purse, the envelope containing it becoming more and more ratty and worn. But everytime I'd see it, I would have a good feeling, one of relief, knowing exactly where my W2 was located. Can you guess what happened? Exactly. When I went to get it, it was gone. I looked every possible place that it could have been, but could not find it. I finally decided I must have taken it out of my purse at work and left it on my desk. My boss has that information at home, but being it was Easter Sunday I couldn't bother her, because I know she has huge family get togethers every holiday.

I scrambled to find the pencil figures I'd completed earlier, and multiplied the figures on my W2. My paystub doesn't show year-to-date figures, considering our paychecks are still processed on an old Brother word processor (courtesy of my boss). I entered those into the system.

All went well for a bit. I got to the end of everything, including the state. The tax preparer was offering some kind of prepaid debit card and they would then waive the state filing fee of $30. I thought I'd try it out, but wanted to learn more about the small print. No one was available as it was Sunday. So I decided to wait and continue on Monday.

Monday morning... put a call into my boss about 7:50am. Whoops, she was still asleep. Said she'd been up late with the family there until all hours of the night (this is a woman who gets up every morning at 4:30am -- I didn't know senior citizens could sleep in!). So I put in a call to the tax preparer helpline. Come to find out with that prepaid debit card deal, sure they waive your state filing fee, but you can't move the money off that card, you can't pull out cash without incurring large fees -- $15 to pull out cash! $1 for purchases, some were free. And in addition to that, they send you a card which you receive in 7-10 days, then they don't put your refund on for another 10 days. So I said phooey on that.

Around 11am, my boss calls me back with the numbers.

I deleted out the state income tax and submitted my federal taxes. I thought I'd just do like I'd done last year to save the $30 filing fee, just file by mail.

So my printer cartridge has been leaking. I bought this cartridge off eBay. The person said they'd never used it, it was the wrong size for their printer. So shortly after we received it, it started printing out huge black splotches over anything I printed out. I had ordered a cartridge (which I found out on Tuesday the company it was shipped by could not find our home address on Monday -- I sure could have used that printer cartridge!). I had had luck once before with taking it out, cleaning everything and replacing it. I tried that, but it did not work this time.

So I was thinking I would have to go someplace and complete my taxes... then I remembered I have this old fax machine. I've never set it up. I thought I'd give it a try. I got it plugged in and printed a test page. Success!! So I hooked it up to the computer, thinking XP has all the drivers for everything. Nope. So I went looking on the 'net and wow, Xerox still has the drivers available! So I downloaded them and got them installed. Now I'm getting an error message. Try again. Still error message. Research error message on the 'net. Reboot. Try printing in spite of the error message. No luck. I'm about to give up, when I read the "read me" file again and discover that a known issue is that error message. Reboot the computer again, and tried to print again. YES! Things are going my way!

By now it was 6pm. All day long I'd had in the back of my mind... I know the post office stays open until midnight on these nights. So I started calling the ones nearest to me... 8 miles away... no answer... 16 miles away... no answer... 22 miles away... no answer... finally called the usps.com number to find out which one I'd have to drive to... DANG IT!! I have to drive 48 miles away. And I have to get up early in the morning and go to work! I'm not going to get to bed until midnight at this rate.

I started gearing up for that... completed the online tax form and printed it out... reviewing the filing information... OH NOOOOOO!!! When you send it in, in person, you have to send in copies of your W2! Which I did not have!!

All right... so my tax preparation company told me earlier that I could file an extension for $20. So I tried to do that only... that started the process of an extension for my FEDERAL taxes!

So then I thought... okay... I'll just suck it up, and pay the $30. So I get all that information back in there... and hit submit... and now I get a message that they are sorry, but they are unable to accept my state tax income tax filing until my federal taxes have been accepted! Please come back in 24 - 48 hours and submit your state taxes.

I'm now starting to panic a bit. Later, I thought... "What the heck would the punishment be for filing late, death?" You would have thought that was the case, the way I was freaking out.

So I decided to not do my state taxes with them and hit the "delete your state taxes" section. This is now the second time I've entered the state information, only to delete it.

I started looking for other online alternatives... isn't there anyplace that allows you to file STATE only?? I found one, they charge $20 to file your state only, and started entering the data, only to realize that I don't have my previous year tax information handy and would have to figure out what I did with that. I was already so stressed out that I am sure I couldn't have found last year's income taxes -- and why I didn't have a .pdf copy on my computer, I just don't know!

Then I check my email to find that my tax preparation company has (thank you so very much) already charged me $30 to submit my state taxes... CRAP!

So I started gearing myself up again to make the drive into town... thinking this time I'll just print out an extension and submit the amount I owed ($123) by mail to avoid late filing fee charges.

In a last ditch attempt to avoid driving 100 miles round trip... I decided to put in a call to my tax preparation company... of course at this late hour, they were super busy and I was on hold, on my son's cell phone -- with no earbud -- having to hold that tiny, hot thing right next to my -- by this time -- pounding, aching head... listening to that stupid music... for at least 20 minutes.

Finally the help line guy comes onto the line. I'm nearly frantic, but trying really hard to rein it in... what I really want to do is just started screaming into the phone as loud as I can. I take a deep breath and explain that I can't do my taxes with them because I just submitted my federal a few hours ago, and they have already charged me and, and, and, and, and, and what can be done about this mess I've gotten myself into??? So he took my username and social security number and name and he looks at my account... by some miracle... my federal taxes have BEEN ACCEPTED so it is okay for me to submit my state income taxes. Oh man, what relief. I was never SOOOO happy to pay $30 in my life and be done with the nightmare of filing one's taxes on the last possible day.

I will NEVER do that again!!

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Customer Service is dead

Today I was scheduled to take my ds to see a movie while my dh and other ds rearranged his room and set up his new bed. Somedays I wish I could just stay home all the time. I have been very disgusted with customer service in the past few years. It is just getting worse and worse.

My ds and I went to see a movie at the nearest movie theater, which is 22 miles away from our home. I go there partly due to the convenience of being closest, it costs less, and the theater is owned by a local man. Customer service is generally good in this small town. This theater reminds you when calling to hear the current movies that you should be sure to arrive at least one half hour earlier, because they have a "non-disturbance, no-admission policy" which they enforce along with no gum chewing and no cell phones allowed. This is to protect the patrons from their movie being interrupted.

However, today when the movie was several minutes from being over, and this was not just "outtakes" -- the movie was NOT over yet. The cleaning crew came into the theater, turned the lights on and even though the movie was not over, people all over started getting up and leaving! I could not believe it! At least 3/4 of the audience left, about 1/8 of us stayed seated watching the end of the movie, while the other 1/8 stood in the aisles watching, realizing the movie wasn't over. But hey, since the lights were on, it apparently was over?!

So I went up to one of the young people cleaning up, and I asked if that was the norm for them to turn on the lights when the movie wasn't over. He said, "Yes, it is a policy we are supposed to enforce." I could not believe it. I was really wishing to find the manager. But instead, I found a child of about eight or nine manning the food station. Okay, great. The whole family works there. I was standing there fuming, dumbfounded, and my son led me out of the theater, not wanting me to make a scene. I then saw the young man who took our tickets, who listened to my complaint sympathetically. He offered to find [woman's name] and I asked who that was. He said the manager, but then said she was flaky, too. I told him it was just as easy for me to drive to the next nearest town's theater, another 10 miles away.

Next I went to a Kmart. I was on the hunt for Red Devil lye. Which apparently you can't buy it in real life anymore due to it being an ingredient for making Methamphetamine. My youngest ds is making goat milk soap. I bought the can of lye we had over a year ago, intending to make soap myself. But never got around to it. Anyway, so I went into Kmart, looking for lye and also looking at area rugs. They were too much, ranging from $50 to $80. I didn't find any lye, but as we were leaving, I saw some kitchen rugs that I liked. They were marked $6.99 on the shelf sticker. I thought that wasn't too bad, so I picked one out. I looked at the price on several, all were $6.99. I get up to the front of the store, and my items ring up to nearly $15. I'd only bought a pair of finger nail clippers and a candy bar which came to about $3.50. So the total was too much. I asked the cashier why it was so high and she said the rug was $9.99. I told her it was $6.99 on the shelf. She explained that the rugs probably go on sale tomorrow, and she can't give me tomorrow's sale price today. She looked around for an ad for tomorrow, but didn't have one. I looked at her, and said that I would like to void this sale then, because I expected to pay $6.99 for this rug, not $9.99. She couldn't do that. I had to sign the credit card reciept first, then we had to go to customer service.

When we got there, she told them I didn't want these things after all and needed a refund. Another lady came over and asked what was the problem. The cashier told her about the price difference, the lady said to just give it to me for $6.99 and refund my $3.00 and make sure the price was correct on the shelf.

Here's the deal... it has been this way all my life. If it says one thing on the shelf, but rings up at a different price, you have a PRICE CHECK done on the item. Or, you can take my word for it. I do not have any problems with a price check being done. I'm nearly always right, and I usually go with the person making the price check to help them find the item (and to make sure they don't rip off the tag that shows the price that I saw when I picked up the item).

This is Kmart, a company in trouble financially. And this particular one happens to have been closed down for the better part of the last year due to the roof caving in during a bad rain storm. I don't shop Kmart much, usually only going there if I can't find an item anyplace else. Do you think I'm anymore inclined to shop there now? Nope.

I ate crap at the movie. Popcorn, nachos and soda. I already know I can't stop myself, so I just eat and eat until it's gone or I can't stand the thought of another bite. At least this time we didn't get refills like we have in the past. That is a positive.

I was so brain dead, that I forgot that I actually bought the nail clippers at Kmart. I also told my other son on the way home that we were going to get him a candy bar, but didn't. But we did end up buying that stuff! Anyway, so I went to another store, looking for lye, and realized I still had not bought nail clippers (oh but I had...) so I had one of the cashiers watch my paid for groceries and went to buy another pair of nail clippers. I was frustrated to see that they only had STORE BRAND nail implements. Name brand doesn't cost that much more, I wanted REVLON, a name brand I know I can trust to produce a pair of nail clippers that won't break after 3-4 uses and trims the nail properly. So I'm still looking, and finally I see the Revlon brand are hanging at the front on a hanger thing. I was relieved and bought a pair of the deluxe version.

We next went to a fast food place and I ordered four items. The guy recited back three items, and something unintelligible. It sounded like he said "No beans?" I asked him to repeat himself and then I guess he just turned off his end because I sat there saying, "Hello? Hello?" and finally drove around. I asked him at the window if he got all four items and he again recited them back to me. That was okay, but still annoying that he ignored me.

So I pull out my fingernail clippers, to trim my nails. I can't keep long nails for a few reasons. Mainly because my nails don't really grow long too well, never have. I started keeping them trimmed as a teen because I found that kept me from picking them and ending up with sore fingers from the nail pulling off too close to the skin. And now that we have goats, it's easier to milk with trimmed fingernails. So I started clipping my nails, only to find that my NAME BRAND clippers that I had to have, are doing this weird thing to my nails. I don't know how to describe it, but the cut was causing the top layer of my nail to stick up so if I wanted to, I could separate off that first layer, thereby making that portion of my nail very thin. Not a good thing. So I found out that if I cut my fingernails with the clippers held backwards, that bad cut wasn't happening.

SCREAM!!! I tell you, customer service is DEAD!!!!

I AM going to write a letter of complaint to the theater manager. I'm sure I won't get any response. The last two letters of complaint I wrote, I never heard a word back from the companies. It's not like I write them all the time. Those were written probably three years ago, in late December.

But I am going to let Mr. Theater Owner know how I feel about his so-called policy. I can only hope it's NOT his policy. If it is, I will not go there again. I can pay a few more dollars and drive a few more miles to be able to watch the entire movie without being interrupted before it's over. The nerve! To be so fanatical about not disturbing the movie once it's started, but it's okay to disturb your patrons just before it ends. How rude.

BTW, on the way home my son told me if I go to bed when I get home I won't be so grumpy.

Until next time.

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Eating Alone

I hear a lot of people talk about not liking to eat alone, but I love it. I grew up in a large family, and was a loner as a child. I never had many friends, usually one "best" friend in each grade. We moved a lot, so I went to a different school every couple of years.

Yesterday, I didn't have any leftovers to bring for lunch, so I went to a local fish and chips joint all by myself. I brought a Guideposts magazine with me. A friend brings me his copy after he's finished with it. Guideposts always gets me teary-eyed with the inspirational, spiritual stories. I have to say though, I'm dismayed at how it's filled with medical prescription advertisements. I don't think I could bring myself to purchase a subscription and pay for that. Anyway, I sat there all by myself at a table with four seats. I really liked the feeling of being all alone, by myself, reading, not having to act any certain way for anyone I was with.

New Topic: I remember when I was young, how the "old" people would complain about things like customer service, and the quality of things, and how it was so much better in the olden days. Well, more and more I'm hearing myself complaining about the same kinds of things. If it was so much worse when I was a youngster, how much worse has it gotten now? It's pretty bad, if you ask me!

And just how people are in general, how they don't seem to think before doing things. Like this morning. The sun was just beginning to rise, and I got off the freeway, and in the right hand lane there was a man and his car broke down. He was obviously out of gas, as he was holding a large red plastic gas can. There was a highway patrolman behind him, in an unmarked dark green SUV. The patrolman had his flashers on (not his flickering lights) and he had the man get into his vehicle, apparently planning to take him to a nearby gas station. I was looking in that direction, but not making eye contact with the patrolman. However, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the patrolman was making "thank you" gestures to me. I realized that he thought he had my attention and had asked if he could cut in front of me. Lucky for me that I can read gestures well.

So he pulls in front of me, and amazingly, neither one of those men bothered to turn on the flashers of the disabled vehicle. It was a small dark car -- and remember, it's still dark out, the sun is just beginning to rise -- right in the path of traffic coming off the freeway. The cars coming off the freeway round a corner, and THERE'S this car, sitting here.

I don't understand why they didn't do something else, like 1) Maybe push the car one block to put gas in it? 2) Turn the flashers on to warn oncoming traffic?

The way that this off ramp is situated, you can't get back to where the car was at, without going a mile down the road, getting on the freeway again, then fighting through a mile's worth of morning rush hour traffic. Maybe the patrolman was planning to use his flashing lights and go backwards through the traffic over to the disabled vehicle?

I was so puzzled by this lack of using one's brain that I actually walked back over to the convenience store where they were getting gas, to tell the patrolman that they forgot to leave the flashers on, and they'd better hurry back to that vehicle. They pulled off as I got over there. (This particular convenience store is a couple of buildings from my job).

One more thing. I found a website today that made me cry. I have come close to being a vegetarian in my life, but I believe that God provided us with animals to eat their meat. I believe it is necessary to our health. The only thing this website did was make me want to hurry things up as fast as we can, and stop buying meat from the store. It was a short movie about how inhumanely animals are treated. Chickens, turkeys, cows, pigs. I'm sure the group that produced the movie used the worst possible situations they were able to find and put them together, to portray the entire industry as a bunch of abusive humans.

It didn't turn me into a vegetarian. Actually I felt better about what we are doing. We are raising our animals humanely. Our chickens don't have a huge pasture to range free on, and they don't eat organic food, but they aren't jammed into cages together and electrocuted. They can fly and run, jump up onto high perches to roost, sunbathe and take dirt baths. We probably overfeed them. When we got our dairy bull calves, they were so young that they could not use their legs too well. Apparently some young cows are kept in small cages so their muscles cannot develop to produce veal. Ours run and enjoy the sun. When we "harvest" one, they are killed quickly and humanely. They don't suffer needlessly on a long trip to a slaughterhouse packed and crammed in with hundreds of other frightened animals.

Kind of a depressing entry. I've been going through a period of not wanting to talk much to anyone. It was therapeutic eating alone.

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