Blown Fuse

My Easter ham dreams go *poof*

I've been hoarding ham in my freezer for a good while just waiting for the perfect occasion to take it out and have a good supper.

All this time I thought it was country ham - my grandma picked it up for me out in the country because I can't find it up here.

Guess what? It's not country ham. It's two fucking bags of ham hocks.

HAM HOCKS! All this time I thought there were whole hams sitting in my freezer. I could have had those damned things in those bland-ass beans I had last week!

I'm mad now. Now I'm going to have to buy a Easter ham that's going to suck because this is the "city" and they don't have decent heart attack food in the grocery stores around here.

*kicks baseboard*

lalalalalalalaI'm not listening.

Why do people comment bull-shittyously on old-ass posts?

Shit, at least leave a real email address so when you check back to see if I've taken the bait you'll know which jackass you were.

Oh no they di'int!

I'VE BEEN SUMMONED FOR JURY DUTY!

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!

But wait - I can get out of it if I'm:

1) Not a US Citizen (can't use that)
2) Are not a resident of Durham County (can't use that)
3) Have served as a juror within the past two years (hasn't happened)
4) Are physically and or mentally incompetent (um...on some days...)
5) Have been convicted of a felony and have not completed all of my sentence (nope)
6) Are over 72 years of age and have health issues or need exemption due to other concerns (SHIT DAMN FUCK)

Ugh.

Um...where'd my mail go?

Some kind of weirdness happened to my computer today. With want of someone to blame for it, I blame Bill Gates.

I use Thunderbird for email and have been using it since Erica turned me on to it a couple of years ago. Outlook makes me itch.

Anyway, I went out to the eye doctor today and when I came home and opened my email, the fucking thing crashed. Microsoft Windows did that weird error message reporting thing, and when I tried to restart the program, it said that I needed to set up my email accounts.

DO WHAT NOW? All of my accounts and messages were gone. This pisses me off mightily because my deleted Earthlink email is set to self-destruct from the server whenever I close the program. I'm going to have to look around on my computer to see if the saved messages I had are cached somewhere.

Mightily pissed. This ever happen to anyone else?

There are words for women like her that begin with "B."

My mother is a bag of mixed nuts left cracked and unsealed, so is therefore rancid and decidedly untasty.

I've posted in the past about how she hasn't come to visit the baby yet. Where she and my grandmother live is an easy three hour drive on country roads to here. It's not like hard, interstate driving....well...until you get to 85, anyway. There have been ELEVEN weekends since Roland was born and now and she could have came up on any one of them. Rather, she asked when we were going to take the baby to see them. My mother-in-law live just as far away and has seen the kid at least five times.

I don't answer strange numbers on my cell phone - I just don't. A lot of the time, I won't answer the phone even if I recognize the number. If I'm not in the mood to talk, I won't answer. Answering for the sole purpose of saying, "Can I call you back?" opens the door to being questioned about why and after all that you might as well of had the damn conversation.

Apparently she conned her new boyfriend/ex-husband number two to get her a cell phone with a NY area code as she intends to move back up there. When she called last week, I read the caller i.d. display and thought "Hmm, that's not my sister..." and put the phone back on the desk. She left a strained "Hi, you never answer your phone" message and that was that. I didn't return her call because it's hard to carry on phone conversations with an unpredicitable infant in the house (that's my excuse, and I'm sticking with it).

This morning, around eightish, she called and left another voicemail demanding to know why I don't return her "calls" [all one of them] and stating that she was planning to come visit us. Then she got all passive-aggressive saying that she guessed she'd come see us when I got "good and ready."

What the fuck ever.

See, that brainwashing/guilt-tripping bullshit she pulls may work on the men she ultimately ends up marrying, but it doesn't work on her daughters. She hasn't even sent the kid a 99 cent card since his birth, and I'm supposed to bend over backwards to accomodate her wish to grace us with her almighty presence?

Pshaw.

Any guesses who I'll call back first? My money's on my father.

My mother is off her meds.

Actually, she's not really on any meds (for readers who so happen to be, pardon the reference), she just simply should be.

Backstory: I suppose I made it pretty clear during pregnancy that I didn't want anyone to be in the delivery room with me when I was in labor. I knew I wouldn't have either the presence of mind or the energy to throw them out when they began to annoy the crap out of me. For that reason I instructed Scott not to call my family until it was too late for them to leave home and be here in time to see him crowning. I knew my mother would bring my half-brother up with them and I couldn't think of a tact way of telling her to leave him at home.

Several years ago my grandmother had some sort of health episode that had her in the hospital for a couple of days. Scott and I went to the house to shower and change our clothes and by the time we returned to her room, my mother, aunt, male cousin, and half-brother were standing around her bed, her laying there with her gown hiked up over her waist. She wasn't lucent, and all she knew was that she was hot, so she kept pulling her dress up. She wasn't wearing any underwear. All the while, my mother allowed my half-brother, I guess he was around 11 at the time, to stand there staring like an idiot making to effort to to calm my grandmother or cover her legs with a blanket. I've never forgiven her for that and had to tell my grandmother when I was pregnant that THAT was why I didn't want her bringing him. She is completely lacking in the ability to put herself in someone else's position. I do hope that someday if she's in the condition my grandmother was that my sister and I will be kind.

When Scott repeatedly called my grandma's number to tell her I was in labor, my mother heard it ringing and picked it up (oops). I guess she took offense at whatever explanation Scott gave her for asking that the boy be left home, because she has yet to come visit her grandson. She kept remarking that "That's her broooottther," as if that little ruffian has any real pull with me. My grandma came up the day after we were discharged, but my mother chose not to take the day off because she had to "work." I've known her boss since I was 10. She would have given her the day off.

We spent the first week or so walking around like zombies deprived of food or sleep. It was one of the most miserable periods of my life. I didn't have anyone come up and help and support me like most new moms do, and I blame my mother for that. Thank you for alienating folks, mom.

End backstory

My mother isn't a team player. If she isn't the group leader, she'll choose not to participate at all. She doesn't get why I didn't need a bunch of people standing around my bed coaching me and telling me that I don't really need that epidural. I even kicked the freakin' volunteer doulas out the room. My crotch, my rules - 'kay?

To sum up my angst at this point, my mom went up to New York for Christmas and took my grandma up with her. When I spoke to her on Christmas day she asked when I was going to take the baby to Virginia to see them. I think I responded something along the lines of "No time soon, but maybe you can come see him for New Year's weekend." She hemmed and hawed and said something about New Year's in New York or having to work or some crap like that.

Let's talk priorities here. You would choose to stay on vacation a day longer just to spend time with your ex-husband rather than making a three hour detour on the way home to meet your grandson? Tsk tsk. My mother was so paranoid that my mother-in-law would edge her way in as the dominant grandparent, but it seems that my mother is sabotaging herself in that regard.

I don't want to think about this anymore. I'm done. It's off my chest now.

Geez, it's not Barbie hair. Shoo!

You know, one thing that really burns my biscuits is when people assume that my hair is made of some kind of synthetic material that is five seconds from compustion. I was clicking through my various attempts at self-portraiture several minutes ago and found this picture from a set I took early in the year.

In this group of pictures one can get the closest idea of what my actual hair color is. The red sweater sort of brings it out. It's kind of a dark tortoise shell color and pattern. It annoys the shit out of me when people (hair stylists in particular) ask me what number dye I use. This is the color it sprouts, folks. Who in the world would want color this uneven? If I could dye it and have it still look natural, I'd consider it. My last experiment in hair dye was an absolute failure, by the way, and no - no pictures exist of me from that time period. Sorry, but Rum Raisin wasn't a good month for me, nor were the few months I dyed black over blond to try to get brown.

Equally distressing is when people grab a handful of my hair to test the texture only to announce, "Oh, it's soft." Of course it is. You can't have this much hair and have it be hard...that would just be uncivilized of Mother Nature.

I think it's amusing when women try to emulate my hair and ask me what sort of products I use to "make it do that." It just does, as does my momma's. Squirt a dollop of thick conditioner in it in the shower each morning and let it pouf on will. Sometimes I'll just make up a regimen to advise people on that includes products I'd never put in my head.

I'm mean like that.

Tease.

Pier 1 is one of my favorite stores. If I had the kind of husband whom appreciates accessories, I'd probably spend a good deal of my life in their stores.

They sent me an email encouraging me to preview their after-Christmas sale and of course I bit. Guess what? The frames I bought for Christmas gifts are now half off and I'm incredibly pissed. Not only that, all the good frames that I'd consider purchasing at this point are sold out online.

While it's true that the last time I was in the store they gave me a coupon good for $20 off my next $50 purchase, I can't use it until January 1 and even then not online. There are still a few organizational pieces I've been waiting for the price to drop on before I pounce and I'm afraid they'll be sold out before then.

"Sales" annoy me.

Don't make me come down there.

I'm particuarly displeased to announce that my local tax dollars go to paying the salaries of nincompoops. I would write a letter to local government to complain if I weren't certain the response would be a forum for further nincompoopery.

To my great misfortune, I've had to speak with the idiots at Durham city government's billing service several times over the past few years, both for residential and work issues. 98% of the time, I end up speaking with some idiot who lacks the correct brain synapses to connect certain clues to resolve a case.

You have to repeat yourself time and time again to get your point across. More often than not, that point never does get made clear to them.

I have a "wait and see" philosophy on things. I [sometimes incorrectly] assume that if I do what I'm supposed to when people tell me to that my obligation has been fulfilled. I mailed a check in for our water bill two months ago. It never posted to my bank account, however the thought never crossed my mind that I should call and ask said nincompoops if they'd received it. In the past they'd been incredibly slow about depositing checks, so I didn't think anything of it.

Over the weekend I got a letter about the amount in question telling me that if I didn't pay it they'd put the smack-down on me. I returned the letter with a note scribbled on it telling them when I mailed the check, the amount of the check, and the check number. I then proceeded to use a yellow hi-lighter to emphasize the information asking if they hadn't received it to let me know so I could put a stop payment on the check and issue a new one.

Today, a nincompoop in the cashier's department calls and leaves a message about the note. She was confused because that wasn't the check number of the check they just recieved (for ANOTHER bill, duh). But first, she left an "accidental" message where she was mumbling to a coworker about how I got the check numbers wrong (insinuating that I was lying) and yada yada, not realizing she was recording. Then she called back. The letter clearly stated what money was due according to their records. Why would I be commenting about another bill on that letter?

I called her back and explained that there OBVIOUSLY is a missing check somewhere. Normally, I would have just put another check in the mail, but there's something about mommyhood that makes you want to crack skulls about these errors. I don't have the patience for this shit anymore.

She couldn't connect point A to point B to see that the check I paid the most recent bill with was EXACTLY the amount of the most recent bill. It had nothing to do with the note that I sent about the missing check. "...But that's not the check number of the check that came in today." FUCKING DUHHHHHH! I had to have explained myself a gazillion times, finally resorting to using small words and short sentences. If I could have gone down there and drawn her a picture I would have.

I asked if there was any danger of them sending a flunky out here to shut our service off, explaining that would be incredibly unfair since I sent that payment in two months ago. If they didn't recieve it, they could have taken me at my word and given me a chance to replace the check or else go ask their dumbass cashiers if it was misplaced. I was told to call the customer service office, where I got the same runaround. "You can call the cashiers and see if they can trace the check," she said. "Um, she told to call YOU."

Anyway, they provided no reassurance that they would try to trace the missing check. I was about ten seconds from giving someone a serious cussing, but I instead held myself in check, thanked the woman, and hung up. I'll deal with the post office and see if they can find it (wild goose chase).

Every damn time I call there I deal with incompetence. One time they lost an electronic payment I submitted through their own website and I had to call two or three different idiots for them to find it and credit it to my account. Their system is so backwards that money can be drafted from your checking account and they still won't know who it came from.

Fucking idiots. With the Duke lacrosse shit, the idiot school board, and everything else going on in Durham I'm totally ready to move a county over just to shake the "dumb" out of my clothes.

I. Am. So. Annoyed. Now my kid has to be held by angry mommy.

Oh, shoot.

So, my mom is threatening me with a surprise visit if I don't answer my phone (*blows raspberry*) [see previous rant about people ringing my doorbell].

Here's the deal (WARNING: this will become a "It's MY baby!" rant). Every recent phone conversation I've had with my mother or grandmother ended with me being pissed off. Either they'd forget that I was a seperate living breathing person who just happens to be pregnant, or they'd insinuate certain ways in which I should raise my child.

1) Yes, I am pregnant. But, chances are that I won't be giving birth tomorrow. He hasn't cooked enough. Stop harrassing me. I'll call you (maybe) when the time comes. Stop checking in on me. It's not a competition between you and the in-laws to see who gets to grab the baby first.

2) You don't have to buy me a damn thing, so don't use my lack of communication as an excuse to punish the baby. Scott and I have gotten by just honky dory the past five years. We'll buy what we need as we need it. We're not impoverished, after all. In fact, we'll just end up buying items that are more to our taste.

3) Don't tell me how to raise my son. There are very few people I'd take parenting advice from and my mother is not included in that list.

4) Don't assume I'm going to leave my son at your house to watch. Family or not, if I know your temper is as shorter than the Hulk's, I'm not dropping my youngun's off so you can beat the hell out of them.

5) Don't ask me every time you talk to me (especially if you talked to me two days ago) if I've gotten "real fat yet?"

I could go on and on. Point is, I really hope they don't show up here, because I'm not going to hash my words if they do.

Grumpy young woman.

I want to know who rang my doorbell at 10 this morning.

See, at our house we don't get up before noon on weekends. Part of it is laziness. The other part is "and why am I getting up this early if I have no reason to?" There are no kids to get up and tend to yet. There's nothing on t.v. that early. We don't attend church. We're not trying to get to McDonald's in time for breakfast. It wasn't the lawn guy...he was here last week.

Whoever rang the bell was ringing it like they knew us. They rang it violently - 4 or 5 times in rapid succession. And then again. That annoyed me mightily. Anyone who knows us knows that they shouldn't just stop by. I don't even bother putting grown-up clothes on on weekends. If people don't give us an hour's warning that they're coming - the door's not getting opened, even if it is obvious that both cars are in the driveway.

No, I didn't get up. Scott didn't get up because being partially deaf has the fortunate side of being able to take your hearing aids out on weekend nights to ignore such noises (we'll have to have a discussion about that, sweetie. how are you going to be able to hear whether our teenage daughter(s) have boys coming in and out their windows?). The least the inconsiderate jerkwad could have done was brought our newspaper up to the stoop. Now I'm up at this unreasonable hour blogging. Dangit.

Time to put the poverty goggles back on.

We have this salad place called Green Tango here in Durham. It's had to have been in existence for a couple of years, but I didn't get around to going there until today. After a five-hour day in the office and then running some errands (for work), I figured it was time to bring my full-time volunteering ass on home. The laundry mounts.

I've been feeling guilty that the kid hasn't been getting enough leafy vegetables and that I'll pay for that one day by having a hyperactive child. I didn't really feel like coming home and making a salad because that entails work, so there we go.

I went in and looked at the menu board and felt the kid faint from surprise in my uterus at the prices. Granted, a "premium" salad at McD's will cost you around $6, but for $6 at this place you pretty much get lettuce with four ingredients added. I don't know how spartan you like your salad, but I have to have at least the following to be happy with taste and texture: cucumber, hard-boiled egg, salted sunflower seeds, and sharp cheddar cheese shreds in addition to lettuce and dressing. That's four things, but damn, if given the option I'd like to add a little banana pepper or some cottage cheese or strawberries without having my wallet raped.

I ended up ordering the Fiesta salad for a whopping $8.99. The grilled shrimp lured me in. It would have cost me $2 to have added them into a build-your-own type thing, so there's really no good way to get away from the price.

I should have been kicked in the ass for that. I felt like such a poser: it's one of those places where people go and say things like, "You know, it's so good for you," as they shovel cottage cheese-covered spinach leaves into their mouths. I can't afford $8.99 and I'm SO PISSED at myself for paying that. For $8.99 plus tax I could have bought all the ingredients and made something like 4 salads.

Oh, and because there's no Green Tango near you, let me explain something. These prices don't reflect a sit-down dining experience. You go in and stand in line like you're at a Subway restaurant.

*growls, unsatisfied*

*grinds teeth*

I navigated through the maze of one-way streets that are downtown Durham to go to the main library where I was told there there was a veritable cornucopia of grant research materials.

I'm learning very quickly to never take anyone's word for anything in this job.

I never go to the downtown library branch - if I need to get a library book that isn't in the branch closest to my house, I just make a request for it and they notify me when it gets there. True, the branch I go to (if I have to go at all) is small, and tends not to have that many new publications, but seeing as how I read books that I heard about through the grapevine, being new is the least of my worries. It may be less than fully adequate (no wireless internet or anything), but at least it's clean.

*Sigh*. I didn't expect there to be huddled masses standing around the doorway at the main branch. It was like a fucking bus depot. Ever been to a Greyhound station...more specifically, on the outside of one? I can think of numerous occasions where I put my dumb ass on a bus to somewhere and during a layover (is that a term that can be applied to bus travel?) made the mistake of venturing outside to find food. Huddled masses. That has been the case at almost every metropolitan bus station I've been through.

That's a roundabout way of saying that I expected the library to have more resources than what's available using an unsophisticated Google search, and I wasted all that fucking gas driving around in circles (the library is .7 miles from where I work) to get onto the one-way streets it's accessible on to find one damned grant directory from 1994. 19-freakin'-94. All that to be stared at by angry homeless people.

BAH!

Fuck Sprint

What used to be "Sprint PCS", that is. I'd like to blame their recent merge with Nextel with the problems I have with them, however unfortunately they've been sticking it to us since we (meaning Scott) opened the original contract five years ago. I added myself onto his account after the fact because at the time I was using a prepaid plan which I was in the process of getting rid of (that shit's expensive). For $20/month, Sprint said that I could just tack myself onto his plan and share his minutes, which seemed economical.

Well, it ain't. We're not heavy phone users to start with, especially now that we have a landline (because our Sprint phones weren't working inside our residence), but we pay a shitload of money every month to maintain our cellular phone contract (because yes, if you call to REDUCE your plan to a lower one, you get an automatic extension). Yes, we have picture mail and all that good stuff which I guess is overpriced now that the novelty has worn off.

I know we could have switched to another company prior to now, but everyone you talk to has something bad to say about their current company.

For a full month my picture mail wasn't working, which I found strange seeing as how Scott and I have identical features on our phones and his was working. It's hard to send a "you've got to see this bullshit" photo from your workplace when you're getting error messages. I tried to get around having to deal with phone tech support, who would surely piss me off greatly, but email support was useless. They sent me a 15-paragraph long explanation of what to do with my phone (which didn't even apply to my phone), and stated at the bottom to call tech support.

Being sufficiently pissed off a month later, I called tech support and got it fixed (no, they didn't offer to credit me for my month of frustration, but anyway...). Now I can send picture mail, but get this - I tried sending a photo through flickr yesterday evening to autoblog, but it never showed up. Thinking that was strange, I sent it to Scott to see if there was something wrong with my account. Never showed up...

...that is until 6 o'clock this morning. I was awake in bed trying to get back to sleep after having padded my way to the bathroom in the dark. The cats were scratching the hell out of my bedspread, and I was just trying to block it all out. Next thing I know, Scott's phone (turned up to supersonic volume) starts playing that God-awful text message/photomail alert noise. Usually, it'll stop after playing the alert once, but it played at least four more times in ten minutes.

I got pissed thinking, "Who THE FUCK is sending my husband text messages at 6 am?" I went to piddle again, went into his office, flipped open his phone and saw that it was that fucking picture I'd sent last night. Eight hours later it gets sent to his phone and I still don't see it in flickr.

We pay way too much for this plan.

We realize now that it'd be less expensive to have two separate accounts - that $20 add-a-phone shit isn't a bargain for us because we don't use all our minutes. We could get the same services for probably $20 less if we divided the account.

The problem with being a "paid volunteer" is that I'm in no hurry to go put myself on my own plan. It's easy for me to hand Scott a bill that he helped create and say "Here, pay this," but not so much for my own personal expenses.

All the same, I'm going to call Sprint this week and see if I can haggle them into a less expensive plan. I see that the same damn plan we have is on the site advertised as being much less expensive, but I don't really want to extend the contract.

Eh.

Can't they make this easy?

Two days in a row I've come back to my hotel room before dinner to find myself locked out. This confused me greatly yesterday, and I stood at the door swiping my keycard for five minutes trying to get it to work. I had been upstairs after lunch and my key had worked fine then.

I haven't been in my room since after breakfast this morning, but I had this nagging suspicion that I'd be locked out again. You see, the hotel is overbooked because of the Braves games going on.

Let me tell you, I walked up six floors of stairs after this evening's last session to not have to wait with 300 people to get on an elevator. I felt like my lungs were going to explode, but I made it. Imagine my pisstivity when I got upstairs and the fucking key didn't work again.

The desk clerk asked if it had come into contact with any credit cards or anything that could have demagnetized it. Hell no. Then she asked to see my ID. IT WAS IN THE FUCKING ROOM WITH THE REST OF MY LUGGAGE.

Tiffany cranky.

Boiling mad.

I've been contemplating a lot on depressing things lately. I think it's the impending parenthood thing that promotes it, but all the same I wish I could just think "happy thoughts." Rainbows and bunny rabbits and shit like that.

I haven't spoken with my father in...nigh on ten, twelve years. I was visiting my mom in New York and my sister had called and asked him to come by. He took us for a ride in this van of his that had a side door that kept sliding open whenever he hit the brakes. He bought us Slim-Jims. It's been so long that I can't even remember how old I was at the time.

Normally, I don't really give my father much consideration, because, quite frankly, he doesn't deserve it. If he and my mother had stayed married and I'd had to live with [either of] them I'd probably be institutionalized right now. He always wants what he can't have and she's a bit of a ballbuster.

Regardless...sitting here thinking about him is giving me acid reflux, and I mean to the extent that I can taste what I ate two days ago. What kind of person do you have to be to not be the slightest bit curious as to what your grown children look like or whether your grandchildren resemble you? There's no excuse. Well, sometimes I think that my mom may have inadvertantly explained it when my sister had her first kid. "Don't let Jadah call me 'grandma.'" I think she was 39 at the time. She told people during her [second] wedding that my sister and I were her sisters, and they believed it.

I'm going to chalk it up to immaturity. That's what it has to be. He's immature, and his parents (my paternal grandparents whom I haven't seen in at least 20 years) are inexcusable. Creeping towards AARP eligibility has got to be tough for him, the poor thing. All that womanizing and still no son to bear his name.

Folks, don't let your sons grow up spreading seed and not make him feel the burden of the consequences. I hate how society thinks it's okay for men to be promiscuous (supposedly so that at least one person will be experienced during the honeymoon) but women have to be chaste. HELLO, IF WE WERE ALL CHASTE WHO ARE THE DICKWADS GOING TO BE PROMISCUOUS WITH?

Sorry. The hormones are running away with my sanity.

The sad thing is, I really could care less that I didn't have my father in my life after my toddler years. I'm sure that I could have used a positive male influence somewhere or other, but I've already crossed that bridge. I'm pissed because I'm a caring person and want to know if he's okay.

I read the Jennifer Weiner book Good in Bed over the weekend. The main character is quite hung up on her father's absenteeism and when she finally confronts him as an adult, he basically states that he didn't care. I don't want to set myself up for that. I'd rather have unknowing silence than painful noise.

I got some news through the family grapevine last year, I guess, that he's somewhere in Ohio with yet another wife and yet another baby daughter (what's that, Pop, 5? 6?) I did a whitepages search for his name and found a bunch of listings in various parts of the state. I have no real way of paring those down (he doesn't have a middle name and even went as far as to make up an initial to put on my birth certificate), but even if I did, what would I do if I found him? I told myself for a while that I would write him a letter telling him about everything he's missed and send pictures; that seems like a very forgiving thing to do. I don't know if I'm that forgiving.

He never gave me a chance to express that I didn't need or want anything from him but a five minute conversation once per month. If I found him, I don't know if I would want to open him up to my life just to be disappointed again with how much of a flake he is. I don't know if I need my son to know both grandpas.

I'm still thinking about whether I really want to find him.

Will incur my pregnant rage

Since I woke up this morning, I've been waiting until 24 hours before our flight time to log into American Airlines and check into our flights for tomorrow. Fucking website is pissing me off. You're supposed to be allowed to check in 24 hours in advance, but when I went to view the available seats on the seating charts, the only ones open were first class. We, unfortunately, are in "economy" seating. Whenever I select myself and click "check-in" it says that: "In order to proceed with online check-in, all passengers must have an assigned seat(s)..."

I'm a little bit pissed. For one thing, I'm pregnant and don't want to be sitting in the middle of three seats. I don't want some strange person falling asleep and leaning on me. I really don't want TWO strange people, one on either side, trying to strike up unnecessary conversation. The other thing is that Scott is going to bitch and moan the entire flight if he's not in the front row because of his long legs. I found this information on the AA website to justify all the seats being blocked out:

Q: What if I have confirmed my flights, but am unable to pre-assign (or reserve) my seats?

A: American Airlines usually withholds a percentage of seats until the day of departure. This allows our airport personnel to accommodate passenger needs on the day of departure. If you are unable to pre-assign your seat at the time of your booking, you may obtain your assignment upon check-in for your flight. Also, cancellations often occur closer to the day of departure. Visit AA.com frequently to check the current available seating for your flight.

So, you've withheld 99% of the seats? Does this sound like an overbooking to anyone else?

Ew.

I'm a big fan of Burger King's Tendercrisp Chicken Sandwich. That thing is nothing less than delicious - crunchy fried skin, a little mayo - I get all mouth-watery just thinking about it. If I'm at home and am going to get my lazy ass up to go back out to get fast food, you better damn well believe it's an exceptional occasion.

Yesterday, after my 6-hour nap, having skipped lunch I wanted to chow down on something reliably tasty, so I pulled on some sweatpants and went to my trusty Burger King drive-through. The line was super short and my fries were so hot that they burned my mouth.

I got home and popped a DVD in to watch with dinner, and what should I discover? That they gave me the wrong sandwich. I was hungry and would have eaten anything at that point, but what they substituted was just fucking nasty.

It was an Angus Steak Burger. I know that's supposed to be a premium sandwich and all, but it was fucking nasty. The onions were dark and coarse, the sauce was overly-applied and tasted heavily of bad mesquite, and it just smelled bad.

Okay, now - the smart drive-through connoisseur checks their bag before driving away. I didn't, and I wasn't going to get back in my car to go all the way back down there - it costs me a sandwich just to start my car. My receipt doesn't even say which combo I ordered - it's just a credit card draft...I can't even verify what I ordered. Fuck.

Makes me rage from within.

You may not know this from reading this blog, but I am a polite person. I hold doors (within reason), I say please and thank you, I keep my voice at a well-modulated, quiet level, and on occasion I even let beyotches cut in front of me in line.

That being said, I am a fervent advocate of the "ladies first" or at least "first to approach" rule. I'll explain.

I've had a headache all day. It was obviously one of those headaches brought on by having too little caffeine in my diet, so I went to Starbucks on my way home to get a frappuchino. This particular Starbucks has one entrance inside the grocery store and the other on the street. I entered from the street at about the same time as a guy from the store (40ish. Full-time preppy.). Who ordered first?

Yeah, he did. He didn't exactly cut line, but you can be the judge of whether he's a jackass. He came in with his four grocery bags (bran cereal and potato chips), and put them down in front of the chilled dessert display. He took out his reading glasses and squinted into the case. This was my clue that he was not ready to order. I was standing in front of the register, meanwhile.

The barista makes eye contact with me and asks to take my order. He walked over and made his order instead (a piece of cake and an itty bitty coffee). I'm just standing there with my mouth open about to say "tall...." He basically elbowed his way into my personal space to pay the woman. I didn't move until another barista walked up to take my order.

If he had obviously been in line in front of me, that'd be one thing, but if we come in at the same time, shouldn't the lady order first? That shit pisses me off to no end. This isn't about me eschewing women's lib in order to get a favorable spot in line. If I had come in with a stroller and kid hanging off my tit, he'd probably had acted the same way.

Pinch 'em blue.

You know what? I am the perfect fucking customer. When I go into stores and the cash register is down because it just decided to reboot itself for the hell of it I stand there patiently and wait without comment or scowl. Know why? Because I've spent hours in the server closet at work pulling cords and cables trying to get ornery computers to work. No kid making $6.50 an hour ringing up shoes and sandals is going to know how long its going to take for the register to come back up. To start with, they're terrified that you're going to curse them out without provocation.

When a foodservice preparer puts tomatoes/onions/whatever on my food even after I requested for them not to I keep my mouth shut and eat it anyway (that chopped steak incident being the one exception). Know why? Because I've had that job and it sucks. Even if you rarely make mistakes, there are some customers that are never satisfied. Like the ones who go into Ben & Jerry's, order the fat free yogurt, taste it, and say, "Can I not take this? I don't want it," and then leave it on the counter. That's eight onces of ice cream that goes into the trash that some pissed off shift manager has to log on the day's inventory or else be chastised by the shop manager that their crew has been overscooping (or else stealing ice cream).

When I leave work to go to the doctor at a certain appointment time and end up waiting an hour in the reception area, I wait patiently and play a little solataire on my PalmOne. Medicine is unpredictable. No way in hell is your obstetrician going to be there for every appointment on her calendar. BECAUSE SOMETIMES SHE HAS TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL TO DELIVER SOMEONE'S KID.

In general, I think that the thing that makes some consumers so miserable to deal with is their fucking patience problem. The rudeness stems directly from that. You know why I'm so damned patient? Because my grandma made me go to a church where the pastor would speak at least an hour each Sunday. The full service lasted from 11:30 am to at least 2:00. That's a long damn time for a little kid to be sitting still in an itchy dress. And if I didn't sit still, my grandma would pinch me so fucking hard on my arm that I swear she broke some nerves. It would feel like she was cracking a walnut between her fingers - better not cry, either.

I say we bring back pinching. Let's start with those "adults" who walk into places and say "Give me [insert commodity here] NOW. I'm in a hurry."

I didn't order country-style nuttin'

Okay, so here's the deal with the "Chopped Steak" query. We went to O'Charley's on Sunday for dinner, and that's what I ordered thinking it would be tender steak steak cut into strips and served over taters.

It was hamburger. I was pissed. Not only was it hamburger, but it was underseasoned hamburger.

Needless to say we didn't pay for it.

Just my luck.

Explain something to me. Why is it that the one time I wait a week to watch a movie that Netflix has shipped to me is one of the times that when I finally do open it, it's BROKEN? It's The Pianist, so I was waiting for a good time to watch. You have to get yourself in the mood for movies like that, you know?

Now they probably think that I've watched in six times and broke it from overuse.

To make matters worse, we found a potential buyer for my Honda who, understandably, wanted a mechanic to take a look at it. So, I took it back to the dealership. If you recall, I was there two weeks ago where they told me that the ABS needed to be resealed and muffler B-pipe replaced? Those were about $800 in repairs. I had them write that crap on the invoice to show what work I'd declined. Wasn't good enough, I guess.

Well, today they came back with a completely different number. $2500, because suddenly I need a muffler, and some other stuff they didn't catch two weeks ago. So, ... yeah. Basically, I could give the car away and feel like I'm coming away with the same profit, because nobody's going to give me $4,000 for it unless they have a hole in their head.

Postal Etiquette

Just in case you didn't know, let me explain what those automated postage machines at your local post office is for.

They're for people who have one, or two at the very most, envelopes or packages that need to be shipped that do not require special services (i.e. insurance). Under no circumstances should you come in with a BOX full of parcels to send and decide that you want to use that machine unless it's midnight.

They're for people who have some knowledge of automated systems and can anticipate what the next screen will say. Prior ATM use is a prerequisite. Under no circumstances should you decide to take your time and PRACTICE on that machine when the counter queue is so long it's out the door and there are an additional five people behind you waiting to send one package each.

They're for people who AREN'T BEING DISTRACTED BY CELLULAR PHONE CONVERSATIONS AND ARE THEREFORE TAKING THEIR SWEET TIME.

I feel better now.

Gah! Shoo!

The pregnancy homone Iritatin* causes normal phone conversations to be cut short from increased annoyance on the part of mom-to-be.

My mom called earlier to demand her Mother's Day salutations and handed my brother the phone for a second to talk. He's 14, so half of what he says when I'm not pregnant pisses me off. Imagine that nothing has changed. We had a short conversation as such:

Him: "The baby's going to have my nose." [And what a nose it is...]
Me: "Doubtful, seeing as how you have your father's nose and we don't have the same father."
Him: "Well, it's going to have my eyes."
Me: "I just don't think that's likely."
Him: "Have you started walking like a chicken yet?"
Me: "..."

If my mom hadn't be sitting in the front seat of the car within earshot of the cellphone I would have cussed him up and down.

Furthermore, my paranoid mother is convinced that my mother-in-law will take over every major aspect of my child's life fully overshadowing any other family that exists. I used to get yelled at because I'm "sensitive" and tend to "overreact." How can you not overreact when people say stupid shit like that?

*not a real hormone

Chill, Nancy.

I accidentally stumbled upon Court TV's broadcast of the sentencing of Daniel Biechele for his role in the Rhode Island nightclub fire. I was simply curious of how the sentencing would lay out so I was watching it on MSNBC. All of a sudden their sound feed went wonky, so I turned it to Court TV.

I've never been so pissed off with a "news anchor" in my life. I'm referring to Nancy Grace. I recognize that a lot of the sensationalist journalism that's on the air today either leans conservative or liberal. Being dead in the middle and considering myself moderate, I tend to prefer the slightly liberal stations because they're more likely to play Devil's Advocate and put both sides on the story (whether they're diggin' it or not).

In other words, I like my news the way the did it in the olden days - you know, back when t.v.s had cranks. I want them to say what happened, and get off it. Nancy Grace was so inflamed about Biechele's sentence that I thought that if I watched close enough, I'd see her angry spittle hitting the camera. I think that if the news personality has their own show, it's okay for them to have a "theme" (a la "I'm a jackass who tries to make the experts fight each other"), but if they're simply sitting on a special report, they need to keep their emotions to themselves. She got all loud and...well, bitchy.

She got me turned off with all that "That's not fair" and "That's not right" bullshit. Who is she to make commentary? The on-site correspondent and the guy in the studio were very calmly trying to explain to her that Biechele was sentenced for the crime he committed (i.e. illegally lighting a pyrotechnics display on the ok of the club owner) and not for the outcome (100 people dead). She went on some slippery slope tangent about drunk driving and "running little kids down." The freakin' reporters looked like they wanted to say "Fuck you, Nancy," and leave.

I think this woman should be stripped of her two-piece suit collection and sent home to prune her roses. Hotdamn she pissed me off. I was looking around on the Court TV website for the name of a producer or someone to email about this nut, but realized that they're probably perfectly aware of how nuts she is.

Ooh, she has a Wikipedia entry.

*eye twitches uncontrollably*

I've told my coworkers no less than ten times that I don't like being called "Tiff." I don't like having my name shortened at all. That includes "Tiffy" and "TP" and whatever else. It's bad enough being a full-grown woman named "Tiffany."

For the love of whatever you worship, STOP CALLING ME "TIFF"!

Moving on.

FRACK!

Oh. Kay. So, they wanted $1,200 to fix my Accord enough to make it pass a SAFETY INSPECTION. Not emmissions inspection, natch.

Fuck that on a car I don't drive, man - I didn't know anything was wrong with it! It seems the muffler and a couple of things that connect to it are holey and need to be replaced.

Something in the ABS system needs to be resealed. That's like $190.

Four tires at $77 each. Tire alignment.

Front headlight and brake light.

Fuck it. No way I'm investing $1,200 in a 9-year-old car I'm trying to sell. I'll never get that investment back with the number of miles it has on it. I told them to put the tires and lights on and that I'd pick it up Monday with a statement of all that shit they just told me.

The best I can do is hand that right over to a potential buyer and say, "Here's what's wrong with it. You get an $800 discount for the trouble."

Another financial fiasco.

I'm pissed. I heard on the radio last week that debit card users who had shopped at a certain merchant recently may have had their information compromised (a.k.a. stolen) and that many banks would be issuing new cards. My coworker and I laughed at how funny it is that they NEVER reveal who the merchant is when this happens. After all, if they're going to get you all paranoid by telling you about what happened at this certain store, the least they can do is let you off the hook by telling you WHERE so you can know whether you need to be vigilant in monitoring your account statements...and stop shopping whereever it was.

Scott got his new card yesterday. I got mine today.

I didn't have any real attachment to my old card and number, but all the same I'm shocked at how easy it is for a helluva lot of people's personal information to be sucked out of some central database.

Where's my mail?

No, really. I know it's the holiday season and hall but what in hell would cause the maildude not to show up TWICE this week?

That's unfuckingacceptable.

While I may recieve nothing but junk mail, I'd like the courtesy getting it on the day I'm supposed to.

Shiiiit.

An unintentional Mall Power-Walker

I left home bound for the mall at 5:30 this afternoon. Arriving there, I headed immediately to pick something for Scott. That being done, I spent the next 2 1/2 hours looking for a little black dress.

I walked up and down that damned mall and was even solicited by one of those hair vendors ("Hey, Miss! You want to try our hair straighteners?" he called out, waving the torture device at me as if I was really going to volunteer to be a public guinea pig). I went to all the stores that cater to my professional demographic. Gap. Banana. Petite Sophisticate. Bennetton.

I checked those stores that sell cheaply made clothing for exhoribtant prices. Cache. NY & Company.

I even scoured the racks at Hechts, JC Penney, Belk, and Nordstrom to no avail.

All the black dresses they had were either too glittery, or were cut for a teenager out of cheap-ass polyester.

I just want a plain black cocktail dress that can be worn to work in pinch if I run out of clean pants.

Got any leads, ladies?

Do what now?

Just when you think you're finished paying or something and can begin spending that money on little luxuries, why do you get another bill (for the same thing) in the mail?

I mailed the final check to the hospital for the surgery I had back in March. I paid the anesthesiology bill in April.

Why is it that now, just now, I have a bill from my doctor's office for the surgery? Shit, I understand that she needs to be paid, too, but nine months later? What were they doing, waiting to bill me so that they would be getting a trickle of cash flow in before Christmas?

Ugh. I really wish that someone had sat down with me before the surgery and said that "Oh...that $7,000 doesn't include the doctor's fee or anesthesia. It's just for scalpels and the paper robe you'll be wearing."

Bunch of savages.

@$!&*$@!! Oven!

I'm through. That fucking oven has got to go. Okay, let me back up for a second. Every time in the past two years when I've tried to bake something, I've had to hold my breath and hope for the best.

My cookies don't spread. My pies take so long to bake in the middle that they burn on the bottoms. My brownies are inedible.

I'm a damn good cook, so this is pissing me off.

I paid a good chunk of change today to make premium brownie's for my coworker's kid's bake sale and out of two pans, I was able to get out 4 edible chunks.

*cries*

People piss me off.

But that's not news to you, eh?

Okay, remember our shitty vacation? Well, besides the fact that it was was a weather-induced waste of money, we still haven't gotten back our security deposit.

Our rental agreement said that we would recieve our security deposit back within 45 days of departure. That came and went. It's been about 2 months.

Scott tried contacting the property owners using all the phone numbers we had, however they'd all been disconnected. Okay, that was okay - we knew they had recently moved, so we cut them some slack regarding that.

We backtraced through the website we rented the house through and had the agent locate the owners. Finally, Scott got an e-mail back from the owner saying that she was sorry for the delay but there had been a death in their family and they were late in getting security deposits out.

Okay. First, let's back up.

Don't get me wrong. I can understand how painful it is to lose someone close to you. I'm truely empathetic about the situation, BUT, you have to draw a line between your personal life and your financial transactions.

I don't like it when people make excuses for not doing what they're supposed to, especially when it involves money.

If we pay a security deposit, that money is supposed to be held in trust. That means YOU DO NOT SPEND that money. They had the benefit of 45+ days of banking interest on those funds and get to keep that. We're talking about a commodity: they had something we wanted, and we got it at an okay price. Certain terms of contract have to be followed for both sides to have a equitable trade: if you say you'll send the money back in 45 days, you have to do it.

Furthermore, you do NOT reveal to your renters your personal problems. That's none of our damned business. Merely say, "I am unable to immedately refund your money. I am working to send it out as soon as possible." If a person finds that unacceptable and demands to know specifics, tell them your story then.

Second: if we pay tax on that deposit, YOU HAVE TO REFUND THE TAX as well. You should not feel personally wronged for being asked for what was supposed to be returned to us in the first place. If you return your ill-fitting pants to the Gap for cash, do they not pay back your sales tax? Yes, they do. We probably weren't supposed to pay tax on the deposit to start with.

What I'm REALLY pissed about is their lack of understanding for the fact that we had the worst fucking vacation ever in their property. They DID NOT disclose the fact that the roof had a substantial leaking problem, which they DID KNOW. That's useful information to have before spending three days in hurricane conditions, huh? We spent three days mopping water and placing water-catching receptacles under leaks so that their fucking carpet wouldn't be ruined. We left that place IMMACULATE given the circumstances. Rule number two of business: a return customer is a profitable customer. They won't get that from us.

I feel used and I'm really pissed off about this situation. If you don't have the money, say so. We'll not be satisfied with that obviously, but trying to make us feel like bad people for bothering you during a sensitive time is way beyond unprofessional. I'm going to make damned sure nobody I know ever rents a property from them.

Perhaps I'm stark-raving mad, but if you had been 60 days behind in doing your responsibilities at work, wouldn't you be fired?

Villa 54. Bald Head Island. Stay away.

Must be pretty hard milking soy beans.

...did you know that Starbucks charges a $0.50 fee to substitute milk with soy milk?

Okay, heh. See, I didn't know that until I cleaned the weekend's trash out my wallet three seconds ago and read the receipt.

Excuse the hell out of me for being lactose intolerant...I wonder if I can get my health insurance to cover the difference....

Rules of the Road

I'd hate to beat a dead [and buried] horse, but occassionally some event occurs that makes me mad all over again and cause me

to puff smoke out my ears.

I profess: North Carolina drivers are the worst in the country. See the extended entry for my manifesto.

I wish to make the arguement that North Carolina drivers, specifically those in the piedmont, are the worst in the world (self excluded). My theory is that because we have three research universites within twenty miles of each other, we have the greatest concentration of PhDs. PhDs are hard to attract, so we have to poach them from other states and countries. This mishmosh of driving styles results in chaos on the road. I won't inject any stereotypes in the mix, but one particular one comes to mind. Some of the following items are available for your continual reference in your drivers'manual. Many others are common sense.

Concerning Speed Limits

1. Some states post minimum speeds in tandem with high speed limits. You will be ticketed if you're driving below that because it's dangerous - you're asking to be road kill. Some 18-wheeler could come screaming around a curve and since you're driving as if you're in a foot-powered Flintstonemobile, your ass gets rear-ended and squashed like a bug.

2. In situations where there is NO observable minimum speed, a good rule of thumb is to go no slower than seven miles below the speed limit. Why? Because (generally speaking), the judge will throw out anything within a seven mile-per-hour fuck-up if you get ticketed and go to court.

3. Under no circumstances will you drive below the speed limit in a lane other than the far-right lane if there is more than one lane in your direction present.

Concerning Passing

4. (See item #3) When there are only two lanes going in one direction, and for whatever fucked-in-the-head reason you're not observing rule 3, do NOT, I repeat, do NOT keep pace with the car in the lane next to you if that car is also driving below the prevailing traffic speed. You think that you're preventing yourself from getting a ticket, but in reality, you're blocking TWO lanes of cars from passing either of your slow asses. MOVE!

5. In rural environs where there are two lanes and a dotted line indicating passability, do NOT speed up as soon as the passing car overtakes your rear bumper. As much as you'd like to think "Hey, I want to see some fireworks! Let's see this bozo crash!" is a fun idea, if such a disaster really happened, you'd shit your seat.

6. Also concerning rural passing: move to the far right of your lane so that the passing car doesn't rip off your mirror.

7. If at any point you fail to observe rules 3, and 4 and you see the person in the car behind you making hand gestures for you to either speed up or slow down to get into the slow lane, do so. Do not act as though your pride is hurt and speed up a couple of ticks. Just move. The follower will eventually overtake you and shoot past you with middle-finger extended and horn blaring. Thanks. Their kid just pissed all over themselves. Don't you feel nice about yourself?

Concerning Parking

8. If you feel as though you must park in two spaces to protect the paint job on your new vehicle, please do so at the back of the rear of the lot. However, it is NEVER acceptable to hog two PARALLEL parking spaces. If you do, you will be expected to pay the both meters.

9. If your vehicle is as large as or slightly larger than the confines of the lined space, that is a subtle hint that you should NOT try to squeeze your boat-sized monstrosity between two compact cars. For one thing, no one will be able to get their doors open without dinging metal. Also, those cars who have the misfortune of being beside you will NOT BE ABLE TO BACK OUT SAFELY because your stupid ass blocked their view. Park in the back of the lot.

Concerning Signalling

10. Apply your turn signal 1/2 block prior to making a turn, especially when you're in fast-moving traffic where cars are 2-3 seconds apart. Braking suddenly and then making the slowest possible turn on record is by no means safe for your passengers in the back seat.

11. If you have no intention of turning, please disengage your signal. Thanks.

12. Should you be on a bicycle and weaving through traffic like a maniac and preventing people from navigating safely around you, any hand signals you make will be disregarded. We all know you'll cut across me as soon as a light indicates I'll rest on my brake for half a second, and sometimes even before that.

Concerning Distractions

13. If your cell phone or other disturbance in your vehicle prohibit you from heeding rules 2, 7, and 10 you should either a) stop engaging in the distracting activity or b) get your wack self off the road.

14. It is never okay to not follow rules 2, 7, and 10 if the people stuck behind you CAN SEE YOU ON THE PHONE.

15. It is NEVER cool to play your car music so loud that when you pass my house I can't hear my t.v.

Concerning Inclement Weather

16. You do not necessarily need a four wheel drive vehicle to be on the road when there is ice and snow on the ground. You should, however, know what the limitations of your vehicle are and know when to stay off the road.

17. It is okay to go the speed limit when it is raining a trickle to moderately. I PROMISE. You know what water pockets look like, right? Good. Slow down to 35 THEN.

18. Contrary to popular belief, North Carolinians CAN drive when there is precipitation on the road, particuarly those of us originating from the sticks where they don't have snow plows. It is the people from OUT-of-state who get on the roads and fuck shit up. Oh yeah? You're from New York City where it snows every year like clockwork and you drive just fine? Well, where have you ever seen much snow or ice accumulated on a city road? Sidewalks don't count. You have more snow plows than subway trains. We have ONE snow plow for the entire state of North Carolina. I'm joking. A little.

Miscellany

19. If at any time you are driving a vehicle that looks like it will explode at any minute, you are expected to keep a 100-foot bubble around yourself to prevent contamination of flora, fauna, and my car air freshener pine tree.

20. Just because you drive a truck that looks as though it could eat the car in front of you doesn't make it okay to tail them to make them go faster. This is especially true when you have ABSOLUTELY NO INTENTION of passing the car, but simply want them to go faster. You assume that if they're in front they'll get the speeding ticket instead of you. Not only is this practice dangerous, but the person who follows is almost ALWAYS to blame when there's an accident.

21. Take the time to learn where your headlight controls are, especially how to turn your bright lights OFF as quickly as possible. You may be able to see just fine and may not be able to see the fault in the activity, but when I go careening into you head-on because you blinded me, that, my good friend, is your own moral bankruptcy.

Thanks. I feel better now.

Song o' the Mornin' Commute

What is it about some people who drive vanity vehicles (specifically SUVs that would serve them no utilitarian purpose should they actually have to deal with inclement weather) who drive as if their car is a new piece of electronic equipment that they're afraid to take the plastic film off of?

If you're driving in a two-lane road and are the first car in line after the light, HAVE THE COURTESY OF DRIVING AT LEAST THE SPEED LIMIT.

Further, I know your new tricked out Explorer is still your baby right now, but for crying out loud you don't need to wait at a stop sign for a car that is all the way in fucking bumfuck Egypt to pass. Turn right and put your foot on the dadblasted petal.

That is all.

Fuckity fuck.

I have to drive through RTP to get to and from work. T.W. Alexander Drive is a major thoroughfare spanning. This road gets a lot more traffic than it was built to accomodate so there are potholes the size of minifridges in very opportunity places.

Someone finally decided that it would be a good idea to repave. Yay! Yippie!

Okay, but here's the problem: they're leaving little asphalt chards everywhere.

I noticed this yesterday when I was driving into work and thought, "Shit. Someone's going to break a window."

Guess who did?

Yeah, me. This morning when I got to work there was a little gunshot-sized hole at the far right edge of my windshield. By 4:30 when I dropped myself into the car to go home, the hole had turned into a horizontal crack about one foot long.

I fully expect to wake up tomorrow and have a front seat full of glass and no windshield at all. I know insurance will pay for this, but in your opinion who do you think is at fault? I was giving the car in front of me sufficient stopping distance. I would feel like this was 100% my fault if I had been tailgating them, but damn it, this is just unacceptable.

"You want me to put what where?"

I hate Indian tech support. Don't get me wrong: I like the idea of "Indians" and tech support is sort of a necessary evil of microcomputing. The problem is when those two forces combine to form a time-wasting, infuriating segment of an industry.

I'm the de facto Ms. Fixit in the office. If someone's PC goes bonkers it's my job to either fix it or complain to someone who can.

There's a PC in our server room that has two purposes: collecting call data from the phone system, and broadcasting the "on hold" music. That's all it does. Nothing else (well.....occassionally I go back there to check my bank balance before lunch without the prying eyes of my cohorts). About a month ago the computer stopped collecting data from the phone system. This was very confusing and sent the entire office into an emasculating clusterfuck. You see, the boys don't know what to do with themselves if they don't know how many phone calls they've made.

I hounded the software manufacturer and discovered it wasn't their fault. Nor was it a problem with the phone system as it was sending data as programmed. After much back and forth we learned the problem was a busted COM port.

The remote tech people we have on retainer informed me that the unit itself was no longer under service warranty but the part itself was eligible for replacement. They never got back to me on that, but being armed with this information I attempted to get the problem solved directly through the OEM.

Let me tell you - I wasted two hours of my life this morning dealing with some bozo who didn't even understand the problem. Such is the case when you have people sit around all day, scan for keywords, and search a F.A.Q. database.

He tried to walk me through taking the machine apart (which I pretended to do), resetting this and that, and finally determined that problem was with the external modem which was not shipped with the unit and therefore not covered by warranty.

Um...WHAT EXTERNAL MODEM? This dude needed to be blindfolded and whipped.

I logged out of the session and gave up. Tomorrow I have to try this all over again. Pray for me.

Lookie Loos

I'm normally very careful about stepping outside the house on Saturdays and Sundays to get the mail or newspaper. Quite often, I haven't washed my face and the chances are good that my clothes don't match.

I look both ways for neighbors and people walking their dogs.

I was careless this morning. The landscaper who works across the street was outside. Normally the homeowner is outside supervising the crew so they'll basically leave you alone, but occassionally they'll try to step outside their bounds to sell you their service or whatever else you're not in the mood to hear.

I'm so snot-congested and cranky that I'm not in the friendly "I'm glad you're here beautifying our neighborhood" mood. So, when I step out to get my paper, avert your eyes and keep on clipping those hedges. Don't start calling out "Hey. Miss. Excuse me. Hey, Sweetheart?" as if I have something to say to you or else you have anything worth telling me. You may think I'm a snob, but dude...back off, or I'll sic the cat on you.

I'm home.

I'm back. Safe. A bit frazzled, but home safe. To all of you wishing me a good time, thanks - too bad it was the vacation from hell.

To Sue who believes that I'm an idiot: fuck off. Spend $1,500 non-refundable dollars on a vacation and then decide whether you'd like to flush it down the drain or else wait out the storm. I feel like I need to address this because I'm sure some of you are wondering. I don't like getting confrontational on my own blog because I can simply delete the offending comments, but I've had the week from hell and I'm not in the mood for insensitive assholes who don't know the ins and outs of a situation.

It was a "voluntary" evacuation, which basically means that if you had somewhere to be during or after the time of the storm then YOU SHOULD LEAVE because there would be no guarantees you would have a means out when you needed one. We had nowhere to be until Monday of next week. You should also know that during the time of the suggested evacuation, Ophelia was merely a tropical storm. I've lived through a countless number of these and know what the risks are. I'm a North Carolinian. I know what it's like to expect to wake up the next morning and have to drag fallen trees off your yard.

Ophelia didn't get upgraded back to a hurricane until AFTER the ferries off the island had been shut down. If you had read all the entries, you would see that there was a point where we were making a genuine effort to leave. I wasn't afraid of the fucking storm - I just felt that I could be watching television and playing board games in MY OWN DAMN HOUSE because that's all we'd been doing. The beach was too windy to use and the pool was too cold.

The very next day after the storm, I saw even MORE guests to the island than we saw in the two days preceeding it. These are people who own homes there and judged that it was a safe place to be. While the storm did flood some roads on the island and made hot meals impossible for a day and a half, at no point were we ever told that it was unsafe to be there. We were advised by the owners of the home that the house was built for those sorts of conditions. It is a beach house, after all.

I fully expected someone to be plastering nasty little Katrina reminders on my blog and talking all kinds of shit about the fact that I should have learned a lesson from that. But, you know what - those of you who are long-time readers of this magic carpet ride called Blown Fuse know that I have common sense. I would never put myself or my spouse in a predicament that would be considered in any way dangerous. While we were right in the path or the storm and were hounded by it for FOUR WHOLE DAYS and had to deal with the house taking on water from the roof and windows, the most harmful thing that happened was that I caught a cold.

Would I choose to stay next time? Absolutely. Now, I'm starving and want a hot meal. I would also like to spend some quality time with my cat who seems to be attention-starved and skinnier than I left her. I'll be back in a few hours to post the pictures that weren't taken with my camera phone.

This sucks. Literally.

I went to an oral surgeon this afternoon on referral by my dentist. You see, I still have my wisdom teeth and they've been bothering me to the extent that I want them gone.

The bullshitty part is that they don't really accept insurance. What they do is charge you upfront and you sit around and wait for your carrier to reimburse you.

So. On the day of my procedure I have to cought up $623. Then $623 30 days after that. Then another $623 another 30 days after that.

That just seems excessive to me. Maybe that's because I really don't have two nickles to rub together at the end of the month (if I got paid my market value I would).

I'll have to figure out some way to cough it up. Regardless of the fact that insurance is supposed to reimburse for most of it that's just so...painful.

I'm not even mad.

Since very few people read or comment on blogs on the weekend (especially during holidays), I'll just take this time to rant about family bullshit.

Two years ago when I was in school I was short a few hundred bucks on my rent, so I asked my "big" sister for help. Having just been rewarded a huge financial settlement for having her foot ran over by a cab $300 bucks wasn't going to eat her alive - so she gave it to me. I'd estimate that that $300 was less than half of one percent (0.5%) of her total reward if that helps to put it into perspective. Probably more like a quarter of a percent. Anyway...

Fast-forward two years. The drama (or "dray-ma" as Diana might remember from Texas days) unfolded last month when I sent my sister a friendly little note. I advised her of some job prospects for her husband, commented on our father (this was right before father's day), and asked whether she needed money.

She called me when she got the letter and left the nastiest message in my voicemail. To summarize she remarked on me not calling her kids on their birthdays (I did send cards), and dragged up that money she loaned me two years back (she pissed the rest of it away on clothing and cars) and talked about how she's struggling now and all that shit. She ended the message with "Have a nice life."

Well, she attempted to call me periodically between then and now but never left a message. I had no intentions of answering it. I knew that she was either going to a) apologize for being a fucking bitch, which I'm not ready to forget or forgive, or b) continue to rant and rave, which I further didn't want to hear.

This morning she left another nasty-ass devil-is-in-her message in my voicemail telling me that I must have crawled into my turtle shell to be ignoring phone calls and shit like that. She said quite nastily that we needed to have a "communication" because she wanted her money back, that I know how much it was and that she doesn't want to have to "call Scott and bring him into it because he doesn't have anything to do with it" as if Scott would immediately open up his checkbook for her.

Yeah. So, she's going to estrange herself over $300 given more than two years go. She never asked for it back even when we were on speaking terms - it never got brought up. She probably realized recently that she had all that damn money and has nothing to show for it now since it all got sold by her landlord when she couldn't pay her rent. She must be thinking "That $300 is probably the only money I can get back right now."

So be it. I sent it via Western Union this morning and had to use all the restraint I had not to write "Fuck you" in the message accompanying it. She had no right to bring Scott's name into it at all. Last month I was in a position to send her some change because I'd earned a commission on something so I asked if she needed any. Now she's demanding it. At any time over the past two years she could have asked me for it, but she didn't. I would have done whatever I needed to get it for her. She knows what I earn and that I'm paying off a car, mortgage, hospital bill, and student loan. I don't know what makes her think that I'm sitting on a stockpile of cash. I don't use Scott's income as the basis for repaying my debts, that's for damn sure. I didn't really have that money to spend this month but I sent it to her anyway.

I hope it settles whatever darkness she has in her heart because I have nothing further to say to her. And in case you're wondering, if it had been me, I wouldn't have asked for it back. Her deal is that she has three kids, no job, no degree, and is lazy as hell. If I were going to be as petty as she is I'd tell her that $300 was advance payment for all of her shit that I've been storing in my garage for the past two years. This weekend it will be sorted and sent either to charity or to my trashcan. I'm totally fucking not kidding. I'm sick of trying to be nice when everyone else is too busy thinking about only themselves.

Some Aesop-Like Wisdom

I know my credit is in shambles. As a result of some foolish spending habits when I was in college most credit grantors see me as a high credit risk. In reality I pay at least two percentage points over the minimum balance of my cards every month and I pay early (other than a few months with those assholes at Citi who wouldn't move my due date to accomodate my paid-once-per-month self).

I've never made any large purchases in my own name except for my college education (the summer school bits which they don't give aid for) which by the time I get done paying for will have costed the same as an Italian sports car, so I look like I'm not responsible.

I became recently aware that one particular creditor that I no longer dealing with has marked my account as a charge-off to at least two of the major credit reporting agencies. I know that's a gee-dee lie.

A little backstory is in order here. Between the time that I was preparing to graduate from college and finding a job, I may have gotten two months behind on all of my debts. Normal, right? Well, one particular asshole credit card company stopped sending me invoices. When I called to ask why I was told by some rude bitch that the card had been closed as a charge-off and that it was my responsibility to have known that...even though they don't specifically notify you that they're going to do that...and even though I had sent them a payment the previous month.

They never sent me any "Hey, did you forget to pay us?" letters in the mail or any "Bitch, your ass is seriously delinquent" warnings. They just charged it off. It was $137 - the $17 I'd paid a few weeks prior.

I should have taken the advice of every financial guru on the internet and made them REMOVE that status from my reports before I paid them one red cent. Instead I sent them a bank transfer for the full amount on the very next day, which they did not reject, mind you.

Well. Duh, it's still a charge-off. I've been haranguing Equifax for the past two months about this. I'm starting on Experian right now. I have no idea if that card reported to TransUnion, but I think it's in my best interest to pay the few bucks and find out. I also need to send a very sternly worded letter to that credit card company (not that they're going to do shit, but it's nice to have a paper trail).

And the moral of the story is: if you have some shady shit on your credit report, have them remove it before you cut them a fat check, or at least get something in writing saying they will.

Drunk Dialer

To the person in Ohio who called my cell phone at 4:34 this morning and left a message of yourself breathing:

*kicks you in the head because I couldn't get back to sleep.*

A Frank Discussion of Fathers

While everyone is out today doing whatever it is the do to celebrate their Pops, today for me is another Sunday. You see, my father and I are estranged. I should rewind and say that my father is estranged from at least four of his children (the ones I'm aware of, anyway.

You see, Pops is a Chronic Sperm Disseminator. Although my mother claims that I was "planned" and "wanted," everyone knows that my older sister is a shot-gun wedding baby. It later turned out that Mr. wasn't husband material and so he had to be dropped like a bad habit.

For a long time I really gave a damn that he wasn't active in our (collective "our" meaning me + sister + oldest half-sister) childhoods. He can't make the excuse that he "didn't know where we were." He always knew where I was, even if he couldn't put a finger on the others. I was at my grandmother's and didn't move until I left for college. He never called. He never sent birthday cards.

One year on Father's Day I had a real emotion breakdown because I felt unloved and ignored. I just couldn't wrap my mind around how someone could have all these good-looking, smart, and talented almost-grown kids around and didn't want to at least have a conversation with them. Sure, sending my grandma $20 or $30 a month would have been nice to help out with my lunch money, but you can't have everything, huh?

Over the past few years, I really stopped giving a shit. All of the male influences in my family were by then dead, a.w.o.l., or in a perpetual state of confusion.

I don't want or need shit from him - it's too late for all that now. I'm not even mad at him. I'm basically mellow to the situation and come to terms with the fact that if I ever come face to face with the dude again I'll have to utilize some real strong Jedi Mind Tricks to hold myself back from kicking his short ass.

To all of you dads out there doing what you're supposed to be doing, "Happy Father's Day!"

To the rest who are making excuses as to why they can't call their kid once a year to say "Hi, I think about you" - fuck you take some time to consider how it'll effect your kid.

Stifling the Economy

Did you know that Sam's Club only accepts Discover Card?

I do now.

Crikey!

I just typed in "www.fuckingcat.com" to see if some insane blogger had purchased it to rant about their feline scratches and smelly house. I have myself yelled "FUCKING CAT!" at least twice today.

Well...take my word for it*. It ain't a blog.

(*and I don't mean like a Levar Burton "You don't have to take my word for it." tease, either. We're talking ucky-yay orn-pay.)

Jerkoffs. (Fuckers, Part II)

Okay, I didn't know whether I was going to cancel the aforementioned order and get a refund (which would take five days) or see if Scott wanted to get his birthday surprise 9 days late. Scott said he would wait, so I swallowed my angst.

Then, I finally received an e-mail from a customer service rep in response to my "Are you fucking serious!!!!????" question:

"Hi Tiffany, Unfortunately these items ship from the manufacturer to our warehouse and that is where that date comes from. As stated on our website these items usually ship out to you within 2-3 weeks, so the 4/25 date would be three weeks from the date your order was processed. This is a fairly broad window; however we do give our customers the latest possible date that the products should ship out. This item should be shipping to you by 4/25/05. I apologize for the inconvenience, and please let us know if there is anything else we can assist with."

So I was right. They don't have the shit in stock. They order it when you order it. That's kind of shady. Anyhow, all the same they're bald-face liars about that "As stated on our website" bullshit. I studied that damn site on that particular item to make sure it was immediately available to ship. During the ordering process when my confirmation popped up it said "Most orders will be shipped within 2 business days." That's it. Nothing about 2-3 weeks ANYWHERE, not even in the item specs.

I am sofuckingpissed.

I told her to cancel the order.

"Hi Tiffany, I have requested cancellation for you; unfortunately if this order has already left the manufacturer it will not be possible to cancel it. I should have a response tomorrow. I get into work at 2:00pm PST and will let you know then the status. Thank you."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Somebody tell me this crackwhore is joking...go ahead. I'll wait while you summon the will to lie.

...

I knew I should have been suspcious when I went to BizRate.com today and read of people complaining about the same thing today. A customer service rep has apparently been assigned the duty of monitoring the reviews and responding to them. Her cut and paste response was basically the same thing I stated above: "It states on our site that..." with a friendly request to "Call me if you need any help."

All that stated, I ordered this item from Lightingdirect.com. Please let me know if you see something that I don't. Maybe I'm just blind and crazy, but I know what I read.

Now I have to sit around and either wait for my money to be refunded, or not give Scott a birthday present.

A pox on them.

Fuckers.

I spent $90 for Scott's birthday present. I ordered it last Friday in plenty of time for it to arrive here before next Wednesday. Those motherfuckers just sent me an email stating that:

" This e-mail is to inform you that the following items of your order have been forwarded to our warehouse for processing. GK P2974

The estimated shipdate is Apr-25-2005."

(emphasis mine)

Are you fucking kidding me? Why in the holy hell would you say on your site that items ship in 2-3 business days if there's a strong possibility that you have to ORDER IT FROM THE DISTRIBUTOR FIRST AND HAVE IT DELIVERED FROM THE WAREHOUSE?

Fucking assholes. What am I going to do now? Call and request a refund, I guess. I'm not going to sit around and wait three weeks for delivery on what's probably a 10 pound item.

I see, what that really mean by "ship in 2-3 business days" is "charge your card immediately and then make you wait for a back-ordered item."

?

I turn off my computer every day before I leave this office.

WHO THE FUCK TURNED IT BACK ON AND WHAT IN GOD'S NAME WERE YOU LOOKING FOR?

Smite me with inconvenience.

I just got back from "Jiffy" Lube. I sat in the reception area for two hours waiting for a basic oil change and safety insepction.

Two fucking hours. And there was one car in the lane in front of me.

To add insult to injury, they forgot to rotate my tires. It's a good thing they fessed up and told me because I'm really not car-savvy enough to know if it had been done or not. They could have charged me the extra $20 and I'd never have suspected otherwise.

*sigh* They did comp me a free rotation for whenever "I have time." I'll have new tires before that time comes.

And I had to sit next to a guy who reeked of whisky and menthol cigarettes.

And then the gas pump didn't print my receipt.

And then I drove to the Hallmark store and discovered that they're closed for renovations.

And then I drove to Kroger and learned that location has disappeared.

"TOOT" yourself, buddy!

I've said it before, but it bears repeating now: I hate impatient people.

I went to the Burger King drive-thru for lunch and at the pay window, I handed the clerk my card and waited as she walked to another terminal to swipe it. The idjut behind me must not understand that merchants accept plastic now and tooted his horn as if to remind me that I should drive up to the next window to get my food.

I didn't even acknowledge him. I waited another minute and then the clerk returned with my card.

In hindsight, I should have tooted back at him as if to say "Hi! What's up?"

*Kicks them*

I've been using the same tax preparation software for four years and have never really had any negative issues with them. When I went to download the update for this year, I decided that I would spend the extra $12.95 for the "Deluxe" edition which would automatically file our return, compare this year's return to last year's return, find any errors, find us additional loopholes refund opportunities, and so on. The program actually does what it says it does, but something happened this year that pissed me off.

Their 2004 edition is still in preview, so basically you download the software and can go ahead and type in most of your information and save it. When the final version is released, you can scour your return for additional "hints" for the next year and transmit your return electronically with direct deposit information.

Now I'll steer offtrack from my praises of this software and say that I want to kick them real hard in the fucking head.

They weren't supposed to charge my card until the final version was released and my software able to be updated. They charged my card the same fucking day of the order......at least six days early.

While that by no means will prevent me from using this software next year, I just think that people should do what they say they're going to do.

I haven't had my coffee yet

I need your opinion. Not that it would make any difference whatsoever, but it may possibly salve my conscience. I'm feeling particuarly evil.

Do you think I should have to mail my officemates' personal mail items? Specifically items that are stamped and ready to be mailed? The mail box is on their way out the complex. Why would they want to make me walk all the way over there in the morning to put their shit in? They think they're doing me a favor by running it through the meter themselves, but it reality if they don't post date it, I have to go IN THE MORNING to mail shit instead of waiting until the afternoon and making one trip when I pick up the incoming mail. Do they not have a mailbox at their house?

I don't use office supplies (i.e. postage meter and envelopes) to mail my bills. Even if I were a relative of Bossman, I'd be uncomfortable using office supplies and leaving them on the administrative assistant's desk to ship out.

Bill me for your being wrong, whydoncha.

I went to the optometrist back in September to get a new contact lens prescription. As I had moved since the last time I'd had a check-up, I had all my files faxed over to the franchise that's closer to my house.

You can typically tell that they don't even bother to look at your file when they ask for answers that are perfectly transparent just by looking at your records. For example, "How long have you been wearing glasses?"

"That's a shame," is not an appropriate response that that answer, by the way. I'm perfectly knowledgable of the fact that I'm blind as a bat.

Anyhoo, the new doc had me try some monthly disposable lenses. When I went back two weeks later for a fitting evaluation I told him that it felt like the lenses were trying to fall out of my eyes and were shifting around a lot. He told me that I would be hard-pressed to get a better fit on a soft lens because my eye is so steep.

I found that hard to believe. I've been wearing soft lenses for *counts on fingers* close to ten years and have never had a problem. I had always worn the ones you keep for a year. I tried the dailies a couple of times and they always seemed to dry my eyes out. I expressed that again to the doc and he asked if I had been using drops.

Drops? Of course not. Who spends $4 on an itty bitty bottle of saline when I never needed it before?

He told me to use the drops.

Fine, so here I am with lenses that are causing eye strain. I spent $30 on the box of lenses, and you know you can't really return them for a refund once they've been opened. I figured I'd use this box and if I still had issues, go back and complain when done.

Well, today I called to complain. The biggest problem with these lenses is that while I can see things that are at a distance clearly, stuff that's close up is sort of out of focus. I'm nearsided, so that's ass-backwards. No, I don't need bifocals. Everything is peachy-keen in my glasses, so it's definately the contacts.

I just hate it when you tell a doctor that something is wrong and they don't believe you.

Ho ho hell.

Real life is giving me a good kick in the ass. This is the sort of thing that occurs when you have résumés to mail out and your printer decides that it would be a good time to run out of ink. This is also the sort of thing that occurs when the holidays are simmering around you and the only thing you can think of is "Shit, I hope no one is getting me anything."

It is my preference to not get a job and to say that I got a degree just so that my children think I'm smart. Hi--real world calling.

I got a job offer last week from the principal of a charter school about an hour from here. Not only is teaching not on my list of things to do before I die, but the cost of driving there everyday far outweighs whatever benefits of pay provided. On top of that, any time there's a mid-year opening for a teaching position in a school it makes me suspicious. Why did the last teacher leave? What's wrong with the school? When you say "charter" do you really mean "untraditional learning atmosphere where ill-bred students flock"?

I guess the real problem with my job search is that I have absolutely no focus. I went into college all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with "Pre-Med" stamped on my forehead and "Music department" engraved on my ass. It didn't take me long to chisel either off. I think it was sometime around month two when some id-jut of a teaching assistant scoffed at my maladjustment and depression when I was going through a rough spot. I'd lost two family members in a few months, and wasn't handling it well. What did "Mr. Holier-than-thou because I wrote a thesis" tell me? I believe it was, "People die. Get over it." What really broke me down was when I had missed a day of class and had a friend tell me that the assignment due had been pushed back to the next Monday. When I turned in mine on Monday, he wouldn't accept it. For me it was "late" because I wasn't supposed to know that the assignment had been pushed back. Asshat.

That fucked me up reeeeeeeeal good for the next four years.

I didn't like anything after that. Even the things I was good at held no passion for me anymore, so imagine trying to focus all that hurt, anger, frustration, and grief into finding a new major and deciding on a career path. Hah!

I told myself at some point that, "Tiffany. You are a writer." True, I have been since I was six and scribbling poems about bedtime on the school bus. Heck, I even have a few published writing credits from back in the days when I was a sweet, good, God-fearin' girl. Ahem. However, the type of writing I crank out is not only time consuming, but frustrating as hell. I have probably 5 half-finished epic dramas festering in my file case. They're pretty good, but at this point in my life I lack the discipline required to sit down eight hours a day and peck away. Equally frustrating are those little unpresonalized rejection slips that editors send you making it painfully clear that they hadn't even bothered to read past the title and first paragraph. "Not for us--try again."

I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I just know that I have to be something. I'd be perfectly content with sitting on my arse all day and springing to action only when the kids get off the bus in the afternoon, but that aint going to happen.

On a seperate topic, I just noticed that a résumé I was about to send out contains traces of severe fuck-up. It would have been mildly embarrassing having to explain that inclusion away if I had been called in for an interview. I guess I need to add "be a better proofreader" to my list of things that I suck at.

Holiday depression sucks. To my credit, I can say that I haven't put my head in an oven yet and cranked it up to 500. That's mostly because I'm scared the power bill will be outrageous.

Dear Santa:

You fucking freak of an elf. I haven't asked you for shit in fifteen years, and you've done a good job of delivering. I never ask for anything, because--Mr. "Father Christmas"--you've been quite the deadbeat. I wish I could sue you for back child support.

All I've ever asked your sorry work-one-day-a-year ass for is a vacation so that my husband can get rid of the bags under his eyes and look his frickin' age. Did you deliver? Half-assedly, yeah. Went right back to work with unpaid overtime. These freak of nature college students around here are walking around wearing Prada and carrying Louis Vuitton bags to class and you couldn't even do me the favor of working some magic so that I can get a full tank of gas?

Damn it, I don't ask for much, but when it's cold outside and I'm scared to turn the heat on in the car for fear of using up my last teaspoon of gas, that's just a shame.

Fix the gee-dee economy if you expect anyone around here to have a Merry frickin' Christmas.

And what's up with your friend the Tooth Fairy? She gives all these kids money for losing teeth but hasn't left me a damn dime to get my cavities filled? Shameful. Do you know how much dental insurance copays are? I guess not with you being "immortal" and all. I bet your teeth are platinum-plated, eh?

Whatever. The last time I sat on your lap in Macy's you smelled like booze and had a scary glimmer in your eye.
Fucking lush. I hope your reindeer go on strike and leave your sorry ass stranded in Compton on Christmas day so that
you can see all those kids you "forget" every year. And you wonder why kids join gangs.

That's all for now. I'll sleep well tonight knowing I don't have to spend my last $4 on cookies and eggnog for
your obese ass. As a matter of fact--do drop by this year. Our chimney needs to be cleaned badly and you--you
big cotton ball of a man--would be the perfect swab for it.

Love, Tiffany
P.S.: I've been very good this year.

Dear Mom:

I hate those people that never have a good idea of their own. Especially the ones that forget where they've stolen their ideas from and carelessly present one of your ideas as their own right in front of your face.

I think you're far too young to be senile. Are you intentionally zapping our creative energies and using them for your own sordid affairs? Oh, come on! You keep saying that me and Dee need prayer, but I don't know--God don't like ugly, true, but isn't there a commandment in there somewhere saying something about theft, too? Like, "Honor thy daughters ideas, bitch, and don't go sayin' they're yours"?

It was MY idea to open a bakery, remember? 'Cuz I can actually bake whereas you merely fake? How long do you think you can make people believe that ready-made cakes from Food Lion are baked by your own widdle hands? Don't make me tell on you. I'll tell your man. Yep. I'll blow up your spot reeeeeeeaaaalllll good.

Your man: Neesie, I thought you said you made these.
You: I did...why? What happened?
Your man: Why is there a piece of paper in my bread that says "You've been Punk'd! Your lady can't cook a damn thing!"?

What about Dee-Dee's unisex hair shack thingy? The one that you thought was a good idea only when you heard it coming out of your own mouth?

How you gonna lie and tell folks you taught me how to cook whenever people complement me on something? How the HELL did you teach me how to cook? For some reason, I remember Grandma raising me...perhaps that was a 15 year-long dream, but I dunno...

As soon as I find out who leaked my paint color ideas to you, heads will roll. And the family tree photo wall? Oh COME ON! That was MY idea! I don't even want to do it anymore >:(. I'mma keep my mouth shut from now on. Shit, if I said I wanted concrete walls to keep out the roaches like the folks in that commercial, would you go and try to do it first?