Extra Poor Decision

Worst of all decisions:

Giving your parents the link to your blog about your bad choices, and then forgetting you gave your parents the link to the blog about your bad choices and then having them confront you.

Grandmothers in Boots

I don't know about your grandmother, but mine is a TERRIBLE DECISION MAKER.
I am pretty sure I get it entirely from her.

For instance, yesterday evening Grandmother shows up at the front door covered in blood.
Her clothes have dried blood stains all over, she's bleeding from the face, and she explains that she tripped and fell down an escalator in the Seattle airport. The concerned onlookers called 911 and the paramedics came and bandaged her bleeding knees etc., and tried to get her to a hospital. She refused to go and insisted they let her on her plane. STILL BLEEDING FROM THE FACE.

They made her sign a waiver.

She made it all the way back to the house like this, luckily with no broken bones or internal bleeding. We're standing there, discussing her CONTINUED BLEEDING when she sees the new high heeled boots I've just bought myself.

My grandmother, STILL COVERED IN BLOOD FROM TRIPPING, tells me dead serious, "I am going shopping for high heeled boots just like those! And I will wear them with black tights! Because that is the fashion!"  When I stared at her with incredulity, she added, "But some women also wear those tight jeans...should I get tight jeans? Can't I just wear black tights? Do I need both? ....what size are YOUR shoes? Will I fit?"

I am hiding all of my shoes from my grandmother. She thinks she's getting her own this weekend. I may hide the keys to her car.

Tiny Purses

Terrible decision:

Went to masquerade ball Friday night. Brought very tiny purse.
7:30, parked car in Bethesda, Maryland.
8:30, asked friend to put my keys in her purse.
10:30, went to Eastern Market, DC to a house party. Friend went home to sleep in Virginia.
12:30, started home, realized friend took keys to Virginia.

Fucked.

Neighbors of Chaos

Everyone should check this out! Fabulous webcomic written by a friend in France who let me do the English translations.

http://www.lesvoisinsduchaos.com/en

Share with all your friends.

Amsterdam

This story deemed not fit for print.

Early Morning Sprinting

Many of you are aware of the ongoing morning bus saga because you get repeated text messages from me which state, "I MISSED THE BUS. FUCK." Sometimes I don't include the punctuation, which has led certain individuals to believe Maryland public transit permits orgies. This is why punctuation is important.

Basically, every single morning I leave the house late, and nearly ever single morning I reach a certain point down the block from the bus stop when I see the bus either stopped at the light, or about to go through it. It is a slight hill up to the bus stop, and I have never been a super fit person, and we all know I am certainly NOT a morning person. Despite this, or perhaps even because of it, when I reach this point and see the bus, I always have the same reaction--to yell "FUCK!" and sprint up the hill towards the bus as fast as skinny legs will take me. This is STUPID, because I NEVER make the bus. It is not physically possible, based on the speed of the bus, the distance I am from the bus, and my pathetic sprinting skills. Yet, 3-4 times a week, I find myself shrieking and running until I collapse at the top, weak heart pounding enough to nearly induce vomiting, while I watch the bus continue blithely down the road without me.

The saddest part of this story, though, is that right between my bus stop and the spot I always hit when I see the bus from afar is where the fifth grade safety patrol stands guard. Elementary school children on their way to school pass down that sidewalk every day at precisely the same time as I head for my own bus, and even if I hit the lull in between groups of children crossing the road, there are always 2-5 Safety Patrollers patrolling the area in the exact spot I am shouting obscenities.

In the beginning I think I caused them concern, but by now they are used to me and more or less ignore it. I hope to god they are not telling tales to their parents.

In any case, every morning I get up to the bus stop panting and ready to die and I swear I will never bother to run for the bus again. Obviously I never keep this vow.

THIS morning, I got to the spot and saw the bus was stopped because of the light. I thought to myself, THIS time I can probably make it! So I let out the usual war cry and took off at a dead run for the top of the hill, slamming into a third grader as I did so BUT I DID NOT STOP.

Well, I did not stop until I LOST MY SHOES. I ran right out of them. The light was still red, so, hollering all the way, I ran back and grabbed my shoes and continued running barefoot up the hill, running a fourth grader on a bike into a shrub and waving my shoes up to the bus stop.  It so happened that this time not only did I make the bus, two of my neighbors were also waiting for it and watched in surprise as I barreled towards them, shoes in the air shouting, "WAIT FOR MEEEEEE!!"

They let me on the bus first. Still barefoot. Which meant now the entire bus had reason to stare at me. I sat in the front and tried to discreetly put my shoes back on and smooth out my hair.

Ready to do it all again tomorrow.

Groundhogs

I am going to go ahead and do a post about ridiculous decisions made by someone not me--namely, my father. As many of you know, my father has had a vegetable garden every summer for approximately 25 years. He loves his vegetable garden. But when we moved to Pittsburgh, he discovered that our property was already inhabited by a family groundhogs, led by a dastardly cunning patriarch.  Each winter my father spends plotting in his study how to take down the groundhog, and each summer he carefully implements his new clever plan and by each autumn he retreats, a defeated man.  Every year for the last ten years the war between my father and the groundhog has escalated, and this past summer, I think we can all agree my father went a little mental.  I was receiving extremely disturbing text messages and emails and even phone calls from him several times  a week, and I would like to post just a few of the emails my father sent to me over the course of the summer:



The war against the GH has begun. I have made the first move with an ineffective, pre-emptive strike on his home. I filled it with dirt after stuffing sticker bush thorns in the hole and then covered it with a cinder block. I was pissed the next day to find that he just dug around the cinder block (I didn't think of that) and made his entrance a bit wider. I have removed the cinder block and strategically placed a trap just outside the entrance. I put a pretzel (one of those large ones) and some lettuce in the trap. So far, he has only covered the trap with the dirt that I had stuffed in the entrance of his home. I am feeling relatively safe because I have protected the garden with the electric fence. But I'm also worried because the fence sometimes turns off intermittently. I am wondering if GH knows enough about electricity that he is grounding the fence before strolling through it. In the meantime, I am looking for some gourmet recipes for serving him should he slip into the trap. I'll be picking up some treats for him at the strip tomorrow that I will place in the trap. I can only hope that he goes for it.
 

 *                                    *                                    *                                  *                               *

The groundhog is still at large.  On Saturday morning, the trap was closed, but no groundhog. I bought a cucumber and a head of lettuce  for him, but it's Monday morning and there is no sign of him other than the rather large entrance to his home. I stuffed some more stickers, rocks and other debris at the entrance, but he just removed them. I may go out and buy some fire crackers and throw them down the hole.  The hole is not near Mom's plants, so, if I blow up the hole, it may go undetected. He is digging through the solid cement I filled his hole with. He must have a special jack hammer or something to do that, as I am finding chunks of the broken cement next to his hole as he continues to make progress.  

   *                              *                               *                                       *                *

I bought a bag of concrete and poured it down the ground hog's hole. I thought that maybe I had turned him into a fossil so that generations from now, archeologists could see what the gardeners of today had to face. But, no such luck. Yesterday I saw that he had come back and had tried to get into his house when, alas, the entrance was blocked. He thought he could just dig a new hole, but, when he tried, he hit what seemed like a cement wall. And then, he realized, it was a cement wall. I don't know if he has given up, but for now, I see no sign of him. I suspect that he will come back with a few friends and find a way around the cement, but, if he does, I will just buy more cement until the entire hill side is covered with cement. I also added another layer of electric fence so that there are now two wires: one is 6 inches above ground and the other is 12 inches above ground. I accidentally touched the fence with my shoe while also touching the chain link fence. Now I know that the electric fence is working. I won't be doing that again for a while, I hope. At least I didn't have the urination problem that the one guy had.

                  *                                      *                                      *                                    *

As you know, the groundhog family lives in a cave on the hillside behind the house. I have tried numerous times to evict them, but they refuse to leave. I have filled the door to their cave with the shale and other debris surrounding its opening. But each time they have dug it out and have made the entrance even grander than before. I have put a trap next to the entrance of their home and have filled it with lettuce, cucumbers. bread, crackers,chocolate and any other goodies that I thought would attract them into the trap. But they would not enter. Instead, they filled the trap with the stones and other debris that I had used to block the entrance to their cave. So, a few weeks ago, I bought cement mix and dumped it into the hole. I then poured water on it figuring it would seep down and harden the mix in the hole. But it backfired. The water only seeped down a few inches. So, instead of blocking the entrance, I reinforced the roof with cement. I could hear the groundhog laughing at me as he dug his way back to his home. 

 

*                                         *                                                  *                                   *

I have another thief in the garden. It seems that the ground hog has gotten other rodent friends to join his party. Now, also Alvin, Simon, Ted, Chip, Dale, and others are stealing what does not belong to them. I actually had a beautiful yellow tomato that should be picked today. But, it was bitten into on Monday morning. And by Tuesday morning, every tomato, green or not, was picked from the plants. I would suspect Gus, or Phil, but the ground hogs would not have crossed the electric fence so easily. And it is not their Modus Operandi (MO). They would have taken a bite from each tomato and left the rest. However, there is no sign that a tomato ever existed on these vines. I have no proof that the crime has been committed. It's just my word against their squeaks... If I could even find them. I am now going to war against the ground hogs AND the chipmunks.

*                                                        *                                                   *                                               *

I saw the ground hog face to face (or, more accurately, face to tail). Rachel noticed some flowers moving on the hillside sometime on Saturday. I ran out to find the largest ground hog I have ever seen--the grand daddy of all ground hogs. He realized immediately that this would not be a friendly meeting. So, he quickly ran across the hillside. I don't know where he went because he just disappeared. I am looking all over for his hole, but it must be cleverly disguised. Or, he has mastered the ability to disappear into a space-time warp that has an opening somewhere on the hillside. I haven't seen him since Saturday.

*                                                                 *                                                                                      *  

Maybe if I can keep the dog at the top of the hill, mom won't notice it for a while. Or, I could just buy one of those Japanese robotic dogs. I'd put him on a leash and have him patrol the garden--after reprogramming him to bite anything with four legs.  I just mail ordered a controller board to start building my robot. It should arrive this week.

Sabotoge

A friend convinced me to go volunteer for the Obama campaign and promised me that I could do something like stuff envelopes and I would NOT have to call people.  But in the end he brought me to the phone bank where all there is to do is make calls. Instead of immediately leaving, I stuck around, got trained, and started calling poor undecided voters.  All of the phones in this big room were connected to a big switchboard/box thing and everyone was busily calling people.  At some point maybe 40 minutes in, I stood up, walked a few steps, tripped over a cord AND BROUGHT THE ENTIRE PHONE BANK DOWN. It was terribly humiliating, some guy had to spend 15 minutes trying to fix things, certain volunteers were quite disgruntled, and everyone knew it was me.  Someone accused me of being a Republican spy sent to sabotage the campaign.  We think it was probably a joke, but I apologized 18 times, left my friend there, and cried a little on the way home.

Date Lab

I have dated a lot of people. Poets, artists, engineers, lawyers, environmentalists, engineers, bartenders, students, engineers, doctors, engineers...mostly engineers. Seriously, like, a lot of engineers. Name any type of engineer: civil, structural, chemical, software, hardware, aeronautical--I've dated one. Or at least made out in public with one. I have met guys in clubs, in bars, in hostels, and on street corners. I have met guys through my friends, at parties, on blind dates. I have met guys on OkCupid and JDate. I even did speed dating. Now THERE was a regrettable decision. My self esteem never recovered from that episode. Point is, none of these methods have ever worked out. The last week or so I have had time to wonder, what other avenue is left to me? I have literally taken EVERY ROUTE I can think of to romantic happiness. Just when I had completely despaired of finding a new outlet and in the middle of being completely disgusted by the fifteeen messages on OkCupid responding to my request for a date to The Expendables, my co-worker, in a random coincidence, chose yesterday to tell me about THIS:

http://datelab.washpost.com/


 A whole new path to rejection and despair I had never imagined! I am excited to see what new horrors the decision to fill out this application can bring me.

I will keep you posted.  In the meantime, if anyone else has more ideas on where to go for True Love, let me know. I would hate to leave a stone unturned.

There's a ridiculous statement: "leave no stone unturned."

You know what you find under stones when you turn them over? Insects and dirt.

That about sums up all of my current feelings.

Moving Violations

I have never liked driving. I am not particularly bad at it, but it makes me nervous. Also angry. I am generally a mild tempered person, but the second I start off in my car I find myself yelling insults out the open window and making gestures out the sunroof and I start to hate everyone who has ever existed. Last weekend I drove to New Jersey. First disaster, major traffic. That is not too out of the ordinary, though it made me especially mad. Then, after crossing into Delaware, in a confusing moment I drove through an EZ Pass lane. I don't have an EZ Pass. When I became confused, and stopped, and went again, and the horrible buzzer went off, and I stopped again, a large mess was caused. There was a lot of honking, a lot of "WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, YOU BITCH?" and pandemonium. I tried pulling off to the side to contemplate the best course of action, but this caused me to nearly die in four successive near-accidents and also prompted a chorus of "STUPID BITCH" and "FUCKER!" from passing cars with Jersey license plates. So I fled the scene and cried a lot in my car. The internet tells me likely I owe Delaware up to $50. Then my mapquest directions decided to have some fun and randomly commanded me to make an impromptu and completely unnecessary visit to Wilmington, Delaware. After getting completely lost, I turned on my GPS which only occasionally works. The GPS decided to also have some fun and have me visit the junk yards and abandonded lots of Wilmington, calling them things like "Grover Avenue," and "Market Street." The next day I mostly recovered, and agreed to drive to Seadside Heights behind my father. I followed closely, as I am unfamiliar with the area and had no way to find my way home ever again should I lose my father. I was concentrating so hard on not losing him in the mess of cars, that I nearly completely failed to notice the police officer attempting to pull me over. $100 for going over the 25 mph speed limit. I returned home to find that a mere few days before I had been caught on camera running a red light in the middle of DC while trying desperately to find my way back from Virginia in the middle of the night. $150. I would like to point out that the first ticket I ever got in my life I got exactly one week before my first boyfriend dumped me unexpectedly. I would ALSO like to point out that I got my second/third/fourth ever tickets of my life exactly one week AFTER my second boyfriend dumped me unexpectedly. Coincidence????? Probably, actually. But I prefer to imagine conspiracy.

Haiku Hour

Sent away passport/Two weeks later decided/to leave country. Whoops.

Comcast

As you are aware from my post about Cricket, I have been using Cricket
internet for over a year now, paying $50 a month to be able to check my
email but not be able to download things, watch videos, or basically do
most useful things. Also often it would stop working. Though sometimes this turned out to be because I had forgotten to pay bills.

Several months ago my grandmother finally agreed that I could attempt to
get wireless set up in the house. Following receipt of permission, I spent
twenty billion hours on the phone with Comcast trying to arrange to get
internet hooked up in the house and after an unreasonably long time they
finally told me that the account was in Joseph Stone's name and we needed
him to authorize me as someone who can make changes to the plan.
I said, "That is my grandfather, and he has been dead for 15 years. Soooooo
that will not be happening. I can put you on with my grandmother."
"No. Has to be Joseph Stone."
"Well, as I previously stated, he has been dead for a number of years. This
will not be possible."
"I understand. But we need Joseph Stone to clear this change."
"Clearly you do NOT understand because I just explained VERY clearly, in no
uncertain terms, that Joseph Stone is dead. Likely he will stay that way
for quite some time."
"You will need to prove this to us."
"You want me to PROVE that my grandfather is dead?"
"Yes. Otherwise we cannot change the name on the account."
"I hate you all."

Anyway, during this time my gradmother was still in her rehab center so
nothing much could be done. But once she got out she had to go find my
grandfather's death certificate and mail a copy into Comcast along with
several forms.  I felt really terrible for making her do this.  (Side note:
also my mother physically went to a Comcast store/branch/whatever and had a heated discussion with the manager there which ended in her threatening to dig up my grandfather's ashes and pour them on his desk. This got us
nowhere.)

Finally, a few weeks ago, I spent twenty billion hours on the phone with
Comcast with my grandmother next to me and after going through the whole
business again they were still like, we need Joseph Stone to clear this. I
nearly flipped out.  But for some reason, while they have my grandfather's
name, they have my GRANDMOTHER'S social security number...so...they let us do it. The woman told me a technician would be sent between 3-5 on Friday afternoon and that there was a guarantee that he would arrive within those two hours to set up my new wi-fi. Things looked good.

3-5 on Friday came and went, someone finally called to say they had to
cancel the first technician but they were sending another, and he would be
around sometime around 7:30.  Luckily we were in the house, and this
probably worked better because  I could be there.  Finally the new guy
(Chase) showed up and messed around with things, got to the end and said,
"I don't have a router."
".........isn't that what makes this wireless? Aren't you supposed to have
one? Aren't I paying monthly to rent your router? Isn't this standard?"
"Yes..but...I don't have one."
"I may kill you."
"But just call them and have them ship one to you and you can put it in
yourself."
"Didn't I just pay $30 to have you come so I would NOT have to install
anything myself?????"
"Well...yes.  But really, it's very simple. You just plug this bit in.
That's all."
"This will go wrong somehow."
"There is no way this can go wrong. You just plug this bit in. Really, that
is all."
"I don't believe you. I just plug this bit in ? That is all?"
"Yes, that is why I have been repeating it."
"Say it again please."

After going through this for about twenty minutes, Chase finally gave me
his personal cell number and told me to call him if I had any problems.  I
immediately lost his phone number.

Later that evening, I called Comcast to have them ship me the router.  I
spent twenty billion hours on hold before speaking to someone.  I told him
I wanted my router shipped overnight and that I did not feel I should have
to pay the installation fee since the guy was hours late and they have that
guarantee.  He told me he had to wait until the technician "closed his
ticket" which would be any minute and that he would call me back within 20
minutes.

He never called me back.

The next day I called Comcast again and spent twenty billion hours on hold
before speaking to a man who was a total idiot. We went through this whole
to do and he told me he would not and could not refund my $30 installation
fee, that it was against company policy to mail equipment, and that he
would be scheduling ANOTHER technician to come on Wednesday morning which was a huge to do because someone has to be at the house and my grandmother is a busy woman and she finally agreed to be around and I felt bad.
Apparently the ONLY time in the next two weeks they could send someone was that Wednesday morning.
He told me he could offer us 3 premium channels free, for three months. I
said, that is bullshit, I want my installation fee back.  He said, the
channels are worth $20 so he could just take off $20 from the next bill
instead. I said, you should take off $20 from each bill for three months by
that logic.  He said, "No." I started ranting like a madwoman and he cut in
saying this was Comcast policy, not his fault, he couldn't change anything.
I said, FINE I have a list of complaints I would like you to pass along for
me, can you please do that? He told me when he filed for the $20 refund he
had to fill out a customer comment section and I could list my comments
there. I said, YES. I WILL BE LISTING!
We went through a super long discussion going back and forth and round and round wherein I loudly voiced how disgusted I was and he repeated the same nonsense over and over and finally he said something about filing for the customer comments and I said,
"GREAT. NUMBER 1....."
"No, you can't comment now."
"What? But you just said..."
"No, we can't do anything now, you have to call back tomorrow."
"WHAT? What for??? I don't understand...what am I calling back for??"
"In order to get your $20 and file the complaint. You have to call
tomorrow."
"But....WHY?"
"Unintelligble nonsense."
"I don't understand."
"More unintelligble nonsense."
"I don't want to call back. Fix it now. There is no possible reason for you
to not fix this right now."
"Slightly nastier unintelligble nonsense."
"THIS IS GOING ON THE LIST!"

I hung up and went to try to convince my grandmother to give up Comcast but she refused.

So the next day I called Comcast.

After twenty billion hours on hold, I got a young sounding dude.

"How may I help you this afternoon?"
"WELL let me tell YOU I have had just about enough of this business! I
would like you to know that I am MONUMENTALLY FRUSTRATED RIGHT NOW."
"Uh oh."
"EVEN THOUGH I AM YELLING I AM NOT ANGRY WITH YOU PERSONALLY."
"I appreciate that...."
"I AM VERY UPSET WITH YOUR ORGANIZATION. WHAT KIND OF OPERATION DO YOU PEOPLE THINK YOU ARE RUNNING?"
"You do sound frustrated."
"I AM VERY FRUSTRATED. HOWEVER PLEASE DO NOT BE ALARMED BECAUSE I KNOW YOU ARE THUS FAR AN INNOCENT BYSTANDER."
"I am glad you are making this distinction, but I hope you will calm down."
"LET ME TELL YOU WHAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING."
"I am listening..."
"THERE WAS THE GUY WHO WAS LATE AND THEN NO ROUTER AND THEN THE GUY ON THE PHONE AND NO MAILING POLICY AND SECOND TECHNICIAN AND NO REFUND WHICH IS BULLSHIT AND WOULDN'T EVEN LET ME LODGE A COMPLAINT HAVE TO CALL BACK THIS IS ALL I DO WITH MY LIFE NOW. ALSO WHY AM I PAYING AN EXTRA $50 PER MONTH
FOR INTERNET WHEN MY GRANDMOTHER ALREADY HAS COMCAST PHONE AND CABLE??? THAT IS COMPLETELY INSANE."
"I don' t know who that was, but everything is lies. That guy never
scheduled a technician for you, so ignore that. I will have a router
overnighted to you immediately, I am refunding your $30, I am also giving
you the $20 in credit that other guy promised you, I am also adding HBO for
free for 6 months, and I will only be charging you $1 extra for the
internet for the next 6 months because you are right, $50 is weird."
"......"
"Are you still there?"
"So...that's it? That simple?"
"Yeah."
"Um. Thank you."
"No problem. Anything else?"
"I love you."
".....appreciated?"


This all sounded excellent so I hung up, and three days later I received
what I believed to be a router.  I spent many an hour plugging things in
all over the place before calling up Comcast again. After TWENTY BILLION
HOURS ON HOLD I got a guy who was not super with it.  He talked in circles
for a while, made me read off many numbers, sent a few activation codes,
and after 20 minutes, told me some mind blowing news.

"Ma'am...what you have there...that's not a router."

IT WAS NOT. EVEN. A ROUTER.

That was the end of my patience.  I spluttered a lot, the guy told me I had
to go exchange it at some place, and hung up quickly before I could give
him complaints to pass on to upper management. 

It's been a few weeks now, and it would seem that the internet is working.
However, BOTH OF MY LAPTOPS ARE NOW BROKEN. Also I have not seen evidence of any refunds. We do seem to have HBO now.

Then, last week, I blew up my computer at work. Not entirely literally, but
mostly. It just shut down. Forever. Blue screen of death. They had to cart
it away.

It's been a bad time.