Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Take Me Out to the...Nope, Sorry, Time for Murder--and Fashion!

[editors note: the last post was my 100th...which makes this 101! Yea for random internet garbage, eh? ;) ]

So as I’ve kinda mentioned a couple times, I’ve been playing baseball on this weekly league. I’m not technically on the team, but that hasn’t stopped me from playing. Unfortunately, there’s this law about women…how many you have to have and how many you have to play, etc, etc. There has to be at least one chick for every two guys who bat. Three girls have to play the field at one time. (Ha! Baseball’s fun for innuendos.) You get the idea.

Looks like I’m signing up for summer season…officially. I wish I could express my paranoia at this issue. Literally gives me mini panic attacks.

It wouldn’t be so bad if my mother lived here. She’s such a champ when it comes to all of this stuff. I mean…I played volley ball…soccer…did the dance and horseback ridding stuff. I’m totally fine with the running. It’s the hitting and throwing that makes me sad.

I did get some help after the game with my swing…and suddenly I’m actually hitting the ball…as opposed to using the bat to push it away from me. We’ll see how it all goes down. I also end up walking around with a baseball inside Louis, because everyone else has kinda packed up and left.

I have to interrupt this regularly scheduled program to vent. Unfortunately.

So, even though I had an amazing time after the game with some of my (new) favorite people, I can’t give you the details. Instead, I must tell you how much I would like to find a mean person and: 1) poke out his/her eyeballs with my bare fingers, 2) Remove his/her ears with my stapler remover, 3) Stick multiple thumbtacks under each fingernail, and finally 4) Stomp repeatedly on the mangled body until the squishing and crunching stops. (Much like I do with bubble wrap.)

Whew, okay, let’s move on to the WHY of all this…

So someone replicated my bankcard and stole my PIN…again. Whatever, I use my cards a lot…these things happen. Doesn’t mean I accept that the world has turned into a place where people would rather spend most of their time trying to steal what I’ve worked for than actually, you know, working.

Whatever the case, I got the standard issue recommendation from my bank: go to an active branch, tell them what’s what, get a new card, and create a new PIN. Fine, I do this…I’ve done it before. I get a nice, shinny new card. It makes me happy. (Just FYI, to my lovely Americans, we don’t put credit card logos on our debits here. They are separate and in no way equal.)

I leave the bank with my shinny new card, and head back to work…as I’m on my lunch break. On my way, I figure I’ll get gas for my car…as, if I don’t, I may not make it home. (And yes, I realize I should never leave it that empty, but I’ve been doing the same damn thing since I was fifteen years old. Deal with it, already.) So I do my swipe and PIN…and…nothing. I literally do not understand the message in front of me…insufficient funds? As if! I go inside, thinking that maybe the pump hates me. (You laugh, but sometimes they just don’t work on the outside. I had someone suggest that it could be the gross gas station guys on the inside, trying to get me to come in…but that seems a little excessive…even for gross gas station guys.)

It’s not the outside/inside issue…it’s just the damn account. So, no purchases for me. Obviously, this is not something I can accept. I call my bank’s info line in the hopes of getting this situation corrected.

The first woman I speak to (after going through the security checks) tells me that I have active holds on my accounts, put on my account by my bank branch. This seems kinda bizarre…considering I rarely even use my “official” branch. Regardless, she says she’ll transfer me to my branch, so they can help me out. Wonderful…

…except when forty minutes later, I’m still waiting. I call on my cell phone, while still waiting on the land phone…hoping one way or the other I’ll get this sorted out. I get a new person. Go through security again…explain situation again…and start getting told completely different information. There’s a lot of “maybes” and “possiblys” coming out of this guy. I’m not a fan of either of those things, so I request to speak with a supervisor.

I would like to clarify here that I am not yelling. I’m not happy, but there is no swearing or yelling or being nasty. I’m just trying to tell the dude he can’t help me, and to get someone who can. Hello, I’m in the Customer Service industry…I kinda know the drill…if I can’t help someone, I get them someone better. That’s just how it works.

He goes off on my rudeness, puts me on hold for five minutes…then hangs up on me. I am still on hold on the land line. My cell says the call took approximately 13 minutes, so I’ve been on hold now for almost an hour. I hang up, giving up any hope on the land line magically going through, call back, and immediate ask to speak to a supervisor.

The poor new guy is like, “Um…are you sure I can’t help you?” To which I insist that I need to speak to a supervisor, and don’t want to go through the whole spiel with him again, just to eventually get to the person I actually need to talk to.

The supervisor gets on in Super Customer Service mode. I am well aware of this mode, I use it often. Not as much as I did when I worked at the psychologist’s office…nor as much as I did at the Pizza place when I ran phones, but still, I use it enough to be familiar. To those of you who don’t, this is the same sort of tone and vocabulary used by desperate mothers on sleepy toddlers teetering dangerously close to a major tantrum…or by negotiators on dangerously teetering jumpers. It’s very kind, tries to make the person you’re speaking to feel very important, and extremely sympathetic to the horrors the person has endured before getting to this point.

Even though I recognize both the mode, and the tactic behind it, I almost burst into tears at the assistance. (Thanks period. Way to make me feel like a little girl.) I still have to repeat all the security measures, but this time the supervisor immediately takes off my holds, allowing me to actually use my own money (Concept!)

I’ve said it once and—surely—will have to say it again, but I wish people would just do their jobs. Is that really so much to ask? Is it, honestly?

On a completely unrelated note, it’s been awhile since I professed my love of the Fug. I mean, I have the link right there on the left-hand side, 24 hours a day, all day, every day (Hmm…is it redundant to say 24 hours a day…then say all day? Oh well.), obviously I think the site worthy of perusal. Still, every once in awhile I like to give credit where credit is due...for no particular reason whatsoever, regardless of a longstanding relationship. You know, like, with a guy…when you’ve been dating for multiple months (or years) and every once in awhile you open the door in nothing but fantastic heels, pearls, and chocolate sauce.

Take this gem: “It is a boring, ill-fitting, wrinkled boob-ruiner. With a bad hem. Oh yes, I said it. I think I'm a little mad at it, frankly. I kind of want to take it out back and smack it silly, or stick a dunce cap on it and make it sit in the corner and think about its sins. Which would take a long time. We wouldn't see it again for three years. Bliss!”

See? Totally worth the few extra miles on the treadmill and chocolate sauce on my body rather than in it…

But I digress.

And you know what…making ya’ll think about me naked and slathered in chocolate is really not nice, so I’ll go ahead and end this one now.

Quote of the Moment: “My balls feel like Rickard’s Red…It’s still dripping on them.”
Soundtrack of the Moment: Hoobastank, Born to Lead
TV/Movie Quote: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery:The details of my life are quite inconsequential...very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking— highly suggest you try it.

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