Phone and UPS problems galore

Let me start by saying that I fucking HATE UPS. And I’m starting to hate Sprint/Nextel just as much.

The phone trouble began last weekend. First, you should know that I have a Treo 700p.

I almost never have trouble with it.

Until last weekend.

The BF complained that I hadn’t returned his text messages, and I replied “what text messages?” I had actually been rather pissy because I didn’t think he had returned MY text messages over the past few days. I rebooted the phone (the sophisticated way — I removed and replaced the battery), and 15 text messages appeared. I checked voicemail — although I had no message alert icon — and found that I had five voicemail messages. I thought people had just been calling and hanging up!

I thought that was the end of it. Technology snafus happen.

Nope.

On the way home, I couldn’t get the phone feature to engage. The phone literally would not give me a keypad. I could access my contacts, but when I pushed the button to call one, it would return to the home screen. Majorly inconvenient.

I tried to find a Sprint store that actually does phone repairs. I found a few, but none that service Treo 700s. They service the 650, but not the 700. Seriously? I’ve had the 650, and I can’t see how they can be so drastically different, but whatever. I was pissed (as usual), particularly after spending 20 valuable minutes on hold waiting for tech support.

A confused tech rep finally suggested that I do a hard reset on the phone. Fortunately I had synched that morning. I restored the information, and the phone seemed to be working fine.

Nope.

As a test, I sent a message from my Blackberry. The message didn’t go through, which was a big indicator that my phone issues hadn’t been rectified. So, I called Sprint, was put on hold for ANOTHER 15 minutes before being transferred to the insurance company.

I must say that the monthly charge for phone replacement insurance is a good investment. I can’t tell you how much it’s come in handy. Never mind the $50 deductible — it’s much better than paying another $400 for a brand new phone. It’s usually a very effortless process. Until this time.

Everything went through without a hitch, and I told the man who answered that I needed my phone shipped to my business address. He entered the address, and then transferred me to the person who would take my payment information for the deductible. This is where the trouble began.

The woman told me that I would need to send in a notarized copy of my most recent bill and a copy of a photo ID. I told them that I’d never needed to do that before, and mentioned that it would probably hold up the cycle time of my phone replacement. She was being a bit snotty about it, so I asked to speak to her supervisor.

And for the record? Nothing pisses off a customer service rep more than your request to speak to a supervisor. They always say something like: “Well, the procedure won’t change, but you can speak to a supervisor.” Whatever, bitch. 99% of the time, I can usually affect a change by having a nice chat with a supervisor.

Welcome to the 1%.

So, another person gets on the phone and finally clarifies that the reason that I would have to produce so much documentation before my phone can be mailed is because I requested it be sent to a different address. Why didn’t anyone tell me that in the first place?

So I asked her why, if I can give her my billing address, my phone number, the last 4 digits of my SSN and my mother’s maiden name, they would need a notarized copy of a bill? It’s an e-bill, for chrissakes. Does is REALLY make much sense to print a bill that wasn’t mailed to my address and get it notarized?

Apparently, she thought so.

So, I decided to buck the system and just have them send the package to my house via UPS, but reroute the package once they attempted delivery. And that was probably the worst thought I’ve had all week.

They tried to deliver it, and I immedately called to have it re-routed. They assured me that it would be delivered the next day to my office.

It wasn’t. I arrived home to find a sticker on my door. I called again, slightly perturbed. “Well, ma’am. It was because, er um, you didn’t call until after 5. It will be there tomorrow.”

It wasn’t. Called again, majorly pissed off. “Ma’am, I don’t know what happened. Maybe they didn’t notice the re-routing directions.” I replied: “Didn’t NOTICE? You’re in the BUSINESS of noticing delivery addresses. Please explain to me how someone DIDN’T NOTICE an address???” Response: “I don’t know, ma’am. It can be there on Monday.” My reply: “Is there someone that can deliver it tomorrow? (Saturday)” Response: “We don’t deliver on Saturdays.” My reply: “More reasons why you suck.”

Yep . . . never going to get the phone now. I can’t help thinking that I should have just gotten the damed papers notarized in the first place. Argh!

Diapers

So . . . I was doing my typical sweep of the CNN website, and saw where the attorney of Lisa Nowak – the astronaut who went cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs and took a 900-mile joy ride [or hate ride] to bust her lover – is denying that she was wearing diapers on her drive. Apparently those diapers were toddler-size and had been there for years, according to the attorney. He thinks the Pamper allegation is a preposterous tale cooked up by the media to denigrate his client.

Excuse me, but WTF???

First, clean your car, lady! Next, let’s not comment on the things we know – like the fact that she was having an affair, OR the fact that she was charged with kidnapping, battery, and burglary with assault, or EVEN the fact that she was so far into her crazy chasm that she actually believed that it was a good idea to drive across the country to bust her boy toy. Let’s just address either the absence or presence of diapers.

If I were her attorney, I would try to prove that she had a reason to be in Orlando other than to kill the bitch who was messing around with her man. Maybe take the angle she had a planned trip to Disneyworld, and thought that a staged kidnapping would be a great end to a visit with Mickey and Minnie?

Because, let’s face it. The diapers make the story more comical, but there are deeper problems with this scenario. A stable woman might possibly be mad enough to SAY that she will jump in her car and drive to Orlando. A less-stable woman will actually get IN the car and begin the journey. She might stop and come to her senses before reaching the interstate and reroute her trip to a bar or to a mall for retail therapy. But a woman who gets in the car, actually drives 900 MILES, reaches her destination and is STILL mad enough to kill? That is one crazy bitch. She is evil, and she must be destroyed.

Lethal injection?

Why is Paris Hilton out of jail already? It seems like she’s only been in there for, like, three days. WTF? Did anyone else besides myself and Jay Leno think that lethal injection might have been a more appropriate solution?

I must stop now. The fact that I’ve allocated blog space to that skank is embarassing.

Weekend crazies

What a weekend!

It began nicely. Went to preview night of the annual H2o+ warehouse sale. They have a monster of a sale every year at their HQ, and it’s a complete madhouse, with people lined up around the block to get a good deal on shower gel and general bath products. Because they’re our client, my office was given passes to the preview, held the night before the sale.

I have to really watch myself at sales. I get into this uber-shopper mode, where I’m so excited to get a good deal that I might fuck around and buy a bunch of things that I really don’t need just because they’re on deep discount. This is the kind of thinking that fills my closets and cupboards with things that I don’t quite understand.

Once, from the clearance area of Target (don’tcha just LOVE the Target clearance area), I was cajoled into buying a gravy boat crockpot. It’s just like what it sounds like it should be – a small crockpot which is specifically used for keeping gravy warm for large meals. I thought it would be a good purchase because a) it was only $3.98 and b) I cook Thanksgiving dinner annually and it would be a helpful gadget, and for a very small fee. (See below)

Sure, I’ve used it, but it has garnered very strange looks from my dinner guests. And comments like “Wow. So . . . you have an entire crockpot dedicated to gravy? You must really love gravy.” And that’s the thing, I DON’T love gravy.

But I digress (way further than usual). Back to H2o+.

So . . . to avoid getting terrible Shopper’s Syndrome, I made sure and evaluated the contents of my cart (which was really a box that one pulls around by a strap. Odd.), before I ended up with foul-spelling body butter that I would never have bought if it weren’t for the fact that it was originally $25, and I could get it for $3.50. And then I would berate myself: Hel-lo, dumbass? It’s $3.50 for a reason. Because MOST people don’t want to smell like a fusion of Chocolate and Pina Coladas before going to bed.

I did have a fabulous find. They had a very limited amount of Kashwear robes (one of Oprah’s favorite things). They’re originally $120, and I got them for $40. Yes, I bought two. My mother and I both needed matching pink thick robes.

Directly after the sale, I enjoyed a relaxing evening with the women of my reading group. Just what I needed after a long week. We didn’t much like the book, though. We read Annie Freeman’s Fabulous Traveling Funeral.

Saturday, I ran errands and took a friend to lunch for her birthday.

Sunday, hung out with the BF — saw “Knocked Up” (chick film, but he loved it), and then got trashed at the jazz fest on Van Buren and State. Really trashed. Like countless-glasses-of-wine trashed. We went to South Loop Club for midnight snacks, after which I passed out. Cold.

This morning I was an unhappy girl. I had to wake up a 6:00 am (after passing out at 2:00 am). At about 8:00 am, I broke down and went to Starbuck’s for a muffin.

The cashier had a neck tattoo, and I’m always mesmerized and oddly fascinated by those and face tattoos. They make a few different statements.

First, they say that you’re not afraid of commitment. You have to look at them every day, and they’re not going away without a special, painful procedure.

Second, they say that you can handle the pain. The skin on the neck and face is very sensitive. I would be afraid that I would break out after the tattooing.

Third, and probably most importantly, they say that you have no interest in being a member of corporate America. I would be significantly less marketable at work if had a tattoo of the word “Beeyatch” prominently displayed on my neck. I’m just sayin’ . . .

New column!

The new column this Friday is all about making sure that we’re not letting the opinions of others effect our choices in boyfriends — and I suppose the same can be applied to girlfriends. Check it out!

On another note, does everyone but me take an annual vacation? My colleagues take phenomenal vacations. One was talking about how he and his girlfriend are spending 3 days in Miami, and then going on a 7 day cruise. Another of my friends just spent a few days sunning in Arizona.

Do you know where I’ve been in the last 12 months (or even 24 months) — a big fat nowhere! It’s my own fault. I’m one of those people who wonders what everyone does with all of their vacation time.
I have no concept of relaxation. My friend Lorrie goes to Mexico every year around Labor Day with her mother and a group of her mother’s friends. Every year, she says “I would invite you, but I know you can’t sit still for very long.”

She’s so right. I like to have an agenda. Laying on a beach for hours isn’t fun for me. First, because I don’t really need a tan, and second because I would become antsy after about 1/2 hour.

I like to build vacations into business trips. I actually had to go to South Africa for a few weeks on a press tour, and believe me — that was about as close to a vacation as I normally get. It was a memorable trip, and as fun as any vacation. And the best thing? I paid for nothing, and I had a lot to write about upon my return.

My last true go-away-for-longer-than-two-days-to-a-planned-destination trip was to Puerto Rico with an ex. Given our relationship, that could have gone very wrong, but it turned out that we traveled together far better than we co-existed at home.

I always threatened to run off to an island alone, but I never planned it.

Maybe this year, I’ll finally plan a real vacation. Just maybe.

I succumbed!

I actually TiVo’d The Age of Love. The show where the hottie athlete (and MY is he a hottie) has to choose between “kittens” and “cougars.” I haven’t watched it yet, but it’s there in the queue with The Ex-Wives Club, just waiting for me to hit “Select.” My God, am I afraid to hit that button. For so many reasons.

Did anyone watch it? Care to share impressions? REally . . . don’t be shy!

A good weekend

First, the patio is done! After many weeks of toiling and worrying, it’s in and it looks gorgeous. Of course, there were issues.

The day began at 7:00 am. We went to Home Depot to rent something called a vibra-plate-something-or-other. The purpose of this machine was to compact that sand and gravel that comprise the base of the patio. Apparently this procedure is called tamping. We also planned to rent a truck, having been told that the machine wouldn’t fit in a car, but when we saw the machine, it was determined that the tamper could fit it the car — possible even in the trunk.

After much finagling, we got the damned thing in the trunk. And then it took us an additional 40 minutes to buy the rest of the materials that we needed.

We returned to the house and began loading the gravel into the massive pit that we dug a few weeks earlier. Just to give you an idea of size, the patio is 14×8, which is 122 square feet. The materials required were 88 bags of paver base, 22 bags of sand (or so I thought), and 300 pavers.

After dumping every 2-4 inches of paver base (which is essentially gravel), we had to wet it down and tamper it. Oh, and please don’t be fooled . . .the BF was clearly doing most of the work here. My job was to take the bags of material off of the pallet, bring them to the front of the garage, and slit them open for him. I would dump the occasional bag myself, but he seemed to have a better idea of where the stuff should go.

The sand was where the trouble started. I ordered 22 bags of sand using the multiplier provided by the company. Take the square footage and divide by six. The answer should be the amount of bags required. The key word in that sentence is SHOULD. Not only was it not the correct number, but I had to return to Home Depot not once, but TWICE to get what amounted to 34 ADDITIONAL bags of sand. The suspension on my car is probably completely fucked up, given that those bags weigh about 15 pounds each. The BF said that it was like having 3 fat people in my trunk.

Once we got the sand down (all 56 bags of it), we began laying the brick. That was where my drama began. Because I’m not the type of girl who can be satisfied with just regular old bricks, I had to go and pick the pavers that were oddly shaped, with the end result looking more like cracked stone than layed brick. Because of the odd shapes, laying those pavers was comparable to doing a jigsaw puzzle.

I’m a perfectionist, and I get very flustered when things don’t fit the way they should. Having said that, I became frustrated when the stones required a little bit of thought when laying them. I snapped at the BF a few times, which prompted him to say that he was never going to do another project like that with me again in his life.

I could bore you with more specifics, but I won’t bother. The result is a beautiful patio, complete with landscape lighting!

The backyard would be a beautiful vision, if the garden looked better. The next step is to get the garden to look like it’s not overrun with weeds. Every time I go out there, I swear someone’s going to be swinging from a vine.

But that’s okay. By the 4th of July, it will be a botanical paradise. I hope.

MySpace friends

Does anyone know what happens when you deny someone your friendship on MySpace? Do they receive a notification?

I have a few people that I’d like to decline. There’s one school of thought that says “who cares if someone wants to be your friend? The more the merrier.” And then there’s the other side – the part of me that wants to decline the requests of teenagers – particularly underage boys and men who I suspect have one hand on the keyboard the other firmly planted down their pants.

I don’t mind the teenage girls so much. Some of them read the column and write really cute letters. It’s those hormonal boys that concern me.

Not that there’s anything proprietary or suggestive on my MySpace page. My pictures aren’t interesting. I have no videos. It’s little more than a way to have presence for the column.

But still. The exclusionary, somewhat elitist part of me wants to quickly hit the deny button every time I see the picture of a pizza-faced child or a total perv.

On another note, if anyone would like to visit my myspace space, I can be reached at www.myspace.com/columnista. I may or may not be your friend.

Movie selection privileges REVOKED!

The BF has lost his movie selection rights.

In our selection process, how it normally goes is that there are three lists of films. There are the ones that we both want to see; the ones that I really want to see that he’s not excited about; and the ones that he wants to see that I’m only lukewarm about. Generally we try to acquiesce to each others’ tastes. I try not to drag him to any extreme chick flicks, although he has zero problem with taking me to a slasher movie or any movie with gratuitous violence. I rather enjoy the violence, but can’t deal with torture or the sound effects of skin and organs being removed from the body. I typically spend at least 1/3 of slasher movies hiding my eyes to avoid the gore.

He has chosen two movies in the past month that were complete bombs.

The first was Bugs, starring Ashley Judd. She ought to be ashamed of herself. Before the movie, when we were deciding what to see, I asked him what the film was about. He laughed and gave me sarcasm: “It’s about BUGS, Gina. What do you think it’s about?”

Turns out it was about crazy people. There are bugs involved, but the plot is really about a crazy person who imagines the presence of bugs. Yes, I just gave away part of the plot, but really . . . you don’t need to see it. The film was so ridiculous that the audience was laughing AT the movie by the end. Awful. Just awful. So bad that I wondered whether Ashley Judd had been hitting the pipe while reading the script. She openly talks about a bout of depression. Perhaps the selection of that film was how it manifested. Either way, it was a movie that should never have been written or made. I can’t get that time back, and I’m pissed.

Then, just last night, I was looking forward to seeing “Knocked Up.” What did I get talked into instead? That’s right, “Hostel, Part II.” Mind you, I didn’t see the first “Hostel,” probably by design.

We sat near two college girls, one of which was gushing about the first one. “Oh my God! Wasn’t Hostel just totally the best movie you’ve ever seen in your life?” Get a grip, girly. The movie is about a cadre of sadistic freaks who pay a LOT of money to torture young WASPy travelers. Her love of that movie is tantamount to me thinking that any movie about slavery is riveting and absolutely amazing.

At the end of the film, even the BF had to admit that it was silly.

He owes me at least a month of chick flicks.

Things I don’t understand . . .

1. WHY are people still picketing outside of the Congress Hotel on Michigan Avenue??? It’s literally been years! Haven’t they figured out that the hotel runs successfully without them?? You’re not getting a settlement, people! Now get a job!

2. What is the deal with the mother of the 5-year-old that rides my bus every morning? When will she learn that pacifiers should have been long since eliminated?? Granted, she seems to be a loud kid, but her teeth are probably going to be severely fucked up.

3. Why is there Braille on the keys of drive-through ATMs?

4. Why do I get excited at the thought of buying office supplies? What’s that about?? I’m going to get colored masking tape today, and you would think that I was getting a new pair of Jimmy Choo’s. I’m a weird girl.

5. WTF is going on with Yahoo mail’s new format? As of this very morning, there is a sidebar on the right that forces one to look at a great big ad while reviewing the mail. What if I don’t WANT to look at an ad? What if I don’t CARE about Target’s sale on bedding (the ad du jour)? WTF??? Do we have to be inundated with advertising EVERYWHERE we go? Jeez!