Today in my email, I got another one of those annoying “the price of a gallon of gas compared to other things” chart. It’s one of those annoying mass emails that is supposed to make you “think”. However, I think it’s safe to say that anyone who’s ever read this “chart” would love to reach out and slap the shit out of the knucklehead who came up with that crap. I’m sure that the person’s identity will never be revealed….thus erasing all chances of shoving this person into rocket and blasting him/her into outer space!!

I decided that since I can’t come back with my answers to the ‘chart’ in person, I’ll settle for the next best thing…..HERE!

SO YOU THINK GAS PRICES ARE EXPENSIVE??

===A gallon of Snapple is $10.32…

>My response: Who the hell ever buys a GALLON of Snapple??!!

===One gallon of Lipton iced tea is $9.52….

>My response: That’s just bullshit. I make tea about every other day and the total cost of making a gallon of tea is about 20cents, if even that.

===A gallon of Gatorade will set you back $10.17….

>My response: Again, complete bullshit. Go to your local grocery store and check out the price of Gatorade. I promise it’s not $10……

===Got milk? It’ll cost you around $4.25 in most areas….

>My response: Probably, but I can’t run my vehicle off of milk, now can I? Not only that, BUT milk isn’t something that one buys in mass quantity each week….unless of course you’re some kind of calcium junkie looking for a fix!!

===Ocean Spray cranberry juice is $10 a gallon ……

>My response: Bullshit. Once more, check out the price at your local grocer’s.

===Pepto-Bismol: $123.20 per gallon……

>If your stomach is THAT upset, I’d suggest medical attention rather than shitting pink for the next five years!!

What I’d REALLY like to do is take a gallon of each item listed above, combine them all together, and then pour it into the jerk’s gas tank!! Maybe THAT will make them “THINK”!!

IN OTHER NEWS======

~~~I learned something new today: hospital administrators & office managers at clinics and doctor’s offices don’t work on the day after Thanksgiving. I found this out today at work….not one single contact was in their office today for me to try and schedule their maintenance call!! I finally gave up at about noon today. I spent the rest of the afternoon basically just doing NOTHING!! Yes, time took FOREVER today!!

~~~Cindy called us from her place at the beach last night. She and a couple of her friends went down for the holiday…..if you can believe it, she says that she’s having a large time!! Although her friend Colleen got a bit snockered last night!! Now that Thanksgiving is over, we’ve just go to get her through one more holiday before I can breathe easier. Of course, you would know that Cindy’s favorite holiday is Christmas….and this one will be the hardest for her to go through.

~~~ Could someone please tell me WHY it is so hard to find this one certain ornament I’ve been looking for the last couple of weeks??!! Every year for the last few years, I’ve bought an ornament that is sort of a stainless steel “year”, i.e. 2006, etc. I’ve looked all over the area trying to find this particular type of ornament and it’s no where to be found!! GRRRRRR!!!

Well, that about wraps it up for tonight. Thank GOD this week is finally over!!

I hope that everyone out there had a good Thanksgiving! Mine was actually pretty nice...I didn't do too much....just went with Chris to his grandmother's house. He is from this huge family, so there's always enough food to feed an army! I've gone there for the last several years....ironic that I don't spend it with my own family, huh? After we stuffed our faces for a while, we came home and Chris passed out on the couch while I played around on the computer. Once he finally regained consciousness, we took a trip to our local Mega Wal-mart and did some shopping. Yes, I know all of the good deals are tomorrow, but I have to work. Besides, I don't go shopping on Black Friday anyway...I refuse to get up at 4 in the morning to get a good buy on something. Not only that, but people have a tendency to act like idiots on that day....too many opportunities for me to end up in jail after I punch someone in the nose for trying to fight me over the last $15 DVD player, ya know??!! Speaking of family....the cousin is still pouting. It's hard to believe that this guy is 35 years old and still acting like he did when he was 12. Well, on second thought...no it's not all that unbelieveable now that I think about it. He's always been this way, so why should I have expected that he'd be any different now? I'm dreading tomorrow at work....we're going to be on a skeleton crew, and I will NOT be happy about that. It's more opportunity for me to get behind on the work that I was already 3 weeks behind on to start with because I'll have to be doing TWO jobs instead of just one. I tell ya, it's a good thing that this company has really good benefits because if it wasn't for that, I'd really be disliking the place by now! I guess every place has its bad points, though?? That's about it for tonight. Thank God tomorrow is at least Friday!!

Today was one of those days that felt like a roller coaster ride. Some stuff was pretty good, and some…well, not so much!! To start my day off with a bang, I got an email from one of the guys out in the field. He was not at ALL happy with me……I had ordered a rather large part (140lbs) that he needed for a job coming up in a week or so, but instead of having the part shipped to the hospital, I somehow managed to plug in the wrong address and had it sent to the guy’s HOUSE instead of the hospital!! To make matters even worse, the service guy had been woken up at 2am this morning with the phone ringing…it was the FedEx guy asking for directions to the service guy’s house!!! I felt SOOOOO bad after I read that email!! I’d be a little pissed myself if I’d gotten woken up during the middle of the night with someone calling for directions to my house!! Luckily, the service guy didn’t stay mad at me too long…..he understands how mistakes can happen! WHEW!!! After that incident was taken care of, another one came along to take its place. I’d been trying to get this one appointment scheduled for quite some time, but the customer for some reason just refuses to call me back to set the appointment up. So a couple of days ago, I notified the service manager and asked her if I could cancel the order. She tells me that she has to check with the service guy before I do anything and that I would hear from her the next day. Well, the next day never came. So I try one last time to get the customer…still no luck. Then I followed up with the manager….no response from her. Today I was actually able to get the manager on the phone, and I asked her about the service order being canceled. She asked me, “didn’t you get the email from the service guy?” I told her no, but that I needed to know what to do with the order because the deadline is this Sunday. She tells me that she’ll have to send me the email either tomorrow or Friday because she was in her car at the time. So I ask her, “so you want me not to do anything at all until I hear back from you?” This is where it gets good….she says, “uh huh”….and then hangs up on me!! Keep in mind that this cunt has never laid eyes on me and had never even spoken to me on the phone until yesterday, so she’s not even had TIME to label me an asshole or anything! I was PISSED!! So I go to my supervisor and tell him what happened. He wasn’t a happy camper!! He told me that if I didn’t hear anything from her by the time lunch rolls around on Friday to just cancel the order, and if she has any issues with it to call him directly. It just kills me how these field managers think that the people at the office are so easily walked on….they have the opinion that WE are the ones who should live up to what’s expected of us, but they’re not expected to do their part of it! Luckily, those were the worst of today’s incidents!! I don’t think I could have survived another one!! IN OTHER NEWS~~~~~ ~~~I got a rather interesting item in the mail today. It was a letter from a collection agency saying that I owe money to AT&T in the amount of $26 and some change. Y’all just have NO idea how much I enjoy getting letters like that!! It gives me the opportunity to show my less-than-nice side to people who couldn’t deserve it more!! Now the interesting part of all this is that I actually DID have a cell phone through AT&T around 1995 or so, but I know for a fact that when I switched cell phone companies there wasn’t any money owed on the AT&T one. Besides…even if there WERE money owed, it’s WAY too late for anyone to try and collect on it!! Of course, these bottom feeder collection agencies are notorious for trying to collect on things that are well past the 7 year limit…I guess they figure that there are people out there who will just pay it for fear of being “reported” to the credit bureaus. I’m not one of those people, though. I composed my response to their letter….it ended up being two full pages. I explained to them that they were nothing more than trash….stupid trash at that for assuming that they could just “demand” money and not show me any proof that the debt was valid. Then I outlined the specifics of the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, which they were already in violation of. I don’t think I’ll be hearing from them again. That’s twice now that I’ve had some shithead collection agency try and work a shakedown on me! As much as I love having a good collection agency for lunch now and then, it still gets a bit trying when I have to take time out of my schedule to respond to them!! ~~~My cousin is a bit peeved at me these days. He’s the one who spent $60k in less than two weeks a while back. Anyway, I haven’t had much time to call him over the last few weeks because of different things going on, such as Kevin’s death and the chaos going on at work. Yes, the cousin knows of these things that have been going on lately, but since it doesn’t affect HIM personally then he’s not overly sympathetic about it. All he cares about is that I haven’t called or driven out to his house to visit. Keep in mind that he lives 30 minutes away from me, so it’s not like going to see him is just a quick trip down the block. So I finally get around to calling him last night and he starts bitching because I’d missed his daughter’s birthday party the weekend before last. Now the weekend before last was when I had that rather vicious virus going on….I didn’t feel like BREATHING, much less going to a birthday party with a bunch of little girls screaming in my ear!! So I tell this to the cousin….he’s all, “yeah yeah right…you were sick….” Then he proceeds to try and lay a guilt trip on me because the night of the party was also the night of the homecoming at his daughter’s elementary school…..she won homecoming queen and he was pissed because I didn’t come and bring my video camera so they could tape her winning. It was at this time that my fuse reached the explosives and I went off. I told him, “first of all, you must not have heard me when I said that I was SICK….secondly, you told me that the party was from 7-9pm….and you never said a WORD about any homecoming stuff. If you had, then I would have told you to come and pick up the camera from my house!!” I then told him, “and while we’re on the subject of visiting, why don’t you tell me the last time that you were at MY house??!!” For the record, he’s been to my house exactly 4 times since 2005, whereas I went to his house nearly every weekend up until a few weeks ago. Now don’t get me wrong…I do love this guy a lot, but he can be a real DICK at times!! Well, that’s about all for now. I hope everyone has a great holiday tomorrow!! Don’t eat too much turkey!!

Today sucked ass.
Crusty, stinky, crack-when-you-sit-down ass.

My day trip to hell started within the first five minutes of arriving at my office. I got pecked by one of the hens who sits near me because I had the NERVE to come in & sit down at my desk without saying ‘good morning’ to her and the rest of the hens. I very curtly explained that I don’t do “good morning” because I am NOT a morning person! She seemed to be somewhat satisfied with the answer and went back to her normal clucking with the other hens.

Then came the conference call. Me versus 65 field service guys and their manager. The last time that I was surrounded by so much bullshit was when I lived across the road from a farm several years ago. Basically what has happened is that my work being so far behind has started to land in the laps of the managers and service guys and they need a scapegoat: ME!! I was getting blamed for shit that happened before I even started working for the company!! I held my own though….I made it VERY clear that I wasn’t going to shoulder the responsibility because it was common knowledge as to WHY everything was so far behind and that I was tired of constantly having to repeat myself!

A little later, I get an email from my supervisor. He forwarded a copy of an email that he had gotten from one of the field managers that started off with, “I’m not at ALL happy about the current state of things in this area……” My supervisor added the note, “please try and get this cleaned up.”

It was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back when I read that. I responded that either I needed to get some help or he was going to have to find someone else to do this particular function of my job! One can only take so much hypocritical bullshit before they explode you know.

So the day passes, I get a pounding headache, and then the news that I was due on ANOTHER conference call with ALL of the field managers. I wasn’t alone though..there are two other people on the floor who do the same function but in different areas who were being raked over the coals. After an hour plus some change of listening to a gripe session, I was FINALLY offered some MUCH NEEDED help!! I was also given a promise that this sort of thing won’t happen again.

Yeah. I’ll believe THAT when I see it!!

At least my truck was behaving itself today!

For the first time in quite a while, I had a pretty decent day from the time that it started to the end of the day! No tragedies to speak of, no malfunctioning vehicles, and no irritating people to annoy me! I started my day entirely too early (pre-8:00am!) with a bowl of Cap’n Crunch cereal…..yum! Then I got dressed and went over to Chris’ mom & dad’s house so that he could check on the belts we installed on Christine the Truck yesterday. I was still getting the slightest bit of a squeal when I started her up, but it only lasted for a few seconds. Knowing how she is though, I didn’t want to take any chances. Besides, Chris’ dad and I are still very suspicious about the fact that very little water was lost during Friday morning’s incident! We checked the water level in the radiator and overflow…..both were fine. Then we checked the belts…..the one that we replaced yesterday was the slightest bit loose, so we tightened it up. The other belt was fine, but we tightened it up just a bit to be on the safe side. Now Christine is running just fine. A little TOO fine if you ask me. You know how it is when you have someone that you absolutely do NOT trust because they have continually screwed you over, and then they suddenly turn over a new leaf? That’s the way I feel about this truck. The trust just hasn’t come back yet. Any vehicle that has left me walking in the past usually meets with an untimely end afterwards because I simply can not trust that it won’t happen to me again! After we finished working on the truck, it was back to my house where I tinkered around on my computer for quite a while….I was getting bored with the overall appearance of everything, so I started changing stuff up to make it look better. Unfortunately, it’s not something that I do very often, so there was a LOT of trial and error, but it finally came out looking pretty good. I’ve discovered I’m a font whore. If my lettering doesn’t give me the look I’m wanting, I’ll keep switching it up until I’m satisfied. Good Lord…..how sad is that?! Once I got done with the Geek Hour, I headed across the street to Cindy’s house. She had asked me to come over and help her get some boxes out of her attic…….a task I was NOT looking forward to! You see, attics are notorious for being a perfect hiding place for……SPIDERS……!!!!!! LUCKILY, Cindy was feeling pretty worn out, so she decided to put off the whole attic thing! She did make dinner for Chris and me this evening though! We had chili with Fritos….EXCELLENT chili….she made the base out of tomatoes that had just been picked from Kevin’s garden. That was probably the first time that I’ve tasted chili that is better than mine! For dessert, she made the most awesome chocolate pie that I’ve ever eaten…..also the most UNUSUAL chocolate pie I’ve ever eaten! Once the pie is done baking, it’s gets this sort of “shell” on the top of it but the filling is just like a regular chocolate pie. It’s EXTREMELY rich, but so good that one would seriously contemplate doing things with this pie that could be deemed a crime against nature! Once Chris and I stuffed ourselves to the point of extreme pain, we called the local equipment rental store and inquired about having a crane come and take us back home. You’d be amazed how RUDE some people are these days!! Of course I got the last laugh because EVERYONE knows that it’s physically impossible to “go fuck yourself”!! Hell, if I could do THAT, I’d never leave my house!! That’s about all for now! Have fun this coming week!