How To Go Postal In 20 Minutes Or Less!

I finally have a referent for the phrase "going postal." And it came, unsurprisingly, courtesy of the US Postal Service.

I had ordered the first season of Burn Notice (which is, by the way, a great show. The new season starts July 10...you should check it out!) from Amazon a couple of weeks ago, and it was supposed to be delivered on June 23. So I was very excitedly tracking it online every day, to see how much closer it was. (It ended up sitting in Denver for nearly a week...stupid Denver.) And on June 23, I couldn't wait to get home and open my package!

Alas, it was not to be. I got home to an empty mailbox, an empty porch, no sign of the ever-cheerful Amazon box with its little smiley face. So I was disappointed, but I figured that it would definitely arrive the next day. And sure enough, the next day when I did the online tracking, it showed that my package had arrived in town the day before. However, it also showed that a "delivery attempt" had been made at 3:00 on June 23, but there was no one home. Which is total bullshit. My husband was home all day, and had anyone knocked, he would have heard it. So I knew right then that they were lying.

The website also said that since delivery had been "attempted," a little orange slip would have been left at my door, telling me when to expect a second delivery attempt. Which was also bullshit. So I decided to call the Post Office's Customer Service number, to find out what had become of my package.

I picked the number that specifically said it was for Tracking and Confirmation, since that seemed like the most logical place to start. I had my tracking number ready, called the number I had found...and got to talk to a computer.

It wasn't just one of those that gives you your menu options and you get to hit #1 for English, or whatever. No, this was one of those computers that pretends it's a person, the kind that says things like "What can I help you with today?" or "I'm sorry, I didn't understand that." Because of course you have to talk to it.

Now, I am not a big talker. Sure, I talk to my friends, or to people that I hope will give me money. But talking to strangers is not one of my favorite pastimes. Talking to computers that are pretending to be fully conscious human beings, when in fact they are even stupider than most of the people I am forced to see on a daily basis (and that's really saying something, because most of the people I see on a daily basis have the intelligence of bread. Really really stupid bread. In fact, listening to the people at my work causes my IQ to drop at least 3 points a day) does not make me happy at all.

So I was already not a happy camper, even though the phone call had just started. But it got worse. I followed the voice prompts, actually talking to the stupid computer since I had no other choice, and got to a place where I could enter my tracking number. I did so, and was told that "No information is available at this time." That, of course, just made my blood pressure rise even more. And I determined that the computer would unable to help me and I needed to talk to an actual human being. So I started hunting through the voice prompts for that option.

What an idiot I am! I should have known that it would not be that easy. Those computer phone systems are designed to carefully shield the human workers from the actual customers. So the stupid computer would ask me something, such as "Would you like to order postal products?" and I would say "Customer Service," or "Talk to a person," and that annoyingly cheerful voice (which is all the more annoying by its very inability to convey emotion. If I am annoyed, I want the person on the other end of the phone to be annoyed, too. But that stupid computer phone voice bitch just kept being perky.) kept saying "I'm sorry, that is not an option" or some stupid shit like that. Or I wouldn't say anything, but the idiot computer would mistake the sound of me breathing for an answer, so it would switch me into a different menu.

I spent 20 minutes trying to get around that evil phone system. 20 minutes!! 20 minutes of my life, stolen by the US Postal Service and their evil, incredibly stupid but oh-so-perky phone voice woman! I was ready to kill her by the time I got through to an actual human, ready to wrap the phone cord around her neck and just squeeeeeze very slowly, while she said, in that relentlessly cheerful voice, "I'm sorry, that is not an option at this time!" And then she would die, and lay lifeless on the floor, and I would stab her repeatedly with my letter opener, and I would feel so much better!

So eventually, it all worked out. Despite the phone voice woman's efforts, I was eventually able to get an actual human, who told me where I could pick up my package, and I did, and the DVDs are great, just like I knew they would be. So it's okay, it's fine, I no longer feel homicidal, which I'm sure makes everyone who knows me feel better. But my ordeal has caused me to have a new and greater understanding of how someone could go into a Post Office and kill everyone with a shot gun. Except, when I do it, I'm going to use a rocket launcher. And I'm going after the phone banks first.

A Restful Saturday Morning

Yay! I found something new to be pissed off about! Lucky me!

So this is what happened: Since it's the weekend, I thought I would get to sleep in late yesterday. Not too late, of course, because of the kid, but later than normal. Heck, if I'm lucky (of I remember to drug the kid with Benadryl before she goes to bed) I can usually sleep until about 9:00, so I thought I could accomplish at least that much. How stupid of me! Because my next-door neighbor apparently decided that it would be a great day to have a work crew come put new cement in his freaking driveway...at 7:30 in the fucking morning. Yes, that's right...7:30.

Needless to say, I was not pleased. I had the window in the bedroom open to catch the cool nighttime breezes, so as soon as a giant truck pulled up in front of my house and a bunch of men jumped out and started throwing tons of bricks and a bunch of metal onto the ground and yelling at each other in Spanish, I got woken up. I called the cops, but there apparently no law against doing construction at 7:30 in the morning in a residential neighborhood, or so I was told. So I just got to be miserable, until 9:00, when it was time to start getting ready for my daughter's ballet class.

Well, when it was time to leave, with only 20 minutes to drive across town and get to the class, we stepped outside...to find a cement mixing truck blocking our driveway. So the workmen had to move it. And when we came home, two hours later, it was to find another big truck, this one full of bricks, again blocking the driveway. This time, there were no workmen in sight, but the neighbor was out there, so I rolled down my window and asked her--nicely!--to please have the workers move the truck. And she told me no! That's right, she said no, that I could park in the street and the workers would be gone in a while! Can you believe the nerve of that bitch? First, I get woken up, my precious sleep disturbed by their noise, and then I can't even park in my own fucking driveway! So, yes, I was very pissed at that point. So I went inside to call the cops again, but my husband decided to go talk to them himself and got them to move the truck.

So I didn't get to have my neighbor arrested, unfortunately. But, as a result of this little issue, I am probably going to go outside tomorrow and find a potato in my tail pipe, or something like that. After all, how dare I disturb their cement pouring! But that's okay, because I have a plan. If those neighbors do anything to my stuff, I will go get the turtle that they keep in their back yard (which also makes a great deal of noise, a very strange noise, sort of like a tuba with a cold) and make it into a turtle soup and give it to them as a gift. Because you don't mess with my sleep.

Quiet Time (So Please Shut The Hell Up!)

Ahh. Here I am, 9:00 on a Thursday night with nothing to do. I already watched the TV I wanted for tonight (My Boys, on TBS...great show). I could be watching Burn Notice (USA) but it's an episode that I've already seen. (Man, I do watch an awful lot of TV, don't I? Oh well. My brain is already rotted from listening to the conversations that the idiots at work have all day, so it can't do any more damage. And there are some great shows on cable!) Anyways, I wouldn't be able to hear it over the sound of my screaming child.

I'm sure that any peeping toms in the bushes outside right now think that someone is being killed in my house, when in fact it is just my child, crying over the fact that I made her go to bed without a second bedtime snack. This is the same child who was once eating boogers in Walmart. When I told her to stop it, she looked at me, all innocent with giant eyes, and said "But Mommy, I'm soooo hungry!" I'm surprised that none of the other customers called Child Protective Services on me, to report that my poor child had nothing to eat but boogers. (Or maybe not, considering the quality of Walmart's customers.) So maybe she needs to eat more. But that is not my fault...I told her to eat dinner! But she was more interested in being Snow White and dancing around in plastic high heels (the same ones that made her sprain her ankle--twice!--last year) and trying to make me kiss her Kermit the Frog doll. Kids are freaking weird.

I know I haven't posted in a while, but I really haven't had anything much to complain about lately. Of course, I have seen bad drivers, but it hasn't been as egregious as usual. Also, I think the people at work have finally gotten the hint that I hate them all. Only the die-hard annoying ones have tried to bug me lately, and I brought a set of earplugs to work the other day, so I really can't hear them now. It's a great feeling. Also, it's been kinda hard to post, on a purely physical level. I'm at Monkey Headquarters all day, where I am not allowed to blog, on pain of being spoken to sternly by my oh-so-scary boss, and at home, I almost never have access to a computer, because Mr. Loca is a bona fide computer game addict. I am quite convinced that if something bad happened right outside our door--say, like, World War 3, or a nuclear war--he would never even notice it, unless it disconnected our internet. He would notice that damn quick!

So I am pretty much computerless at home, unless I bribe him with sex or something. (Not that I live up to the bribe, but it usually works anyways. Guys are so dumb!) But tonight, I have computer access because Mr. Loca has Gone Out With The Guys, leaving me with the screaming brat and an otherwise-peaceful house. Ahh.

So when I was checking my email earlier, I had my usual word-of-the-day email. Today's word was a great one: Defenestrate. Guess what it means! No idea? Okay, fine, I will tell you. It means to throw someone or something out of a window! How great is that? English specifically has a word for throwing people out of windows! I am definitely going to have to try to work that word into my every day speech.

Of course, that might prove to be kind of hard because, honestly, how often do you actually get to say anything about someone being thrown out of a window? It's kind of hard to work into a conversation: "So, Mr. Jones was really bugging me today, and I just wanted to defenestrate him!" See...awkward. But I am going to work on it.

I might start with a few people at work. (Sorry, I just thought of someone who bugged me recently!) The other day, the monkey worker committee was selling juice, yogurt, and some other things that had been in their refrigerator for a while, for reduced prices. One of the idiots got a cup of yogurt for 50 cents and ate it, very happily. But when I happened to mention that the yogurt was expired by a few days, she suddenly went crazy. She was sick, she was nauseous, the yogurt had mold, it was bad, she was going to throw up, she wanted her 50 cents back so she could go buy potato chips to settle her stomach (because that makes perfect sense...potatoes fried in grease always make my upset stomach feel better!) blah blah blah. And she sits right next to me, so I had to listen to the whole story multiple times, along with all of her updates on how sick she felt. (This is the same woman who once rented I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry for her young sons to watch, and then complained that it was about...gay people! Not even real gay people, pretend gay people, but still, she didn't want her sons seeing that! Oh My God!) Finally, they gave her her damn 50 cents back, just to shut her up.

So I was thinking that I may take snacks in to work one day that are spoiled and let her eat one. Or better yet, make a cake, and after she's eaten a big old piece (which of course she will) tell her that I used expired milk and expired eggs to bake it. She would probably go into anaphylactic shock on the spot. It would be great! (And the expired yogurts? There was nothing wrong with them. I bought several and took them home to my kid and she ate them with no problem. Of course, she also eats boogers, so that maybe doesn't say anything...)

I will go now (it's after 10:00, past my bed time) but I want to leave you with this reminder: make sure you defenestrate someone today! Preferably an idiot. They deserve it.