Tales from amongst the boxes

So we've decided to move. But in order to move, we must first sell our townhouse. It's only been 3 years--how much stuff could we possibly have?? Turns out we have enough to fill a 10x10 storage space, and most of our garage, and it still doesn't look like we've packed anything up. We've filled both garbage cans every weekend for a month, drop things off at Goodwill every Monday morning, and still we are drowning in crap. How did it get this bad?

I finished reading Little House to the young ones yesterday. Pa found out that the soldiers were coming to tell the settlers to move out of Indian Territory. According to the book, Pa finds this out, gives Mr. Scott the cow and calf, picks seed potatoes for dinner and then the next day they pack up all of their earthly possessions and three children and head to Independence to start the next chapter in their lives . Just like that. No realtors, no showings, no moving vans, storage lockers, curb appeal, nothing.....of course there were no tetnus shots, penicillan, life insurance or long distance phone calls, so there are some trade-offs.

Here's hoping the moving fairies swoop in soon to do their thing....

Outsourcing Sucks

Yesterday was a crap day. After my workout, (completed at 6:30am), things pretty much went downhill. Suffice it to say, short-staffing and other adult issues did not make for a pleasant work day. Add an over-flowed toilet and a few bathroom accidents, and I was ready for a drink when I came home at 4:30.

Drink I did not do however, I needed to switch some plane reservations we had made. Ha! L and I are headed to Montana for a wedding this summer. He thought the wedding was on Saturday....turns out it's on Sunday, at 2pm. Our flight leaves at 2:40pm on Sunday. So I called the nice folks at Travelocity, to see about changing that flight, and adding a night to our hotel stay. Wouldn't they be thrilled to help? Afterall, I'm extending our trip. Isn't travel what they are all about?

I spent a long time on hold....I realize now it is because my call was probably travelling around the world to somewhere in India.

"Hello, thank you for calling travelocity,my name is Rishi (hint #1) may I have your name and trip #?"

I give him the info.

"Thank you, Mrs. Michelle (hint #2) for calling today. How may I help you?"

"I need to add a day to my stay in Great Falls, MT."

"Oh. Mrs. Michelle, please visit our website at www.travelocity.com to make an entirely new reservation for the next day."

"I can do that for the hotel, but what about the plane ticket?"

"Mrs. Michelle, the plane ticket cannot be changed. You must fly on Sunday, June 26th."

"but I have to stay one more day, I need to fly on Monday."

"Mrs. Michelle,you have purchased an outstanding value, the plane tickets and hotel stay for only $748. To provide exceptional value to our highly esteemed customers, the plane tickets cannot be changed."

"But I need to stay one more day. I can't fly home on Sunday."

"Mrs. Michelle,you have purchased an outstanding value, the plane tickets and hotel stay for only $748. To provide exceptional value to our highly esteemed customers, the plane tickets cannot be changed."

"Well then I will have to cancel the whole trip and buy tickets someplace else."

"The cancellation charge for this trip is $748. To provide exceptional value to our highly esteemed customers, the plane tickets cannot be changed."

"But I just want to change it by one day. I can't make that flight on Sunday."

"Mrs. Michelle,you have purchased an outstanding value, the plane tickets and hotel stay for only $748. To provide exceptional value to our highly esteemed customers, the plane tickets cannot be changed."

Then I did something I'm not very proud of in hindsight. But my guess is that Rishi is used to it. I"m sure that with crap-ass policies like no refunds/no cancellations, this happens all the time.

I very calmly said, "THIS IS FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE!" and hung up.

Now if this call was monitored for quality assurance, I suppose Rishi will win, and I will not get one iota of help from Travelocity. Afterall, I was rude, but damnit, he was reading from a script! I was not treated as a "highly esteemed customer", I was treated like Dory in "find Nemo"--repeatedly told things becuase I have no short-term memory!

Now I suppose it's on to the airline...one-way tickets home cost $500 a pop. Perhaps they will have some advice for us. Surely they get calls from people who get screwed like this--won't they take this opportunity to be the good guy? Ha! For some reason, I think my logic is flawed. We are SOOO screwed. All for a wedding for people I don't know (L's friends), who are getting married becuase they are pregnant. We'll be lucky if they are still married by the baby's first birthday. Yeah, what a great way to drop $2K ....now if the wedding was in Hawaii or something, I could see it. But Great Falls hardly makes it a destination wedding.

I followed this fiasco up with locking my keys in my trunk (which i didn't discover til this morning), and then falling asleep during the Apprentice.

Thankfully, after finding my keys this morning, today has been a bit better. And tonight L and i are looking at houses (which we love to do) and going out to dinner, so things are on the upswing. We are saving a call to the airlines for another day....

Today's Endearing conversation

"Mrs._____ where's Wos Vegas? My mama is takin' an airpwane dare" asks friend 1.

"Get out the US map and I'll show you."

"Here it is! Where's Wos Vegas?"

"Las Vegas is in a state called Nevada" I explain.

" Can I hold it?" friend 1 picks up Nevada and begins to stroke it, lovingly thinking of his mama, I'm sure.

"There are snakes out there!" pipes in friend 2.

"Dare are snakes in Wos Vegas?" asks friend 1, nervously.

"Well, in the desert in Nevada, there are snakes. Your mama is in the city," I say, reassurring friend 1.

"Yeah, there are lots of big snakes out there!" continues friend 2, despite the death glare I shoot him.

"My mama is in da city? Dat's good because I don't want da snakes to get her," , muses friend 1 as he continues to stroke the Nevada piece of the puzzle map.......

Friend 3 joins our conversation," Snakes live in the desert. Where do the dinosaurs live?"

"Dinosaur's don't live anywhere--they are extinct," I inform friend 3, who is looking a bit shocked.

"There are no dinosaurs anywhere? They were all killed?" confirms friend 3, looking like the child who just found out there is no santa claus.

"Dinosaurs lived a long time ago, and they all died off. They are no more dinosaurs," I say.

"How'd they die? Did a raptor get all the dinosaurs?" asks bewildered friend 3, as if he's been told lies all this time about the exsistence of dinosaurs.

"I don't know, I just don't know," I remark.

This conversaiton proves my point that for a boy of 5, dinosaurs are as fanciful as Power Rangers and Sponge Bob, and not the scientific undertaking their parents wish that it was. Yes, they will understand the concept of extinct soon enough, but as far as "prehistoric" goes, as far as they can tell, their Grandpa grew up with dinosaurs when he was a boy.......
"

oh for the 3 hour work day...

If only it were a possibility! I was nominated to go do a display case at the library for the school today, which meant that I got to work at home/at the library this morning. So I didn't actually teach anybody anything til about 1:30 today. It was so nice!! I was so calm (not cranky) this afternoon, and the children were all so happy to see me**. Ah, if I could only make "guest" appearences every day, life would be so nice.... Of course, the kids wouldn't learn shite and I'd probably have to take a pay cut, but it's nice to dream.


**Happy to see me like they swarmed me on the playground and attached themselves to my legs, wanted to know "why I was so late to school" and what I could have possibly been doing that was sooo important.