I'm in hell. It must be bad karma. All these angry blog posts I've written are coming back like a blasted (pardon the pun) boomerang. Blast furnace - get it?
Now that I think about it, it's so apropos that my upstairs is nice and cool - so heavenly, and downstairs is unbearably, hellishly hot.
In case you haven't been keeping up, my A/C has been out since Friday, or maybe Thursday. When the weather was unseasonably cool. Or not hot. But every day, it's gotten hotter and more humid. And the holy grail of air conditioner parts is still eluding my crusaders. Where is Indiana Jones when I need him? That reminds me of the Shia LeBouf lookalike I made out with on an airplane a few years ago. Turned out he was married - there's a whole embarrassing story involving email and a snoopy wife. But that's for another time.
As I recall from my 11th grade physics class, heat and pressure are directly proportional. And I have too much of each. To put this in layman's terms, I'm living in a pressure cooker. About to blow a gasket. Throw a rod. Trigger a solar flare, and consequently, global warming and the end of the world as we know it. Spontaneously combust.
As if the whole ComCrap debacle and the shallow grave in my back yard weren't enough, yesterday I encountered another windmill. Of course, I tilted at it. Here goes:
Against my better judgment, I stopped by Office Depot. I've had shitty experiences therein the past, but it was on my way home and I knew exactly what I wanted (which they didn't happen to have,) but I found a suitable replacement. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised that two or three employees asked me if I needed help, and I didn't have to wait in line to check out. It didn't hurt that I was the only customer in the store.
I bought my stuff. So far so good. Until I almost walked through the naked glass wall directly in front of the cash register. Fortunately, it was kinda dirty so I realized that I needed to turn 90 degrees to the left to exit the store. Once before, a long time ago, I walked into a glass wall. I was with The Daddler. My forehead ricocheted off the glass. I stood there, stunned and disoriented. Instead of asking me if I was ok, The D said, and I quote, "It sounded like a cannon went off in here," while shaking his head the same way he did when I backed into the bay window and crunched the fender of my car. Or pulled into the carport and hit the post and sent it flying. Fortunately, it wasn't load-bearing and neither he nor Mother were crushed by the the roof or hit by schrapnel. In retrospect, though, the thought of The D being impaled by a cedar post isn't altogether unpleasant.
Back to my near miss. Being the bleeding heart, good citizen I am, I decided to go back in the store and tell someone that they might want to put something in front of the glass so that other people wouldn't walk into it like I nearly did. As an aside, I was actually elected "Good Citizen" my senior year of high school. It was kinda like being awarded the Miss Congeniality sash at the Miss America pageant. Or being described by a match-making friend to prospective boyfriends as having a good personality. Still, I got a full page picture in the yearbook, on the arm of the biggest, smokiest druggie guy on campus. And to dilute the honor that much more, for each category, there were four winners, not two. An African-American boy and girl, and a Caucasian boy and girl. And since I was in the minority in my school, graduated third in my class, and was on the yearbook staff (a decided advantage in these contests) it was pretty lame. I figure by the time Mr. & Miss Whitehavens, Smartest, Most Likely to Succeed, Most Popular and Best Dressed (WTF is up with those stupid categories? - why not have Thinnest Girl and Most Cut Boy, Best Nose/Boob Job, Sluttiest, Heaviest Makeup, Longest Rap Sheet, Worst Acne & Greasiest Hair - I coulda been a contender for that one, Fattest Ass -my biology teacher once told me that I had a "bottom" that boys like to look at - I'm cringing to this day, and last but not least, Most Likely to Wind Up on Death Row and/or on the Sexual Offenders Registry. Actually, at our 30th reunion, I was advised not to FaceBook friend a guy who was a known pedaphile. Hmmm. Is a pedophile a foot lover? I wish I'd taken latin.)
Damn, is this one incoherent rant or what?
Back to the Office Depot thing. I'm embarrassed to admit that I spent way too much time trying to get some corporate drone to care. But I finally found success. With the help of an attorney friend who revealed the secret of a great (legitimate) lawyer directory website - Martindale.com. I emailed the General Counsel of the company, and she emailed back. I was incredulous. She delegated me to three underlings who actually seemed to be more qualified than the usual script-reading, automaton I regularly encounter.
They all "reached out" to me (mark that square on your Buzzword Bingo card) and did a convincing job of caring about my concerns. So now I can forget about it.
And focus on harrassing American Standard - the manufacturer of my lemon of an air conditioner. And ComCrap. And United-Fucking-Health. And Verizon. Ad nauseum...
Stay tuned.
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