Why It’s Mother’s Day, and Not Mother-In-Law’s Day: The Disturbing Conclusion

May 1,2008

The final dinner went very appropriately, considering the whole mess of the last two months.

We decided we’d take MILfH to Montana Ale Works.  She has to drive separately because my car only fits two adults and the two carseats in back.  It must have been nice, back in the days before car seats, to actually fit everyone into one car.  Anyway, she followed us to the restaurant.  The problem was, the place was so packed that there wasn’t even a place to park.  We imagined it would be pretty loud inside and would take a long time to get service, two things that just don’t work with kiddos.  So Jesse said, “Let’s go somewhere else.”

I turned to leave the restaurant.  For whatever reason, MILfH turned the opposite direction.  “What is she doing?” I said. 

“Who knows.  Let’s just call her.”

It would have been a real mess to have to find a way to turn around and get her in this narrow parking lot, and chase her with two kids just to have to tell her that we were going somewhere else.  So we instead hit the road and called her.  She has been attached to her cell phone from the moment she arrived, so we didn’t think that tonight would be the one night that she didn’t have her phone.

But she didn’t.  We called three times and she didn’t answer.  We headed for Old Chicago and waited.  We waited for her to check her messages, surely she would do that, she wouldn’t wait around for us at the place we had originally gone? 

But she did.  She waited there for an hour.  And we were waiting at Old Chicago, hoping that she would check her cell phone.  She has been strapped to that phone the entire time she has been here.  Of course she didn’t have it this time. 

So finally after an hour, she figured out “hey, they must have gone somewhere else” and went back to the house for her cell phone.  She showed up at Old Chicago and we had already given up and ordered.  She was very upset and I’m certain she thought we did this on purpose.  Like I said, it was an appropriate ending to the whole ordeal.

Unfortunately, it was not the end.

May 2, 2008

Friday.  She is leaving tomorrow. 

Joy.  Elation.  Life.  Happy.  Alone with my family at last.  Montana to ourselves.  Our house to ourselves.  Joy.  Greatness. 

Jesse was going out to take some pictures.  I was taking the kids to Butte for the weekend and spending Saturday out on the land. 

“Just so you know,” she said, “I’m coming out to visit tomorrow to say goodbye.”

“To the land?”

“Yes,” she said.  Deflation.  Shrinkage.  Ulcer. 

“Okay,” I said.  “Well you won’t make very good time,” I pointed out.  “Long way back to Colorado.”

She shrugged. “I’m in no hurry to get back,” she said.  “I don’t want to go back to him.”

“Well, I guess I will see you tomorrow,” I said.  Smothering.  Suffocation.

May 3, 2008 9 AM

I arrived out at the land.  My dad was in the cabin making coffee.

“MILfH show up yet?” I asked.  “I’d really like to get the visit over with.”

He gave me an annoyed look.  “Not yet.  Want me to call her?”

I was surprised.  “You have her number?!”

He nodded.  “Yeah, I think it’s in my phone.  She’s been calling her every night.”

Shock.  Anger.  Butt out.  “For WHAT?!”

“I don’t know.  She keeps showing up here too.”

“What!?”

“We usually talk about grandkids,” he said.  “We had a couple of beers and some good talks.”

He explained that she has been showing up to his place, uninvited, for the past several weekends.  

“It’s getting strange,” my dad said.  “I think she likes me or something.”

“WHAT?  How did that…”

Too late.  The car pulls up.  MILfH enters, carrying a box of donuts and a small cactus plant with a bow on it.  She enters the cabin and sets it down like she owns the place.  Obviously she’s been here before.  I am pissed.  All those weekends, she told Jesse and I she had been visiting Yellowstone.  So not only has she been lying to us, but she’s been visiting my dad.  I am immediately suspicious.  (Not of my dad…the last woman that spent time with him like this did it for years, she was a lot prettier and nicer than MILfH, and he told even her he’d already been married and he’d never do it again, thanks much.  I wasn’t worried about this nutjob who’d been around a week or two.)  

She really seemed to love the place.  “Heaven on earth,” she called it.  I think so too.  “Can’t you just sell me an acre?” she asked me.  “All I need is an acre.  I could have a garden, and a cabin.”

What I said:  “No way,” I said.  “What about your house in Colorado?  Besides, half of this land is my brothers, and neither of us would ever sell.”

What I thought:  Not for a million dollars, you dolt.  I would rather squeeze my eyeballs with tweezers than to sell a teaspoon of this dirt to you, much less have land next to you, you crazy, crazy demon woman from the ninth circle of hell.

Since she couldn’t have the land, she started in on asking for what was on it.  She’d point to something, say a pair of antlers.  “Can I have that?” she would ask.  If it wasn’t tied down and could fit in her car, she wanted it. 

“Sure,” my dad would say.  “See something you want, take it.”  He says this to everyone.  He’d give away anything if someone asked for it.  He’s like that.  She thought it was because she is special. 

“I like this chair,” she said, referring to the wooden chair she was sitting on.

“Uh, so do I,” I chimed in.  She gave me a dirty look. 

Later on she asked for the chair overtly.  “Can I bring it back with me?” she asked.  “Do you mind?  I really like it.”

“Actually I’m pretty sentimental about that chair,” I said.  “My dad made that when I was four.”

“Is that a yes?”

“No.”

We’ve seen this odd behavior once before.  When Jesse and I bought new furniture for our house in Divide, she showed up to see it.  She came under the guise of a visit to AJ who was only a couple of months old, but really she was there to scam for things.  She asked if we “really needed that bookshelf.”  She wanted the armoire we had just spent a grand on. 

No.  We.  Just.  Bought. It.  God.  Who does that?

She was genuinely annoyed when we said no, too.  She is just so entitled.  And for what?  Her contributions to the world?  She of the “I’m too good to work” ethic?  Alas, perhaps I am too hard on her.  All of this could very well be behavior caused by mixing all those unprescribed drugs she carries around with her. 

I digress…

She spent the entire day out there on the land.  What happened to the nice day I was going to celebrate with my family…celebrate her leaving the state?  Sigh.  The evening came, and I had to take the kids back to Butte.  MILfH stayed for a while past that.  I know this because my dad called me later, and said she “was worried about finding the hotel in Whitehall,” so he drove in front of her so she could follow him there. 

Now color me crazy, but if she managed to find that piece of land in the middle of nowhere several times over, would she really have a problem finding the ONE hotel in the only nearby town?  The town with one road?  Perhaps she thought she’d be able to manipulate my unassuming dad into a room in said hotel?  Instead, he politely showed her the way to town, then said that he was going to meet some friends in town and get drunk. 

He called to tell me all this.  “I told her I was meeting some friends…but really I just turned around and went home.”  Way to go.  Sad that you have to find elaborate ways to ditch an adult, but I understand.  She’s been sucking the life out of my household for two months now.

Then she called me.  Ulcer.  Anxiety.  I was still on my way back to Butte.  “I’m worried about your dad,” she said.  “He’s going out to town to drink with some friends.  What do I do?”  This phrase in itself perfectly illustrates just how little she knows any of us.

“Uh, okay?” I said.  “And?” 

“Well, I tried to get him to stop,” she said, taking ownership.  “I really tried to stop him.  He just wouldn’t listen.” 

“Yeah.  He’s a grownup,” I said.  “And you wouldn’t be the first to try and get him to do anything.  No one can get him to do anything.” It’s funny that he really wasn’t at a bar this time.  He was trying to ditch the crazy woman.  If he would have told her he was going back to the land, she would have just followed him there. 

What happened next pretty much wrecked the wreckage of the wrecky relationship we all had with MILfH.  This is mostly translated from my dad, who is now mentally traumatized from ever having meeting her.  I can relate. 

It all started during one of their “friendly conversations” when she asked him if he “ever thought about getting back with <MY MOM’S NAME>”  Like most men, he didn’t hear what she was really asking him.  He said from that moment, everything changed.  He started getting endless phone calls.  She brought him gifts.   That’s right, my mother in law from HELL started chasing my father. 

“I’ve heard of crazy women like her,” he said.  “But holy &#%…this has never happened to me in my entire life.”  It’s so very embarrassing that my husband’s mother is the one who he is talking about. 

Instead of leaving even the next day, going back home to her house, her mom, her dog and oh yeah, her husband, she came back to the land.  She asked my dad if she could stay for the summer “to help out with the garden.” 

“No way,” he said.  “If I need help out here, I’ll find me a Mexican gal.”

“But the other night you were practically begging me to stay here,” she told him.

“Bullshit,” my dad called it.  “I told you that if you had one more beer, I wasn’t going to let you leave,” he said.  “I wasn’t going to let you go get killed on the highway so that my kids blame me for giving you beer and letting you drive.  And I said you could sleep in the cabin, and I’d stay out in my truck.”

“But you practically begged me to stay,” she insisted.  (Desperation apparently leads people to hear what is not there.)

“That’s not the same thing,” my dad said.  “I wasn’t going to let you leave and drive drunk.”

She whined and pandered.

“I think you better leave,” he said. 

And she did.

But fifteen minutes later, she called him.  He didn’t answer the phone.  He didn’t answer when she called fifteen minutes after that, either.  In fact, he had to turn his phone off.

The next day he turned his phone back on. 

You have eight messages, it told him.  He had to listen to every single message in order to delete them.  She had called him eight times.  I’ll shorten the messages because they were long and dramatic, but here is a summary for your entertainment.  I wish I could tell you that I was exaggerating or better yet, completely inventing it all.  I am not:

1. Hey, I’ve decided to go up to Glacier Park instead of going home.  Should I stop and visit on my way back?
2. Why aren’t you answering?  I thought we were friends.  I’d like to come up and stay for the summer.  Seriously.  I could stay until September or something.
3. I really don’t understand this.  Why aren’t you answering?  Call me back.
4. Look, I’ve never met anyone like you.  I thought we had something really special.
5. I love you!  I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.  Please call me back so we can talk about this.
6. Never mind that last message.  I’m just confused as to why you aren’t calling me back.  Call me right now! 
7. Why aren’t you calling me? What is wrong with you?  What kind of person are you?  Apparently you are evil, for doing this to me.
8. I’m really disappointed in you.  I thought you were better than this.  Stop being so evil to me.  Call me back right now please.  Please.

Of course he didn’t call her back.  The whole time, he thought they were two friends with grandchildren in common. 

Over the next part of the day, she called four more times.  Now my dad is drinking down at the bar for real, because he is scared she is going to show up with her dog and try to move in.  He said he watched this week’s ‘Desparate Housewives,’ and the voice at the end of the show said: “Be careful who you invite into your life, because they may never leave.”  He said he laughed, because that was really happening. 

In the meantime, she called her son (Jesse) and was crying.  “I’m so confused.  Should I go home, or should I live at <The Land> for the summer?”  WTF?  No one invited you to live there.  Where do you get off?  Who do you think you are?  Why aren’t you spending all this energy on your husband…use that energy it to fix it or get a divorce, already! But…

What the hell was she thinking?  My dad is one of the friendliest, give-the-shirt-off-his-back sort of guys that you will ever meet.  She interpreted it all wrong.  All wrong.  Besides acting like a socially retarded teenager with a crush on the lifeguard, was she not thinking about who he was? 

I mean, in no way was there ever a chance that my dad would be seriously in to her, but let’s say in another plane and another dimension…was she not at all concerned about what her son would think?  Did she think that maybe her oldest son, my husband, might resent her a little bit for attempting to make him a step-sibling to his wife?  Why do I suddenly feel like an Appalachian cliché? 

My husband left a message for her (she wouldn’t answer the phone…she was probably on the other line) telling her to please get help if she ever wanted to see any of us again.  I’m almost certain she will tell this story quite differently to everyone else she “vents” to.  She is one big bag of crazy.  I never want her around my children again. 

So that’s how it all went down.  I feel icky.

Oh, by the way.  When I got home from Butte that Sunday, I tried to make a pot of coffee.  But there wasn’t any. 

She stole my coffee. 

I asked Jesse if he had touched the coffee, and he had made a pot that Saturday morning, but the bag had been full.  Jesse had bought me a brand new bag of coffee on Friday.  The bag was now empty with a few consolation grounds dusting the bottom. 

She won’t be invited back. 

Happy Mother’s Day.

 

Why It’s Mother’s Day, and not Mother-In-Law’s Day (Part I)

I can’t do it anymore.  I can’t hold back this story.  I apologize to anyone who will think “oh, you shouldn’t blog about that stuff” but the satisfaction of writing this down and getting it OUT OUT OUT is more important than that.  Plus, I am just not a good enough person to keep this kind of stuff in the shadows, where it belongs.  To quote my first barracks-mate at Lejeune (Cpl. Quayim, from Chicago):  “I ain’no fridge…I don’t keep stuff.”

Before I start the story I want to make it clear that I have two mothers-in-law.  My step-mother in law is a gem.  The other one is coated in crazy.  So please make sure you don’t mix them up.  Also, my husband gets the biggest kudos of them all for having to grow up under what could only have been constant duress.  He is, for all intents and purposes, quite normal. 

“Oh sure,” you might be thinking.  “All of our mothers in law are ‘crazy’.  Aren’t you being a little harsh?”

You would be incorrect.  Mine is a few bulbs short of a chandelier, the nuttiest fruitcake of them all, looney as a tune…whatever.  The crazy part really comes in to play at the end of the story.  I will also be the first to admit that writing this down has been very theraputic, as I am extremely traumatized from being in her presence for an extended period of time. 

I actually started writing the story a couple of months ago, because some things were so ridiculous that I had to write them down.  It’s going to take a few posts to get it all out…but be sure to tune in for the exciting conclusion.  Hint:  I don’t kill myself.  (It’s a surprise ending!)

MILfH = “Mother in Law From Hell”

April 4, 2008

We’re in the process of moving a household to Bozeman, MT.  Somehow I okayed my mother in law to come stay with us and help out the kids.  She doesn’t work, and we are paying her to make sure the children are supervised and fed while we do all the zillions of things it takes to move to another state.  She’s been with us two weeks now and I’m ready to burst through the wall, leaving a Maleesha-shaped hole.
 
I should have known I was doomed from the beginning.  I had a job interview in Bozeman three weeks ago.  I flew up on Thursday, and Jesse left to meet me in his vehicle so he could see the town.  This meant our kids needed to be watched Thurs-Sunday.  My step-mother in law could take them Friday through Sunday, but we had to rely on the MILfH to watch them overnight on Thursday.  This gave me incredible anxiety and worry, but it had to be done.  Why worry?  Even though we had lived near her for years, she’s never really bothered to visit, or invite us to visit her.  She chooses to focus 100% of her attention on her husband and his children.  Plus, she used to run a daycare in KCMO and lost her license due to allegations of child abuse.  Concerned?  Me?  Hell yes.  My husband insisted it would be okay.  What choice did I have? 

I asked MILfH what I should leave for dinner on Thursday night, so she wouldn’t have to cook.  Did she want me to make something beforehand?  Did she prefer to cook?  Should I leave a Stouffer’s lasagna?
 
“I could just bring some leftover pork roast from home,” she said.
“Okay,” I agreed.  “AJ likes pork roast, so that should be okay.”
“Oh, that’s right,” she said.  “I forgot about AJ.”
WTF?  Did you think I was asking you what you wanted for dinner?  Did you forget the purpose of your stay?  Who cares what you eat.  You’re an adult, hell-O.  Argh!

When I called to check on them Thursday after my interview, there was much crying and screaming in the background, but maybe it was just a coincidence.

Then when I picked them up at my step-MIL’s on Sunday, step-MIL informed me that Macy, my dear tiny Macy, was not strapped into her car seat upon delivery by MILfH.  I hit the roof.  What the hell was she thinking?  My husband lectured her and she swears she “didn’t know.”  Yet AJ was buckled in.  She was buckled in.  Did it not occur to hear that those buckles in the car seat had an effing purpose?  That they weren’t some elaborate car seat decoration featuring buckles? 

If something would have happened to my kid, they would have never found her body.  So she is lucky.  I don’t believe that BS about not knowing, because as I mentioned, she ran a daycare for several years, and it was not before car seats were invented. 

Then the day of the move came, and we loaded into the multiple vehicles it would take to get us there.  I asked my friend Sharon to come with me, and she being some kind of saint, took the time off work to come help me move.  MILfH would follow us in her own vehicle.  I won’t lie.  I was not disappointed that I didn’t have to spend the next nine hundred miles with my MILfH. 

There was a ton of snow the morning we moved, and we didn’t make it very far before we had to stop.  We went into a gas station/sandwich shop and ordered food for lunch.  Macy needed a diaper, so I said that I would run out to the car to get one.  Sharon was feeding Macy and I told AJ to stay with MILfH.  MILfH nodded that she would watch him.  I went outside and started digging through my car. 

The next thing I know, I hear the voice of a lady saying “Little one?  Little one?  Are you supposed to be out here?  Where’s your mommy?”

Then I heard a familiar voice say “I don’t know.”

I ran out into the parking lot and there was AJ, standing there behind a Ford F-250, in the middle of a busy gas station.  Cars were everywhere.  I dashed to him and grabbed him up and yelled “AJ!  What are you doing out here?!”  I yanked him back to the gas station.  I stormed inside.  Sharon was still feeding Macy, she was turned toward the sandwich shop. 

But the keeper of AJ, MILfH, was shopping for gas station souvenirs.  “AJ was in the effing parking lot,” I shouted.  People turned to stare.  Sharon, who was already taking care of a kid, apologized profusely.  “It’s not your fault,” I said.  I turned to MILfH, who said “Oh my gosh, that’s terrible.”  She looked mildly concerned, and then held up a bag of potato chips.  “Have you ever tried these?” 

Did I mention I had to pay for her gas the entire trip?  And food?  And probably somehow I am paying for those stupid trinkets too.

It was several hundred miles before I calmed down.

Later on we stopped in Sheridan, Wyoming.  Jesse sprang for a really nice suite for Sharon, myself, MILfH and the kiddos.  I had a million things to do to manage the kids.  I asked MILfH, very directly, if she would be in charge of AJ for the hotel experience.  After all, we were paying her well to HELP us take care of the kids. Sharon was already helping a ton with Macy, and I was overseeing the total kid health experience as well as the entire caravan’s care and feeding.  MILfH nodded and said “AJ, you are my kid this weekend.” 

Great.  Finally.

After dinner in the hotel restaurant, kids needed to be fed and washed and put to bed.  I was preparing food for the crying children when MILfH walked into the suite and declared that she was going to take a pill and go to bed.  Sharon and I got the kids to sleep eventually. 

The next morning, MILfH woke up (last, I might mention) and said she was going to look for some coffee.  She offered to bring back some coffee for us, “as long as she could find free coffee.”

AJ asked if he could go with MILfH.  “Okay,” I said.  “But stay with Gramma.”  MILfH said “Don’t worry.  He will.”

About half an hour later, MILfH comes back to the hotel room.  Without my son. 

The adrenaline kicked in.  “Where’s AJ?”  I asked. 

“Oh, he found his Uncle Mike and decided to go with him,” she said.

“You left him with his Uncle Mike?”  I said in an increasingly pissed off tone.  “Does Uncle Mike realize you left AJ with him?  Does he know you left?”

“I think so,” she said. 

Holy fuckballs.  I ran down to the lobby, the last known location of my three-year-old son.  No where to be found.  I sprinted through the halls back to the elevator, muttering “I’m going to kill you” under my breath.  “And I’m going to make it painful,” I added.  Apparently we were paying her to be on effing vacation. 

No AJ in the room.  No Gramma, either.  Apparently she realized the error of her ways and went to go look for him.  I called my husband in his hotel room, where Uncle Mike was staying.  “Please tell me AJ is with you,” I pleaded.

“WHAT?” He shouted.  “He’s supposed to be with YOU.”

Eff.

Finally MILfH returns.  AJ is with her, red-faced and tear streaked.  Kind of like a lost child would look.  “He was in the video game room,” she said.  “Was he with Uncle Mike?” I asked.  She didn’t give me an answer, and changed the subject.  “I couldn’t find any free coffee,” she said.  “Sorry.”  She was carrying a cup of delicious smelling coffee.

Strike two, I thought.  First you let him dart into a busy parking lot.  Then you lose him in a hotel in Wyoming.  Why are you still alive?  Why have I not squeezed your neck until your head popped off?  These were some of the various thoughts that were passing through my head. 

Sharon and I had an agreement that we would take care of the children the rest of the way.  I told Sharon that if I ever struck it rich, I would owe her a million dollars.

Coming soon…Part 2

 

Put Down The Seat: You’re on My Turf

The building I work in is a very long rectangle, with offices along the window sides and offices on both sides down the middle.  Consequently, there is a path that leads all around the building…like a track, if you will.  You could do laps if you were so inclined.  Each far side of the building has bathrooms. 

On my end of the building, the bathrooms are clearly marked.  One is marked ‘Men’ and one is marked ‘Women.’  For the illiterate, the standard “Chick in Skirt” and “Dude with Stick Legs” graphics are emblazoned on the signs.  I think there are also Braille bumps, incase you aren’t convinced which bathroom is which yet.  The bathrooms are of the single user variety.

There aren’t many women on my end of the building.  So I’ve been surprised to find that the door is locked many times during the day.  This is annoying, because the bathroom doubles as a ‘mother’s room’ and when you gotta pump, you really gotta pump.  Either way, I have been mystified as to who the mysterious Bathroom Hog was.  She seems to be in there a LOT.  Maybe she is eating too much fiber.  The only conclusion I could come up with is that someone from the other end of the building must be using this side for some personal embarrassing reason.  Come to think of it, tech support sits on that end, and there are a lot of people and much more noise.  The bathrooms on my end of the building are practically private in comparison.

Wednesday, I was microwaving some meatloaf in the kitchenette, just around the corner.  The kitchenette is on the opposite side of the building, so I have to go around the bathrooms and down the hall, a big U shape if you will.  Then I heard the bathroom door open.  I quickly peeked around the corner to see who it was.  But the only person I saw was a man going around the opposite corner, to the other side of the building.  Shucks.  Here I was hoping to catch a glimpse of whoever it was using the bathroom all day.  I guess I was just curious.  But I could have sworn that when I walked by the bathrooms on my way to the microwave, it had been the women’s bathroom that had been closed. 

Today I was heading for the bathroom and the door was shut.  I reached down to check to see if the door was unlocked but then the door suddenly opened from the inside.  I was semi-shocked to see the SAME dude from the other day!  Except this time, there was NO mistaking which bathroom he was using…the skirt don’t lie.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, with a smile.  Then he went on his business.

No big deal, I thought.  Maybe the men’s bathroom is gross.  No one was around, so I cracked the men’s bathroom to have a look-see.  I was expecting the worst.  But no, shiny porcelain abounded.  It may have been a shade cleaner than the women’s. 

Then I thought about it.  Dude sits on the other side of the hallway, so he has to take four or five steps past the men’s bathroom to get to the women’s.  So I can’t even pin it to laziness.

Even stranger, the dude was presenting a brief at a meeting last week.  He was introduced to the meeting attendees as the head of a division.  So we can’t blame illiteracy either. 

I have no idea why he needs to use the women’s bathroom.  I promise you, there is NOTHING interesting in there.  I’m stumped.

So later in the day I went again and this time the seat was left up.  Oh-no-you-didn’t!  I guess now that he’s been busted, he isn’t even going to try anymore.  What do I have to look forward to Monday?  Shaving clippings in the sink?  Dirty underwear pushed up in the corner?  Towels on the floor?  Magazines splayed around?   

This means war. 

 

I Want Sleep, please

There is NOTHING more annoying to me than laying in bed with your eyes closed and having someone walk in the room to say “Are you sleeping?”  If I WAS sleeping, I’m not anymore, because you just woke me up.  If I wasn’t yet asleep, I was trying to be, and now I am irritated that I would have woken up if I had been asleep and I am also mad because apparently you don’t give a crap that I am obviously tired, and unless the house is on fire or children are bleeding I do not want to be disturbed, just for the next couple of hours if that’s okay with you.  Even if an asteroid is headed directly for North America, or if they’ve finally invented a teleportation device, or even if robbers just walked out the front door with the TV set, or even if breaking news proves the existence of aliens or that Elvis is really still alive, I do not want to be bothered. 

I just want some sleep.

 

Lowe’s “Professional Installation”

We’re renting a really nice house in Bozeman, Montana.  I haven’t been a renter for a long time.  Though it’s a rental, we had to buy our own refrigerator and washer/dryer since the landlords built a new home down the street and took theirs with them. 

So a friend of mine recommended that I go to Lowe’s, because of their great service and low(e) prices.  I took her advice and we went shopping.  Here is a summary of our experience:

Day 1:  We go to Lowe’s in Bozeman.  The nicest salesman ever helps us choose a refrigerator and a washer and dryer.  He is so good that he helps us find a discontinued refrigerator that is brand new in the box, but because it’s an ‘07 model, it’s $560 dollars instead of the ‘08 model, which runs about $1400.  We love the sales guy. 

Day 3: The refrigerator delivery guy calls and says he won’t deliver the refrigerator because there is an “enormous gash” on the side.  He suggests we come into the store to look at it and be sure we still want to buy it.  I need a refrigerator right now.  We head to Lowe’s.  The gash really isn’t that bad, a little dent really, and there isn’t any internal damage to the refrigerator.  I ask when it can be delivered.  The really nice sales guy isn’t sure, since it missed the journey this morning.  I freak out.  I have two kids.  I need a refrigerator, like now.  Sales guy nods sympathetically and sees what he can do.

Refrigerator delivery truck is there by 11 AM!  I am totally impressed with sales guy.  Truck happily backs into driveway, slowly, slowly…husband starts shouting frantically!  STOP! STOP!  NO!  Refrigerator truck backs into porch roof and tears an enormous gash into the roof.  Not a little dent, an enormous gash.  I educate delivery guy on the true meaning of “enormous gash.” 

I call really nice landlord lady and apologize.  She is really cool about things, considering her new renters have somehow resulted in an enormous gash in her expensive house.  “These things happen,” she chirps cheerfully.  She calls Lowe’s to take care of the problem. 

Day 4:  Noon.  Delivery guys (the same ones) show up with washer and dryer.  They bring washer and dryer upstairs and install.  Lowe’s website talks about their professional installation several times, and that is what these guys are doing.  We’re certain of it. 

Lowe’s delivery guys pack and up and go home.  We are thrilled to start our first load of laundry, because the laundry pile has been growing over the past week. 

1 PM - Shouting comes from the kitchen downstairs: “Shut it off!  Shut it off!”  Shut what off, I wonder?  “It’s leaking!!!!” I walk out from a phone call in progress to be greeted by a big effing soapy mess.  Water is everywhere.  Luckily we purchased a really nice washing machine, so there is a pause button.  I paused the crisis and ran downstairs.  Water is pouring out of the electrical fixtures in the ceiling. 

I call Lowe’s and tell them about their latest fiasco caused by Tweedledee and Tweedledum, their Professional Installation guys.  The manager on duty chuckles in a “Wow, this sort of thing never happens” sort of way.  I ask him if he would send somebody else.   Anybody else.  Is Pee Wee Herman on duty?  Send him, he’ll do a better job. ”Well, we only have so many delivery guys,” he explains.  He must be able to see my head spinning through the phone, because he adds, ”I’ll make sure someone else gets there.”

The Lowe’s “delivery manager” is here now, fixing the washer and dryer.  It turns out that one of those chuckleheads just failed to hook up the drain…you know, the pipe that funnels the dirty, soapy water out of the washer?  Yeah, that was just hanging there like an extra leg.  An extra dirty, soapy leg.  I wrote Lowe’s a nice letter demanding they come out and make sure toxic mold doesn’t grow in the ceiling and hurt my children.  I am also typing this blog.  And I am also never shopping there again, even though they have a really nice sales guy.  Sorry dude. 

Lowe’s sucks.

 

Say My Name…

To answer the questions:

• No, I don’t have a new job lined up
• No, I am not going to stay home with the kids…nice, but can’t afford that
• We may be moving, but our house could take 6 months to sell in this market
• I didn’t slam the keys down and there was no storming.  I did envision it that way, but it was very easy and nice and I was invited back if I didn’t find anything new

But besides all that, I wanted to discuss the practice of Saying My Name.  After a farewell dinner with friends last night, we stopped at Safeway to pick up some milk.  The cashier glanced at the receipt and said, “Thanks, Ms. Speer.”  Now I really hate this.  Please stop pretending that you know who I am.  It’s fake, it’s lame, and it makes me want to shop somewhere else.  You’re a huge, national grocery store chain.  You aren’t a mom and pop shop in Pleasantville.  Stop trying to convince me that you are.  If you want me to think that, stop importing vegetables from outside of the United States and stop charging ridiculous prices for food, otherwise I’ll have to go grocery shopping at Wal-Mart because I won’t be able to afford you anymore.  Anyway… 

Starbucks and other places do this too.  They ask for your name and write it, or some bastardized form of it, on your cup.  It’s always spelled wrong.  Then the barista on the end of the line has to call out your name, but they can never read the writing of the other barista who wrote it on the cup in the first place.  They’ll yell out “A nonfat latte for…Ma…Ma…Malissssshaw?”  After enduring the glares from other patrons (they’re all looking up to see who has that awful name) you grab your coffee and say “Thanks.”  Even though you don’t mean thanks, because people who don’t know you at all should not pretend they do by reading your name off of a cup.

The WORST is when there is a little placard at the counter that says “If I don’t ask for your name when you order, the meal is on us!”  I don’t WANT you to know my name.  I’m really sorry that your boss will probably fire you if I don’t give you my name, but I just can’t help you.  There are over 300 million people in this country.  Let’s just finally admit we can’t know (or pronounce) everyone we meet.  And that’s okay.  I promise to come back, if you knock this pretentious garbage off. 

 

You Stink

I’m going to rant about perfume again.

Lady, you are a regular biohazard.  How many people have fallen over dead when you walked by?  I know I almost did.  Whatever smell you are trying to cover up cannot possibly be as bad as the alternative you have chosen.  Please read the following article before you traumatize or maim any more olfactory centers.  Please. 

Perfume Do’s and Dont’s

If you have to wear it, please, please figure out what you are doing wrong.  You are poisoning the earth and the systems of those around you, and you are paying seventy dollars a bottle to do so.   

 

Character Assassination

It’s hard to be a female Marine.  To be the fewest of the few is to hold a bouquet of roses in one hand and a cluster of thorns in the other.  I don’t have many complaints about the male Marines I served with, oh, there were some doozies alright, but for the most part they were brothers.  And those doozies I mentioned?  Well the brothers thought they were doozies too.  That’s something that doesn’t get pointed out a lot, I’ve noticed.  That for every female in the military that screws up, there are ten males doing the same or worse.  “Slipped through the cracks.”  “The ten percent.”  Whatever we used to call it.  Just before my enlistment was up, our battalion had the esteemed pleasure of a getting hit with a major drug bust.  Seven of “our” men were running a major GHB (that’d be the date rape drug) business, which including recruiting a sixteen-year old Onslow County teenager to assist in their sales.  That wasn’t on CNN, if I remember…

So let’s take a week when there aren’t any assassinations of political leaders, exploding airliners, or hurricanes.  And let’s face it, hearing the presidential candidates vote for change is already smelling stale.  Now let’s add an attractive blonde Marine who was in a legal battle with a man she accused of assault.  Let’s say she disappears, and wait for the news outlets to attack.  Let’s quote her presumably evil mother calling her a “compulsive liar” and watch as the picture gets painted…woman gets pregnant by man who outranks her and takes off on a bus, eight months pregnant, to hide from her lies.  That’s pretty much the story I’ve been reading.

Being about eight months pregnant myself, let me tell you there isn’t much running from anything.  That little detail in itself was enough to make plenty of people question the accuracy of the reporting.  What, was she planning to deliver in a bathroom?  Up until the time, she had made all of her prenatal appointments (even though dear mommy was pressuring her to give the baby up for adoption). 

Well it’s good that people questioned it because she is dead.  She didn’t run away.  She and her nearly-born baby were murdered.  It’s probably too early to tell whodunit, but my money’s on Mr. Assault.  Didn’t have anything to hide, did you?  Well apparently you did.

It’s unfortunate that we’ll never really know what happened, not everything, to LCpl Maria Lauterbach.  We’ll only know the warped version we hear through the news.  The Marines in her battalion will only hear the rumors and the speculation, and inevitably take sides with either she or the others involved.  As groundbreaking and human-interest driven this story seems to be to the public, I can tell you from my four years in the Marines that it’s not anything new.  Maybe the details are different…it’s not always a death, it’s not always a rape, it’s not always a particularly good-looking individual.  However, one common theme - woman cries foul, investigation ensues, woman pressured to drop charges and “remember what really happened,” everyone starts questioning woman.  Until woman ends up buried in a shallow grave. 

“Oh, damn, we must have missed something,” say the investigators.

I got to see a lot of changes at the time I enlisted in August of 1996.  My boot camp (excuse me….recruit training) platoon was the very last pre-Crucible platoon.  Halfway through boot camp, our female drill instructors lost the lame red cords and were allowed to wear the Smokeys like their male counterparts.  The PFT run time for females went from 1.5 miles to 3 miles while I was in boot camp, making the PFTs equivalent (let’s not get started on arm-hang vs. pull ups, shall we?).  

One thing that becomes apparent right off the bat when you join the Marines is that you better be good.  This should be more apparent to the women than the men, but your personal reputation follows you everywhere you go in the green machine.  Screw up on your first day and it will never be forgotten.  I was a lucky one, and I have an older, wiser female Marine (let’s call her Q) who visited me on my first day on duty, post boot camp, to advise me to hide out in my room for at least three weeks until my newness died down and someone else replaced it.  She was a quite the intimidating one, that Q, and I followed her advice.  It was probably the best advice anyone ever gave me during my time in the service.  I repeated it with each duty station.  I turned down every offer that was made to me “to go out and party” or “come hang out in my room” until I had made my own group of friends and over-protective brothers. 

But I was lucky.  Let’s take a look at those who are signing enlistment papers, shall we?  Straight out of high school, typically these are Generation Y kids who may have never held jobs.  Fueled by freedom, hormones, and a paycheck, temptations lurk at every corner.  Would someone like LCpl Lauterbach have been easily pressured by an older, saltier Marine who pressured her into something?  Or just the first person who took her side?  It’s often the older, crustier “women shouldn’t be in the Marines” men who pull this crap, from what I’ve seen. 

However:  Nothing a person does in their own life, whether you agree with or not, entitles anyone else to threaten or hurt them.  Nothing. 

I can name three women in my battalion who had experiences similar to this (of course I won’t name them).  Guess what.  At times, there were only 5 women out of 500.  Those aren’t good odds.  The odds get worse too as the “good women” pull away from the “bad women” because it’s too easy to be guilty by association in the military.  So the “bad women” (whether they’ve done anything to deserve the title or not) end up having no one to turn to.  Might make it pretty tempting to turn to the first predator that offers a hand…especially if your mommy is the kind who would talk smack about you to CNN.   

Then again, we can’t trust the picture the media paints.  I mozeyed over to the Jacksonville Daily News, where Maria’s uncle is quoted:

“She was a very beautiful, athletic young lady. She volunteered to join the Marine Corps. She was very committed to the Marines, and she is being portrayed in a way that does not look well. She was petrified; she has been continually intimidated and harassed by people (Marines). She was not protected; she was not well looked after.”

We’ll never know.  I do have friends that were in that still carry the mental scars of not being believed.  I even admit there were times I didn’t believe it all.  Until one accused man eventually got himself in trouble somewhere else, getting shot down from an E-7 to an E-3 must have really stung, eh?  Or one of the other ones, who lost a stripe and a hefty chunk of his future retirement checks.  Those women are at least still alive to carry their scars, though.  When I moved into my barracks room at Camp Lejeune in 1997, one of the first things I was warned about was to not go out at night alone.  I guess a few years before, one woman from the battalion was raped and murdered on the stairwell fifty feet from my room.  What a warm fucking welcome that must have been.   

Would I do it all over again?  Hell, yes I would.  Joining the Marines was the best thing I ever did in my life.  If you find this blog in a Google search, and you’re pondering joining, and especially if you are of the female persuasion, just do it.  But please, I beg you.  Be good.  For yourself and for the other WMs that you’ll be working with. 

And please, please don’t turn on each other. 

 

The Hazards of Christmas Cards

I mentioned before I am feeling a bit bah-humbuggy…it’s hard to get in the Christmas spirit, what with all the fun public assault rifle situations on the news, the constant “Holiday Tree vs. Christmas Tree” debates, the fact we have to now pay over a thousand dollars to fix our house after a crazy elk head-butted it, and now…now this.

So I am filling out some final Christmas cards and I got a paper cut from licking the envelope.  It is not fun to get a paper cut anywhere, but its really not fun to get a paper cut on your lip.  Every time I smile, frown, eat, drink, or brush my teeth, it stretches a bit and stings.  Lovely.

I felt a bit better after we got a little orange card in the mailbox.  The card instructed me to come pick up a package at the post office.  Now that’s more like it!  Packages start arriving about this time of year, so I was excited to go get the first one.  Usually, the post office has no line at all in our small town, but since the holiday season is upon us, there was a ten minute wait.  I waited, waited, watched the line slowly shrink down, and finally it was me.  I was next in line to get the package! 

I gave the mailman the card and he went into the mail room.  I wondered what the package would be?  Probably presents for AJ.  Maybe something I ordered for Jesse from Amazon.  There is something special about picking up a package, especially around Christmas.  Finally the mailman returned…with a big, fat, yellow…

phone book.

WHAT?!?!  I drove to the post office and stood in line for a phone book?!  Since when do they consider phone books a “parcel” or a “package?” 

Since it started snowing.  They usually leave a pile of phone books near the mailboxes, but they can’t now, since there is snow on the ground. 

If we got phone books once a year, like people used to, this would not bother me so much.  But for whatever reason, we get four or five phone books every year.  I guess there are more companies publishing phone books for the advertising.  However, I only need One. Stupid. Phone book. 

AUGH!

 

When does it stop?

Boycotting Chinese products may not be impossible, but it’s really, really hard. 

Why can’t retail stores and the like help us by phasing out this disgusting nonsense from our shelves?  How many examples of ‘oops’ do we need to stock?  I think Americans should be able to live without more plastic crap from China.  It’s not enough to have lead paint in toys, plastics in pet food, poisons in toothpaste and cough syrup…but now toys that turn into drugs if swallowed?

Time to give the children some nice wooden blocks for Christmas.  Preferably ones that you have whittled yourself.  This is past ridiculous.

 

October 31

People keep asking me “what I am going to be for Halloween.” 

Just to clarify, I detest Halloween.  Detest. 

I have to say that the last year I enjoyed Halloween, I was about eight years old and I got a whole pillowcase full of candy.  Ever since then, Halloween has been a drag.  I can’t explain why I don’t like it, I just don’t.  I like the endless supply of cavity enhancers.  I like watching The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  I like roasting pumpkin seeds.  But I don’t like the holiday itself.  It’s great fun for little kids, and I like seeing wee people dressed up as furry characters and pirates and superheroes.  I do not like seeing little kids covered in fake blood and wielding plastic cutlery.  I also do not like it when teenagers trick or treat, especially when they do not wear costumes.  Dude, if you are going to show up at my house with breath that smells like you raided your dad’s liquor cabinet, and ask for candy, at least have the decency to make an effort.  Remember how to make a ghost costume?  Sheet.  Scissors.  Done. 

I’m at a coffee shop now, waiting for the dealership to fix our car and come pick me up.  As I was typing that first paragraph, a three hundred pound woman entered the shop.  She is dressed in a purple and black tie-die dress.  On her back are huge, glittery butterfly wings that look like they took a long time to make.  All this is fine and good, but she turned to grab her latte and swiped the lady behind her, right in the nose, with one of those stupid ass wings.  I fantasize about telling her she looks like a jerk.

See?  Halloween makes me really crabby and apparently,  judgemental.  On the radio this morning, they said that Americans spent $5 Billion dollars on Halloween this year.  B-b-b-b-billion?  On fake blood and candy corn?  No wonder other countries hate us.   

I do confess that I really like November 1, when all the candy is half price. 

 

Pit Bulls

Here’s another argument that will never be won.  Pit Bulls: What are they good for?  Some arguments I have heard in favor of these dogs:

• It’s not the dog, it’s the owner
• The ones who attack were trained to do so

I now have two friends/acquaintances who had to put their pit bulls down because they turned on a family member.  In the first case, the dog just started growling and acting weird so they had the dog put to sleep before anything worse occured.  In the second case, the dog attacked and bit a little kid.  Now I can tell you that neither owner in these cases had trained the dogs to attack.  Both were responsible owners who took care of their dogs.  So who is to blame?  Dare we say…the dog?!?!?!

Personally, I can’t stand pit bulls.  Yes, I know all dogs can attack.  But I don’t get nervous around a golden retriever or a collie or whatever other non-headline-making dog you can think up.  If I am near a pit bull for any reason, I leave.  I hate them.  We were near one during a 4th of July parade and I spend most of the parade looking at it from the corner of my eye, especially when it started barking at other dogs.

Today’s Denver Post has an article about a pit bull attacking a grandma and her grandchild.  The ferocity of these dogs when they do attack is terrible:

“…So when police arrived, the responding officer shot the dog in the head through a glass door.   Police dragged the dog outside, but it wasn’t going down without a fight. Officers had to shoot it a second time.

“Someone in the home used a knife and was stabbing the dog, trying to get it off the two ladies, and it wasn’t doing anything,” Aurora police spokesman Bob Friel said. “Then the officers showed up and shot and killed it. The knife was still sticking out of the dog.”"

Um, the dog wouldn’t let go after multiple stabbings?  It had to be shot twice?  Doesn’t sound like any animal I’d want to take a chance with. 

 

Qwest, I Hate You. Passionately.

It’s official.  I hate Qwest.  You know, Qwest.  That giant entity of doom who we are dependent on for things like telephone service, high speed internet, blah blah blah.  Let me share with you the mind-numbing experience I am having attempting to get a new modem. 

 5/19 - Massive thunderstorm knocks out power to the house several times in the course of two hours.  Modem does not survive

5/20 - Call Qwest’s 1-800 number.  The recorded message politely informs me that I should try out Qwest’s super-cool online help chat feature.  This would be awesome, if I could get online.  Thanks for the advice, Qwest. 

I stay on the line.  Finally a speaker of poor English answers the phone and says “I would be happy to assist you.”  They walk me through a clearly scripted series of steps to troubleshoot my lack of internet connectivity.  Things like “Reverse the ethernet cable” and “Power down the modem and power it back up.”  I say I will call back later because I have somewhere to be.  The truth is, the futility of talking to this person makes me want to kill myself.

5/21 - Early morning at work I try to use Qwest’s super-cool online chat feature.  Chat lady finally comes online, eager to assist.  I tell her I think I need a new modem.  She asks a bunch of questions.  I answer them.  They send out a tech guy to the house to test the lines to the house.

5/22 - Tech guy shows up at the house to test lines.  All the lines are fine.  He calls me and says that my modem is probably blown, so I should get a new one.  Luckily I’ve only had this one three months, so replacement should be free, he tells me.  He lets me know I have to call the 1-800 number again to set up the modem swap.

5/24 - I call Qwest to ask for a new modem.  “No problem,” they tell me.  They will send me a label “right now, so I get it tomorrow” so I can send the modem back.  Once they get the modem back, they will send out a new modem.  The process should take “5-7 days” .  My other option is to pay a 99.95 deposit, you know, in the event I decide to go all renegade on them and keep the broken, useless modem as a paperweight with blinking lights.  It could happen.  I opt to wait for the label.

I mentioned that a year ago when this same thing happened, they were able to replace the modem the next day, by sending out a tech guy.  “No,” says the speaker of poor English.  “We only do it by UPS now.”  Crap.  My MySpace inbox must be overflowing by now.

5/30 - The label is STILL NOT HERE.  I call Qwest’s happy f’ing 1-800 number.  I want to puke when they tell me to try out their online chat.  I’m seriously experiencing inner rage; however, I am very polite and explain that I REALLY WANT THE INTERNET I AM PAYING AN EXORBITANT MONTHLY FEE FOR.  I say “Surely there must be a way to get a modem faster than this.  It’s 2007.  I should not have to wait for a modem like this. 

The speaker of poor English (not the same one as before, I might add) gives me two local (Colorado Springs) numbers to call.  “They should be able to help you swap out your modems,” he says.  I call the first number.  It’s freaking out of service.  The Qwest guy gave me a number that is not in service.  Suddenly it’s not surprising that this process is taking so long.  Morons.  The second number works!  Hurray!  A friendly, local, perfect-English lady answered.  “Help me,” I tell her.  “I need to swap this modem out!”

“They shouldn’t have told you to call us,” said the lady.  “We can’t do warranty replacements.  Qwest doesn’t let us.  I don’t want you to get it replaced here, because you would have to pay for something you should get for free.  Call them back.” 

Major eff.

I call Qwest again.  I am a seething ball of fury.  Another speaker of poor English answers this time, not just poor English but I-have-no-idea-how-to-construct-an-intelligible-sentence English, and I explain my quest with Qwest for the umpteenth time.  Unfortunately I don’t know that she has a clue what I am talking about. 

“I need to replace my modem,” I tell her.  “They sent out a label for me to send this one back, but it never got here.  I want a new modem.  Tomorrow.”

“You have two option,” says S.o.P.E.  “We can send out label, you send back modem and you get new modem in ten working day.”

“I did that,” I said.  “It’s not working.  I want a new modem.  Now.  Yesterday.”

“Oh, I see,” says S.o.P.E.  “They already do label send you.  You can deposit 99.95 on credit card and you get refund when you send modem back Qwest.”

“Can’t I just put it on my bill?”  I ask her.

“Let me find out help you,” she tells me.

I am on hold for thirteen minutes.

“Sorry you wait,” she says.  “We put deposit on next bill.  Now I transfer you to hardware person to help you with modem.”

I am on hold for a couple minutes and then Tech Guy answers.  (He speaks good English)

“Hello.  All I need is a credit card number for a 99.95 deposit and I can send out this modem.  You’ll have it tomorrow.”

“The lady just told me, like two minutes ago, that it was going on my next bill.”

“No, they don’t do that,” said the hardware man.  “I can’t send this out without a credit card.  Go ahead and give it to me.”

“Um,” I say.  “Um, I don’t think I will.  Can you put me back on with the lady?  She just told me I’d see it on my bill.  I don’t want to get charged twice.”

“That won’t happen,” the man said.  “It’s not even possible within our system.  Just give me the credit card and you’ll get your new modem tomorrow.”

“No,” I tell him.  “Though I’ve had a great time dealing with Qwest for the last week and a half, I think I’ll just talk to the lady again.”

“Hold on,” the man says.  “Let me see what I can find out.”

I’m on hold for seven minutes.

“Okay,” he says.  “We’re going to go ahead and waive that credit card requirement.  You’ll have your new modem tomorrow.  Just send the old one back and you’ll get your refund on your next bill.”

Stay tuned.  If I get the modem, the actual modem, tomorrow I may forgive them. 

It must be pretty hard for a mega-corporation such as Qwest to hire phone-people who have a clue (and a grasp on verbs), create a system that enables communication between their own workers, and allow local branches to take care of local people.  It is a communications company, sure!  But how can we expect an entity such as Qwest to operate with any semblance of common frickin’ sense?  The higher-ups probably don’t have much time to deal with such minor inconveniences.  After all, there’s golf to play!  And martinis to drink!  And tropical vacations to endure! 

Not that I am bitter.   

 

Marketing That I Hate

Topping this illustrious list is Sherwin-Williams.  I guess it gets the point across.  I can’t display it here due to a bunch of copyright mumbo-jumbo, bu essentially it is a graphic of the earth getting a can of red paint dumped on it.  The words say COVER THE EARTH.

Now I like Sherwin Williams paint.  It’s great.  And I am no tree hugger by any stretch of the imagination.  But somehow I think the world getting dumped on is more depressing than convincing. 

Am I taking this too literally?

 

At least he wasn’t shaving, too

I’m in lovely Huntsville, AL.  I arrived at the airport this afternoon and caught a taxi back to the hotel.

It’s kind of an unwritten rule that you don’t have to wear your seatbelt in a taxi.  The driver wasn’t.  I wasn’t.  Taxis just seem like strong, impenetrable tanks with force fields around them.  If you’re paying for the drive, it must, somehow, be safer. 

At least that is what I thought until this:  The driver took out his cell phone and started looking for a phone number that was programmed in there, somewhere.  He couldn’t seem to find it.  He then proceeded to lean waaaay over to the glove compartment to retrieve a magnifying glass.  A magnifying glass!  This is when I noticed that he already had ridiculously thick eyeglasses on.  The ridiculously thick part is the part that it took me a while to see. 

Then, speeding down the highway toward my hotel, he started examining his cell-phone contacts list with the magnifying glass!  One hand on the phone.  One hand on the magnifying glass.  Eyes searching the list.  Hello?  HELLO?!

I arrived safely at my hotel.  Whew!