A Note on Customer Service

April 30, 2008

Earlier this morning I received an email from Jeff, a very friendly customer service representative who works for Valspar Paint. Apparently, a concerned reader forwarded my post about Jared's purple office straight to the source and Valspar is itching to fix our contractor's color-matching faux-pas.

I'd like to thank the reader who forwarded my post to Valspar. They obviously read my blog quite regularly and know full-well that I'm too lazy, too dumb, and--I'll say it again--too lazy to email the company myself. Seriously, I am. We were just planning to airbrush a couple of unicorns on the purple wall and call it good. Now I guess we don't have to.

Valspar has offered to color-match the paint at company headquarters, ensure that it's exact, and send it to Jared's office free of charge. Well, they didn't mention the 'free of charge' part, but now that I wrote it for thousands of people to see, I'm hoping they'll catch my drift.

After living in Maine for the past few months, I'm simply not used to getting any customer service whatsoever. Generally, when you call a business in Maine and ask for their services the person on the phone will let out a long, disgruntled sigh and ask how you got their name. And usually they don't want to thank the person who referred you to their business, they want to kick their ass.

Yesterday, I kid you not, we called a wrecker to tow the Blazer sometime around, oh I don't know, 11am? And a few minutes before 7pm, the driver finally decided to show. His dog pooped in our yard, he left a cigar butt in our driveway, and kindly accepted our check for a-hundred-and-something dollars. Gotta love it.

And do you know what my husband is doing today? He's camped out by a state office, trying to get his hands on his chiropractic license. After six weeks of waiting he decided to take matters into his own hands. He called to give me an update:

Lady: What are you doing here?

Jared: I'd like to pick up my license.

Lady: You should call first.

Jared: I've called four times, no one ever calls me back.

Lady: Well it take two weeks to process a license.

Jared: It's been six.

Lady: Oh. Sit here for a few hours, I'll see what I can do.

So thank you Valspar, thank you for the outstanding customer service. From this point forward, I will use your paint in every room of my home. And if I ever get the urge to paint my body silver and pose for the cover of Vanity Fair, you can bet your ass I'll use your product for that purpose too.

Moment of Silence

April 29, 2008

Let us all bow our heads and observe a moment of silent prayer for the '89 Blazer, whose right front wheel suddenly fell off in the Target parking lot late yesterday afternoon.

Against all odds (and rational judgement), Jared was able to jerry-rig the wheel just well enough to drive ten miles home on the back roads.

The Blazer is resting comfortably in the driveway, and will be towed to Lou's garage just as soon as the wrecker driver sobers up enough to operate heavy machinery. Lou is convinced that she'll make a full recovery, and as her faithful owner I'm holding out hope.

I'll keep you posted on the outcome.

Curtain Shopping

April 28, 2008

"How's the house coming along," they all like to ask?

Well, let me tell you how the house is coming along...

We've moved beyond the painting stage, and we're not officially entrenched in the curtain-buying stage--a stage I like even less than the apply-hemorrhoidal-ointment-three-times-daily stage.

I'm well aware that it's babyish and immature to hate buying curtains--hell, I should be happy to have windows at all--but I don't care, I still hate to do it and there ain't nuthin' that'll sway my mind.

I think I hate buying curtains so much because let's be honest here, a set of curtains can make or break the decor. Couple that with the fact that they're ridiculously over-priced and I almost never find what I have in mind, and you have the recipe for one extra-large batch of female frustration--and we all know that tastes about as good as a kick in the jaw.

And seriously ladies, I still have no damn clue what "Jacquard" means. A little bit of help would go a long way with that one.

I need to find a variety of curtains ranging in size from 14 inches to 105 inches, so let's just say that I'm not a happy girl. Everywhere I turn, the curtains seem to be completely off the mark.

For example:








What in the hell? This billowy piece of crap costs almost a hundred bucks at Pottery Barn. I'm looking to dress a window here people, not place a canopy upon my ocean-front-back-yard sexcapade bench.


And then there's crap like this:







Three rods, a set of sheers, two drapes, one very huge window scarf, and $589 later, you've lost all signs that there was ever a window under there. You may as well slap this ensemble in front of your rusted-out Chevy Caprice and tell house guests that there's a bay window with water views behind the curtains. Honestly, they'd never know the difference.

Good heavens--I want some reasonably priced curtains that open and close, and happen to be classic yet stylish. During the day I'd like to be able to watch that clumsy neighborhood girl take the occasional spill on her roller blades, and in the evening I'd like to make-out with my husband in a semi-private setting. Come now, is that too much to ask?

I hate curtain shopping.

Mystery Solved--Kind Of

April 28, 2008

Topic of the day: Blog Trolls.

In the past, people have told me that the sign of making it big as a blogger is the involuntary adoption of a blog troll. In other words, the day some heckler starts leaving nasty anonymous comments on your blog, is the day you've become successful. I completely disagree--the day my blog troll came along was the day I developed a mild to moderate case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

If you're a long time post & comment reader of this blog, then you'll probably recall that I had quite a bit of trouble with an anonymous blog troll several months ago.

I would write about my child and he would say, "Get a life."

I would talk about visits with my parents and he would say, "You're a loser. You live with your mom and dad."

I would mention my marathon and he would comment, "No one cares about your stupid race. You suck."

And so on and so forth. Eventually--once I ran out of toilet paper and tears--I blocked anonymous comments and *voila* my heckler (and my stress-induced abdominal cramping) disappeared with a simple click of the mouse.

Last week I made a very short trip to Connecticut to attend my father's mid-week retirement party. I had Italian sausage, I had chicken wings, I had cake. I also had a shining moment of clarity when a portion of the blog troll mystery was unraveled. If you'd like to know the identity of one of my blog trolls, read on my friends, read on.

This guy was not the blog troll:





His name is Clark, he works with my Dad, and he's an avid reader. If I'm not mistaken, he also uses a blow-dryer on a day-to-day basis. His hair was flawless people. Flawless. How could I not post his picture, ya know?


This is my Uncle Roger (top and front view), and he was the infamous mystery troll:



Trust me people, I only love him because I have to--it's as simple as that. He claims that he was messing with my for the simple sake of fun. I think he was messing with me because I called him "Big Boy Fluffy" instead of Uncle Roger from 1985-1991. Really, I did.

Some of the trolling was far too sophisticated for his doing, so I know there's another craptastic commenter or two floating around in cyber-space. But for now, a significant piece of the mystery is solved.

Case closed...kind of.

And since we're on the topic of inappropriate blog commenting, I'm going to have to use word verification again--at least for the time being. I've had way too many spammers trying to sell my readers discount gold, vacations to Asia, and penis enlarging products. Don't fall for 'em guys, they're totally fake.

And on that note, I hope you all have a great day troops! Yes, even you Uncle Roger.

"Pinata" Footage

April 24, 2008

I'm very sorry to say that Jared laid eyes upon the purple walls yesterday and there were no tears, there was no pants-pooping, and there was no notable tantrum. He simply looked at the contractor, and in his nicest most patient voice said, "This is purple, I asked for blue. I can't have my office like this." The contractor agreed and the problem seems to be fixed. Where's the fun in that?

Since Jared's office has left me with absolutely no blog-worthy material, I will kindly offer a video for your viewing pleasure. It's about two minutes long, but if you can hang on until the middle I think it's worth it.

This is footage from the pinata event at James's birthday party last Saturday. You'll notice right off the bat that the "pinata" is actually a two-dollar gift bag. You can thank the recent birth of my sister's baby for that craptastic touch. My mom had purchased a perfectly lovely star-shaped pinata, but opted to forgo the party to babysit for my nephew while my sister brought a nine-pound baby into the world without the assistance of pain medication. That's pretty selfish if you ask me.

I called her at 8-centimeters and left the following message: DUDE! WHY DO YOU HAVE TO HAVE YOUR BABY RIGHT NOW? NOW I CAN'T HAVE MY PINATA!!!! Oh, I mean JAMES CAN'T HAVE HIS PINATA!!!

Thank goodness for Sue's Ghetto Pinata instructions, or I would have just let the kids whack Jared's mid-section with the broom handle until he couldn't take it any more. And he totally hates it when I volunteer him for stuff like that.

Anywho, keep an eye on my 6-year-old nephew, Nathan. I believe he's wearing a yellow fleece jacket. I also believe that he's still in my backyard swinging recklessly at that dang yellow bag, trying like hell to get the Jolly Ranchers out.