I've been dealing with a lot of work and bureaucratic bullshit the last week or so, basically having to do with my graduate thesis project. It's so boring that I will not go into the details here, other than the fact that I have a useless thesis advisor who I am beginning to believe is actually just jealous of my creativity. I was told a while back by another student that he has this problem, then another student told me that too, and yet stupid me kept him on as my advisor. Little did I know that he would be subtly (and not so subtly) undermining me all the way through.
To make a long story short, I have come very close to a breaking point and truly understand why some grad students suddenly go postal. Not that I will, mind you, but that doesn't stop the fantasies from playing in my head. Like this one, for instance:
That's enough of that. Hopefully all the BS will pass and I'll have my MA soon. Then I will be able to more regularly concentrate on the more important things in life. Like blogging.
Also, I was without an internet connection for a few days last week. Yes, sad but true. Wanna know why? Because Earthlink is a total scam, that's why. I decided one night last week to change local phone companies from Talk America to BellSouth to save about $8 a month. It was simple, I did it online and of course you keep your same phone number with no disruption in service.
On the day that I got the email from BellSouth stating my account was active with them, my DSL rather abruptly stopped working. I called Earthlink support and after 2 hours on the phone with the tech guys, they finally discover that someone put in a disconnect order with them. So they patched me through to the accounts people, where some other person (the 4th one in that call) looks into it and says that I ordered the disconnect.
"Um, no I didn't. I just signed up here a few months ago. I have a 1-year contract."
"Yes, you do. I see that," she tells me.
I explain that all I did was change phone carriers and then that starts another confused line of questioning.
"You switched from BellSouth to Talk America? No wonder you don't have a connection. We don't work with Talk America at all," she tells me.
"NO, I switched TO BellSouth... TO THEM. When it was working 2 hours ago, I was still with Talk America."
"That's impossible. Let me put you on hold for half of your life," she should have explained.
When she came back, she tells me this garbage about "reprovisioning the line" every time you change companies, and they have to pay the different phone company a fee, so they pass that fee onto the DSL consumer. She then matter of factly stated, "That will be a $50 disconnect and early contract termination fee, and a $99 reprovisioning fee to get your account reinstated with BellSouth. I can get your account back up and running in 2 to 3 days."
My voice went up 3 octaves and 10 decibels as I shouted, "WHAT?!?!?!?!"
I argued with her for an hour, she finally waived the $50 early disconnect fee, since she agreed that I was not technically terminating my contract, but she refused to waive any of the "reprovisioning" fee.
When the account was finally running, I had to get the tech guys to reconfigure my modem on the phone again, then call my router company and have them help me reconfigure that too... but not before Earthlink tried to convince me that my "old" router (3 months old, mind you) would not work with this system and that I should buy their wireless router for just another $149. Fuck you, Earthlink. That guy had the nerve to ask me at the end of the second 2-hour call, "Have you found this call to be helpful to you?" I shouted, "Hell no, not when I just wanted to save $8."
Just now I saw a commercial for Earthlink on tv, all these diverse, meltingpot Americans saying that they're Earthlink and they live to help their customers or some shit. Funny, but everytime I called and no matter how many times I was transferred to someone else, every single person on the other end of the phone was from India, but I didn't see a single Indian face in that Earthlink commercial. That made for some great language barriers too as I got angrier and angrier, but then wondered if I was just getting angry at some poor schlep who was going to go back to a hut and kick the neighborhood holy cow.
I don't want any hate mail, people. Of course I know that isn't the case. Oddly enough, they all had names like "Joe" and "Bob" and "Susan" and "Laura" and "Mike." That just made the frustration levels even more Outer Limits for me. Anyway, poop on you, Earthlink... for your scams and for your outsourcing.
Mother's Day morning was spent in a groggy hungover blur of wrangling the kids and my mom at 9:00 to "beat the crowds" at the local Golden Corral buffet.
The sign just screams "quality."
It was already packed, even at our ungodly early arrival time. YES, I said UNgodly, you damn early-riser, churchy types. We wound around in a snaking line of wonderful smells, like "old person," "too much perfume," "poopy diaper," and "not enough deodorant." And I think that was all coming from the one person in front of me.
The length of this line made me giddy for a moment thinking that perhaps Space Mountain or Splash Mountain was at the end, rather than the hastily prepared breakfast foods that still eerily smelled like lingering "old person," "too much perfume," "poopy diaper," and "not enough deodorant."
After filling to the brim with our fair share of grease-laden samples while crammed like sardines into the corner next to a window with broken mini-blinds and the morning sun blazing in on us, I now know what it feels like to live in a convection oven.
While some of the gang was helping themselves to ice cream and pastries, I noticed that my 9-year-old had barely touched his stack of bacon. He'd plowed through several sausage types and apparently just stopped and pushed it away... quite unlike him. Suddenly, he starts clutching his stomach and moans, "Oh, ow, ew, I'm gonna puke." I spout off "I've got him! We'll be at the car. Meet us when you're done."
I nervously ushered him out of the bustling maze of tables and old people to get just outside the doors for my son to make an urping, coughing, gagging"noise and hurl himself straight toward the awaiting line of newcomers. I shouted "OH NO YOU DON'T!" and grabbed his hand to run him to the vehicle, which was luckily around the back corner of the restaurant. I wasn't as worried about him puking on the queue as much as I was worried that his vomit would set of a chain-reaction in me, with my combination hangover and angry stomach lining.
We got to the back of the building and he leaned against a maple tree while he continued to moan and sputter and gag for another 15 or 20 minutes until my mother finally came out. Luckily nothing came out of either he nor I, though his antics made at least 2 couples change their minds about eating there. I saw them get out of their cars, look at him in horror and return to their cars with a "let's try somewhere else." After that, he and I had a heaping helping of TUMS for our dessert and we were both fine.
Then I took the kids to Target so my daughter could pick out 53 different Barbies that she wants for her birthday on the 25th. I didn't buy any, because we were really just killing time before the next running of HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. I had already seen it opening night last week and immediately disliked it, but the kids' dorkiness doesn't fall far from the tree, so they insisted that I take them anyway. They seemed to like it at least. Thankfully there were no odd movie-going experiences to report. It all was pretty smooth this time.
I think I've run out of things to type, so I'll end here.
Goodnight, you princes of Maine... you kings of New England.
I don't know why I typed that.
