So You’re a Loyal Customer? Pay Up!

Jan 312012
 

I know I’ve posted before about my great decision to get rid our landline and go strictly to cellular for our phone service.

And I promise that this will probably, most likely, hopefully be the last time I talk about it.

OK, so let the storytelling begin!

Ahem.  Rick brings the mail in yesterday because it was my day off and I was too lazy to get it and hands me a bill from the phone company that I no longer use.

“Oh, this will just show that there is nothing owed,” I smile to my husband.  So I casually open it up and discover that in fact I do owe something.  $11.94 something.

$11 for a Service Order Change.  Ummm… I canceled my phone, people, I don’t consider that a “Service Order Change.”  I call that “You’ve been ripping me off for long enough I no longer want your service thankyouverymuch change.”

Oh, and they had to tack on .94 cents for taxes.  Talk about kicking me in the backside.

Can you already guess that I wasn’t happy about this?  You got that right sugar.

So, guess who the first phone call went to this morning?   Heheheh.

After I explained my situation to the nice lady that answered my call, she transferred me to the Disconnect Department (that’s a new one for me, folks.  I didn’t know that department really existed.  Live and learn I guess).

I explain to Dave (real name) my situation along with the fact that I was never told that there would be a charge to dump their service.  (OK, I didn’t say dump, but I wanted to.)  PLUS, I asked him if this is the way that the company typically treats loyal customers.

He quickly says that he will remove the charge since I was not told about it when I make the original phone call to cancel my service, and mentions that I had been a customer for over 10 years.

Gee, thanks for noticing.

But in true company form, Dave has to try to be a salesman and get me to consider their internet service.  Nice try.  If they were going to charge me $11.94 to disconnect my phone, I can only imagine what they would have wanted to charge me for flipping a switch for internet.

That probably would have been Union wages.

Moral of the story?  Don’t be afraid to challenge Corporate America.  Sure, the amount of the charge wasn’t huge, but it was the principle of the thing.  They make big buck off of these types of charges and people just go ahead and pay them.  But not this girl.  I saved myself some cash.

Oh, and I did it on company time.  While my supervisor was in the room.

Yeah, I rock.

 

Scratching The Itch

Jan 302012
 

So then, about that project that I mentioned yesterday.

It’s been sitting in a drawer the last five years.  I’ve occasionally taken it out and worked on it a couple times, but have never really had the gumption to finish it.  Part of it was also in a bag that I’ve moved around in my closet, always making sure that the contents are covered up by the top of the bag so that they won’t get stained by the dust that always seems to be around the house.

I supposed the biggest reason I haven’t worked on it much is this:  we have cats.

And I love my little furbabies, but sometimes the shedding complicates things that I want to work on.  And I can bet you dollars to doughnuts that if I’m working on anything that is large enough to cover my lap, they will will be all over it like flies on stink.

But for whatever reason, it was calling me yesterday, and it was going to be finished.

If I would have know that it would have only taken 4 hours to wrap this baby up, I would have done it a long time ago.  It wasn’t an overly complicated pattern;  on the contrary, it was probably one of the easiest ones I’ve done over the years.

Do you know how hard it is to work with light colored yarn when you have 2 cats that have dark fur?  I nixed 4 of the pictures I took because you could see a piece of fur here and there.

So now I have 8 afghans that I’ve crocheted over the past 10 years sitting in various containers around the house that I have no idea what to do with (am I an afghan hoarder?).

Oh, and I just remembered there is another one up in the attic that I never finished, mainly because I’m not quite sure of where the pattern is.  I started on that one 5 years ago too.  Was I just too easily bored with a pattern?  I don’t think so, because when I think back to that time, I had completed 4 other blankets that year that were given away as gifts.

I think maybe I just developed afghan burnout.  But I must be over it now, because I’m itching to go at it again.

Guess I’d better get looking for that lost pattern.

 

Sweet Freedom

Jan 292012
 

It’s Sunday.

A day to relax and do… whatever you want.

So for me, it was a day that I finished a project I started well over 5 years ago (more on that tomorrow).

And as I’m all comfy and working on said project, the phone rang.  For a split second, my instincts kicked in and told my body to get up from my chair and answer the phone.

But I didn’t.  It wasn’t my phone.  I had no right to it.

And let me tell you, it was the greatest feeling in the world!

We got rid of our home phone and went strictly cellular 1 1/2 weeks ago, and I couldn’t be happier.  Gone are the days when I would have had to stop whatever I was doing, find a charged receiver, only to discover that it was a customer of Rick’s calling on a weekend/night/holiday and interrupting his supper/nap/home-time to diagnose a computer problem.

The proverbial cord has been cut from me having to put on my shoes and coat, and heading out to the garage during a Wisconsin winter to deliver the phone to Rick.

Yes, this is truly a day of liberation.

Plus I’m saving money, which is always a bonus in my book.

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Solha

Jan 262012
 

I’m not shy about getting the word out about important stuff.

Sure, maybe not as important as war, poverty or the presidential elections, but as a feel-good-help-out-if-you-can subject it ranks right up there.

You see that list of blogs on the right hand side of the page?  That is a list of some pretty awesome people.  They all have something to say (like yours truly), and they always have a pretty good story to tell.

Well, today I want to share one of these sites with you, Rurally Screwed.  Jessie Knadler is a terrific writer, Mother and wife who is holding down the fort while her husband is in Afghanistan.  And over the past few months, her faithful readers (which includes yours truly) have been following the adventures of a certain 4-legged friend that her husband has adopted in the Land Far Away who he named Solha.

Needless to say, this little lady has won the hearts of everyone who has read about her.

And she is coming to the states to live out her life far away from the war-torn country of Afghanistan after much red-tape and bureaucratic BS.

As you can probably guess, this is not going to be cheep.  The agency that is handling the process is run by civilians, and it relies on donations in order to survive.  Jessie has been able to set up a link on her site for donations to help deter some of the costs that she and her husband are having to pay to get this girl to her new home.

She’s not begging for anything.  Actually Jessie is doing something that her readers have asked her to do.  The commitment to help with this transportation was expressed months ago by many people, and now the time has come to make that real.

And I kept my promise and sent a donation.  It wasn’t huge, but it was what I could afford and I know that Jessie and her family, as well as Solha, are very grateful for that.

Tomorrow’s “important” thing may be the discovery of a 2 headed snowman or trolls living under my deck, but today it’s all about Solha and the promise of a new life.

UPDATE: In only a day and a half, over $2,800 was raised for Solha’s trip home to the states! Donations are closed for now, but if you want to continue to contributed to NOWZAD, the organization of the transport, visit www.rurallyscrewed.com for a link to do so.

You guys rock!!

 

Beware of Contact Highs

Jan 252012
 

No work today.  School is closed.

No, we didn’t get a buttload of snow.  The tribe is celebrating Treaty Day, so some of the tribal affiliates are closed, which includes the college.

*happy dance*

So keeping with my theme of putzing around the house on my days off, cleaning here, throwing out stuff there,  I decided to do one of the worst jobs around the house.  One that I avoid at all costs.  One that puts the “suck” in suckage.

I cleaned the shower/tub in the bathroom.

I know *GASP*, right?  Yeah, I’d rather have more teeth ripped out of my mouth that clean that thing.

So here’s the problem:  with the hard water we have up here, our shower does not really ever get “clean” per se.  Yes, it’s technically clean, but stained in areas from hard water deposits and what appears to be a light sheen of rust.  Not terrible, just enough to be annoying.

Believe me, I’ve tried everything to get it back to shining splendor that I can think of short of acid.  But since that’s not readily available, I found this:

For the record, I hate, Hate, HATE using chemicals.  H A T E !!! I’m a greenie… a lover of the environment… reduce, reuse, recycle damnit!

Call me weak, call me desperate, revoke my Friend of the Environment membership card.

I had to try it.  I was reaching for hope against hope.  This was my last ditch effort to get my shower clean.  I mean, it turned colors when the surface it was used on was clean!  How cool is that!!

So, did it work you may be asking?  Ummm… yes and no.  I wasn’t expecting miracles, so I wasn’t really disappointed.  Some of the areas actually got clean.  I was impressed with that.  But the heavier affected… notsomuch.  And how did some of these areas get so bad?  Who the hell knows.  Is there such a thing as high traffic shower areas?  Well, if there is, we’ve got ’em.

Oh, and one other reason why I HATE using chemicals (especially in a small area like a shower with no windows or ventilation):  contact high.  The fumes aren’t that unpleasant, but I can sure tell that they had an affect on me.  Whee!!

OK, maybe I’d better go outside and get some fresh air now.

Oh, and would somebody please get me some frickin ACID!!

Thank you.

 

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