Daily Diatribes

I have stolen away from the hotel room, leaving all the children alone and unsupervised, to get some peace and to blog.  This is the first time I have used Tom’s laptop (yes, the ass bought a laptop for himself, but I get to “use” it) and I was a little apprehensive about how to connect to the internet.  Turns out the real problem was how to open it; I was deeply worried that I would have to ask the front desk guy if he could open it for me.  I tried, I pried, I fiddled, and finally, after five long, embarrassing minutes, I turned it around and voila….it opened!!  I was trying to open the wrong end!

So far, the trip has been tolerable.  The first night, we walked up to our room only to discover the Louisiana Funeral Home Associations’s Hospitality Suite was conveniently located right next to our room.  Only I am lucky enough to have a bunch of drunk, coon-ass undertakers next door.   They whooped and hollered and carried on until well after 10:00.  I was tempted to go join them, but I was afraid they might embalm me.

Evidently they were all here for a big convention.  What sort of things happen at a funeral home convention?  For Tom’s vet meeting, there are all sorts of vendors set up, handing out free pens and candy and frisbees.  What sort of vendors come to the Funeral Home Convention?  Is there more than one type of embalming fluid?  Casket vendors?  Do they hand out coffin shaped candies to the kids?  Maybe they have zombies providing “live” entertainment!

Well, fortunately, the hospitality suite was only next door the one night, so we were able to get some sleep last night.  Other than that, it’s been pretty tame.  I love going to the beach with kids.  We hike 100 yards down to the beach, loaded with toys, a cooler, towels, sunscreen, boogie boards and reading material.  I settle in my chair while the kids run toward the surf.  Ten minutes later, they run back and announce they are bored and want to go to the pool.  After all that hard work.  Meanwhile, Tom is playing golf and getting drunk while I try to keep everyone alive.  It’s truly delightful and relaxing. 

After they whine for an hour, I finally give in and we hike back up to the pool.  I collapse, exhausted and sweaty, into a chair.  They jump in the pool.  Ten minutes later, they run back and announce they are hungry and bored.  So we get lunch and they eat and then play for another ten minutes and then they are ready to go upstairs.  We could have stayed home and done this for free.

Today, they all insisted they were hungry, ordered the $6.00 grilled cheese sandwiches and after eating half of the sandwich,they ran off to play.  I was sitting watching them and the next thing I know, a seagull divebombs the table and steals a french fry.  I nearly came out of my skin!  Freakin’ seagulls are in league with the devil and his pet squirrels, that’s for sure!!

There is a dude at the pool who plays music in the afternoon.  He plays the same songs every day.  He sang “Cheeseburger in Paradise” complete with a large, rubber, squeaky cheeseburger.  It’s a very cultured environment.  Yesterday, he sang “Bye Bye Miss American Pie”, but when he got to the line “no angel born in hell, could break that satan’s spell…” he left out hell.  I guess he was trying to protect America’s youth from the terrible imagery of eternal damnation.  I wish he would protect America’s youth from his covers of every song the Eagles ever recorded.

Well, that’s it so far.  I guess I’ve been away from the room long enough.  John and Amy have probably convinced the goddess and czarina that it would be fun to bungee jump down the side of the building with dental floss.  I will try and check in before the weekend is through, if I can get away.   Then again, I may end up in a rubber room with a straitjacket on, so promise if that happens, you’ll bring me cigarettes!!

We are heading for the beach tomorrow.  Ah, the sight of seagulls circling above, waves crashing the shore, beaches so snowy white they make your eyes hurt.  Ah the sounds of my children squabbling for four straight hours in the car.  Is it too late for me to run now?

I took the goddess to swim team practice today and while I was there, the phone rang.  It was Amy.  “Mom,” she said, “can I download a song on your I-pod?” 

“No,” I told her, then asked, “what song?”

“You Give Love a Bad Name,” she said.

“Hell no,” I told her.  “I hated that song when it came out twenty years ago.  Forget it.”

“But Mo-om,” she whined.

“No.”

When I got home, John had already purchased it and was playing it loudly and singing:  “Shot through the heart and YOU’RE SO LAME….”

I shook my head.  “Son,” I told him, “it’s not “lame”…”

“I know, I know,” he interrupted.  “It’s “you’re too late.”

“No,” I shouted, “you’ve got the words all wrong.  It’s “shot through the heart and you’re…”

Amy walked in right about then and chimed in “and you’re too late….”

“No,” I screamed.  “IT’S YOU’RE TO BLAME!!!!  GET THE WORDS RIGHT.”  They just stared at me like I had lost my mind, which I had.  After all, it’s summer time.

Shortly thereafter, I walked through the family room and found Amy lying on the floor, playing with Gina’s puppy.  I walked up to her and lifted my foot and put it on her stomach, pretending I was going to stomp her guts in, which is not really a bad idea when you think about it.

“Mom, stop it,” she squealed.  “You’re going to make me constipated!”

My foot hovered in mid-air over its intended target….huh?  Gina fell backward on the couch, howling.

“Amy, how is me stepping on your stomach going to make you constipated?” I asked her sensibly.

“Because you’ll obstruct my poop flow,” she answered seriously.

Gina was having convulsions and I continued to hover, thinking about what she had just said.  Is there a medical coorelation between gut stomping and constipation?  I am going to have to ask Renee because obviously, this is highly advanced medical science.  Needless to say, I carefully removed my foot because far be it for me to obstruct her bowels.

After Gina left, I decided to get the hell out of the house and go get a pedicure.  My children are weird, too weird for me, and I need to limit my exposure.  Otherwise I’ll end up on CNN….Mother Constipates Kids With Baseball Bat During Argument Over Song Lyrics.

Hope y’all have a great rest of the week and check back next week for tales from the beach.  Maybe there will be a mass squirrel attack or something.  You thought Jaws was scary, wait until Squirrel Nutkin runs amok on the beach!!

How many lives does a vacuum cleaner have?  Not enough around my house.  I have killed more vacuum cleaners in the last five years than the most heinous of serial killers.  Just call me the Hoover Hacker.

I have been at almost a standstill with regards to cleaning house.  But last night, at 1:30 a.m., when I tripped on a shoe in my bedroom and nearly killed myself, I had an epiphany.  “This has got to stop,” I thought to myself grimly as I negotiated my way around the piles and stacks in my bedroom.

So today I mounted the Clean House Offensive.  I started by decimating the stack of papers in the kitchen.  The last of the schoolwork disappeared, as did 47 birthday party treat bag toys, 15 happy meal toys, 22 non working pens and assorted pieces of unidentifiable plastic.  I was in the zone, on a roll, making progress.

I tackled the family room with the vacuum cleaner next.  I moved the couches, vacuumed the baseboards and even vacuumed behind the TV.  I was an unstoppable cleaning force.  It was when I moved into the kitchen that the trouble began.  I used the vacuum to clean up the chex mix that some thoughtful child had spilled in the pantry.  Only, a dog bone was hidden underneath the mix and it got stuck in the hose.  I could move it every which way but out.

It took me 30 minutes and three different objects to remove it.  I finally  managed to extricate it with a butter knife and I fed it to the puppy.  Problem solved.  Elated by my success, I decided to tackle the giant hairballs in the living room.  They had become more animated lately, and had taken to snapping at anyone who walked too close.  I figured I better eliminate them before they moved out into the city and became a menace to all humankind.

It was going so well; one minute, giant puffs of hair were disappearing from my wood floors and the next minute….FWUMP…..thhhhhhhpppppppttttttt…..and the vacuum stopped.  A wide range of expletives left my mouth as I gazed in horror at the dead vacuum.  I wasn’t even sure what had gotten sucked up; I had a vague impression of a black plastic bag, but I was not positive.  All I knew was it was dead….again.

How can one person be so lucky?  We’ve had the vacuum for less than a year and this is the third time I have broken it.  I sucked up Abby’s curtain thingy, I sucked up a bouncy ball and now this.  It’s almost too much for one person to bear.  As far as telling Tom, it would be better had I maimed one of the children as opposed to his fancy schmancy vacuum cleaner.  I would have been happy with a Dirt Devil, but no, he had to go and buy one with some unpronounceable name so that when I finally killed it, he could go ballistic with grief at the death of his favorite appliance that he has never used.

Well, I tried my best to extricate the item from the hose, but I could not get it out for anything.  And Tom was late.  Very late.  I started to worry.  Maybe he had finally run away with the dog groomer, even though she is old enough to be his mother.  Maybe he had been mugged in the parking lot by someone with a grudge against him for failing to cure a pet of tapeworms.

So I abandoned the vacuum and began making phone calls, trying to find him.  Twenty minutes, and some anxiety later, he finally called back; he had been stuck with an emergency at closing.  But he was on his way.  As soon as he walked in, I delivered the bad news.  He just looked at me; marriage to me has long eliminated any need to ask “how” or “why”.

He took the vacuum apart but could not remove the object.  Finally, I located the giant hemostats from the emergency vacuum repair kit assembled for me by my dear Gina, and the plastic bag (it was a bag)  was summarily removed.  Only the freakin’ vacuum still didn’t work.  I was really starting to sweat.  This was the end, the end of everything:  the vacuum; my marriage; my attempts to clean the house; everything.

Tom was surprisingly calm.  I really thought this would push him over the edge, but he just kept persevering.  I slunk out of the room and came to sit down and write this blog, sure that it would be my final one.  Suddenly, without warning, the vacuum roared to life.

“Oh my gosh, what did you do?” I hollered.

“I don’t know, it just started working,” he said.  Obviously it was my day!  God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world, etc., etc.  So the vacuum is restored, my marriage is saved, and my floor is somewhat clean.  And next time I am using the broom!!

Ok, fine, if the public wants to see my mullet, who am I to disappoint??  Here I am in all my mulleted glory!  Satisfied?  And Squirrel N., Mommy hopes you are enjoying your steam bath in Hell!!!

Well, several of my alert readers (I only have five readers, but they are very alert!!!) sent me this piece on German squirrels gone wild. Seems that a squirrel, overcome with lust, attacked several people and was finally subdued by a gentleman wielding a crutch. Here is the text, as lifted from Yahoo, since I cannot do that hyperlink thingy:

BERLIN (Reuters) - An aggressive squirrel attacked and injured three people in a German town before a 72-year-old pensioner dispatched the rampaging animal with his crutch.

The squirrel first ran into a house in the southern town of Passau, leapt from behind on a 70-year-old woman, and sank its teeth into her hand, a local police spokesman said on Thursday.

With the squirrel still hanging from her hand, the woman ran onto the street in panic, where she managed to shake it off.

The animal then entered a building site and jumped on a construction worker, injuring him on the hand and arm, before he managed to fight it off with a measuring pole.

“After that, the squirrel went into the 72-year-old man’s garden and massively attacked him on the arms, hand and thigh,” the spokesman said. “Then he killed it with his crutch.”

The spokesman said experts thought the attack may have been linked to the mating season or because the squirrel was ill.

I believe I have made my point. Squirrels are not to be trusted. Their intent is to bring harm to mankind because they view us a threat to their acorn supply. I know you all think Squirrel Nutkin is some cute, innocent, happy little mammal, frolicking about the garden with Peter Rabbit and singing tunes, but I know the truth.

I know that Squirrel Nutkin is really a homicidal rodent programmed to destroy mankind. His beady eyes cannot conceal his rage toward humanity. His desire and intent is to bite men and women into submission with his nasty buck teeth and force them to gather acorns while he and his rodent friends lounge about.

It sickens me, it really does. I am grateful for the man in Germany who so alertly subdued Squirrel Nutkin before he could carry on with his nefarious plan. Let it serve as a reminder to us all that constant vigilance is a must. The squirrels must be controlled and every one of us is needed to fight the good fight and keep the squirrels in the trees, where they belong!!

Wednesday night  we went to the REO/Styx concert.  I am not particularly fond of either band, but some friends were going and Tom likes Styx, so off we went.  Actually, I don’t really care for live music period, which is an obscenity as far as most people are concerned, but I don’t concern myself with most people.

So we left the goddess, who was sickly, in the tender care of her older brother, and off we went.  We were 100 yards away from the house when my phone rang.  “Mom,” John said, “do I pour the macaroni noodles in the water?”  He was making Kraft mac and cheese, a feat my golden retriever could probably accomplish.

“Read the directions son,” I told him.

“It says boil the water and pour the noodles in; so when do I add the noodles?”

“READ THE DIRECTIONS SON,” I repeated rather forcefully.

“I DID read the directions,” he said.  “When do I add the noodles????”

It’s these times that make me fear for the cotinued survival of our species on the planet.  “John,” I said, “do you know what boil means?”

“Yeah,” he said defensively.

“Is the water boiling right now?”

“No.”

“When the water BOILS ADD THE DAMN NOODLES!!!!!!!!”

As I hung up, I wondered if this would be the tone for the evening.  We got through dinner ok, though, and headed to the concert.  I did make the rather colossal error of calling Amy, who was spending the night with her friend across the street, and asking her to go tell John to pick up the phone at one point, but that’s not really what this story is about.

This story is about the mullet.    According to dictionary.com, a mullet is

1. A hairstyle that is formed by cutting the hair short on the the top and sides and allowing it to grow longer in back.

Let us go on to add the hairstyle reached its peak popularity during the 1980’s when one Billy Ray Cyrus sported a mullet so long and perfectly coiffed it brought grown women to their knees.

Before I continue my tale, let me add that I, too, had a mullet in the 1980’s.  However, my mother died during that time and I received very bad style advice from my stepmother.  My mother would have never sanctioned a mullet and would have saved me from myself!

Anyway, as we strolled into the amphitheater Wednesday night, there, right in front of me, was a gentleman with a glorious man of silvery hair, hanging halfway down his back, styled in a perfect mullet.  I raised my eyes heavenward in thanks; I knew it would be a great evening!!  I also wanted to make sure my friend Jenny was watching from heaven; we were always on mullet watch together!!

As we strolled toward our seats, I was in sensory overload.  There were creepy people everywhere and my brain couldn’t process them all.  Once we sat down, though, I was able to survey them at my leisure.  Ten rows in front of us was a mullet that would have made Billy Ray envious.  It was perfect in every way and you could tell the gentleman was proud of it because it was so well kept.  Mullets were all around us:  permullets (permed on top); bushy mullets; short mullets; femullets(female mullets); and scraggly mullets.  We wondered aloud what kind of person you had to be to cling to a hairstyle that is reviled by all of Western civilization.  A person stuck in another decade, I guess!

The concert started and REO limped out onto the stage with their walkers….ok, not really.  I have to say for a bunch of old dudes, they were remarkably sprightly!  Twelve rows down, a portly gentleman in blue leapt to his feet, obscuring my view of the stage.  As the band launched into “Keep on Lovin’ You”, one of three songs I knew they sang, he whipped out his air guitar and began gyrating wildly, singing and adding corresponding hand motions in case we couldn’t follow the lyrics.  I personally thought he was much better than the band.

About halfway through their set, people sat down and the demeanor was generally calm.  My hearing became nonexistent due to the loud thrumming of the bass guitar.  I spent my time watching the drummer and became even more convinced that my destiny is to be a rock and roll drummer.  Never mind that I have no rhythm whatsoever and that my hand-eye coordination is non existent.  I want to be up on stage, seated behind my massive drum set (see, the idiots on guitar have to jump around like maniacs while the sensible drummer stays put!) and pound on the drums and fling my hair around.  I like it!

Once REO finished, there was a break to change sets.  We hit the bathrooms, got some popcorn and then sat down to wait.  Tom admired the lady in front of us who had a tank top with the cleavage held together by small chains; I think I know what I’m getting for mother’s day next year!!

Well, the seats around us had been empty to that point, but suddenly a group of scary, old bikers materialized behind us.  They were incredibly drunk and obnoxious and when Styx materialized on the stage, they came to life.  They were loud, calling out requests as if the band could hear them from the stage 200 yards away and over the music and noise of the crowd. 

Well, the lead singer started talking and this did not set well with Mr. Scary Old Biker Dude.  “No more, man, no more,” he yelled.  “Give us what we want Man!!!!!”  I was genuinely trying to listen because it seemed to involve some touching interaction between the band and Bosnian orphans or something like that, but then the lady biker dudes got involved. 

“Yeah man,” she hollered, “play for us!!!!”

Well, most of the audience had sat down by that point and when we sat down, the bikers became enraged.  “These aren’t real F***ING STYX FANS,” they howled.  “REAL F***ING FANS DON’T SIT THE F*** DOWN!!  GET UP!  GET UP!!  WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING????  STAND THE F*** UP!!!!”

I started laughing uncontrollably, with actual tears streaming down my face.  To compound the situation, one of the bikers had his butt nearly on top of Tom’s head, presumably to shame him for sitting down.  The look on Tom’s face is indescribable, a mix of bewilderment, rage and laughter.  I knew he really wanted to turn around and slug the guy, but on the other hand, he knew it was not worth the trouble it would cause.  Although it would have made a great blog!!!!

Well, the lead singer was winding down his story and he started talking about little boys fishing with their daddy’s and named some song he was going to sing.  The lady biker behind me said gruffly “OH SHIT, HE’S GONNA MAKE ME CRY.”  Which made me laugh all the harder!

They continued in this vein for the rest of the concert, the mullets were all around us, people were waving lighters in the air, and I felt at one with the universe.  John managed to boil the noodles and the goddess ate three bowls of mac and cheese with no apparent ill effects and curled up in our bed and went to sleep.  All in all, it was a pretty good night.   Now I am off to get my hair styled in a mullet before I go take my first drum lesson!!

Last week while I was slowly perspiring to death in the piney woods of Alabama, my home began to take on the unkempt appearance of a frat house.  Dust bunnies scampered  around the wood floors, playing games of hide and seek.  The TV screen slowly disappeared under a thick coating of dust.  The laundry mounded up so that we had to harness ourselves together to ascend its mighty heights.  The kitchen floor became a sticky wasteland, treacherous for anyone making a midnight snack run.  The bathrooms became a microbiologist’s dream, a breeding ground for all sorts of disease causing microorganisms.  The nominating committee for Slumlord of the Year started leaving messages on my machine.  It was a scary place.

Today is the first day I am really able to address these issues.  So I sat down with pen and paper to make the dreaded…….CHORE LISTS….(high pitched screams in the distance….)  I was also reading the paper and anyone who knows me knows I live for the Wednesday paper.  It contains the crime reports.  I realized, as I read the list of homes that had been robbed, that my slovenly housekeeping is a deterrent to criminals. 

Imagine it’s 2:00 a.m.  The house is shrouded in darkness.  We are away, vacationing at our summer trailer in the swamp.  A shadowy figure sneaks up to the deck and stealthily pries the door open.  Our home alarm is not set.  He enters the family room and immediately trips over a pile of shoes and smashes his head into the goddess’s Lite Brite.  Pegs fly everywhere.  He curses quietly, gets up and bashes his shins into the coffee table.  He dances around in pain and trips over the pile of dirty clothes John threw on the floor by the stairs.  He makes it into my bedroom and promptly becomes entangled in the hangers on the floor by my bed  (I leave them there so if I get the urge to hang up Tom’s clothes, I don’t have to look hard).  He waltzes around and trips over the vacuum cleaner and falls into the basket of socks-to-be-sorted.  In disgust, he gets up and makes his way out, thwarted in his attempts to burgle by my piles of crap.  So see, it pays to be messy!

Despite the brilliance of the messy-home-as-a-theft-deterrent theory, I made lists for my older children, designed to guide them in their efforts to help me restore our home to its former, yard-sale chic glory.  John’s list was fairly simple:  unload the dishwasher; pick up the dog poo in the front yard; and pick up all the garbage in the garage.  Unfortunately, our garage is overrun with garbage and this was no easy task.  He came upstairs after ten minutes and told me he was done.  Yeah, right.

“Did you pick up the garbage by my car?” I asked him.  His face fell and he turned around and went back downstairs without a word.  Five minutes later he was back.  Yeah, right.

“Did you pick up the garbage on both sides of the car?” I asked. 

“You didn’t tell me I had to do that,” he whined. 

“Let me be specific,” I said cooly.  “Pick up every scrap of garbage that you see in the basement and garage.”

“But MOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM,” he said in despair.

I just looked at him and he turned around and trudged back downstairs.

Next, I called for Amy to give her her list.  Anytime she is given a list, she immediately launches into a homily about how she does all the work in the house, no one else does anything, and specifically, her younger sister has no duties whatsoever which is a direct violation of Amy’s constitutional right to slothfulness.

“She does have a job,” I told her.  “Anastasia is over and they are being quiet and leaving me alone.”

“I CAN BE QUIET AND LEAVE YOU ALONE!!!” she shrieked.  There really is no adequate way to convey the tone and pitch of her voice in this blog; suffice it to say the dogs in the neighborhood started howling.

I stared her down and she shrieked “FINE, I HATE YOU!!!!” and walked out crumpling up her list.  I calmly called her back in, forced her to uncrumple the list and instructed her to begin immediately.  There was some whining and gnashing of teeth, but eventually, she reluctantly began her choring.

In the interest of fairness, I did reassign one of her chores.  I called the goddess and Anastasia down and instructed them to wash the glass in the front door.  It took half a roll of paper towels and 3/4 of a bottle of cleaner, but the job was accomplished. 

As I sit and write this, Amy is now accusing me of violating child labor laws by forcing her to do all this stupid work while the goddess is downstairs being lazy.  John is downstairs, diligently cleaning out my car.  The washing machine is humming and the smell of cleaner permeates the air.  My feet, however, are still sticking to the kitchen floor.  So I guess I better wrap this up and go get my anti-bacterial kitchen floor cleaner ready! 

Wish I had thought of it first; I’d be $8,000,000 richer!!!

Today has been a typical Monday in my life.  I opened the dryer and discovered I had washed a holy card with the underwear.  If the image of the blessed Mother appears on Tim’s underwear, I am building a shrine in my laundry room and I will have pilgrims visiting before I know it.  We will sell underwear souvenirs under the marketing label “Fruit of the Womb”….ok, ok, so I stole that joke.  Fine, it’s hard to be creative on Monday.  I really did wash a Holy Card though and I hope that isn’t some sort of mortal sin.  I guess I better go to confession

John ambled through the room and I asked him how he was doing.  He sort of grunted, so I asked again, always vigilant for signs of drug abuse (inhaling the Right Guard), depression or anger.  He stared at me musingly for a minute and then said “Well, I took a big poop a little while ago and it was kind of runny, but I feel pretty good now.”  I’m so sorry I asked.  Go back and inhale your deodorant son.

This afternoon, I took him to Art’s Music shop for a music lesson.  He is learning  how to play French Horn now.  While I was waiting, I picked up a copy of the Wall Street Journal dated May 16th.  Next time I’ll bring more current reading material. 

Now most people read the Wall Street Journal for financial news or investment advice.  I, of course, was immediately immersed in an article about how difficult it is to preserve and/or insure works of contemporary art.  This might sound fairly innocuous to you, but it’s a very vexing and complex problem.

I know nothing about art.  I have no personal taste at all and I might as well be color blind for all the sense I can make out of paintings.  If there is a distinguishing feature in the painting, like a cow or a rock, I can appreciate it.  If, however, it is a melange of abstract shapes and violent colors, I am scratching my head trying to understand what I am supposed to be seeing.

Contemporary art really puzzles me.  So why is it that one person can take a used tissue, glue it to a coaster, sprinkle it liberally with fingernail clippings and call it “The Human Condition” and be celebrated as an artist?  These are the sorts of works that insurers are declining to insure due to their transient nature.  After all, fingernail clippings will eventually deteriorate.  And although they are certainly a renewable resource, one has to question the integrity of the work if the artist’s fingernail clippings are replaced with clippings from, say, that dude who came and pumped out the septic tank this morning.  Is it still the property of the artist, or does the septic tank dude have some claim on the piece now?

Well, I’m rambling like this because there were two specific works cited that are composed of organic matter and are therefore prone to the vagaries of time and deterioration.  One is a giant topiary puppy composed of fresh flowers.  Now even a three year old knows that once you pick a flower, it’s gonna die.  And no matter what you spray it with, eventually it’s going to decompose.

But my favorite is a work by Damien Hirst entitled “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living”, which is a 14 foot tiger shark suspended in a tank of formaldehyde.  It is considered “the seminal work of the Young British Artists movement.”  You gotta love those Brits; put a big, dead shark in a tank and it’s art!!!  Now who’s buying the next pint?  Laugh if you will, but the dude sold it for…..are you ready……over 8 million dollars!!!!!! 

I’m telling you right now, I will no longer be flushing goldfish down the toilet.  Hell no, I’m gonna mount those suckers and sell them as art!!  Why did I let the girls entomb Stripes the Turtle?  I could have made a killing off of his corpse!!   I could have placed his little body in a Gladware container filled with foramaldehyde and called my work “The Impossible Transience of Amphibians As Cared For by Six Year Olds”.  My genius would have been heralded throughout the world!!

Well, back to the shark.  Unfortunately for the purchaser, the shark began “rotting from the inside out, causing it to take on a withered appearance and clouding the fluid in the tank.”  Um, sir, was this piece of art covered by the Good Housekeeping seal of Approval?  Because what’s the point of having a dead shark suspended in a tank if no one can see it through the cloudy fluid?  And he’s hardly going to inspire shock and awe in someone if he looks more like George Burns than Jaws!

Well, the artist was kind enough to replace the shark with another one, at the expense of the purchaser of course.  So that ups the purchaser’s total cost to $8,100,000 for a big, stinky dead shark in an aquarium.  Obviously, I am totally in the wrong profession here.   I am going to go outside, scoop up that dead opossum on the main road and see what I can make of him.  I will make sure I post the details of my exhibit opening here on the blog!! 

Yes, yes, I was at camp, we all know that, and I have more fabulous experiences to share with you.  But Thursday night, I came home after an incredibly long day, determined to blog about it all.  We left camp, I took Amy to physical therapy and dropped her off  while I raced home to get her soccer registration papers, then raced to the bank to make a deposit and then raced back to physical therapy to pick her up so we could race down to Alabaster for a soccer meeting.  I was literally drooping with exhaustion.

We were there until 8:30 and finally, when it looked like the meeting was winding down to nothing but chit chat, I collected my daughters and left.  When I got home, I got them to bed and then collapsed in front of the computer to blog.  But when I tried to connect to the internet, nothing happened.  Strange, but it had rained, I reasoned, and maybe the connection was goofy.

I unplugged the modem, waited a bit, and then plugged it in again.  Nothing.  I unplugged the modem, turned the computer off, waited a bit, and then plugged it back in again.  Nothing.  I was feeling much aggrieved by now.  After a long day, all I really wanted to do was play Pogo and unwind.  Instead, I had to go and wash clothes because there was nothing else to do.

In the morning, I tried it again and it still didn’t work.  So I called upon Habib.  Habib is the faceless, anonymous cable technician who lives in remotest Yemen and has been hired by Charter for $5.00 a month to answer tech support questions for suckers like me. 

Now mind you, when he answered, he tried to tell me his name was Dennis, but I recognized him as Habib right away.  He asked for my issue and I told him my modem was fried.  There was a moment of silence.  “I am sorry, can you repeat that?” he asked.

“My…modem….is….fried….” I intoned.  “It….does….not…..work.”

“Ah, I think I understand,” he replied.  “I believe you are telling me you are having problems with your internet connection.  I can help you with this.”

Great, he’s a brain surgeon.  Five minutes of my life already wasted. 

“Look, please don’t tell me to unplug the modem,” I said.  “I’ve already done that like four times and it doesn’t work.”

“Well, of course we have our procedures we must follow,” he informed me coldly.  “Let me get your information please.”

He verified all of my information, including my name, address, social security number, height, weight and favorite color, and then he was ready to beging trouble shooting.  I turned on the speaker phone and sat by the computer, prepared to perform life saving maneuvers.

“hmmmm,” he said presently.  “There is no signal going to your modem.  Let me put you on hold for a moment.” 

Charter has the worst elevator music ever.  They have some tuneless piece of crap no self-respecting ice cream man would play.  It repeats over and over again until you are ready to puncture your eardrums to get some peace.  But I waited anxiously, ready to be reunited with the cyber world.

Dennis/Habib came back on the line and said “I am sorry, I am having a bit of trouble with my own computer.  Would you mind holding again?”  HA….serves him right!!

So I waited some more, using the time to make lunches for the day and fix water bottles, and various administrative duties like that.  Finally he came back and said “Can you read me the MAC number on the bottom of your modem?”  

“The what??” I asked, confused.

“On the bottom of your modem, there is a number; please read it to me.”

I read it to him and he put me on hold again.  By now I was getting annoyed and was ready to obliviate him and his camel, but I held on, hoping for some resolution.

He came back again and said cheerfully: “the reason there is no signal going to your modem is that MAC number has been reassigned to someone else.  We can’t disrupt existing service, so you’ll have to get a new modem.  Now I’d like to review your services with you!”

“Wait a minute,” I said, stunned.  “What do you mean it’s been assigned to someone else?”

“Well, that number has been give to another customer and their service has been activated.  We can’t disrupt existing service.”

“Ok, fine,” I said slowly.  “Thanks for your help.”

“Now I would like to review your services,” he said hopefully.

“Dennis, I am canceling my services, so there is no reason to review them.  It’s not your fault, you’ve been very nice, but I have to go now,” and I hung up the phone.

I fumed and fretted and stewed, to no avail.  What did he mean he couldn’t disrupt existing service???  Someone disrupted my existing service to give it to someone else!!!  I just replaced the damn modem and now I was supposed to replace it again??!!!  I resolved then and there to get DSL.

But….on Saturday, when I called again, I got a different answer.  When Oscar answered the phone, I immediately asked for supervisor.  Oscar, who seemed a lot more savvy than Habib, cooly asked for my info.  I gave it to him waspishly; I was spoiling for a fight and did not want to deal with another technician.

But I told him what Dennis had told me and he asked for the MAC number so he could check the problem out.  Within ten minutes, he had it resolved.  Apparently, Friday was Dennis’s first day off the oasis and he did not know how to fix problems like Oscar.  I sobbed my thanks in his ear and then made the mistake of asking if my account could be credited for the two days I had gone without service.  He said of course, flagged my account and then sent me to billing.

Whereupon I was greeted with a thickly accented,  mumbled “Oh My God…oh….gonna have to put you on hold just a minute” and then elevator music.  I used to work in customer service and that is very bad form indeed.  I waited in confusion, as more minutes of my life trickled away like sands in an hourglass.  Finally, she came back and apologized, saying “I was having an attack of de sneezes you know.”

I gave her my information AGAIN and she began analyzing my account.  All I wanted was an adjustment, but she decided to go over it with a fine tooth comb.  “I see you have basic cable for xxxx, and expanded basic for xxxxx, and you have a box for xxxxx, and, hmmmmm, I see you made a payment of….now why is there $.96 left?”

“Um, I probably underpaid it?” I asked in confusion.  What did this have to do with my credit?

“Jes….Jes….hmmmm….and you paid this on this date…”

“Um,” I interrupted, “I just need a credit.  I’ve already been on the phone for thirty minutes.”

“Jes, but only two minutes with me!” she said waspishly.

Well, excuse me, I thought to myself, but your sneezing fit took at least two minutes, so I’ve been holding longer than that!!!!  Of course, I said nothing since I am a nice person.

Finally, after ten minutes of hemming and hawing, she gave me a $7.00 credit.  I’m not sure it was worth it, but it’s done. 

So that is the tale of my internet woes and why I have not been blogging.  It is all part of the Charter cable/Conservative Republican/AARP conspiracy to suppress my blog, the last outpost of truth and free speech!!!!   I’ll get you Habib, if it’s the last thing I do!!!!!