“I’m a polygraph away from getting a taser, mace, and a gun!”
-a friend who is applying for entrance into the Police Academy
Surrender
Yesterday, in our continuing efforts to break up with our bank, I went to clean out our safety deposit box and turn in our keys. I also had to sign our original contract and state that I had, in fact, done these things. Interestingly enough this act was not referred to as anything like “Termination of Contract” or “End of Rental Agreement.” It was termed “Surrender“, which I thought was ironically appropriate, given the fact that we’ve been locked in unending mortal combat with this institution for the past year.
So yes, we may have surrendered this particular battle. But seeing as how we have already opened up new accounts with a bank that does not cause its customers to feel as if they are being repeatedly and inappropriately violated in their most tender parts with sharp, pointy objects, we are most definitely winning the war.
Government By The People
Tonight in the car, on the way home from voting.
Me (to my husband): “What is eminent domain?”
My husband (so stunned that he physically recoils): “Did you take Civics?”
Me: “Ye-es.”
My husband (in a tone that clearly says, I cannot believe I let you sleep in my bed every night): “Do you watch the news?”
Me: “No. Could you please just answer my question without trying to make me feel bad?”
My husband: “Um, no, apparently not.”
A Tiny Moral Quandary
When we first moved into our house seven years ago, our next door neighbors were wonderfully welcoming. They lent us tools to use when we worked in the yard, they helped us repair our roof when the ice storm hit, and they brought us tons of freshly canned fruits and vegetables that they grew in their own backyard.
But as time went on we started seeing them, especially the man, less and less. He was already quite elderly when we met, and was suffering from a number of different health problems. And now it’s been about a year since I’ve actually seen him at all. So here’s my quandary: I think he might have died, but there is really no good way to find out whether or not that’s true. Because no matter how I’ve tried to formulate this question in my mind, it always comes out sounding like some variation of,”So, did the old fart finally kick the bucket”.
And what makes it worse is that I have seen a new man over there, quite frequently. And I can only assume that he lives there, because almost every time I’ve seen him he’s been standing outside the front door, smoking in his underwear. I’m not a smoker myself, but as far as I know being almost naked is not a regular part of smoking protocol. I have friends who smoke, and not once have I ever had a conversation with them that went like this:
My friend: “Hey, Jenny, do you mind if I go out on your porch and smoke a cigarette?”
Me: “No, not at all. Go right ahead.”
My friend: “OK, great, thanks. Just let me take me take off my pants.”
So there you go. Monica and Rachel had Ugly Naked Guy; we’ve got Nearly Naked Smoker. I can live with that.
Breaking Up: Still Hard To Do, But Getting Easier
Tomorrow we are going to break up with our bank. And I can’t wait!
Earlier this year I wrote about how I moved some of our accounts over to a new financial institution. Because, as I said, “I decided that I was tired of paying the old bank every month just for the privilege of keeping my money there.” More and more our monthly statements were starting to look like this:
Monthly Service Fees:
Driving past our building on the way to the grocery store: $3.00
Breathing air: $5.00
I have been ready to leave them for a while now, but my husband was not quite ready to pull the plug on this banking relationship. (“I’ve been with them longer than I’ve been with you.”) Until we received a letter from our bank informing us that it was time to pay the annual rental fee for our safety deposit box. It was the same old stuff, until we got to the part explaining that, seeing as how this fee was no longer going to be automatically paid to the bank (since the account that used to pay it has since been closed), it was now going to cost us an extra $25 to rent this box because we were going to be sending the payment in manually.
I can only imagine that this new fee breaks down something like this:
Having to take time out from sucking away all our clients’ money by opening an envelope: $2.00
Possibility of getting a paper cut from opening said envelope: $2.00
Expensive bottled water transported directly from clear mountain springs on the back of tiny, beribboned poodles in order to replace the saliva lost when we said, “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, we figured out how to get extra money out of you even though you’re no longer sending us payments automatically! Neener, neener, pppffbbtt!”
Manicure for poodles: $1.00
I really, really REALLY hate this bank! (Also? Not that fond of poodles.) And we need to get out now while we can, because I know it’s only a matter of time before our bank statements start to look like this:
Medicine needed to relieve headache brought on by excessive meditation on the question, “How can we suck away even more of our customers’ money?”: $10.00
Expensive, hand-woven towels and personal manservants needed to delicately mop the sweat off of our furrowed brows: $250.00
Bonbons needed to stimulate the rush of endorphins that will cause us to have the brilliant revelation that actually, our clients should just be automatically turning over every single cent they ever make to us, and hey, why aren’t they doing that already?!: $1,000.00
Penalty for failure to automatically sign over to bank all paychecks and personal assets: $100 katrillion dollars, + 1 kidney + firstborn child.
Needless to say, I am VERY excited about tomorrow. Because,
monthly payment to host website: $19.95
electricity: $15.00
hating: FREE!
The opportunity to snark about my bank online so as to milk every possible drop of enjoyment out of breaking up with them: priceless
The Best Things I Heard This Weekend
This weekend we spent time with a friend we hadn’t seen in a while. Her job recently came to an end, and knowing that she would soon no longer be seeing these people every day she spent her remaining time with them collecting the funny things they said. Here, for your reading enjoyment, are a few of those gems.
Two Guys Discussing A “Man Law”:
Guy One: “Dammit, [Guy Two], you never listen to Luther Vandross when other guys are around!”
Two Women Discussing The Projected Path Of A Potential Relationship:
Woman One (to Woman Two): “It starts off where you’re dressing up as Little Bo Peep, and the next thing you know he’s wearing your skin.”
English As A Second Language:
Guy One (who is from America): “Hey, [Guy Two], your desk looks like crap.”
Guy Two (who is from China): “What?”
Guy One: “Your desk. It looks like crap.”
Guy Two: “No. My desk look more like lobster.”
Guy One: “No. CRAP!”
Guy Two: “I know crap! Crap have eight legs and live in ocean!”
Sometimes Friendships End
And that really sucks.
It’s a lot like breaking up.
On the Five Stages Of Grief scale, I’m alternating between “I Hate Your F*^&*@# Guts!” (deleting them from my phone, looking for some possession of theirs I can destroy) and, “Why Don’t You Want Me As A Friend Anymore?” (Much. Crying.)
It’s good to have other friends now, friends who read the emails I write them and say, “It sounds like you’re in the dark place. Please call me when you’re in the dark place. You don’t have to go there by yourself.”
It’s also good to have a coach, who teaches me tools to help me through my various life experiences.
It’s not so good to be a coach though, because then I just pound myself with so many “shoulds”. “You should be over this by now.” “You shouldn’t be so upset.” “You should’ve known better.”
So it’s good to have a coach who will step in and take the tools away from me temporarily. “I feel like I gave you a shovel, and instead of just having some fun digging around you tore up your whole yard,” she said to me. Actually it was more like she gave me a shovel and I used it to beat myself into the ground.
Now I’m on “Self-Help Restriction”. “You’re grounded from using any tools until the next time we talk,” was her verdict.
Good call.
I can’t wait for this week to be over.
Coffee Is The New Black
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
Back when I was in high school peer pressure was easy to spot, and there were always very clear-cut reasons available to me for saying “No”. Smoking? Um, no thanks, on account of all the cancer and all the death. Drinking? Hm, think I’ll pass, as I have no desire for my parents to kill me for engaging in such behavior. Sex? I couldn’t stand anyone else’s children; I certainly didn’t want any of my own.
But by the time I finally finished school, got married, and entered my thirties, I began to relax. Surely, I thought, the time of being scorned for being “different” had passed.
Oh silly, naive woman.
All that getting older meant was that I was now eligible to experience Peer Pressure For The 21st Century. What might that be, you ask? Only every time someone turns to me and says, “Hey, you wanna go and get some coffee?” Because no, I don’t. And apparently, the fact that I am thirty-four years old and do not drink coffee makes me just as much of a nerd now as I was back when I wore maroon knee socks to the first day of eighth grade. [Read more…] about Coffee Is The New Black
Just Taking The Wind Right Out Of My Sails
Today, I was attacked by nature.
I was outside, doing my part to be a good neighbor and bring the trash can back down to the house, when suddenly I noticed an odd sensation in my right hand.
So I looked down and discovered that half of my right hand was entirely covered in fire ants, and the “odd sensation” was actually THE BURNING PAIN OF THEIR FLAMING, VENOMOUS BITES!
Not surprisingly (for someone with a severe anxiety disorder, I mean), I’ve spent this entire day manically flexing my hand to make sure I haven’t lost any mobility in my muscles, and wondering if there is any such thing as “Fire Ant Anti-Venom” and should I really be making more of an effort to find some, along with trying really hard not to freak out and envision their poison slowly yet relentlessly traveling up my arm in order to wreak its deadly havoc throughout my entire body.
So I just emailed this beautifully crafted story of my day to a friend of mine, and do you know his response was? “Be thankful, because when I get bitten by fire ants, I can die.”
Thanks, dude. Way to completely eliminate All Dramatic Impact Whatsoever from my story.
And don’t even get me started on the conversation I just had with another male friend who, when I gently suggested that women might possibly have had more of a role in the shaping of our history than would be suggested by the traditional, “accepted” textbooks, went off on a rant against “revisionist” history, where clearly “revisionist” was a code word for “fascist, communist, anti-American, mother-hating, puppy-killing, Nazi brainwashing propaganda.”
Geez! What does a girl have to do around here to get a friendly audience?
Do You Think My In-Laws Are Trying To Tell Me Something?
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
Here’s why I ask. My husband just called them because he just remembered that it was his dad’s birthday 2 days ago, and we did not call or send a card, and now we are totally on their *&%# list.
So he came out into my office after he got off the phone and he was wearing the face you’d expect on someone who has discovered that, even if you’ve been married for 10 years, and are a responsible, hard-working, law-abiding, home-owning grownup, you are never to old to be in big trouble with your parents.
Then he said, “My parents have a new pet.” So I thought that maybe he was looking down because their dog, Riley, had died.
But no. Riley is just fine. Instead, it was that he was responsible for breaking to me the news that, “They have adopted a snake.” (Snakes only being, to my mind, The Most Terrifying Things In Existence.)
Apparently they had some people working on their lawn, and these people brought them outside to show them the snake they’d found.
“We need to get rid of this snake,” said the lawn people. What an excellent response.
Other appropriate responses:
“Bring me the flame thrower!”
or, “Why the *%$@ don’t we have a flame thrower?!”
My father-in-law’s response? “Wait. Let me look that snake up on the Internet.”
Long story short, the snake is now living in a special snake spot in their backyard, almost directly touching the outside of the room that my husband and I stay in when we go to visit my in-laws. And I just can’t help wondering, is there a message in that for me?
