Telebastards

As anyone who has read...oh...any given entry in here, I am not one known for my patience when it comes to mindless idiots in consumer services. I used to work in customer service, and believe it or not, I was a nice and friendly gal (screaming quietly within). I was patient and knowledgeable in the field I was representing, because, well, that's what you are supposed to BE as a customer rep. So how is it that every other drooling fucktard that can verbalize the company name gets a job these days?!
*sigh* Enter my newest hell. Back in October, my mother realized she had an extra phone from her AT&T cell plan that she wasn't using. It wasn't activated, but was a decent cell phone, which I could 'easily' hook onto my own prepaid plan if I so chose. All I had to do was take it into an AT&T store for them to reprogram a new number for me, and make sure they knew it was in my possession instead of Mom's (I think it was for her phone insurance). Of course I snagged it, and it came in relatively handy when I went down for the Orange County fiasco. As my prepaid phone card dwindled from dropped after friggin dropped call, I decided I'd just keep it for emergencies and pray to high heaven it didn't fail me when I needed it.
So, it's now JANUARY, I'm in a new house, and all the sudden I get an AT&T bill...for my prepaid phone. Yup, I was a bit befuddled myself. Also at the fact that underneith my name, but above my addressm s printed my mom's name. So, since this thing is addressed to me, at my address, I open it. I proceed to stare at a $214.25 phone bill!!! Now, as I am on a prepaid plan, this fries my tender little brain, so I go and look at where these charges are coming from. Well, I never made these calls, and it's not my phone number it's billing. I finally realize I am holding my mother's phone bill. By the way, if you are wondering how my mom could make that many calls, she didn't, my brother has a cell phone on her plan. Kid's a gabber!
So, I call mom and update her on her new dilemma. I can certainly mail her her bill, but any new ones will still apparently come to me, and I don't need any more delinquent payments in my name (bill in question was already quite late). She's swamped at her new job, and since this bill is coming to me at my address and to my name, I figured I'd call and settle it with AT&T. How wrong I was!
Okay, I hate hate hate hate those ridiculous voice prompt customer service systems, you know, the 'friendly' voice recognition ones (for people apparently to stupid to actually figure out how to press 2 for payment options). It asks chirpily for the phone number in question, which, since it's on the bill, I chirp right back. Now, had my son been awake, I'm sure the system would've thought my phone number was "yayaya, yayaya, baaaa baaaa GOOOOO five eight." But then, a few prompt chirping bits later, it asks me for the SSN on the phone plan. I don't know my mother's SSN. I don't even know if my mom has an SSN (she's not a natural US citizen). So, I say "I dunno". It proceeds to ask me this stupid question four more times. Each time I say "I don't know", my voice gets more and more aggitated. Finally, it gives up and assumes I am a driveling idiot that it will now transfer to a customer billing agent. But then, after a couple seconds, the system HANGS UP. For any of you readers who have seen me in the flesh when I am irritated you can pretty much visualize my eyebrow twitching, lip pursed, teeth clenched aggrevated state.
I calmly punch the redial button, and get through the phone system again, although now I am not chirping, I am barking at the thing. Another four I Don't Fucking Knows later, I have a human! I explain to him the mess up. He asks for...my SSN. I repeat to him verbatim the situation again, that I am not Monica Jaynes (mom), I am Sharona Spangler (name number 1 on the bill, although it's not my bill). He says he can't discuss the bill with me if I don't have Monica's information. I explain I don't have Monica's information because Monica does not live at my house, where they erroneously sent the bill. Captain Dipshit (which has now become this man's name) reads off his little screen that he cannot discuss the billing information with me if I am not Monica. I ask him if he sees my name on his little screen. Captain Dipshit reads for a minute (I'm assuming at this point he's a slow bus kinda guy) then says yes. I tell him I know my own information because I live at this address. He pauses and then...he can't discuss the billing information with me if I am not Monica. I ask how my name is then on the account with my address. He says "Because you are the primary on the account". So, if I am the primary, why is it that I cannot get the billing address corrected? "Because Monica is who is billed for the account". Now, if Monica is being billed (as she rightly should be, my name shouldn't be anywhere on the account since I am a prepaid customer and shouldn't be the primary of anything), then why is it going to my address?! You guessed it, without missing a damn beat Captain Dipshit's response is "I cannot discuss that information with you if you are not Monica."
Click.
So, friends and future guests to my home, that is why there is an AT&T cell phone imbedded in the wall of our living room.

No more net-obsession!

Well, as you all can see by the decidedly meager amount of posts as of late in my blog, despite having a computer available (thanks, Dad!), you might be all wondering why I haven't updated my blog much. Welll.....I decided I spend way too much time on the internet. I was in four yahoo groups, three message boards, and sat on my yahoo IM all damn day, not to mention an insane amount of posts in this thing. Now granted, my net-life has given me a few new friends, and for those folks I am grateful. In fact, I even gained one gal, who in my teenage years I would've referred to as my "Best friend", and I've never actually sat face to face with her. But, the yahoo groups became irritating, the IM was a timesucker, and the message boards caused far too much ire in my day. SO...I cut myself down to only using the freecycle yahoo group, I haven't loaded yahoo IM on dad's machine, and I am only on one message board. I kept myself on the one because A) I'm a moderator there, and B) It's a food oriented message board, not exactly a place I'll have to deal with contraversy unless we're comparing margarine to real butter. I still check out mamatropolis, but not as much as I used to.
Besides, in the new house, the computer is in the non-kiddo room, so I physically can't sit on the comp all day. And since I've weened myself, I've discovered how friggin productive I can be. There was the pre-christmas baking frenzy that I flew into, and actually killed two entire bags of flour...the big ones. I made a really nifty coat rack for the entry way, a pretty jewelry box for my bedroom, and am working on a very large piece out of a junked chair (think refurbished, but Sharona style). And most importantly of all, the thing I hadn't done but once since Rick and I have been together...I painted. yup. The brushes are back, right along with the oil pastel smudged jeans. When I finished the first one the other day I felt exhilerated. And these aren't the crap pieces I had thrown together previously in my feeble attempts to rekindle my creativity. These are the big, bold, out of my head and onto the paper pieces that I used to paint back when I had something to prove with it. Only now I don't have anything to prove, so they are perhaps even more inspired. I'm going to actually tack on a side blog to this one so I can track my artistic progress this year. Read it if you are into that sort of thing, as I am going to put pics of the house-holdy type stuff as well as my paintings. Perhaps it may inspire my other friends to once again tap into their creative brains.
ENjoy the link on my sidebar entitled "Creative Blog", and I will still keep this one apprised of my latest rantings, irks, irritations, and all other Hoodlum mischeif.

Commenting ona comment

Since this comment was so beautifully worded, I must humbly reply as best I can. First, so my readers don't have to go digging for it, I'll post what I am replying to.

You have an interesting website. The pictures of your little boy are adorable but it concerns me that you ( his mother) have such a "potty mouth". I contribute it to you being young and uneducated. Educated people with "sense" about themselves refrain from using profanity to get their point across. You certainly do have a "chip" on yuor shoulder. I made reference to "sense" because you obviously lack much due to all the tattoos that you have chosen to decorate your body with. It is sad to say that your son will be penalized for it. "trash breads trash"~I hope that you do some soul searching for the sake of your little boy. Not many parents want to have their child around people with tattoos out the ying yang~ so that will limit your little boy. Get the chip off your shoulder ( you said you had one on your website) and and clean up your act.

Now the irony is, I have an idea who posted this. There was a little war on the food boards a while ago, and I was using my Mother Hoodlum name, which is very easily trackable to my blog. But, since she obviously wishes to embroil me further...bring it on, sister.
It's idiots like you who created such a chip on my shoulder. To have the audacity to bring up my parenting abilities, or even my child at ALL, is ridiculous, and a pathetic attempt to raise yourself on a petty moral high horse which is not impressing anyone. So step off it, and come down to the real world. There are LEGIONS of parents like me, decorated in body and spirit, and we are all a heck of a lot more open minded than biblethumping morons like you who care nothing for freedom and everything for your precious 'values'. My son will grow up seeing people for who they are, on the inside, which unfortunately means he'll probably run screaming from folks like yourself. My tattoos are deeply symbolic, and are frankly, none of your business. As for my lack of sense, well, dear, at least I don't try to continue infantile discussions with people I know nothing about and lambast them on the most inane principles and attack their parenting abilities.
Now, since I did all that without usings "Satans Vulgarity", I'd like to finish my rebutal with a kindly placed GO FUCK YOURSELF.

Curious looking into the past

It's amazing when you pack up your entire universe into boxes, when you unpack them, you see pieces of your life you don't really remember. When I was a teenager, I hated writing in diaries, so I kept little bound journals of poetry (I know, how goth of me). Amusing myself, I picked one out of the box and was flipping through it, bewildered as to my younger take on life. I suppose I was as bitter then as I am now, only now it's just a bit less rough around the edges.
So, since a New Year often creates reflections on those past, I thought I'd share one of them, as perhaps it can sit with you as it has with me.

It's one of those days
When you feel like crying
Or Laughing
Or just sitting down
And eating peanut butter
With a cigarette
Poked between your fingers.

I want no part of this
Emotional Tunnel train
So just let me off at the next stop
I'll just put my head on
My knees and listen to Led Zepplin
On my headphones and wish you away.

REALITY CHECKS IN

No cheap drugstore
5 penny romance novel kisses...
No powerful man exactly five inches
Taller than you and holding you just so.
Noises bang, things drop
And there's always an uncomfortable
Hight difference.

I'm honestly not sure when I wrote this or why. The poetry later in the book dates 95-96, so I was still in high school, although I know I didn't start smoking until my sophmore year. I also know I never once listened to Led Zepplin, so that line confounded me. So, I was approximately 14 or 15 when I wrote this and it perplexes me as to what I am attempting to possibly relate in this prose. At least even back then I had a particular grip on the realities of life, although still expressing the appropriate teenage angst.
In yet another bound book that was quite tattered with age I found perhaps the most poignent piece of all, and I scared myself at it's accuracy...
The faults you find in yourself you shall seek to hate in all your enemies.
After all these years and people who've angered me, above all other things, that which irritates me the most is still hypocrisy.