I’ll spare you the details of this first admission. And for anyone who actually knows the details about this will tell you that the term – spare you – is really quite an understatement. Next Tuesday, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I will be having surgery. It’s not dramatic, but it will require going under general anesthesia. This little fact has caused a little anxiety. I mean shit, they give you this pamphlet for you to read that tells you while this procedure is minor – YOU COULD EFFIN DIE. I would be the only person in 200 years to die from this procedure. Whatever. I will just do what I have been doing and pretend that I’m not having surgery.
Ok all that aside, I have been feeling pretty crappy for months – thus the succumbing to the mere idea that this procedure is probably 5 years over-due. It’s amazing how much pain a person will live with, or rather become comfortable with the notion that shit just hurts sometimes and life goes on. Deal. It’s screwed with my sleep patterns a bit and made me just feeling a bit run down to the point that while anxiety provoking in its own right, I secretly and desperately look forward to this fixing my busted body.
WHICH SHOULD BE NOTED THAT IT’S POSSIBLE THAT THIS SURGERY WON’T FIX A DAMN THING.
Super awesome, right? I digress…
We’re done with the surgery pretext. The second pretext (because no story of mine can just be 4-sentences and funny) occurred a couple of years ago. I’ll give you the short of the long… Someone had it out for me, I firmly believe. Two of my tires were slashed in my parking garage. I was getting hang-up phone calls over-and-over again and at all hours of the night. THEN the icing on the cake was one day I came home from work and my peep-hole on my door was almost unscrewed in its entirety. Now, maybe I am just a dumb chick, but I was pretty perplexed as to how this could even happen. Like did I shut my door too hard and forced it out? Cute, I know. It wasn’t until Casey came over and I was telling him I couldn’t get it back in its original resting place, that he tells me that people break into apartments by unscrewing peep-holes and put some kind of object through the opening to pop open the locks on apartment doors. WTF? Ridiculous. So Casey being Casey and after he fixed the peep-hole, fidgets with the hidden top-lock to make it lock back farther than it should making it harder to pop open if someone was in-fact trying to break into my apartment. Sounded like a good idea… until today.
ASIDE: When the peep-hole thing happened, I had decided it was probably time to call the police and report all these occurrences. You know, get it documented and all. I was also hoping to get the number that was calling me repeatedly since the little effer would call me from a blocked number. Which PS (AKA an aside IN an aside) I learned that you can’t block blocked numbers any more. Stupid effin AT&T. And when I called AT&T to find out if they could give me the number this bitch tells me there is ZERO way to figure out what a number is when it’s been blocked. Ok, WHAT? So me being me, I say – So let me get this straight… you mean to tell me if a person is murdered and the last call on their phone right before they are murdered is from a blocked number, you are telling me that the police are shit-out-of -luck on retrieving that number because according to you blocked numbers go into this amazing blocked number abyss? Is THIS what you are telling me? There’s ZERO documentation of blocked numbers? I mean seriously, how the hell do they train you guys? In someone’s garage with kool-aid and purple blankets? To which she then responded with – well, yes there is documentation, but it has to be requested by the police. Which prompted my next call… to the police. At any rate, back to the original aside – the police officer asks me who I’ve pissed off recently and my only response after an uncomfortable pause was – well now, that could be a long list. She was silent and then told me she would document the events and to call back when I had a better idea of who wanted to probably murder me. Bet AT&T would give them the damned blocked number then. Bastards. Whatever.
Ok now to this morning… finally. I actually got amazing sleep last night. First time in awhile. I’m up, dressed and looking better than the ½ dead look I’ve been sporting the last month or so. Today’s going to be a good day. Well, that’s when I should have known that this COULDN’T be true. Yeah… wasn’t. I go over to my front door to leave and what’s this? The top hidden bolt is effin broken. I mean spinning all the way around and not unlocking. Let’s get this straight…
I’M OFFICIALLY LOCKED INSIDE MY APARTMENT.
Which ultimately caused me a little panic. This is obscured, really. I know this. There have been countless lazy Sunday’s where I didn’t leave my apartment once or leave my couch for this matter. But the mere knowledge that I COULD leave my apartment at any time just was. Today, not so much. I’m trapped in here. On the 4th floor. I literally can’t get out. Yeah, semi-freaked out. Fine I’m ridiculous. I’m ready to admit this… it’s who I am. I’m ok with it… you should get ok with it if you’re not. Anyhow, I call down to my apartments to get them to send someone out to let me the eff out. I get the answering service here. DON’T GET ME STARTED ON OUR GHETTO-ASS ANSWERING SERVICE. I’ll leave that at that and spare you from a 3rd aside. They say they will send someone as soon as possible. My anxiety of being trapped had subsided with the knowledge that someone was coming. I call my brother to tell him why I am going to be late to work because I am locked inside my apartment. All he does is laugh. Hysterically. Saying something like – you’d be laughing if it was me. (I probably would have but I was stressing out a bit… it was funny later… kinda).
40-minutes later… things were getting a little heightened. I call back and the apartments are now officially open and they say the answering service requests take 30-minutes to 1½ hours to be answered. I guess me being locked in my apartment wasn’t a crisis for them – WAS FOR ME. So they say they’ll send someone immediately. 5-minutes later, there’s a knock on my door… OMG! Salvation… maintenance guy’s here.
He knocks and I say from inside the apartment – Hey I’m trapped in here.
HIM – ok, open the door to let me in to look at the lock.
ME – no you don’t understand, the lock is broken and I am trapped in here. I can’t unlock the door, thus the problem. (Which I had explained the problem to the answering service AND the idiot girl at the apartment complex.)
HIM – oh, shit. Ok, well sounds like I need a drill. I’ll be right back.
** While that sunk in as I heard his footsteps AWAY from me getting out of the apartment, I knew he didn’t understand that I meant the top hidden bolt. Drill ain’t gonna help dude. Nothing to drill. I’m never getting out of here!
** 5-minutes later.
HIM – ok, stand back from the door.
ME – no, no you don’t understand, it’s the TOP HIDDEN BOLT.
HIM – oh… shit… ok… hang on… shit… ok… let me think about this.
** 30-second pause.
HIM – Ok, do you have a Philips Head?
ME – Yes.
HIM – use it to take the cover off the top bolt completely.
** PS I had already frantically been attempting to do this for the 40-minutes it took him to get to my apartment in the 1st place. It became more frantic as more time passed of me being trapped in my apartment.
ME – I’ve been trying to do that, it’s not coming loose.
HIM – keep trying.
** 2-minutes later, I yank the shit out of it, stripping the screws and sweating a bit.
ME – got it, now what?
HIM – what do you see?
ME – a door and what appears to be what a dead bolt looks like when you remove the cover. (sarcastically… what do I see… you kidding me?)
HIM – what kind of dead bolt is it?
ME – a dead bolt man, I don’t know.
HIM – what does it look like?
ME – an EFFIN dead bolt man… what do you want me to say?
HIM – ok, tell you what… there’s 2 kinds of dead bolts we use here. Look through the peep-hole and I will hold the 1st 1 up. If it looks like yours tell me. If not, we’ll know it’s the 2nd.
ME – it’s not the 1st one.
HIM – ok, take your screw driver and make sure this little piece at the top is all the way to the right.
ME – it IS all the way to the right.
HIM – your right, right? Not my right, right?
ME – dude, right is right. Your right would be left. What are you talking about? It’s all the way to MY right.
HIM – hmmm, shit… well ok… shit… ok… hang on here… ok…
** 30-seconds pass.
HIM – ok, well see if you can stick the screw driver in and push the bolt back manually.
ME – no man, I don’t have one that will work. One is too small and the other is too big.
HIM – shit… ok… hang on… ok… shit…
** 30-seconds pass.
HIM – ok, I’m going to get a crow bar and wedge it in to give you some more room. When I pull it back, see if you can get the bolt out.
ME – ok.
** 2-minutes later.
ME – I’m free!!! On a positive note, I do feel safer given that it’s this difficult to get into the hidden bolt. Do you need me? I’m late to work and need to go.
HIM – nope, I can finish this up and lock it for you.
I bail out and head to work. I get there about 45-minutes late and disheveled. My brother is still laughing and I was getting texted by everyone who knows both my brother and me – saying gay shit like… trapped in your own apartment, loser! Awesome. Thanks Jeremy.
I mean… this is my life. I had to be troubleshot through a peep-hole on how to exit my own residence – a task I have been doing for 3-years now all on my own but now needed assistance. It made me think of when I get old and depend on someone else to do shit for me that I used to be able to do and now can’t… and I’m old and not a priority and they’ll get there when they get there… then use some technical jargon about how to fix something and I’ll be saying back when I was your age, we just had things called iPhones. Traumatic. The whole thing really.
I’m not dramatic. Shut-up.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
let's talk mexico...
Now, I believe that anyone has been to Mexico will say that it’s quite possibly the most amazing place on earth. Granted, there are places that are far more beautiful, have better attractions, better oceans, better everything… but Mexico in it’s beautiful simplicity has that numbing effect of euphoric idealizations of quitting your life back home and working in an all-inclusive resort for the rest of your life. People never want to leave. When I am there, I never want to leave. On October 28th my best friend and I took off for the Riviera Maya for 4-days / 3-nights.
Let’s pause for a moment and let me introduce you to my parents. My mom and dad are creatures of habit, rarely veering from a world that they know and trust.
My father, while being quite possibly the smartest man I know, is not one who will take an undefined risk. I mean he’ll play the stock market and call it risky, but really he’s bought every book written on how to play it effectively and successfully. While some minor follies may have occurred on the road to being a stock market Billy Badass, the risks he took weren’t undefined or uncalculated. When I told my father that I planned on taking a job right out of college that was based on a salary and commission structure, while attempting to be supportive, the mere thought of having an undefined paycheck every check wasn’t a risk he could effectively calculate to a certainty. Which, this isn’t to say that he didn’t think he’d be the best at whatever he chose to do; it was more driven to the uncertainty of the whole notion. His advice was something along the lines of – well, I wouldn’t do it. I did it anyway.
My father, differing from my mother in this way, will pass a quick and non-condoning comments of distaste for things that occur. I tell him that I am planning to go to Mexico and he says, “Well, I sure wouldn’t. It’s dangerous there. You know the government is on the edge of collapse? Your choice though.” and after that we don’t discuss it farther. Like – I hear you… I’m still going. He says… I wouldn’t but ok, I hope you have fun.
My mother… God love her… Lord knows I do. She can bring herself to Defcon 10 crisis status over the simplest of things. Let’s start small. While she still to this day says this was all a joke, I’ve known this woman all of – oh I don’t know – my whole effin life and this was no joke. She called me from a Tollbooth one time on the North Dallas Tollway telling me, “The toll costs 35 cents and I threw in 40 because, that’s all I had. Where do I get my change?” To which I said, “YOU DON’T… DRIVE. Looking for change at a tollbooth is how you DIE in North Dallas!! DRIVE! I’ll give you the 5 cents.” Then this inspired my rant about the prices of the tollbooth and how no one ever has the odd change they ask for… a ploy to make more money, I call it. I digress. This is also the same woman who to this day and some of you might actually have to look up this term, BALANCES her checkbook to the penny. I mean, if she’s off by 5 cents on her side, she FINDS it. Rarely does she write this off, like the rest of us do, to not writing something down properly. Which who the hell writes shit down in a checkbook anymore? Do you even have a checkbook or friggin checks for that matter? Shit no. You log in online (probably from your phone) check your balance and move the eff on.
Which before I move on… I do have a funny story about my mom, naturally. So, when I was in college, I’d learned of this amazing thing called a Check Card. I’d been using mine for years. I happened to be down at my parent’s house one weekend and I was in the car with my mom while she was going to pick up a prescription. She was pulling out her checkbook as we waited in line. I immediately cut in on her about how checks and checkbooks were for losers. Like to this day if you’re in line at a store to purchase something and the old women in front of you pulls out her checkbook, you think OH LORD… use your ATM card already and join the 21st Century. I’m telling her how I’ve never written a check one and my life is amazingly easy and no one has ever stolen my identity. It’s perfectly safe. She inquires about what I do when I used it when I went to restaurants. She says, “So you let a waiter walk off with your card to run it for your food? Oh, no, no. I would never let my card leave my sight. They could steal your number when they walk behind the wall. Oh no, no. I would never. You should be more careful.” I laughed and continued to prod her to use her ATM card at Walgreens and see how easy it is. I said something to the effect of, “Who’d want your identity anyhow?” So much against her comfort-level, she used the ATM card at the drive-thru for her prescription. Now, I will save you the suspense to tell you that it just so happened that this person who was ringing her up at Walgreens did in-fact steal her credit card number and drained her account. While, I was floored by the news, I laughed. Hard. There I am convincing her how safe it is and then BOOM 20minutes later, her checking account is cleared out. Let’s just say that to this day, the whole ATM card thing is a bit touchy. I still find it funny. I can’t help it. She got all the money back and quickly. I mean short of a little bit of a pain in the ass, it wasn’t all that dramatic. I mean, still… it’s really kinda hilarious! I really can’t help it.
Ok, moving on. When I selected the apartment that I have lived in for going on 3-years, she panicked over the thought of my only having 1 real closet in the apartment. So there I am worrying about my apt choice for completely important reasons unlike the amount of closets it came with – it was the most expensive apt I’d lived in before and was more worried about sustaining the rent should anything happen to the job I had. You know important shit. Well, she got herself all worked up about it saying that I needed to go look at other apts and make a different decision. Now, I was past this point. I’d picked my apt and had paid a deposit fee that was non-refundable and substantial and well… I was moving in. It wasn’t up for discussion. Let’s just say that she met her Defcon 10 dramatics when I got frustrated with her and told her that I wasn’t going to continue looking and that this was my apt and that was that. The last thing she muttered before she took to the silent treatment was, “Well don’t call me when you have no space. I’m just trying to help. I don’t know why you’re snapping at me. You’re the one in the wrong here.” Sweet Jesus! She’s my mother and regardless of anything else, I apologized (eventually) and just asked her to be happy for me. She accepted the apology and said, “I just can’t be happy for your choice tho.” LOL. God love her!
So my mother’s take on Mexico was CANCEL the trip ASAP. The moment I told her I was going she began emailing me links to articles showing how bad Mexico was. I got a text telling me to check my email before I left for the trip. It was the article about the hotel in Cancun that had been hit by a bomb from the drug cartel. She followed that up with a phone call saying that she’d heard that they might be stopping all travel in and out of Mexico. I hadn’t heard (and still haven’t heard) of anything of the sort. She sent emails of alternate safer locations that I could visit instead saying that she was sure Travelocity would change my flight for the minimal cost of potentially saving my life – as I was taking my life into my own hands by “choosing” to go into Mexico. I mean, up until the day I left, she had been trying to convince me not to go.
Quick ASIDE: During this whole time, there was a very real possibility that I would be flying into Mexico and transporting from the airport to the hotel all on my own. A fact I for the obvious reasons didn’t share with my parents. Up until a couple of weeks before the trip did I find out that that wouldn’t be the case. But could you imagine that little conversation?! Shit no, I couldn’t either and so I just decided that while this fact was a bit nerve racking and stressful to me, I would just be uber safe in regards to transport, if I had to go it on my own, because damnit… I was going!!
I told both of my parents that I would text them when I got there and let them know the hotel details. It’s just good practice anyhow to let someone know where you are exactly. Plus it’d calm their frantic minds who by their imaginations freedom, I’d been kidnapped by the cartel, stolen away into the sex slave trade or at the very worse killed. Seemed a simple gesture and promised that my texts wouldn’t be blowing up looking for status updates costing me $400 in international texts. Mission accomplished.
I will say, that I texted both my mom and dad when I was on my way to the airport in Mexico. My dad responded with, “I’m glad to hear it and I will feel much better when you are on American soil. Love, Dad.” Mom chose to respond only when I texted her when we landed in the US with a, “WHEW… YAY!” To which I actually think before she texted them, she made them an emphatic verbal reality.
Ok, so let’s talk about Mexico a bit. When we arrived in Mexico, we were ushered into the security line. While being annoyed with having to wait in a line, it moved fairly quickly. The security line wasn’t the issue. The customs line, on the other hand was total mass chaos. We walk to the large room where a snake-like line had formed with little to no understanding where the end of the line actually existed. After walking the whole room and having more than 20 people first tell us that where we were standing wasn’t the end of the line and pointed us in an direction that ultimately also wasn’t the end of the line. After 5-10 minutes of complete confusion, we find what we believed to be the end of the line. There were no ropes up to keep people in order. There were no Mexican airport workers directing people. There was just MASS amounts of people who while in a quasi-line were directing other people. 5 Jamaican women had made it to the back of the line behind us. There was bitching about the line and how long it took to find the end; so much so, that I felt compelled to join in and bitch about our frustration.
Easily 2-3minutes after I’d made my new friends, the line in front of us broke up and dispersed. We thought the lines had become more organized. Which ultimately was just absurd when you really think of the absolute disorganization of the whole situation. As we progress forward inquiring as to what was happening, a lady who was in the line in front of us says, “It looks like there’s going to be a fight up there.” We’re all trying to figure out where and with who? Between the Mexican security and a passenger? Two passengers? What the hell? So what was what we considered mass chaos before, it had now turned into a disaster area. We move towards where the customs checks were happening. The 5 Jamaican women follow closely. When we get to a good view point of what was happening, we didn’t see a fight happening at all. We saw that there was no remanence of a line left. Instead people were clamoring and pushing to just make it to the roped off section to move through the customs line. It was at this point that I turned to the Jamaican women and said with the 5 of you and the 2 of us, we make a solid group. If we stick together, we’ll be 7-deep and we’ll look out for each other. They bought in without a second question. The most predominant of the 5 women took the lead. Within 2minutes and her yelling at me not to fall behind and stick together, she’d fought her way through the crowd and we were in the roped off line for the customs check. This didn’t go without several near fights that occurred as we pushed through the crowed. You’d think that once we were in the roped off area we were safe, but no. People who’d been waiting in line, clearly longer than we had, were pissed that people had made it into the customs line before they did. They started tearing down the ropes and pushing into the line. One couple was pointing out a guy in a yellow shirt who they’d known for a fact was behind them in the line originally and who was now at the customs counter in front of them and discussing beating his ass as soon as they could get to him and reminded each other not to lose sight of him. I let that couple cut in front of me. There was another guy in line with his kids yelling at his wife who was 2 rope lines away from him with a MASSIVE cart carrying several bags of luggage. He undid the ropes and instructed her to run over whoever she needed to, to be up in the line with him and the kids. He said things like SCREW THEM, PUSH THRU. She noticeably wanted to but knew that it was not the proper thing to do. Let’s just say that she gingerly ran over my flip-flopped foot. I yanked it out, side-stepped to get in front of that disaster and moved quickly to a customs counter.
You know for all the bitching we do about the good old US of A sometimes, I couldn’t help but think that no matter what, in America, this would have never happened. Shit, I’d would have been scared to even attempt a mob-setting at the US airport. With my track record, I would have ended up in jail… possibly rightfully so. Hard to say. No one at any point from the Mexican security or airport staff attempted in any capacity to help regulate the line and/or the mob rushing the customs counter. There were several moments sprinkled in there that legitimately scared me. Then I thought about that original possibility that I could have been going through all of that by myself.
Let’s also suffice it to say that when recounting my amazing trip to Mexico to my parents, I naturally neglected to share this part of the trip with them.
Once we got to the hotel, it was damn amazing. The hotel stretched at least along 2-miles of beach. It wasn’t on a strip line in Cancun other people can meander down the beach from several hotels. This beach was reserved for the occupants of the hotel. It was super relaxing. Our porch had a hammock. I love hammocks. I actually believe my love of hammocks to be unnatural. I probably spent equally as much time in that hammock reading as I did eating and swimming!
On to my ridiculousness. The 1st night that we were there, there was what they called Dorado Idle. We were staying at the El Dorado Royal and this was their karaoke version of finding the next American Idle. One of the guys that is friends with my best friend/cousin and works with her at her current company hung out with us the entire weekend. I decided that I loved him early on. He’s the type of guy you invite out when you are sitting around going – Who should we invite out that will be super fun and zero drama? Friggin SAM that’s who. So there we are watching this karaoke thing going on and Sam says to me, “What would it take you to get up there and sing something?” and I said, “Not a damn thing, I’ll do it if you sign me up.” After going back and forth on song selections, I say, “Sign me up under the name Night Hawk and put me down for Shoop by Salt n’ Pepa, and I’ll do it.” Off Amy went to sign me up. When she gets back to the table she says, “You’ll be glad to know that I just slid you into the last spot that they had open.” We all laughed. So when the last name was called… NIGHT HAWK… which was never more funny hearing it in a thick Mexican accent, I acted surprised and walked up to the stage. When I got on stage, he wanted to know what my real name was and I said my given name was Night Hawk. He stared at me. Then he says, “Are you ready?” and I (playing it up to its fullest) say, “I’m not sure. I didn’t sign myself up so I have no idea what I am singing.” Everyone laughed when they saw it was Shoop.
Now, this wouldn’t be the 1st time I have ever karaoked this song. It’s never gone well, let’s say. But it’s always funny nonetheless. The song is fast and there are words in there that I have been singing wrong for 17+ years. I expected a total disaster. But this was the 1st time that I can comfortably say that I damn near nailed this song. I mean, there was only 1 part where I had to stop and pick it back up as opposed to my usual 10-15times. For the entire weekend, people were coming up to me to tell me how amazing I was and how I should have won 1st place. (This vaguely reminded me of the drunken booty shakin’ contest that I took 2nd place in, in Vegas a couple of years ago; a different story for a different time.) There was one instance where Amy, Sam and I were at dinner and someone whispered, “Look, there’s the rapper!” LMAO. The rapper. That’s straight hilarity. I should also mention that we were in Mexico for a work trip for Amy and Sam’s company. They had meetings 1st thing in the morning and 1 in the evening but after that their time was 100% free. 95% of the hotels occupancy was taken up by people that worked for my cousins company. I found this funny when I went up on stage as Night Hawk and came down a friggin Rapper!
I will end this little blog ranting on night 1 in Mexico. I will tell you that I did drink that night. I wasn’t belligerently drunk when I sang Shoop. I had more sense than that, but I was well into several Vodka/Diets and after I sang pushing me over the edge took little effort. The last thing I remember of night 1 in Mexico was discussing in great detail how the 3 of us were going back to our hotel room and ordering hamburgers from room service; which we promptly did. In between that and when the burgers arrived, I’d passed out. What I woke up to was Sam standing over me, drunkenly wafting a hamburger under my nose saying that if I didn’t wake up and enjoy this amazingness, he was going to eat my burger and his. I took this as no idle threat. I sat up long enough to eat my entire burger and to take a bite of a RANCID piece of cheesecake that I apparently NEEDED when I was the one ordering room service.
I leave you with this… it becomes increasingly difficult to identify when a cheesecake is the WRONG color of brown (the joke here is that cheesecake should NEVER be brown) when you’ve been heavily drinking. I hadn’t needed to throw up, until that fateful bite. NOTE to you… just don’t order cheesecake in Mexico. I think we all learned a little something here. What though, I’m not really sure…
Let’s pause for a moment and let me introduce you to my parents. My mom and dad are creatures of habit, rarely veering from a world that they know and trust.
My father, while being quite possibly the smartest man I know, is not one who will take an undefined risk. I mean he’ll play the stock market and call it risky, but really he’s bought every book written on how to play it effectively and successfully. While some minor follies may have occurred on the road to being a stock market Billy Badass, the risks he took weren’t undefined or uncalculated. When I told my father that I planned on taking a job right out of college that was based on a salary and commission structure, while attempting to be supportive, the mere thought of having an undefined paycheck every check wasn’t a risk he could effectively calculate to a certainty. Which, this isn’t to say that he didn’t think he’d be the best at whatever he chose to do; it was more driven to the uncertainty of the whole notion. His advice was something along the lines of – well, I wouldn’t do it. I did it anyway.
My father, differing from my mother in this way, will pass a quick and non-condoning comments of distaste for things that occur. I tell him that I am planning to go to Mexico and he says, “Well, I sure wouldn’t. It’s dangerous there. You know the government is on the edge of collapse? Your choice though.” and after that we don’t discuss it farther. Like – I hear you… I’m still going. He says… I wouldn’t but ok, I hope you have fun.
My mother… God love her… Lord knows I do. She can bring herself to Defcon 10 crisis status over the simplest of things. Let’s start small. While she still to this day says this was all a joke, I’ve known this woman all of – oh I don’t know – my whole effin life and this was no joke. She called me from a Tollbooth one time on the North Dallas Tollway telling me, “The toll costs 35 cents and I threw in 40 because, that’s all I had. Where do I get my change?” To which I said, “YOU DON’T… DRIVE. Looking for change at a tollbooth is how you DIE in North Dallas!! DRIVE! I’ll give you the 5 cents.” Then this inspired my rant about the prices of the tollbooth and how no one ever has the odd change they ask for… a ploy to make more money, I call it. I digress. This is also the same woman who to this day and some of you might actually have to look up this term, BALANCES her checkbook to the penny. I mean, if she’s off by 5 cents on her side, she FINDS it. Rarely does she write this off, like the rest of us do, to not writing something down properly. Which who the hell writes shit down in a checkbook anymore? Do you even have a checkbook or friggin checks for that matter? Shit no. You log in online (probably from your phone) check your balance and move the eff on.
Which before I move on… I do have a funny story about my mom, naturally. So, when I was in college, I’d learned of this amazing thing called a Check Card. I’d been using mine for years. I happened to be down at my parent’s house one weekend and I was in the car with my mom while she was going to pick up a prescription. She was pulling out her checkbook as we waited in line. I immediately cut in on her about how checks and checkbooks were for losers. Like to this day if you’re in line at a store to purchase something and the old women in front of you pulls out her checkbook, you think OH LORD… use your ATM card already and join the 21st Century. I’m telling her how I’ve never written a check one and my life is amazingly easy and no one has ever stolen my identity. It’s perfectly safe. She inquires about what I do when I used it when I went to restaurants. She says, “So you let a waiter walk off with your card to run it for your food? Oh, no, no. I would never let my card leave my sight. They could steal your number when they walk behind the wall. Oh no, no. I would never. You should be more careful.” I laughed and continued to prod her to use her ATM card at Walgreens and see how easy it is. I said something to the effect of, “Who’d want your identity anyhow?” So much against her comfort-level, she used the ATM card at the drive-thru for her prescription. Now, I will save you the suspense to tell you that it just so happened that this person who was ringing her up at Walgreens did in-fact steal her credit card number and drained her account. While, I was floored by the news, I laughed. Hard. There I am convincing her how safe it is and then BOOM 20minutes later, her checking account is cleared out. Let’s just say that to this day, the whole ATM card thing is a bit touchy. I still find it funny. I can’t help it. She got all the money back and quickly. I mean short of a little bit of a pain in the ass, it wasn’t all that dramatic. I mean, still… it’s really kinda hilarious! I really can’t help it.
Ok, moving on. When I selected the apartment that I have lived in for going on 3-years, she panicked over the thought of my only having 1 real closet in the apartment. So there I am worrying about my apt choice for completely important reasons unlike the amount of closets it came with – it was the most expensive apt I’d lived in before and was more worried about sustaining the rent should anything happen to the job I had. You know important shit. Well, she got herself all worked up about it saying that I needed to go look at other apts and make a different decision. Now, I was past this point. I’d picked my apt and had paid a deposit fee that was non-refundable and substantial and well… I was moving in. It wasn’t up for discussion. Let’s just say that she met her Defcon 10 dramatics when I got frustrated with her and told her that I wasn’t going to continue looking and that this was my apt and that was that. The last thing she muttered before she took to the silent treatment was, “Well don’t call me when you have no space. I’m just trying to help. I don’t know why you’re snapping at me. You’re the one in the wrong here.” Sweet Jesus! She’s my mother and regardless of anything else, I apologized (eventually) and just asked her to be happy for me. She accepted the apology and said, “I just can’t be happy for your choice tho.” LOL. God love her!
So my mother’s take on Mexico was CANCEL the trip ASAP. The moment I told her I was going she began emailing me links to articles showing how bad Mexico was. I got a text telling me to check my email before I left for the trip. It was the article about the hotel in Cancun that had been hit by a bomb from the drug cartel. She followed that up with a phone call saying that she’d heard that they might be stopping all travel in and out of Mexico. I hadn’t heard (and still haven’t heard) of anything of the sort. She sent emails of alternate safer locations that I could visit instead saying that she was sure Travelocity would change my flight for the minimal cost of potentially saving my life – as I was taking my life into my own hands by “choosing” to go into Mexico. I mean, up until the day I left, she had been trying to convince me not to go.
Quick ASIDE: During this whole time, there was a very real possibility that I would be flying into Mexico and transporting from the airport to the hotel all on my own. A fact I for the obvious reasons didn’t share with my parents. Up until a couple of weeks before the trip did I find out that that wouldn’t be the case. But could you imagine that little conversation?! Shit no, I couldn’t either and so I just decided that while this fact was a bit nerve racking and stressful to me, I would just be uber safe in regards to transport, if I had to go it on my own, because damnit… I was going!!
I told both of my parents that I would text them when I got there and let them know the hotel details. It’s just good practice anyhow to let someone know where you are exactly. Plus it’d calm their frantic minds who by their imaginations freedom, I’d been kidnapped by the cartel, stolen away into the sex slave trade or at the very worse killed. Seemed a simple gesture and promised that my texts wouldn’t be blowing up looking for status updates costing me $400 in international texts. Mission accomplished.
I will say, that I texted both my mom and dad when I was on my way to the airport in Mexico. My dad responded with, “I’m glad to hear it and I will feel much better when you are on American soil. Love, Dad.” Mom chose to respond only when I texted her when we landed in the US with a, “WHEW… YAY!” To which I actually think before she texted them, she made them an emphatic verbal reality.
Ok, so let’s talk about Mexico a bit. When we arrived in Mexico, we were ushered into the security line. While being annoyed with having to wait in a line, it moved fairly quickly. The security line wasn’t the issue. The customs line, on the other hand was total mass chaos. We walk to the large room where a snake-like line had formed with little to no understanding where the end of the line actually existed. After walking the whole room and having more than 20 people first tell us that where we were standing wasn’t the end of the line and pointed us in an direction that ultimately also wasn’t the end of the line. After 5-10 minutes of complete confusion, we find what we believed to be the end of the line. There were no ropes up to keep people in order. There were no Mexican airport workers directing people. There was just MASS amounts of people who while in a quasi-line were directing other people. 5 Jamaican women had made it to the back of the line behind us. There was bitching about the line and how long it took to find the end; so much so, that I felt compelled to join in and bitch about our frustration.
Easily 2-3minutes after I’d made my new friends, the line in front of us broke up and dispersed. We thought the lines had become more organized. Which ultimately was just absurd when you really think of the absolute disorganization of the whole situation. As we progress forward inquiring as to what was happening, a lady who was in the line in front of us says, “It looks like there’s going to be a fight up there.” We’re all trying to figure out where and with who? Between the Mexican security and a passenger? Two passengers? What the hell? So what was what we considered mass chaos before, it had now turned into a disaster area. We move towards where the customs checks were happening. The 5 Jamaican women follow closely. When we get to a good view point of what was happening, we didn’t see a fight happening at all. We saw that there was no remanence of a line left. Instead people were clamoring and pushing to just make it to the roped off section to move through the customs line. It was at this point that I turned to the Jamaican women and said with the 5 of you and the 2 of us, we make a solid group. If we stick together, we’ll be 7-deep and we’ll look out for each other. They bought in without a second question. The most predominant of the 5 women took the lead. Within 2minutes and her yelling at me not to fall behind and stick together, she’d fought her way through the crowd and we were in the roped off line for the customs check. This didn’t go without several near fights that occurred as we pushed through the crowed. You’d think that once we were in the roped off area we were safe, but no. People who’d been waiting in line, clearly longer than we had, were pissed that people had made it into the customs line before they did. They started tearing down the ropes and pushing into the line. One couple was pointing out a guy in a yellow shirt who they’d known for a fact was behind them in the line originally and who was now at the customs counter in front of them and discussing beating his ass as soon as they could get to him and reminded each other not to lose sight of him. I let that couple cut in front of me. There was another guy in line with his kids yelling at his wife who was 2 rope lines away from him with a MASSIVE cart carrying several bags of luggage. He undid the ropes and instructed her to run over whoever she needed to, to be up in the line with him and the kids. He said things like SCREW THEM, PUSH THRU. She noticeably wanted to but knew that it was not the proper thing to do. Let’s just say that she gingerly ran over my flip-flopped foot. I yanked it out, side-stepped to get in front of that disaster and moved quickly to a customs counter.
You know for all the bitching we do about the good old US of A sometimes, I couldn’t help but think that no matter what, in America, this would have never happened. Shit, I’d would have been scared to even attempt a mob-setting at the US airport. With my track record, I would have ended up in jail… possibly rightfully so. Hard to say. No one at any point from the Mexican security or airport staff attempted in any capacity to help regulate the line and/or the mob rushing the customs counter. There were several moments sprinkled in there that legitimately scared me. Then I thought about that original possibility that I could have been going through all of that by myself.
Let’s also suffice it to say that when recounting my amazing trip to Mexico to my parents, I naturally neglected to share this part of the trip with them.
Once we got to the hotel, it was damn amazing. The hotel stretched at least along 2-miles of beach. It wasn’t on a strip line in Cancun other people can meander down the beach from several hotels. This beach was reserved for the occupants of the hotel. It was super relaxing. Our porch had a hammock. I love hammocks. I actually believe my love of hammocks to be unnatural. I probably spent equally as much time in that hammock reading as I did eating and swimming!
On to my ridiculousness. The 1st night that we were there, there was what they called Dorado Idle. We were staying at the El Dorado Royal and this was their karaoke version of finding the next American Idle. One of the guys that is friends with my best friend/cousin and works with her at her current company hung out with us the entire weekend. I decided that I loved him early on. He’s the type of guy you invite out when you are sitting around going – Who should we invite out that will be super fun and zero drama? Friggin SAM that’s who. So there we are watching this karaoke thing going on and Sam says to me, “What would it take you to get up there and sing something?” and I said, “Not a damn thing, I’ll do it if you sign me up.” After going back and forth on song selections, I say, “Sign me up under the name Night Hawk and put me down for Shoop by Salt n’ Pepa, and I’ll do it.” Off Amy went to sign me up. When she gets back to the table she says, “You’ll be glad to know that I just slid you into the last spot that they had open.” We all laughed. So when the last name was called… NIGHT HAWK… which was never more funny hearing it in a thick Mexican accent, I acted surprised and walked up to the stage. When I got on stage, he wanted to know what my real name was and I said my given name was Night Hawk. He stared at me. Then he says, “Are you ready?” and I (playing it up to its fullest) say, “I’m not sure. I didn’t sign myself up so I have no idea what I am singing.” Everyone laughed when they saw it was Shoop.
Now, this wouldn’t be the 1st time I have ever karaoked this song. It’s never gone well, let’s say. But it’s always funny nonetheless. The song is fast and there are words in there that I have been singing wrong for 17+ years. I expected a total disaster. But this was the 1st time that I can comfortably say that I damn near nailed this song. I mean, there was only 1 part where I had to stop and pick it back up as opposed to my usual 10-15times. For the entire weekend, people were coming up to me to tell me how amazing I was and how I should have won 1st place. (This vaguely reminded me of the drunken booty shakin’ contest that I took 2nd place in, in Vegas a couple of years ago; a different story for a different time.) There was one instance where Amy, Sam and I were at dinner and someone whispered, “Look, there’s the rapper!” LMAO. The rapper. That’s straight hilarity. I should also mention that we were in Mexico for a work trip for Amy and Sam’s company. They had meetings 1st thing in the morning and 1 in the evening but after that their time was 100% free. 95% of the hotels occupancy was taken up by people that worked for my cousins company. I found this funny when I went up on stage as Night Hawk and came down a friggin Rapper!
I will end this little blog ranting on night 1 in Mexico. I will tell you that I did drink that night. I wasn’t belligerently drunk when I sang Shoop. I had more sense than that, but I was well into several Vodka/Diets and after I sang pushing me over the edge took little effort. The last thing I remember of night 1 in Mexico was discussing in great detail how the 3 of us were going back to our hotel room and ordering hamburgers from room service; which we promptly did. In between that and when the burgers arrived, I’d passed out. What I woke up to was Sam standing over me, drunkenly wafting a hamburger under my nose saying that if I didn’t wake up and enjoy this amazingness, he was going to eat my burger and his. I took this as no idle threat. I sat up long enough to eat my entire burger and to take a bite of a RANCID piece of cheesecake that I apparently NEEDED when I was the one ordering room service.
I leave you with this… it becomes increasingly difficult to identify when a cheesecake is the WRONG color of brown (the joke here is that cheesecake should NEVER be brown) when you’ve been heavily drinking. I hadn’t needed to throw up, until that fateful bite. NOTE to you… just don’t order cheesecake in Mexico. I think we all learned a little something here. What though, I’m not really sure…
Thursday, August 19, 2010
you can't fix stupid...
I generally reserve my blogs for something that will find a giggle in someone’s day or some meaningless event that happened to me that I owed it to put pen to paper (metaphorically speaking) to share with whoever reads the nonsense I post.
Today, however I was emailed this link – http://www.sustaining.me – to a blog of someone who would have you believe he is educated. I mean, shit… line 3 of his pathetic little ranting gives self-proclamation to the very idea. I’m curious though as to what he’s actually attempted to educate himself on now that he’s sans a TV. Because what I find below is quite possibly the most ill-thought out 3-bullet point assessment of the liberties of Americans coupled with unfounded accusations. He has the right to think how he chooses – again, another right he is afforded by being a US citizen – but ignorance isn’t a right, it’s simply genetic make-up.
In the famous words of Ron White – You can’t fix stupid.
____________________________________________________________
Sustaining me
The blog of Jeremiah Joseph Hammer
Islam – It’s the New ‘Black’ at Ground Zero
I don’t watch TV, let alone own a TV, for 2 main reasons:
I have better things to do (like educating myself).
The content stinks.
I do read quite a bit though, and felt it important to weigh in on the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ topic before all the major networks go back to stalking Lindsey Lohan.
I’ll lay this out as plainly as possible:
- If the organization building the Mosque legally purchased or has leased the property from the owner, and it meets all zoning requirements; then they have the same right to build there as any other person or entity who sought to lease or purchase and build at that location.
- If you do not believe they have a right to be there, then you support segregation.
- If you are angry at Muslims for wanting to build there, then you are a bigot.
How easily we forget what our fellow black Americans endured just over half a century ago.
No repita, por favor.
____________________________________________________________
Whew, thanks Jeremiah! We almost enslaved the all the Muslims living in America and ripped them of all their rights. What a gross-oversight that everyone else on the planet has made. Thank God you were here, to get us back focused on history not repeating itself.
Well it seems as if you are missing the point, now aren’t you Jeremiah. Yes, in our country urban development/planning isn’t based on religion solely. Because of those freedoms that this country allows its people, the mosque development will continue in a forward progression. As a matter of fact, there is defense to the mere idea of dictating where and how you can build as long as the builders have abided by the appropriate means of doing so.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg stated in regards to this very topic – “Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.”
Fair enough Bloomberg, but his generic – We’re a free democratic country that allows our people to build where they’d like to (under proper legalities) and worship where ever they find their God under whatever name they call their religious beliefs – is just that, generic and of no consequence to the underlying contention.
It’s curious though, the controversy surrounding the decision to build a mosque 2-blocks from ground zero is being made to be all about tolerance and sensitivity. It seems that the people organizing the building of this mosque would show the same decency and respect that they so adamantly demand when it’s in relation to their personal and religious sanctity.
Furthermore, it seems a bit odd that there are active Muslim members on the Canadian Congress (Raheel Raza and Tarek Fataf) that say that what Rauf is doing has no relation to tolerance, in the least. As a matter of fact, these 2 individuals recently wrote in the Ottawa Citizen – “Muslims know the idea behind the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation to thumb our noses at the infidel.” A little later in the article they go on to say – “The proposal has been made in bad faith. Do [the mosque organizers] not understand that building a mosque at Ground Zero is equivalent to permitting a Serbian Orthodox church near the killing fields of Srebrenica where 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered?”
Well that drives the point home, now doesn’t it? There is an uneasy and disagreeable feeling from people within the Muslim community as to the decision to build a huge multi-level mosque within viewing distance where not only 2 historical landmarks were brought to the ground in an instant, but more importantly where over 3,000 Americans were murdered by Islamic jihadists.
People aren’t bitching because of bigotry or religious hatred. They aren’t bitching because they feel they shouldn’t have the “right” to build their mosque there. They aren’t even bitching that this is yet another terrorist attempt for better positioning within our US borders. The issue above and beyond all else is that we grant all people living within the borders of the USA the rights and freedoms that are afforded to them by the laws in place and their constitutional rights. It’s not a pass to show a lack of sensitivity to the Americans that perished on 9/11 when they demand respect, tolerance and sensitivity to their choice of beliefs.
And beyond what is seemingly blatant, the refusal of the release of where the funding is coming from to build this mosque is suspect. Rauf and his organizers dodge the inquiries refusing to share what should be public knowledge. Now, why is that? There’s something to be said when even Nancy Pelosi is vocal about investigating where the funding is coming from. She’s bat-shit loony. I never thought I would see the day that I would ever quote one damned thing this woman ever said, but she went on record saying...
“The freedom of religion is a Constitutional right. Where a place of worship is located is a local decision… “I support the statement made by the Interfaith Alliance that ‘We agree with the ADL that there is a need for transparency about who is funding the effort to build this Islamic center. At the same time, we should also ask who is funding the attacks against the construction of the center.’”
How is standing firm on where they decide to build this mosque with such opposition from a seeming majority of people legally living within the US bringing the cultures any closer together – you know for that unity and world peace thing that everyone is always talking about? Just because it’s within their legal rights to build there, doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing to do. This idea is supported by a substantial number of these “moderate Muslims” that everyone keeps referring to – the ones who aren’t associated with known terrorist organizations and who genuinely use the mosque to worship freely and without prejudice. It is certainly cause for question and it’s the farthest thing from bigotry, terrorist accusations or even some truly sad attempt to connect this back to slavery in any capacity. It’s people like you who perpetuate and exacerbate the dissention in a country so torn on the idea of being able to cohabitate with freedoms that are refused in other countries. It’s simple, play nice in the sandbox children.
I personally saw Rauf appear on a 60-Minutes special that was somewhere around 20 days after 9/11 and he was asked quite pointedly if the USA deserved this vicious attack. His response was as such (and I looked it up to quote it, because I remember being appalled the second he said it) – “I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened. But the United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.”
Then, and here’s the real gem, he says, “Because we have been accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.”
This is the guy who is organizing the urban development of this mosque. So Jeremiah, you miss the point on anything you’ve so flippantly written here. It’s pathetic that you would even make such correlations to this event and slavery. And – “No repita, por favor”?! If history was repeating itself, Jeremiah the building wouldn’t be moving forward with development, which it is. It is our right to have an opinion about it.
Welcome to America, fool.
It’s difficult to defend one set of rights while shitting on the ones you choose not to look at because they might just make it a little difficult for you to look educated in any capacity. I’d recommend you turn the TV back on and keep your ill-thought platitudes to yourself.
And just as a last note… the reality is that there most certainly exists a group of people out there, who like Jeremiah are equally as uninformed and uneducated. It’s without doubt, that some opposition of the building of the mosque so close to ground zero comes from a place of bigotry, thoughts of terrorists and terrorism in our own country and what I suspect to be the number one factor – fear. But to blanket statement that anyone who has finds some opposition to the decision to move forward with the build of this mosque, is ignorant; plain and simple.
Delete your blog, in its entirety, Jeremiah and do us all a favor because no one wants to hear you pontificate.
Today, however I was emailed this link – http://www.sustaining.me – to a blog of someone who would have you believe he is educated. I mean, shit… line 3 of his pathetic little ranting gives self-proclamation to the very idea. I’m curious though as to what he’s actually attempted to educate himself on now that he’s sans a TV. Because what I find below is quite possibly the most ill-thought out 3-bullet point assessment of the liberties of Americans coupled with unfounded accusations. He has the right to think how he chooses – again, another right he is afforded by being a US citizen – but ignorance isn’t a right, it’s simply genetic make-up.
In the famous words of Ron White – You can’t fix stupid.
____________________________________________________________
Sustaining me
The blog of Jeremiah Joseph Hammer
Islam – It’s the New ‘Black’ at Ground Zero
I don’t watch TV, let alone own a TV, for 2 main reasons:
I have better things to do (like educating myself).
The content stinks.
I do read quite a bit though, and felt it important to weigh in on the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ topic before all the major networks go back to stalking Lindsey Lohan.
I’ll lay this out as plainly as possible:
- If the organization building the Mosque legally purchased or has leased the property from the owner, and it meets all zoning requirements; then they have the same right to build there as any other person or entity who sought to lease or purchase and build at that location.
- If you do not believe they have a right to be there, then you support segregation.
- If you are angry at Muslims for wanting to build there, then you are a bigot.
How easily we forget what our fellow black Americans endured just over half a century ago.
No repita, por favor.
____________________________________________________________
Whew, thanks Jeremiah! We almost enslaved the all the Muslims living in America and ripped them of all their rights. What a gross-oversight that everyone else on the planet has made. Thank God you were here, to get us back focused on history not repeating itself.
Well it seems as if you are missing the point, now aren’t you Jeremiah. Yes, in our country urban development/planning isn’t based on religion solely. Because of those freedoms that this country allows its people, the mosque development will continue in a forward progression. As a matter of fact, there is defense to the mere idea of dictating where and how you can build as long as the builders have abided by the appropriate means of doing so.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg stated in regards to this very topic – “Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.”
Fair enough Bloomberg, but his generic – We’re a free democratic country that allows our people to build where they’d like to (under proper legalities) and worship where ever they find their God under whatever name they call their religious beliefs – is just that, generic and of no consequence to the underlying contention.
It’s curious though, the controversy surrounding the decision to build a mosque 2-blocks from ground zero is being made to be all about tolerance and sensitivity. It seems that the people organizing the building of this mosque would show the same decency and respect that they so adamantly demand when it’s in relation to their personal and religious sanctity.
Furthermore, it seems a bit odd that there are active Muslim members on the Canadian Congress (Raheel Raza and Tarek Fataf) that say that what Rauf is doing has no relation to tolerance, in the least. As a matter of fact, these 2 individuals recently wrote in the Ottawa Citizen – “Muslims know the idea behind the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation to thumb our noses at the infidel.” A little later in the article they go on to say – “The proposal has been made in bad faith. Do [the mosque organizers] not understand that building a mosque at Ground Zero is equivalent to permitting a Serbian Orthodox church near the killing fields of Srebrenica where 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered?”
Well that drives the point home, now doesn’t it? There is an uneasy and disagreeable feeling from people within the Muslim community as to the decision to build a huge multi-level mosque within viewing distance where not only 2 historical landmarks were brought to the ground in an instant, but more importantly where over 3,000 Americans were murdered by Islamic jihadists.
People aren’t bitching because of bigotry or religious hatred. They aren’t bitching because they feel they shouldn’t have the “right” to build their mosque there. They aren’t even bitching that this is yet another terrorist attempt for better positioning within our US borders. The issue above and beyond all else is that we grant all people living within the borders of the USA the rights and freedoms that are afforded to them by the laws in place and their constitutional rights. It’s not a pass to show a lack of sensitivity to the Americans that perished on 9/11 when they demand respect, tolerance and sensitivity to their choice of beliefs.
And beyond what is seemingly blatant, the refusal of the release of where the funding is coming from to build this mosque is suspect. Rauf and his organizers dodge the inquiries refusing to share what should be public knowledge. Now, why is that? There’s something to be said when even Nancy Pelosi is vocal about investigating where the funding is coming from. She’s bat-shit loony. I never thought I would see the day that I would ever quote one damned thing this woman ever said, but she went on record saying...
“The freedom of religion is a Constitutional right. Where a place of worship is located is a local decision… “I support the statement made by the Interfaith Alliance that ‘We agree with the ADL that there is a need for transparency about who is funding the effort to build this Islamic center. At the same time, we should also ask who is funding the attacks against the construction of the center.’”
How is standing firm on where they decide to build this mosque with such opposition from a seeming majority of people legally living within the US bringing the cultures any closer together – you know for that unity and world peace thing that everyone is always talking about? Just because it’s within their legal rights to build there, doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing to do. This idea is supported by a substantial number of these “moderate Muslims” that everyone keeps referring to – the ones who aren’t associated with known terrorist organizations and who genuinely use the mosque to worship freely and without prejudice. It is certainly cause for question and it’s the farthest thing from bigotry, terrorist accusations or even some truly sad attempt to connect this back to slavery in any capacity. It’s people like you who perpetuate and exacerbate the dissention in a country so torn on the idea of being able to cohabitate with freedoms that are refused in other countries. It’s simple, play nice in the sandbox children.
I personally saw Rauf appear on a 60-Minutes special that was somewhere around 20 days after 9/11 and he was asked quite pointedly if the USA deserved this vicious attack. His response was as such (and I looked it up to quote it, because I remember being appalled the second he said it) – “I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened. But the United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.”
Then, and here’s the real gem, he says, “Because we have been accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.”
This is the guy who is organizing the urban development of this mosque. So Jeremiah, you miss the point on anything you’ve so flippantly written here. It’s pathetic that you would even make such correlations to this event and slavery. And – “No repita, por favor”?! If history was repeating itself, Jeremiah the building wouldn’t be moving forward with development, which it is. It is our right to have an opinion about it.
Welcome to America, fool.
It’s difficult to defend one set of rights while shitting on the ones you choose not to look at because they might just make it a little difficult for you to look educated in any capacity. I’d recommend you turn the TV back on and keep your ill-thought platitudes to yourself.
And just as a last note… the reality is that there most certainly exists a group of people out there, who like Jeremiah are equally as uninformed and uneducated. It’s without doubt, that some opposition of the building of the mosque so close to ground zero comes from a place of bigotry, thoughts of terrorists and terrorism in our own country and what I suspect to be the number one factor – fear. But to blanket statement that anyone who has finds some opposition to the decision to move forward with the build of this mosque, is ignorant; plain and simple.
Delete your blog, in its entirety, Jeremiah and do us all a favor because no one wants to hear you pontificate.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
these busted feets?!
I think I might actually be ready to admit that I am completely oblivious somewhere around 95% of the time. It’s really quite shocking to me given that I take ADD meds on a daily basis, but lo and behold, I still manage to not be aware of much that is going on around me. I like to think that I have a solid grip on my surroundings, but I am constantly met with opposition to such thoughts.
Thus births an event that I classify in the – creepy – category.
Now I have very few things that I actually spend money on in any notable capacity. Handbags and shoes are easily 2 things that rank in the category of excessive spending. I’m partial to Coach and can drop $500 without the blink of an eye when I am on a mission. Shoes on the other hand, I am a little more cost contentious of from the standpoint of not spending a substantial amount on one pair but rather spending smaller amounts on a lot of pairs. I lean towards the more unique work shoes. I have 4-5inch heels that in most occasions could be considered stripper shoes. I have heels that are leopard print with a bow on the sling-back. I have a pair that is wrapped in a red Japanese-type printed cloth. I have recently added a pair of electric blue snake skin heels to the collection. I love anything Steve Madden and a newly acquired favorite being Santana’s line of heels.
These are just to name a few… the selection is endless, really.
Ok, I’m sure you don’t care about what kind of heels it is that I am wearing, but there’s a purpose to the somewhat detailed shoe explanation, I swear.
Last Friday a couple of the gals from the office and I went to get pedis during lunch. Which I have to tell you, getting a pedi is quite possibly one of my favorite things to indulge in. I digress. Since the idea to go and get one during lunch came up after I had already gotten to work that morning, I didn’t have a pair of flops to take with me. I conceded to the fact that I would have to wear those paper-thin “things” they call flops for the majority of the day to let me tootsies dry. Eh, I didn’t have any meetings planned that afternoon, so it was just going to be more of a dull annoyance than anything else.
We get back to the office and I am carrying my Steve Madden heels in hand and am wearing the teal blue laughable flops from the salon. As the other 2 gals went into the building, I sat at the picnic table to take a call. In the middle of that call, a guy who I had never noticed before was walking into my office building. To reiterate – I’d never traded a kind hello with this guy, never saw him in passing, never road the elevator together, didn’t even know he worked in my building… kind of thing.
He says to me – where are your shoes?
I say – They’re right here (as I lifted them from behind my purse to show him). I went and got a pedicure at lunch today so I can’t put them on until my toes dry.
Which, I immediately thought – why in the hell do you feel compelled to tell randoms more information about yourself then 1) they care to know and 2) more than you care to share. Like he cares that I just got back from a pedicure and needed my toes to dry. The question was simple. Where are your shoes? They’re right here – would have sufficed. Why don’t you just tell him your address and social while you’re at it? Good grief. So I was in the middle of making a simple conversation awkward when I was trumped by this guy’s next admission.
He says and I QUOTE…
Oh, that’s too bad. I always love looking at your shoes. I look forward to seeing what shoes you will be wearing every day.
I was rendered SPEECHLESS, followed by a blank stare and an awkward laugh which was then followed by an even more awkward throat clear. I managed to get out – what? – about 15 seconds later and after he’d already passed me headed into the building. He didn’t answer.
Now, I’ve taken a relatively detail poll of my friends – guys and gals – and the consensus is the same. That’s effin weird. A guy who I have never seen before and never talked to before busts out with a loosely veiled – hey I have a foot fetish and your feet are the flavor of my day, every day.
I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING WHAT SHOES YOU WILL BE WEARING EVERY DAY?
What the hell? Who are you? How is it that you have seen me every day and I have NEVER seen you? I’d like to think that I am not that unaware, but it became inherently clear that either I am just that oblivious or this dude is sneaky as hell; sneaking around shoe peeping.
To be clear, there’s a difference in someone you’ve never spoken to saying something like – I really like your shoes. I say that to gals all the time and then usually I ask where they got them. I mean, that’s a legit transaction between 2-people who have never spoken before. Guy or girl – although if the guy is asking where you got them, there’d be some room for concern. I digress, again.
Look I’m not too naïve to know that there is a ranking of girl’s shoes for guys. There are certain pairs of heels that girls wear that guys classify in the – come f*uck me – category. PS girls know which shoes those are and when to strategically wear them. We all know about it; no one talks about it. If a guy compliments a pair that is classified in the afore mentioned category, there’s a silent unspoken understanding hinted in coyness and/or innocent flirtation. I mean, I would be appalled if some random was like – hey, l like your come f*uck me shoes… those are nice. WHOA buddy… tacky much?! Why don’t you just tell me your measurements and what you call him when you’re alone?
So yeah, now I see this guy everywhere – probably because I have gone from yellow to red alert. He’d told me on Monday he was glad to see that I was back in heels as opposed to those blue things I was wearing on Friday. Uh… that’s weird man. On Tuesday, I was taking a break from work, sitting outside playing on my iPhone when my relationship with… we’ll call him Podo (you know short for podophilia) took an even more awkward turn, as if it really could become more awkward for me.
>> Aside – which calling him Podo makes me think of Frodo which kinda creeps me out even more. Elijah Wood… hobbits… feet… fetish. God, this has gotten dramatic.
The scene was the same – I’m on the picnic bench minding my own business, except this guy straight cut right past the pleasantries of small (awkward) talk to coming up from behind me, outside of my peripheral, to lift up my pant leg to see what shoes I had on. Now, I didn’t do what I thought I would do in such a situation and that’s punch a brazen bastard square in his rabbits. My instant reaction was that clearly since you are touching me, you must be someone I know. And by know… I mean someone that I have known for longer than 4 days and traded more than 20 words with. It wasn’t until he’d dropped the leg of my pant, kept walking while saying something like – I like really those today – that I even realized that it was Podo and not someone I knew. Ok… too far… WAY too far.
Ok dude… I knew I got the creep-vibe for a reason which I that could manage if you were only going to make the occasional comment and just be weird in your own space. But you graduated to touching me! On what planet is that even acceptable behavior? I should get mace and see how he likes being in my personal space, uninvited.
No seriously, I really want to know what the thought process is with this guy? Is it like – hey she talked to me once so I’ve clearly got her permission to just walk up to her all creepy-like from behind and just touch her. Who friggin does that? I’ll tell you who… a damn freak is what. I mean, what’s next… he lifts up my shirt? You know just to see what’s under there then tell me something like I really like those today?!
I think my office building is just sits on top of the 7th Circle of Hell, to be honest. First I had the Garage Dater guy who eventually just got creepy himself and the older dude that worked with the Garage Dater who tried to ask me out on the side, you know on the DL. Although, I haven’t seen either one of those guys in a bit so maybe they don’t work in this building anymore? Which is fine… whatever – because I can tell that Podo is going to require all efforts to keep him off these fine feets of mine. I don’t know why it always happens to me and at work nonetheless. It’s like they pick to do it at the work place because they know exactly where I’ll be for 8 hours of the day. (AH! HAHA! Ok, I laughed at the whole 8hours bit… but for at least a good 5-6hours anyhow.)
Ugh… why me?!
AND I will leave you with my random thought of the day…
I have used the word oblivious a couple of times in this little rant and somewhere along the way, I wondered if while oblivious meant to be unaware then livious should mean to be aware, right? Yeah, if doesn’t. It’s not even a word. I know, I know. You’re equally as disappointed as I. But just do what I’m going to do and start using it. Say it confidently enough and people will believe you… some will even probably go look it up and then tell you later that that’s not even a word.
Then react in my most favorite ways of reacting, by saying – Oh my god, really? Good lord, how long have I been saying that and how many people thought I was an idiot? Thanks man. Then make sure to use it again within 20mins.
>> Funny last story in this ridiculous blog… I decided that if we are going to use the term – using the facility – as a reference for going to the bathroom, then when you are in there you are facilitating, no? So I would jokingly say, I need to facilitate – if I needed to go to the bathroom. I knew I was using it improperly, but I thought it was funny. One day a girl I worked with came up to me after I’d said it, pulled me aside and was like – hey, I don’t think you’re using that word correctly… I looked it up to make sure, and I am positive you aren’t. To which I said – OMG, thanks man, I didn’t know! You saved my life. LMAO – I even looked it up. That happened like 6 years ago and I still laugh about it (and I still say facilitate in reference to using the bathroom)! Good times. I'm an ass. LOL.
Thus births an event that I classify in the – creepy – category.
Now I have very few things that I actually spend money on in any notable capacity. Handbags and shoes are easily 2 things that rank in the category of excessive spending. I’m partial to Coach and can drop $500 without the blink of an eye when I am on a mission. Shoes on the other hand, I am a little more cost contentious of from the standpoint of not spending a substantial amount on one pair but rather spending smaller amounts on a lot of pairs. I lean towards the more unique work shoes. I have 4-5inch heels that in most occasions could be considered stripper shoes. I have heels that are leopard print with a bow on the sling-back. I have a pair that is wrapped in a red Japanese-type printed cloth. I have recently added a pair of electric blue snake skin heels to the collection. I love anything Steve Madden and a newly acquired favorite being Santana’s line of heels.
These are just to name a few… the selection is endless, really.
Ok, I’m sure you don’t care about what kind of heels it is that I am wearing, but there’s a purpose to the somewhat detailed shoe explanation, I swear.
Last Friday a couple of the gals from the office and I went to get pedis during lunch. Which I have to tell you, getting a pedi is quite possibly one of my favorite things to indulge in. I digress. Since the idea to go and get one during lunch came up after I had already gotten to work that morning, I didn’t have a pair of flops to take with me. I conceded to the fact that I would have to wear those paper-thin “things” they call flops for the majority of the day to let me tootsies dry. Eh, I didn’t have any meetings planned that afternoon, so it was just going to be more of a dull annoyance than anything else.
We get back to the office and I am carrying my Steve Madden heels in hand and am wearing the teal blue laughable flops from the salon. As the other 2 gals went into the building, I sat at the picnic table to take a call. In the middle of that call, a guy who I had never noticed before was walking into my office building. To reiterate – I’d never traded a kind hello with this guy, never saw him in passing, never road the elevator together, didn’t even know he worked in my building… kind of thing.
He says to me – where are your shoes?
I say – They’re right here (as I lifted them from behind my purse to show him). I went and got a pedicure at lunch today so I can’t put them on until my toes dry.
Which, I immediately thought – why in the hell do you feel compelled to tell randoms more information about yourself then 1) they care to know and 2) more than you care to share. Like he cares that I just got back from a pedicure and needed my toes to dry. The question was simple. Where are your shoes? They’re right here – would have sufficed. Why don’t you just tell him your address and social while you’re at it? Good grief. So I was in the middle of making a simple conversation awkward when I was trumped by this guy’s next admission.
He says and I QUOTE…
Oh, that’s too bad. I always love looking at your shoes. I look forward to seeing what shoes you will be wearing every day.
I was rendered SPEECHLESS, followed by a blank stare and an awkward laugh which was then followed by an even more awkward throat clear. I managed to get out – what? – about 15 seconds later and after he’d already passed me headed into the building. He didn’t answer.
Now, I’ve taken a relatively detail poll of my friends – guys and gals – and the consensus is the same. That’s effin weird. A guy who I have never seen before and never talked to before busts out with a loosely veiled – hey I have a foot fetish and your feet are the flavor of my day, every day.
I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING WHAT SHOES YOU WILL BE WEARING EVERY DAY?
What the hell? Who are you? How is it that you have seen me every day and I have NEVER seen you? I’d like to think that I am not that unaware, but it became inherently clear that either I am just that oblivious or this dude is sneaky as hell; sneaking around shoe peeping.
To be clear, there’s a difference in someone you’ve never spoken to saying something like – I really like your shoes. I say that to gals all the time and then usually I ask where they got them. I mean, that’s a legit transaction between 2-people who have never spoken before. Guy or girl – although if the guy is asking where you got them, there’d be some room for concern. I digress, again.
Look I’m not too naïve to know that there is a ranking of girl’s shoes for guys. There are certain pairs of heels that girls wear that guys classify in the – come f*uck me – category. PS girls know which shoes those are and when to strategically wear them. We all know about it; no one talks about it. If a guy compliments a pair that is classified in the afore mentioned category, there’s a silent unspoken understanding hinted in coyness and/or innocent flirtation. I mean, I would be appalled if some random was like – hey, l like your come f*uck me shoes… those are nice. WHOA buddy… tacky much?! Why don’t you just tell me your measurements and what you call him when you’re alone?
So yeah, now I see this guy everywhere – probably because I have gone from yellow to red alert. He’d told me on Monday he was glad to see that I was back in heels as opposed to those blue things I was wearing on Friday. Uh… that’s weird man. On Tuesday, I was taking a break from work, sitting outside playing on my iPhone when my relationship with… we’ll call him Podo (you know short for podophilia) took an even more awkward turn, as if it really could become more awkward for me.
>> Aside – which calling him Podo makes me think of Frodo which kinda creeps me out even more. Elijah Wood… hobbits… feet… fetish. God, this has gotten dramatic.
The scene was the same – I’m on the picnic bench minding my own business, except this guy straight cut right past the pleasantries of small (awkward) talk to coming up from behind me, outside of my peripheral, to lift up my pant leg to see what shoes I had on. Now, I didn’t do what I thought I would do in such a situation and that’s punch a brazen bastard square in his rabbits. My instant reaction was that clearly since you are touching me, you must be someone I know. And by know… I mean someone that I have known for longer than 4 days and traded more than 20 words with. It wasn’t until he’d dropped the leg of my pant, kept walking while saying something like – I like really those today – that I even realized that it was Podo and not someone I knew. Ok… too far… WAY too far.
Ok dude… I knew I got the creep-vibe for a reason which I that could manage if you were only going to make the occasional comment and just be weird in your own space. But you graduated to touching me! On what planet is that even acceptable behavior? I should get mace and see how he likes being in my personal space, uninvited.
No seriously, I really want to know what the thought process is with this guy? Is it like – hey she talked to me once so I’ve clearly got her permission to just walk up to her all creepy-like from behind and just touch her. Who friggin does that? I’ll tell you who… a damn freak is what. I mean, what’s next… he lifts up my shirt? You know just to see what’s under there then tell me something like I really like those today?!
I think my office building is just sits on top of the 7th Circle of Hell, to be honest. First I had the Garage Dater guy who eventually just got creepy himself and the older dude that worked with the Garage Dater who tried to ask me out on the side, you know on the DL. Although, I haven’t seen either one of those guys in a bit so maybe they don’t work in this building anymore? Which is fine… whatever – because I can tell that Podo is going to require all efforts to keep him off these fine feets of mine. I don’t know why it always happens to me and at work nonetheless. It’s like they pick to do it at the work place because they know exactly where I’ll be for 8 hours of the day. (AH! HAHA! Ok, I laughed at the whole 8hours bit… but for at least a good 5-6hours anyhow.)
Ugh… why me?!
AND I will leave you with my random thought of the day…
I have used the word oblivious a couple of times in this little rant and somewhere along the way, I wondered if while oblivious meant to be unaware then livious should mean to be aware, right? Yeah, if doesn’t. It’s not even a word. I know, I know. You’re equally as disappointed as I. But just do what I’m going to do and start using it. Say it confidently enough and people will believe you… some will even probably go look it up and then tell you later that that’s not even a word.
Then react in my most favorite ways of reacting, by saying – Oh my god, really? Good lord, how long have I been saying that and how many people thought I was an idiot? Thanks man. Then make sure to use it again within 20mins.
>> Funny last story in this ridiculous blog… I decided that if we are going to use the term – using the facility – as a reference for going to the bathroom, then when you are in there you are facilitating, no? So I would jokingly say, I need to facilitate – if I needed to go to the bathroom. I knew I was using it improperly, but I thought it was funny. One day a girl I worked with came up to me after I’d said it, pulled me aside and was like – hey, I don’t think you’re using that word correctly… I looked it up to make sure, and I am positive you aren’t. To which I said – OMG, thanks man, I didn’t know! You saved my life. LMAO – I even looked it up. That happened like 6 years ago and I still laugh about it (and I still say facilitate in reference to using the bathroom)! Good times. I'm an ass. LOL.
Friday, July 9, 2010
i’m not a cabbie!
It had been a really long day. We’d gotten up at 9:30am to make it downstairs to partake in the hotel’s continental breakfast. Which PS – had they not had a waffle-maker, I would have found NO justification to subject myself to the hateful, angry old people that were taking up 90% residence at our chosen hotel.
Which, let’s back up and talk about these old people… and old people in general. I am of the mind that I like the nice old people. You know the ones who have great stories, a pleasant disposition, and toss out some unexpected zingers that remind you they were not always old. Yeah, well… we were short on those this past weekend. In Louisiana (more specifically Shreveport/Bossier City) these old people were friggin ridiculous. Maybe gambling on a holiday weekend is all they have to live for these days or maybe they bet all their Social Security on black the day before and for a cosmic chuckle it landed red. I don’t know, but I have never seen so many angry old people in one place; more specifically around the breakfast buffet. You’d think that they were dying of starvation and I was telling them – eff off… this is the last waffle and it’s MINE ALL MINE.
Let’s just suffice it to say that there was pushing. Lines were forming in the middle of other lines – like getting in a buffet line was a new concept. C’mon now, these guys were probably around when the idea of a line met its birth. They were swarming the buffet line and making rude comments like – sure, just go right ahead… I guess you don’t know what it means to be next. I will say that this is probably only the 2nd time in my life that I thought I was going to have a throw-down with an old lady. And let’s keep in mind that I wasn’t provoking the situation and firmly believe that had it come to trading blows, the old ladies would be the initiators.
>>
The 1st time I thought an old lady was going to throw-down was at a hole-in-the-wall bar in Addison. I’d been shooting pool and goofing around with friends when an old man (probably in his mid-70s) walked up and bet me that I would miss the shot I was about to take. I just retorted with – well if I make it you have to buy me a drink. He agreed and an accord was struck. 10 seconds later he’s flagging down his waitress to buy me my champions drink. Well he got to hem-hawing and thought that one of the other gals there and I were beautiful. This resulted in him purchasing several rounds of drinks for our whole group. Now what I later found out was that his 70-something year old girlfriend had been waiting at the poker tables for this guy to return. Apparently there was a tournament going on. Whatever, I hadn’t even seen the poker tables – so the fact there was a tournament happening was news to me. Want to know how I got all caught up on the tournament? Well, his 5-foot nothing 70-something girlfriend got up in my face telling me she’d been waiting for her boyfriend at the poker tables calling me a hussy and a man stealer.
To which I’d been drinking a bit so I was retorting to her name calling saying really unhelpful things like – c’mon now, he knows he’s not getting laid by me… hey, I mean unless he has Viagra, this is all a pipedream for him anyhow, pun intended… does he have a younger son with a loose wallet too, because that’s more of what I’m into…
After I threw out a couple of really funny quips that I really thought at the time would appease the situation, it became inherently clear that she was ready to defend her man. She leaned into me with finger pointed and made it clear that this was her man, and she wasn’t having any of my young self. I mean, it felt like a bar fight was about to break out… as I’m all yes ma’am-ing it and saying it didn’t need to come to this.
Now, three things went through my head – 1) removing her semi-politely from my space would make me an ass who hits old people; 2) If she hits me and I hit her back, or at the very least shove her down or protect myself from her, I will look like an ass; 3) if I let her just beat the crap out of me, I look like the ass. No matter what, I was going to look like an ass. Awesome.
At any rate she got control of herself and her man and it ended up not escalating to a confrontation – well at least not more-so then it already had been.
>>
I digress… as usual.
Back to the long day we were having. So after a very eventful breakfast on the morning of the 4th, we had all planned to go out to the El Dorado Casino on the strip to hang out, gamble, check out the 4th of July festival and then see the fireworks go off over Red River. As it might be, we saw very little of the festival and ended up spending hours-upon-hours gambling in smoke-filled ill-ventilated casino rooms. We saw about 30minutes of the music performance at the festival, we’re over it and headed back to the El Dorado casino to claim steaks on our balcony positioning for the perfect firework viewing.
The fireworks seemed to go on for forever, which I didn’t mind as I was snapping pictures like crazy. The show was playing a calming down-period in our non-stop day. The rest of the group was semi on edge, hungry and generally ready to be done with this day all together. I didn’t blame them. As a matter of fact, Casey says something to the affect of – I’ve never been pissed off at a fireworks display… how long is this going to go on?! Hilarity.
Now, Amy and I had made it down to Shreveport a day before Casey and Dawn so we’d come up with a plan to entertain all of us on the 4th. We’d gone into town and asked locals where to go and what to do. Our plan was perfection… except the leaving of downtown part. It was packed after the fireworks. There was wall-to-wall traffic on all sides of the streets. Other streets had been closed down due to foot traffic. No taxis were coming in or out of the strip on the sole reasoning that they couldn’t fight through the traffic to get in there. People were complaining that they’d been waiting for over an hour for a cab, and still nothing. The 4 of us decided to try and find a place to eat before hassling with finding a cab; let some of the traffic die down.
We’d eaten lunch at the best restaurant in the El Dorado. It wasn’t all that great so no one really wanted to eat there again. We’re tired. We all had low blood-sugar and personalities were clashing. Food was paramount. Well that or a cab, and we all know where we were with the cab situation. We come up with walking down to Sam’s Town to see what restaurants they had. I’ll save you another long story and say – they had nothing everyone could agree on. More bickering and shortened tempers.
In the meantime Casey had disappeared. Which before we understood why, we were all annoyed that we couldn’t find him, couldn’t find a place to eat and couldn’t get a cab. Basically, not good. Then I see Amy frantically waving her arms at me… we’d gotten a cab. Somehow Casey had managed to find one, wave him in to the Sam’s Town taxi pick-up lane and was calling to the ladies to get in before someone else saw it and fought us for it.
Casey takes the front seat. Amy slides in to the left of me and dawn to the right. As we’re getting into the cab and I am taking a deep breath of relief, my nose catches something a bit off. So I say – wow, it smells like someone just fired up a blunt in here… man it reeks of pot… I’m going to get a contact high from this nonsense. To be clear, it was definitely pot mixed with a vent air freshener. It vaguely reminded me of when I was younger and tried to hide that I had smoked a cigarette from my parents by covering myself in Febreeze coupled with gum. I thought I was so smooth. I became acutely aware in that moment that I hadn’t been. I asked the cabbie if we could roll down the windows and to my dismay, he tells me – all the windows are broken. Awesome.
The cabbie asks us where we are going and we tell him which hotel to take us to. He says – do you want to take HWY 20 or HWY 220? I responded before anyone else could, saying – whichever way is faster. He opted to take HWY 220. Fine, whatever. Just get us there so we could figure out a resolution to the food situation.
Being that I was sitting in the middle of the backseat, I noticed that this cab had an aftermarket system in it. It struck me as being a little odd that the cab had that and I mentioned it to Dawn who in her nervousness was laughing herself into tears. Conversely, the mere idea that there was most likely pot in the car made Amy very uneasy which caused some stressing about our safety. Without asking, the cabbie turns up the music. It’s the most gangsta ghetto rap music littered with the N-word. Now, not that this in any capacity matters to me other than it made slightly uncomfortable with the music selection, but our cabbie was black. Which, the mentioning of his ethnicity will play into more of this story a bit later.
I’m uncomfortable. Amy is uncomfortable and stressed with head in hand. Dawn is just laughing and trying to get out her observations in between wiping her tears away and catching her breath. I look out the window and realize that I see nothing that I recognize. We were on some road that was lined with abandoned buildings, seedy people just milling about in areas where there could be potential traffic, little to no lighting and no end in sight to a perpendicular meeting of the highway.
I’m officially on alert.
Amy’s praying novenas.
Dawn’s inconsolably laughing from her "contact high".
Casey’s making small talk with the guy.
I lean over to Dawn and start saying things like – this isn’t looking right… I don’t know about this guy… where the hell is he taking us… I don’t think this guy is a legit cabbie. Dawn’s laughing and bopping her head to the rap beat saying a bunch of things that were not helpful like – I think I have a contact high… I have 911 pressed into my phone just in case.
Dawn then decides that she is going to build a report with our cab driver hoping that her efforts will lighten the awkwardly unsettled mood in the cab. She leaned forward attentively in manner and started making small talk. As she asks him some general questions, he begins to look back at her in the backseat to answer her, resulting in jerky swerving unsafe driving. In the midst of their conversation, she asks him how long he’d been a cabbie.
And I swear to you, I can’t make this up because it really happened – this guy responds with…
I’m not a cabbie. What about me makes you think I am?
Uh, dude WTF?! WE’RE IN A CAB AND YOU’RE DRIVING IT. It’s the simplest of inferences that even a 3-year old could make.
So let’s stop here for a second and do a quick recap…
1) The cab REEKS of pot. I mean like he smoked a doob right before picking up his fare – AKA us.
2) There is a general feeling that given the aftermarket system beat-boppin explicit rap coupled a few other blatant context clues, indicated that this wasn’t a normal cab to start.
3) None of the 4 windows work. I mean NONE.
4) He’s taking us down a road that is seriously suspect. I’ll put it this way – I actually said I was never happier to have Casey with us, if not for sheer male presence alone.
5) Our cab driver had just made the proclamation that he’s not actually a cab driver.
As we’re all waiting with bated breath for some clarification, the cab driver – scratch that, we’ll just call him driver – the driver says that actually he’d wrecked his other cab and he was borrowing the one we were in from his brother.
I’m sorry… whhhhat?! His erratic driving and swerving became screamingly clear as to why he’d wrecked his other cab.
We’ve now formally entered strike 6 against this guy.
I tell Dawn to stop talking to the driver because it was causing him to not focus on the actual driving. I mean, it was pretty clear at this point that it wasn’t a passenger that had fired up a joint in his car; we’re sitting at a 100% probability that our driver is stoned. His increasingly erratic driving coupled with Dawn trying to talk to him from the backseat was making Amy even more stressed and nervous. She sat back and pressed 911 into her phone and just hovered over the send key… “you know, just in case” (as she kept saying in between laughing).
Unbeknownst to me, Casey had taken out his iPhone and was GPSing where we were, to make sure this guy was really headed towards a highway. From what I gathered later, he was trying to do it on the sly so that he didn’t upset our driver to the point of actually doing something dramatic. Turns out the driver saw that what he was doing and started in on a story. Now, at the time, I could not understand why he was telling us this particular story; it was out of place and extremely concerning.
He tells us…
One time I had this old guy hop in the front seat of my cab and tell me to take him downtown. He says to the guy that he will need an exact location so that he can take him where he needed to be. Apparently this old guy who got in his cab was coming from a casino and was extremely intoxicated and was being unruly and uncooperative. The old guy, according to our driver, starts screaming at him calling him the N-word and being generally aggressive. Our driver repeated over-and-over again that he ignored his derogatory comments asking him to calm down. When the old guy wouldn’t, he then ordered him to get out of his cab, which eventually the old guy did.
The story didn’t end there. He went into EXTREME detail about what this guy looked like. He was an older dude in a cowboy hat – you know the good ol’ boy type. He had this kind of jeans on, he had this kind of accent, he had grey hair, he had… he had… he had… (I remember thinking that that was an awful detailed recollection of this incident and that made me a little uneasy.)
The old guy gets out of the cab and while still screaming the N-word among other things, he apparently walked over to the driver-side door and opened it up. Then our driver tells us that he tried repeatedly to abate it from escalating any further. At some point, the cab driver had had enough and then proceeded to tell us that he exited the cab, punched this old guy square in the face – not once, but twice – then left him unconscious in front of the hotel… and DROVE THE EFF OFF.
I don’t know if that story was true or not, but I damn sure wasn’t about to ask any inquisitive questions to find out; on the off chance he wasn’t making shit up.
Once I realized that he started telling that story after he’d seen Casey check the route on his GPS, we speculated that he told us that to let us know that he wasn’t dicking around and would handle his business if questioned and/or provoked. I guess he was pissing on his preverbal territory. Whatever, I say pee where ever the hell you want to – which this instance might be the only time in my life that I have even admitted having that thought.
10-4 big guy. My ONLY priority was making it back to the hotel; safely, in one piece, and with our sanity intact; which was questionable at this point.
After what seemed like an eternity, we see our hotel. I was just thinking in that moment – well I guess it’s safe to say that he’s not going to kill us. That was until I thought too soon…
Our hotel shared the same parking lot as Harrah’s Casino & Racetrack, which had also been doing a fireworks production for the 4th. There was a lot of traffic passing in front of our hotel in route to getting on one of the 2 major highways. The traffic was blocking the entrance into our hotel drop-off area. Our driver says – EFF (he didn’t censor) this… we’re getting in there because, and I quote, “them being stopped in front of this turn in was bullshit”. So he pulls out aggressively and starts to weave in between cars, some of which still in a forward motion, others he’s instructing to back the eff up so he can get through, and Dawn’s screaming – MY SIDE!! MY SIDE!! I thought we were going to get t-boned. We didn’t. But we all dropped about 20lbs of unnecessary adrenaline in that moment.
Once he made it through and we were in front of our hotel, everyone jumps out of the cab except for me because I was the one responsible for settling up our fare. Casey was standing outside of the open back door waiting on me to get out. I realize the 3 of them were just looking to fall out of that cab and kiss the motionless ground. The cab ride was $30 and all I had was $20s. So I hand him $40 and he asks if I wanted change and I said nope we’re all set here and proceeded to scoot quickly to get out. Screw getting change. You can have it… I’m outta here. That’s all I was thinking.
As I’m sliding out, he catches my hand that was on the front passenger chair and stops me. He says – I heard you talking all that pot talk when you got in here. I slid my hand out from underneath his as I laughed, uncomfortably. He says – I have all the good shit; you know all the best kind. I said something along the lines of – well good for you as I moved quicker to get out of the cab. He continued with – you wanna get some off me. And all I could think is – there isn’t one thing on you that I want to get off of you. I mean for shits sake, I was terrified the entirety of the duration of this cab ride and NOW… NOW you want to sell me pot. WTF?! I just responded with – I’m all set here – as I slammed the cab door and bolted for the safety of the hotel.
I mean… seriously… TRAUMATIC!!!
Which the ridiculousness of the evening didn’t end there… remember, we still hadn’t found anything to eat yet. I’ll spare you the very tension-filled ride of looking for a restaurant that was open at 10:30pm on a Sunday that was concurrently the 4th of July. Hopeless is what it seemed like. But like a mirage, I spotted a Chili’s that was open until 11pm. SCORE. There was drama there. Again, I will spare you that as well. But after we were fed and back at the hotel… that part… that part is worth telling!
We get back and we’re all standing outside talking about how much better we all felt since we’d eaten. These 2 older (probably mid-50s) guys come out of the hotel. One of them kind-of creeps up, uncomfortably close, behind Amy. To which I say – hey man, you don’t creep up on a lady like that… that’s how you get mace in the face! He says drunkenly – I was just admiring her tattoo. To which I respond with something like – regardless man, that’s inappropriate! The guy he was with must’ve thought – ah hell… he’s on his own for this one – and walks off about 50-feet away.
The one who crept up on Amy begins talking about his other buddy (the one who’d walked away) – his name was Jerry. He tells us that Jerry just recently had to have his prostate removed because he had tested positive for cancer. In the middle of telling us that, he tells us just how drunk he is and how many hours they’d been drinking. Well, DUH buddy. You’re talking about prostates to young hot chicks. Clearly you outside of your wherewithal – check, check.
He then proceeded to tell us in detail what that entailed fully equipped with vivid hand jesters (like we didn’t know where the prostate was); tubes in sensitive places, catheters, surgery… on and on. Then he tells us he’s potentially going to have to go through the same thing and that he’s got an appointment to be tested and checked out after the holiday weekend. He says that if it comes back non-cancerous, he was going to have them (and I quote) “microwave the bastard”. I was certain this was not the technical term and for reasons that should be blatantly clear, I wasn’t asking for a definition of what that meant.
Casey on the other hand, never let’s an opportunity pass him up. He says – so what setting is that on the microwave… popcorn? Drunk ass laughs and like he had completely forgotten he’d just told us about good old Jerry’s prostate, he starts in on the story again. In an attempt to prevent us from listening to the whole thing over again, I call out to Jerry – hey Jerry… you might want to come over here and get your friend because he’s telling personal stuff about you! Jerry drunkenly meanders over to where we are to see what is really happening.
Once he gets over there, I put my hand on his shoulder and say to him – I’m really sorry about your loss. He says – what loss are you talking about? I respond with – well, your prostate for one… I know you guys were really close. He says – oh my god… what’s he over here talking about. And I said – I would think that that was really obvious… your prostate.
After Jerry gets involved in the conversation, somehow and I am still to this day unclear as to how we made the leap from cancer, prostates and microwaving to where we landed… crabs. So the guy who was telling all of Jerry’s prostate business starts in with his recollection of the time that he had gotten crabs, but that he gave it to 3 girls before he even knew he had them. Then he says something like – boy, those 3 calls were awkward. To which I said – uh, THIS, THIS is awkward. I think it was at that point that Jerry realized the train wreck that his buddy was on and he wrangled him towards the door into the hotel. And all this guy was talking about was needing to clarify what ended up happening with the crab situation followed up with him asking if they were going to go drink more. Jerry said a very patronizing tone – yes… we really need to be drinking more. I think he believed Jerry, because he stopped putting up a fight and disappeared into the hotel.
By the time we got into our hotel room, we all poured into our beds and didn’t really say a word. It’s like, where do you start… and why recount ANYTHING that had happened in the last 3 hours?! I slept like a damn dream that night, I much I will tell you!
Monday, April 19, 2010
CVS + C4 = sanity.
I really think it’s that simple. That or exnay on the ee4say and start taking Xanax before going to pick up my prescriptions from the CVS on Tennyson Parkway in Plano. It’s far less invasive, well for the employees at that CVS anyhow. I imagine it being me just really jacked up on Xanax and not caring a lick about how their pharmacist even graduated grade school.
In my head, I most closely compare that Xanax effect to the euphoric experience I had when I was in the hospital years ago, thinking I was dying. I truly thought my appendix had burst at the time and essentially beelined to the hospital. In the end, it was not appendicitis. I’ll spare you the details of what I was diagnosed with, but let me put it to you like this, I would have rather had a surgery to have the old appendix removed over what the real deal was. I’m still hanging out on the ass end of God’s little sense of humor; punchline Angela.
But while I was in the hospital, the pain was so horrifically unbearable that they eventually gave me an injection of Demerol. And my God! I floated about 7 feet off the bed. In that moment, I was fairly sure my shit still hurt, but the one thing I did know was that I could have given a shit less about that pain for the next 4-hours. The only thing I said was – I can see why people get addicted to this. That was the last narcotic pain killer the hospital would approve. It’s like dude, relax. I’m jacked up on a synthetic opioid. I thought I saw a rainbow colored elephant run backwards down the hall of the hospital singing It's a Small World Afterall (which true story I did think I saw it and talked about it according to my mom for the better part of an hour – I have limited recollection of that event). So does that mean you’re going to have me committed? Geez, unclench. It’s not like I had a tourniquet around my upper arm slapping the inside of my elbow looking for a good vein. I merely made an observation and the damn opiate you gave me disintegrated my ability to only think things like that – I had to say everything. I actually think the Demerol immobilized the part of your brain where you go through the process of thinking it to saying it. I was going straight to saying it. Shit. Sue me.
Anyhow, ideally that’s how I would like for my Xanax regimen to work. I take it, wait 30minutes for it to kick on in and then head over to the pharmacy. (That’s a really ironic sentence, now that I reread it.) By the time I get there, I wouldn’t physically be able to care about how stupid all these people are. Let me put it to you like this – the idea that I have to go to that pharmacy to pick up a prescription starts to piss me off hours before I actually go and pick them up.
I have a prescription for an ADD medication that I get every month. This drug falls into the Class-II Controlled Substance category.
_________________________________________________
Classification of Controlled Drugs – Classes (also called Schedules)
Class-I: Substances presenting a high risk of abuse, posing a particularly, serious threat to public health which are of very little or no therapeutic value.
EX: Morphine, LSD, MDMA (Ecstasy), Mescaline (Peyote), Psilocybin (hallucinogenic), and Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC; AKA active ingredient in cannabis).
Class-II: Substances presenting a risk of abuse, posing a serious threat to public health which are of low or moderate therapeutic value.
EX: Amphetamines and amphetamine-type stimulants – EX. Adderol, Ritalin, etc.
Class-III: Substances presenting a risk of abuse, posing a serious threat to public health which are of moderate or high therapeutic value.
EX: Barbiturates (sedative-hypnotic and analgesic properties) – EX. Amobarbital (“truth serum”), Buprenorphine (semi-synthetic opiate), Ketamine, Hydrocodone / Codeine, and Anabolic Steroids.
Class-IV: Substances presenting a risk of abuse, posing a minor threat to public health with a high therapeutic value.
EX: Tranquillizers, Analgesics, and some Narcotics – Diazepam (Valium), Lorazepam (Ativan), Phenobarbital (Luminal), Temazepam (Restoril) and Alprazolam (Xanax).
Class-V: Substances presenting a very low risk of abuse, posing a no threat to public health with an extremely high therapeutic value. Medications deemed non-habit forming by the FDA.
Class-VI: Over-the-counter medications needing no real FDA regulations. This has since changed with the manufacturing of Methamphetamine by using over-the-counter amphetamines (i.e. Sudafed). The FDA has made it illegal to purchase over-the-counter medications in mass-quantities by a federal program that monitors their sales in relation to a person specific.
_________________________________________________
Now given that the prescription that I pick up monthly is highly regulated, there are several steps that have to be taken in order for the prescription to be valid – all the way down to the pharmacy level. The prescription has to be written on a specific and special type of prescription pad – one that is highly improbable of being forged. Not all doctors can prescribe CII narcotics. They are registered and supervised by the FDA and the doctors who are certified to prescribe CII narcotics are held to a higher standard of repercussion if they are found to be promoting the improper use of any CII narcotic prescribed. Once a prescription is written, it is only valid for 7 days from the date that the prescription is written. If you attempt to fill it on day 8, it will be rejected at the pharmacy-level and you will have to go back to the original prescribing doctor to request another prescription – which begins a whole different process of steps to rectify the prescription that is now invalid.
I say all that to say that you’d think that the pharmacy would be on heightened alert when filling a CII prescription. Well, not my CVS. I am prescribed a quantity of 60 15mg extended release capsules. The directions are to read as follows: Take 2 capsules every morning. This means that 60 capsules should last me exactly 30 days, right? Right. I take my prescription in to the pharmacy and wait an ungodly amount of time for them to fill it. When they call my name and I go up to retrieve my prescription I notice that my co-pay is $20 instead of the usual $10. I chalked it up to my insurance plan changing, paid it and went on my way.
Now it should be said that I don’t take my ADD meds every day. Sometimes, if I don’t need them on the weekends, I won’t take them or if I wake up later than 7am, the meds can keep me up at night so again, I won’t take them. My prescription for 30 days generally lasts me somewhere around 40 to 45 days.
The next month, I go in to the pharmacy to drop off that month’s prescription for my ADD meds. As the pharmacy tech types in the prescription, she says to me – Oh, it looks like this is a refill too soon on the insurance and they won’t cover it for another 15 days. Whhhat?! No way! I am well over the 30 days and actually I’m closer to 45 days since I last got this prescription filled. Why the hell won’t the insurance cover this for another 15 days? Something is wrong because I am almost out and I need this filled! While she flitters all over the pharmacy trying to figure out what happened asking me things like – has your insurance changed and did the dosing on this prescription change? I have one unified response to all her questions – NO.
It’s about 20minutes later that the tiny Asian pharmacist (AKA the future bane of my existence) comes up and says – Oh, I know what happened. Here I’ll fix it, no problem. Ok, finally… someone who knows what they are doing! Somewhere around 30minutes after that, they call me back to the pharmacy and my prescription is ready to go and it was run through and covered on insurance. Sweet! The girl goes to ring me up and the total comes to $10. It wasn’t until after I had paid for the meds that I stopped and was like wait… whhhat? Last month it cost me $20 – what the hell? It was in that exact moment that I realized what had happened to my prescription last month. Instead of typing into the system that the 60 capsules were good for 30 days, they had typed the directions in for 1 capsule a day meaning that 60 caps should have lasted me 60 days – THUS last month I was charged 2 co-pays by my insurance equaling $20. So I tell the girl that they over charged me last month and that I wanted this prescription for free since I paid double. She stands there and looks at me like she is about to hit the highest mode of crisis and doesn’t know what to do. So I lean over the counter and call over the pharmacist to resolve this. After I waited and stared at her for another 10minutes while she pretended not to hear me and acted super busy, she came over. It was at this point that my hatred for her was birthed.
She comes over and says – yes, how can I help you (like she’d never met me before)? I tell her the same thing I tell the girl who was ringing me up. The pharmacist looks at me like she has NO idea as to what I am talking about. This situation has officially pissed me off. A line of people has now formed behind me waiting for me to get done so they can get their prescriptions. The pharmacist acts like she is confused by what I am asking from her no matter how many ways I explain it. It got to the point that I demanded she pull the prescription from last month as well as a print out of what the directions were on the meds they gave me. This little demand is about to prove me right and make her look like an ass, given that she supposedly “knew exactly what was wrong and was fixing it”. This bitch knew exactly what I was talking about and the truth as to why she was acting so dumb was about to come out.
As the girl ringing me up heads back to find the hard-copy of my prescription, the pharmacist says – that won’t be necessary. AH! HA! Got you. She then says that they processed the prescription with the improper directions through the insurance company over 30days and they could not reverse the claim in the system. It was too late for them to correct the error via the insurance company. First of all, I worked in the pharmacy for 3years, so I knew what she was saying was complete bullshit. They could recover it, but they would have to go through a process in order to do so. This lazy bitch wasn’t going to give me back what I had overpaid; instead she wasn’t going to tell me what really happened and just have me pay for my prescription again. Ohhh, bullshit!
After bickering with her for another 10-15 minutes about how she WAS going to give me my $10 back with her telling me there was no possible way to do that – she tells me she won’t refund my prescription for that month but will put a $10 credit in the system for next month. Which again, I worked in the pharmacy and I knew the system wasn’t capable of that little offer she suggested but I was tired of arguing with her and accepted it. It’s not like I would forget about it anyhow.
Xanax: 1
Self-Control: 0
I’d gone into the pharmacy several times before I’d actually remember to request the $10 credit. I’d had it out with the same stupid pharmacist more than 3x; once when I had burned my hand and I asked her what was the best thing to put on it and she told me and I quote – there’s a whole aisle devoted to analgesics over there (and pointed to nowhere in particular). To which I responded with something like – well shit, a monkey could do your job if that’s what your graduate degree qualifies you to give as a recommendation. It was almost like when she saw me come in, she was immediately annoyed. Feeling’s mutual bitch.
Xanax: 4
Self-Control: 0
About the 4th time I was in there since they overcharged me, I was picking up a prescription and I told the girl ringing me up that I should have a $10 credit on my account that I would like to use it. She looks in the system and as predicted, there was nothing noted about my $10 over-pay. The freaking bitch of a pharmacist was there that day (it seems like SHE’S ALWAYS there) and the girl calls her over to ask about this “supposed” $10 credit I was saying I had on file. The pharmacist comes over and I swear to God looks at me like she has NO idea who I am and says – how can I help you? I tell her I want to collect on my $10 credit. She goes to the computer and looks in the system to turn around and say – I’m sorry, I don’t see anything in the system that says you should have a $10 credit.
Is this bitch for real? She knows exactly who I am and what I am talking about. I’m irate. I start to not-so-politely remind her how’d she’d screwed me over a couple months before and wasn’t even planning on telling me about it. She just stood there listening to me saying the occasional – I don’t know what you are talking about – bullshit; that was until I used the phrase – Insurance Fraud.
She immediately put up her hands shaking them from side-to-side saying something like – don’t worry about it… I will take care of this for you… I will do you a favor even though there’s no record of this being true. Like she had to get just one more dig in there before she did ME a favor.
So I responded with – doing ME a favor? Oh no, no, no princess. It is I who is doing YOU a favor by not reporting you to the FDA for insurance fraud among other things. YOU aren’t doing ME any favors. As a matter of fact wasn’t it you screwed up my prescription in the first place? THEN you lied to me about it? THEN you didn’t want to reimburse me for your error because you supposedly couldn’t get it back from the insurance company which PS sweetie, we both know you could have and were too lazy to do it – instead you would have rather screwed me over so you didn’t actually have to work. YOU do ME a favor? Laughable. I suggest you get me reimbursed immediately before I Google the FDA’s phone number while I am standing in front of your Pharmacists license number. What do you think about that? Who’s doing who a favor? (Which she was stunned with silence so I finished up with) – RIGHT, I’m doing YOU the favor and you’ll do well to remember that in the future.
Yeah, my prescription was free that day.
Xanax: 5
Self-Control: 0
The ridiculousness isn’t just reserved for the pharmacist. The staff is just as incompetent and could have only been trained by the ignorance that is their primary pharmacist whose general practice is NOT customer service.
First off, I’d like to say that following HIPPA regulations means verifying you are who you say you are so that your prescription isn’t sold improperly and so that unauthorized people aren’t picking things up that they aren’t supposed to be. This does not mean that the person ringing you up asks you if – 123 Street is your address. You are supposed to ask me for 3 forms of identification… birth date, address and the medication I am supposed to be picking up and I am supposed to answer you. On the rare occasion they even try to verify who you are, they never do it properly.
Xanax: 6
Self-Control: 0
Second, I can’t tell you how many times I have been sold the wrong prescription. You know, on the more common occurrences that they don’t verify who I am. Then they act like I was the one who was in the wrong for taking the damn prescription in the 1st place.
Xanax: 7
Self Control: 0
Third, the drive through is damn ridiculous. The clerks will allow someone to sit at the window for over an hour. Again, OVER AN HOUR. The thought of asking them to pull around or come inside since it’s something that will take more than a few minutes to fix has never once crossed the minds of these employees. This results in people backing out of the drive-thru line and going inside only to be met with a line of, on average, 8 people who most likely were at one point or another in line because they were sitting in the drive-thru for an unconscionable amount of time.
Xanax: 8
Self-Control: 0
One time a gal in front of me in line, who had originally been behind me in the drive-thru line, told me how pissed she was at what was going on. Naturally when she finally made it to the counter, there was a problem with her prescription – at the fault of the bitch pharmacist, of course. After she got her situation rectified and as she walked past me, she said – good luck. After I had been in the drive-thru for 45 minutes and waited inside for another 20, I gave my name to the clerk who rang me up and I was on my way out the door. As I was walking out, I saw the gal that was in front of me walking back in, looking more pissed off than before. She muttered something like stupid pharmacy STILL gave me the wrong thing as she walked with purpose back to the pharmacy. I shook my head thinking – well that figures. And before I got to my car, I thought – you know, I better check to see if my prescription is right. I slid my hand down the bag to be met with a prescription bottle. I wasn’t supposed to have a bottle; I was supposed to have a packet of pills. WTF?! I look down at the name and said Angela Williams. I look at prescription name and it’s not even something I get or would have on file there. I look at the address… Carrollton. Dude… they sold me the wrong prescription and she didn’t even ask me to verify who I am – no wonder I got the wrong thing! You have to be EFFIN kidding me. I turn right around, pass by the window with the gal I knew quite well by this point who was yelling at the pharmacist and went straight to the girl who rang me up. There was now a line of 12 people. I’m not kidding. 12. I counted. I demanded to go in front of them as I said loudly – SHE SOLD ME THE WRONG PRESCRIPTION.
She was flustered, but then found the correct prescription and checked me out immediately. I stopped by the pharmacist who was still being bitched out by the other gal and said – excuse me, but I want to make sure that you report this medication leaving the pharmacy improperly to HIPPA. I will be checking in with them to 1 report it myself and 2 make sure you did. I hope that you prioritize that as I am sure Angela Williams in Carrollton would not be too pleased to find out that one of her meds left the pharmacy improperly.
Xanax: 9
Self-Control: 0
I could honestly go on-and-on with example after example of how this place is like the 7th circle of hell. There isn’t one person that you will run into in line that is not seriously aggravated with this place. Believe me, I have stood in line there enough times that I have made friends and traded war stories with other patrons. It stresses me out. I think partially because I worked in a pharmacy and was a certified tech for 3 years. It’s not that damn difficult, but every time you go in there, they act like you guessed their name to be Rumpelstiltskin and are there to collect their 1st born.
I have often texted my friends from CVS talking about how I hope I never come in contact with C4 because I plan on leveling the damn place. Someone once suggested a sniper attack, but you know I’m not that good of a shot and I want to make sure and take them ALL down before I get caught. Well that or get on Xanax. I’m still on the fence.
In my head, I most closely compare that Xanax effect to the euphoric experience I had when I was in the hospital years ago, thinking I was dying. I truly thought my appendix had burst at the time and essentially beelined to the hospital. In the end, it was not appendicitis. I’ll spare you the details of what I was diagnosed with, but let me put it to you like this, I would have rather had a surgery to have the old appendix removed over what the real deal was. I’m still hanging out on the ass end of God’s little sense of humor; punchline Angela.
But while I was in the hospital, the pain was so horrifically unbearable that they eventually gave me an injection of Demerol. And my God! I floated about 7 feet off the bed. In that moment, I was fairly sure my shit still hurt, but the one thing I did know was that I could have given a shit less about that pain for the next 4-hours. The only thing I said was – I can see why people get addicted to this. That was the last narcotic pain killer the hospital would approve. It’s like dude, relax. I’m jacked up on a synthetic opioid. I thought I saw a rainbow colored elephant run backwards down the hall of the hospital singing It's a Small World Afterall (which true story I did think I saw it and talked about it according to my mom for the better part of an hour – I have limited recollection of that event). So does that mean you’re going to have me committed? Geez, unclench. It’s not like I had a tourniquet around my upper arm slapping the inside of my elbow looking for a good vein. I merely made an observation and the damn opiate you gave me disintegrated my ability to only think things like that – I had to say everything. I actually think the Demerol immobilized the part of your brain where you go through the process of thinking it to saying it. I was going straight to saying it. Shit. Sue me.
Anyhow, ideally that’s how I would like for my Xanax regimen to work. I take it, wait 30minutes for it to kick on in and then head over to the pharmacy. (That’s a really ironic sentence, now that I reread it.) By the time I get there, I wouldn’t physically be able to care about how stupid all these people are. Let me put it to you like this – the idea that I have to go to that pharmacy to pick up a prescription starts to piss me off hours before I actually go and pick them up.
I have a prescription for an ADD medication that I get every month. This drug falls into the Class-II Controlled Substance category.
_________________________________________________
Classification of Controlled Drugs – Classes (also called Schedules)
Class-I: Substances presenting a high risk of abuse, posing a particularly, serious threat to public health which are of very little or no therapeutic value.
EX: Morphine, LSD, MDMA (Ecstasy), Mescaline (Peyote), Psilocybin (hallucinogenic), and Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC; AKA active ingredient in cannabis).
Class-II: Substances presenting a risk of abuse, posing a serious threat to public health which are of low or moderate therapeutic value.
EX: Amphetamines and amphetamine-type stimulants – EX. Adderol, Ritalin, etc.
Class-III: Substances presenting a risk of abuse, posing a serious threat to public health which are of moderate or high therapeutic value.
EX: Barbiturates (sedative-hypnotic and analgesic properties) – EX. Amobarbital (“truth serum”), Buprenorphine (semi-synthetic opiate), Ketamine, Hydrocodone / Codeine, and Anabolic Steroids.
Class-IV: Substances presenting a risk of abuse, posing a minor threat to public health with a high therapeutic value.
EX: Tranquillizers, Analgesics, and some Narcotics – Diazepam (Valium), Lorazepam (Ativan), Phenobarbital (Luminal), Temazepam (Restoril) and Alprazolam (Xanax).
Class-V: Substances presenting a very low risk of abuse, posing a no threat to public health with an extremely high therapeutic value. Medications deemed non-habit forming by the FDA.
Class-VI: Over-the-counter medications needing no real FDA regulations. This has since changed with the manufacturing of Methamphetamine by using over-the-counter amphetamines (i.e. Sudafed). The FDA has made it illegal to purchase over-the-counter medications in mass-quantities by a federal program that monitors their sales in relation to a person specific.
_________________________________________________
Now given that the prescription that I pick up monthly is highly regulated, there are several steps that have to be taken in order for the prescription to be valid – all the way down to the pharmacy level. The prescription has to be written on a specific and special type of prescription pad – one that is highly improbable of being forged. Not all doctors can prescribe CII narcotics. They are registered and supervised by the FDA and the doctors who are certified to prescribe CII narcotics are held to a higher standard of repercussion if they are found to be promoting the improper use of any CII narcotic prescribed. Once a prescription is written, it is only valid for 7 days from the date that the prescription is written. If you attempt to fill it on day 8, it will be rejected at the pharmacy-level and you will have to go back to the original prescribing doctor to request another prescription – which begins a whole different process of steps to rectify the prescription that is now invalid.
I say all that to say that you’d think that the pharmacy would be on heightened alert when filling a CII prescription. Well, not my CVS. I am prescribed a quantity of 60 15mg extended release capsules. The directions are to read as follows: Take 2 capsules every morning. This means that 60 capsules should last me exactly 30 days, right? Right. I take my prescription in to the pharmacy and wait an ungodly amount of time for them to fill it. When they call my name and I go up to retrieve my prescription I notice that my co-pay is $20 instead of the usual $10. I chalked it up to my insurance plan changing, paid it and went on my way.
Now it should be said that I don’t take my ADD meds every day. Sometimes, if I don’t need them on the weekends, I won’t take them or if I wake up later than 7am, the meds can keep me up at night so again, I won’t take them. My prescription for 30 days generally lasts me somewhere around 40 to 45 days.
The next month, I go in to the pharmacy to drop off that month’s prescription for my ADD meds. As the pharmacy tech types in the prescription, she says to me – Oh, it looks like this is a refill too soon on the insurance and they won’t cover it for another 15 days. Whhhat?! No way! I am well over the 30 days and actually I’m closer to 45 days since I last got this prescription filled. Why the hell won’t the insurance cover this for another 15 days? Something is wrong because I am almost out and I need this filled! While she flitters all over the pharmacy trying to figure out what happened asking me things like – has your insurance changed and did the dosing on this prescription change? I have one unified response to all her questions – NO.
It’s about 20minutes later that the tiny Asian pharmacist (AKA the future bane of my existence) comes up and says – Oh, I know what happened. Here I’ll fix it, no problem. Ok, finally… someone who knows what they are doing! Somewhere around 30minutes after that, they call me back to the pharmacy and my prescription is ready to go and it was run through and covered on insurance. Sweet! The girl goes to ring me up and the total comes to $10. It wasn’t until after I had paid for the meds that I stopped and was like wait… whhhat? Last month it cost me $20 – what the hell? It was in that exact moment that I realized what had happened to my prescription last month. Instead of typing into the system that the 60 capsules were good for 30 days, they had typed the directions in for 1 capsule a day meaning that 60 caps should have lasted me 60 days – THUS last month I was charged 2 co-pays by my insurance equaling $20. So I tell the girl that they over charged me last month and that I wanted this prescription for free since I paid double. She stands there and looks at me like she is about to hit the highest mode of crisis and doesn’t know what to do. So I lean over the counter and call over the pharmacist to resolve this. After I waited and stared at her for another 10minutes while she pretended not to hear me and acted super busy, she came over. It was at this point that my hatred for her was birthed.
She comes over and says – yes, how can I help you (like she’d never met me before)? I tell her the same thing I tell the girl who was ringing me up. The pharmacist looks at me like she has NO idea as to what I am talking about. This situation has officially pissed me off. A line of people has now formed behind me waiting for me to get done so they can get their prescriptions. The pharmacist acts like she is confused by what I am asking from her no matter how many ways I explain it. It got to the point that I demanded she pull the prescription from last month as well as a print out of what the directions were on the meds they gave me. This little demand is about to prove me right and make her look like an ass, given that she supposedly “knew exactly what was wrong and was fixing it”. This bitch knew exactly what I was talking about and the truth as to why she was acting so dumb was about to come out.
As the girl ringing me up heads back to find the hard-copy of my prescription, the pharmacist says – that won’t be necessary. AH! HA! Got you. She then says that they processed the prescription with the improper directions through the insurance company over 30days and they could not reverse the claim in the system. It was too late for them to correct the error via the insurance company. First of all, I worked in the pharmacy for 3years, so I knew what she was saying was complete bullshit. They could recover it, but they would have to go through a process in order to do so. This lazy bitch wasn’t going to give me back what I had overpaid; instead she wasn’t going to tell me what really happened and just have me pay for my prescription again. Ohhh, bullshit!
After bickering with her for another 10-15 minutes about how she WAS going to give me my $10 back with her telling me there was no possible way to do that – she tells me she won’t refund my prescription for that month but will put a $10 credit in the system for next month. Which again, I worked in the pharmacy and I knew the system wasn’t capable of that little offer she suggested but I was tired of arguing with her and accepted it. It’s not like I would forget about it anyhow.
Xanax: 1
Self-Control: 0
I’d gone into the pharmacy several times before I’d actually remember to request the $10 credit. I’d had it out with the same stupid pharmacist more than 3x; once when I had burned my hand and I asked her what was the best thing to put on it and she told me and I quote – there’s a whole aisle devoted to analgesics over there (and pointed to nowhere in particular). To which I responded with something like – well shit, a monkey could do your job if that’s what your graduate degree qualifies you to give as a recommendation. It was almost like when she saw me come in, she was immediately annoyed. Feeling’s mutual bitch.
Xanax: 4
Self-Control: 0
About the 4th time I was in there since they overcharged me, I was picking up a prescription and I told the girl ringing me up that I should have a $10 credit on my account that I would like to use it. She looks in the system and as predicted, there was nothing noted about my $10 over-pay. The freaking bitch of a pharmacist was there that day (it seems like SHE’S ALWAYS there) and the girl calls her over to ask about this “supposed” $10 credit I was saying I had on file. The pharmacist comes over and I swear to God looks at me like she has NO idea who I am and says – how can I help you? I tell her I want to collect on my $10 credit. She goes to the computer and looks in the system to turn around and say – I’m sorry, I don’t see anything in the system that says you should have a $10 credit.
Is this bitch for real? She knows exactly who I am and what I am talking about. I’m irate. I start to not-so-politely remind her how’d she’d screwed me over a couple months before and wasn’t even planning on telling me about it. She just stood there listening to me saying the occasional – I don’t know what you are talking about – bullshit; that was until I used the phrase – Insurance Fraud.
She immediately put up her hands shaking them from side-to-side saying something like – don’t worry about it… I will take care of this for you… I will do you a favor even though there’s no record of this being true. Like she had to get just one more dig in there before she did ME a favor.
So I responded with – doing ME a favor? Oh no, no, no princess. It is I who is doing YOU a favor by not reporting you to the FDA for insurance fraud among other things. YOU aren’t doing ME any favors. As a matter of fact wasn’t it you screwed up my prescription in the first place? THEN you lied to me about it? THEN you didn’t want to reimburse me for your error because you supposedly couldn’t get it back from the insurance company which PS sweetie, we both know you could have and were too lazy to do it – instead you would have rather screwed me over so you didn’t actually have to work. YOU do ME a favor? Laughable. I suggest you get me reimbursed immediately before I Google the FDA’s phone number while I am standing in front of your Pharmacists license number. What do you think about that? Who’s doing who a favor? (Which she was stunned with silence so I finished up with) – RIGHT, I’m doing YOU the favor and you’ll do well to remember that in the future.
Yeah, my prescription was free that day.
Xanax: 5
Self-Control: 0
The ridiculousness isn’t just reserved for the pharmacist. The staff is just as incompetent and could have only been trained by the ignorance that is their primary pharmacist whose general practice is NOT customer service.
First off, I’d like to say that following HIPPA regulations means verifying you are who you say you are so that your prescription isn’t sold improperly and so that unauthorized people aren’t picking things up that they aren’t supposed to be. This does not mean that the person ringing you up asks you if – 123 Street is your address. You are supposed to ask me for 3 forms of identification… birth date, address and the medication I am supposed to be picking up and I am supposed to answer you. On the rare occasion they even try to verify who you are, they never do it properly.
Xanax: 6
Self-Control: 0
Second, I can’t tell you how many times I have been sold the wrong prescription. You know, on the more common occurrences that they don’t verify who I am. Then they act like I was the one who was in the wrong for taking the damn prescription in the 1st place.
Xanax: 7
Self Control: 0
Third, the drive through is damn ridiculous. The clerks will allow someone to sit at the window for over an hour. Again, OVER AN HOUR. The thought of asking them to pull around or come inside since it’s something that will take more than a few minutes to fix has never once crossed the minds of these employees. This results in people backing out of the drive-thru line and going inside only to be met with a line of, on average, 8 people who most likely were at one point or another in line because they were sitting in the drive-thru for an unconscionable amount of time.
Xanax: 8
Self-Control: 0
One time a gal in front of me in line, who had originally been behind me in the drive-thru line, told me how pissed she was at what was going on. Naturally when she finally made it to the counter, there was a problem with her prescription – at the fault of the bitch pharmacist, of course. After she got her situation rectified and as she walked past me, she said – good luck. After I had been in the drive-thru for 45 minutes and waited inside for another 20, I gave my name to the clerk who rang me up and I was on my way out the door. As I was walking out, I saw the gal that was in front of me walking back in, looking more pissed off than before. She muttered something like stupid pharmacy STILL gave me the wrong thing as she walked with purpose back to the pharmacy. I shook my head thinking – well that figures. And before I got to my car, I thought – you know, I better check to see if my prescription is right. I slid my hand down the bag to be met with a prescription bottle. I wasn’t supposed to have a bottle; I was supposed to have a packet of pills. WTF?! I look down at the name and said Angela Williams. I look at prescription name and it’s not even something I get or would have on file there. I look at the address… Carrollton. Dude… they sold me the wrong prescription and she didn’t even ask me to verify who I am – no wonder I got the wrong thing! You have to be EFFIN kidding me. I turn right around, pass by the window with the gal I knew quite well by this point who was yelling at the pharmacist and went straight to the girl who rang me up. There was now a line of 12 people. I’m not kidding. 12. I counted. I demanded to go in front of them as I said loudly – SHE SOLD ME THE WRONG PRESCRIPTION.
She was flustered, but then found the correct prescription and checked me out immediately. I stopped by the pharmacist who was still being bitched out by the other gal and said – excuse me, but I want to make sure that you report this medication leaving the pharmacy improperly to HIPPA. I will be checking in with them to 1 report it myself and 2 make sure you did. I hope that you prioritize that as I am sure Angela Williams in Carrollton would not be too pleased to find out that one of her meds left the pharmacy improperly.
Xanax: 9
Self-Control: 0
I could honestly go on-and-on with example after example of how this place is like the 7th circle of hell. There isn’t one person that you will run into in line that is not seriously aggravated with this place. Believe me, I have stood in line there enough times that I have made friends and traded war stories with other patrons. It stresses me out. I think partially because I worked in a pharmacy and was a certified tech for 3 years. It’s not that damn difficult, but every time you go in there, they act like you guessed their name to be Rumpelstiltskin and are there to collect their 1st born.
I have often texted my friends from CVS talking about how I hope I never come in contact with C4 because I plan on leveling the damn place. Someone once suggested a sniper attack, but you know I’m not that good of a shot and I want to make sure and take them ALL down before I get caught. Well that or get on Xanax. I’m still on the fence.
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