All I've Got

Everyone has them, nobody wants them, and often times you'll remember them with either a sigh or a grin. But I've learned that there's always another worse one out there - just be glad these weren't your bad days...

"Curiosity Drowned the Human"
It's something I'd yell at my child for, shake them by the collar and say in a barely contained voice, "What were you thinking?" I know that curious hands do curious things, and often times there's no other explanation for strange accidents. But there comes a point when a mature adult is old enough to know better than to let curiosity get the better of them...and stick a wire hanger into an electrical sprinkler system that is wired throughout the condominium building, triggering the alarm, and causing massive flooding the type of which the fire department has never seen. This is the only time you would curse your highly efficient sprinkler system. I'd hope that my husband would die of embarrassment so I wouldn't have to kill him myself. Let him explain this to the insurance company (which he did with appropriate embarrassment)


"Let's Try That Again"
Do you ever have those moments when you're quietly laying in bed, and imagine what the day might have in store? Let's just say sometimes it's a good thing we don't have intuition.
When the neighborhood dogs decide to have a dog fight directly on top of the hood of your car, then in their riled state of canine infused testosterone mania begin to chew off your grill, it gives one enough pause to think that maybe today is gonna be "one of those days." After helplessly watching your vehicle's paint job suffer beneath paws and claws, and leaving your grill in the driveway, you bravely face the day - only to finish grocery shopping and coming out to find your car's rear bumper smashed in by a hit and run. This is when you deserve a kit-kat. In other words, we'll give you a break and a good healthy dose of sympathy on the side.


"He's in - WHAT?!"
There are crazies out there, we've all heard the stories. And for some reason, crazies like call centers. State Farm's longest and most loyal caller, is in fact, not a customer at all. He's a regular guy, a genuine gentleman, until he catches you off guard by asking you, "So, what does customer service mean to you?" Whether you actually get the opportunity to answer depends on how he's feeling that day. Launching into a profanity laden tirade of lawsuits involving State Farm, this loyal caller has not only earned himself State Farm fame, he has also earned himself a name and his very own procedure. "The Rockford Caller" has been calling State Farm every Sunday, through a claims service office located in Rockford, IL, for eight years. If, by chance, you are the lucky winner and recieve his call, just pull up your handy dandy "Rockford Caller" word track, read it to him, explaining that the claims service office number is to be used for claim related issues only, tell him if he has any questions to contact his State Farm agent (as if he had one), and then disconnect the call.
My favorite, absolutely favorite part of this story, is the part where I tell you that State Farm had finally decided they were going to start tracking the calls to find out where they were coming from, in the hopes of stopping them. Imagine the response of State Farm employees (especially those in IL) when we learned he was calling from JAIL!

This raises a host of question. Basic ones, like "What the heck is he in jail for and how much longer?" and "They give you one call a week and you're calling...me?" This goes beyond having a bad day. This guy must be having, like, a bad life.



I can't leave without reminding you there are important lessons to every story. Today those lessons are:

1. "No wire hangers!" may be a good thing.

2. Sometimes the urge to never roll out of bed can be right on.

The last, and potentially life saving lesson?

3. Caller ID, people. Caller ID.

What's the fun of getting to stay home from work and school for two days, stocking up on water and flashlights, and filling your bathtub with water (so you can still flush your toilet in case water goes out) if it's a gentle rain outside with a nice cleansing breeze?
Come on - give us something to remember! Meteoroligists built this one up and really set us up for dissapointment. We hunkered down to weather Ivan in Pensacola - which hit as a Category 3 hurricane, and compared to that, I feel like all this weather is good for is churning up the surf and creating an exciting day at the beach.
It's only noon, so I'll keep you posted.
I might take a nice walk outside. It's the first time in weeks the humidity hasn't made me want to say, "I'm going for a swim around the block."

"A man’s mind stretched by a new idea can never go back to its original dimensions.” Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Our minds have been stretched, our eyes have been opened; may the passionate and courageous lead the way.

State Farm is the place to be.
I'm so excited to get my foot back in the door. It's a wonderful company to work for and have insurance with. I'm only sorry they don't give me an employee discount so that I can afford to have insurance through them.
I guess when you're number 1, you can afford to be a bit snobby:)
But being in the Customer Response Center, filing claims, talking to claim reps, answering policy questions, it's all coming back to me (8 years really flew by!) and I want to make myself a valuable asset to my team and to myself so that when the time comes for us to move to San Diego in the spring I'll have some relocation options.

Speaking of moving to San Diego, I'm hoping we can stick to North County.
Well, actually I have a lot more to say about the whole experience and all that goes into it, so I'll leave that for another blog.
Happy Tuesday!

My chicken and rice soup is suffering from Clumping Disease.
I added too much rice, which meant i had to compensate by adding more water.
The extra water diluted the flavor, and in the end, it still wasn't enough.
The result?
I'm eating my "soup" with a fork and it tastes overwhelmingly like the color white, which it most definately is.

That was the catastrophe part.

The adventure is: I have made my first loaf of home made bread.
The yeast part scared me. I read the packet and learned they were living!
Consequently, I opened with caution, not knowing what to expect.
Nothing jumped out at me, in case you were wondering.
It was fun kneading the dough, punching out air bubbles, watching it rise.
It's currently in the oven, so I can't actually confirm that this "adventure" shouldn't also be labeled under "catastrophe" as well.
20 minutes will tell.
But I haven't failed so fantastically at dinner in...oh, I don't know - years I'd say.
Imagine that!
Even back in the days when it was Hamburger Helper and Tuna Casserole 4 x a week did I manage to fair better than this.
I'm holding out for the bread.
Time will tell.
It always does.

thank you for the suggestion.
give me a moment to...okay, thought about it.
The answer is no for 2 reasons.

1. What's the fun of planting something if you can't watch it grow? It's a dirty little round piece of organic material that grows below ground. Nothing romantic or inspiring about that.

2. Potatos are threatened by the golden nematode (which has been described in one scientific journal as a "scourge"; I think the last time I read that word was when it was used to talk about a particularly violent, murderous, and nasty rat named Cluny.) Further more, potatos are suseptable to contract Potato Virus Y which simply sounds like a dirty form of a potato STD but one that ends in foliar necrosis. I've never seen foliar necrosis, Matt, but I bet you it's not pretty. And if I can't bare to witness the rape and subsequent death of my beautiful flowering zuchini plant, how shall I stand strong in the face of Ring Rot - a bacterial infection that rots the potatos from the outside in?
Potatoes you say?
Really, Matt, how could you be so insensitive.

though generally not a pragmatic person
there tend to be benefits to rational thinking.
and while i have occasionally been known to behave practically,
crying over a zuchini plant may not be the best example of this.
this is only significant in certain respects, but I refuse to consider which.
i am all right with this.
everyone likes to hide sometimes.