Archive for the ‘US Post Office Failures’ Category

First World Problems

Jul 12th, 10 / 5 Comments

Here is where I discuss some problems I have, that are decidedly first world, and I give all of you free-reign to roll your eyes at me. That said, please no emails along the lines of “OH BOO HOO TO YOU, GOING ON VACATION, WHINE, SOME PEOPLE DON’T EVEN HAVE DRIED LENTILS FOR DINNER YOUR WHORE-FACE YOU.” Those emails will be promptly deleted, you hear?

1. When I graduated from law school my parents very generously bought me a very, very nice watch as a gift. I love the watch. The watch is lovely. I wear it every day, except sometimes I forget to wear it when I work from home because I don’t get all dressed up, and my watch gets its energy from me (read: no battery) and so then it stops running because it hasn’t gotten any new juice in over 24 hours. But I don’t notice it stops running so I’ll be at work (and it starts running again when I put it back on) and look at my watch and go “Hmm. I doubt it is 6:37 am seeing as how I just ate lunch.” Anyway what I’m saying is: my watch is continuously the wrong time. Whimper.

2. I get a certain number of “passes” to fly for free on my Dad’s airline (that he works for, not that he owns, come on now) and if there is an open seat and the stars align, I can sit my bum in it for free. Which is very nice and all, except the stars never align when I want them to, so I spend a lot of time saying “I’d love to make it, I’ll be there if I can get a seat” and doing the “lucky” dance in the airport, willing a paying passenger to come down with a horrible bout of the flu and sheepishly go home, leaving the seat for me so I can make it to said wedding shower/birthday party/small vacation. It is very stressful, let me tell you and sometimes you don’t make it all the way and you have to call your friends or family and say “Have fun without me! I’m in Boise!” which lets face it, is not fun. Not fun at all. Anyway, I really want to fly to California in a few weeks for my cousin’s bridal shower and the flights are already full which means I’m not going. Sad-Daisy. That said, for whatever reason, the flights are wide open 2 weekends later to get to New Orleans for a friend’s engagement party, so I’m going! Except it is the weekend after BlogHer and I’m going to be one sad pile of tired-Daisy. Maybe I’ll have to look into that Red Bull nonsense my friends always rave about. I already got an email telling me to fly down in French Quarter appropriate attire except I have to fit the dress code for my free ticket, so that’ll be one neat outfit.

3. My Whole Foods is constantly out of their bakery made cookies with vegan chocolate chips and so I stand there, going through all the boxes of peanut butter (yuck), oatmeal raisin (triple yuck) and cranberry (why Whole Foods, why?) boxes of cookies hoping a lone box of chocolate chip is floating around. It never is. This makes me very sad indeed. Then I finally scored a box of chocolate chip and brought them home, so excited, only to open the box and discover- blech- they were stale. Whats up with that??

4. My laptop now makes a dreadful noise whenever it is unplugged and the battery only lasts 10 minutes. I keep willing it to hang on until February when I (hope and pray) to get a new laptop (iMac!) but I think it heard me say “February, 2011″ so it is intent on exploding this summer. *Shakes my fist at sky*

5. The same thing with RB’s bed. I decided he’d get a new bed for Christmas (my, isn’t that exciting) and so now he tries to Dig to China in his bed every night before he goes to sleep. CHRISTMAS BUDDY. YOU’LL SLEEP ON THE FLOOR FROM NOW UNTIL SANTA ARRIVES, YOU HEAR?

6. Netflix has been taking its sweet time to process my DVDs as of late. As in I mail it in and then SEVEN DAYS later I get an email saying the DVD arrived. I’m no fool, that facility is in the Chicago-land area. My letters to London arrive in five days. I’m onto you Netflix and I have no shame in jumping on that class-action-lawsuit band wagon. (Or the Postal Service found this here blog and is like “Oh yeah sweetie. We got you covered. NO DVDS FOR YOU.”)

Married Life, New Orleans, US Post Office Failures

A Mish & Mash

Jul 8th, 10 / 6 Comments

1. B & I are going to Europe late this summer and as such we realized B should probably get a passport and I should probably get a new one so that my airline ticket and my passport names match. They prefer it that way, you know. Anyway we’ve been a little slow in the process- the applications sat on our dining room table for a week, then B had to bring home more applications because I kept making stupid mistakes (poor directions US Department of Homeland Security, poor directions) and then they sat some more and this last weekend we moseyed down to Walgreens to have our photos taken. My hair looks dumb and I smiled a “small smile” and it made my cheeks look disproportionately huge. That said, no passport photo is worse than this one: passport(I was a precious 2 year old, no?)

But then, bad photos aside, we discovered that passport fees go up next week, and not by some measly $10 but rather, my passport will be $110 instead of $75 and that isn’t including the extra cost to have it overnight shipped back to me, a no-brainer ever since the Incident in 2007 that resulted in a passport, my birth certificate and my social security card floating around the country in a battered envelope no thanks to the US Postal Service. Anyway. Well played, US Government, well played. We’ll be sending those applications in tomorrow thankyouverymuch.

2. Rhett Butler is as freaked out as ever by the storms. Last night, as a particularly rumble-y storm came through I made him a tinfoil cape out of desperation. (Shut up. I read that it can help.) But it didn’t really work so he opted to retire to the bathtub where he could monitor the storm from a safe place.

rb bath

That worked until a particularly loud thunderclap shook the ventilation system so he skedaddled to the safest place in the house, which is underneath the master bed. All that remained for a good hour was the tiny white tip of a shaking beagle tail. Poor guy!

3. My indoor herb garden that did so well for so long went down in a fiery ball of tiny white bugs that ate everything save my parsley. It is now a sparse little herb garden and I now realize why gardening isn’t for me. Namely: really? Every day you want some water? And take care of your bug problem? I think not.

4. Is anyone else in Chicago the least bit concerned that parts of Lake Shore Drive keep buckling? No? Just me? Right. Carry on then.

5. I’m a total sunscreen fanatic and last weekend I had B put sunscreen all over my back before we went on a long ride through the city. I was wearing a racerback cycling top and B has apparently never learned the golden rule of sunscreen application, namely, don’t stop at the edge of the strap/sleeve/collar. While we rode my top shifted over and I now have this incredibly vibrant, swollen, painful “C” across my right shoulder-blade. Hot. Stuff. It has been 5 days and it is still the color of a stop sign so I’m thinking that it is here to stay. So long strapless dresses, so long. (Then maybe we went to the dog beach the next day and I just plain forgot to put sunscreen on so now I the always classy shoulder strap burn and frankly, I’m just a hot mess.)

Bicycle, Married Life, Rhett Butler, Travel, US Post Office Failures

The One Where I Eat My Words. All of Them.

May 11th, 10 / 5 Comments

I’ve made my distaste for the institution known as the United States Postal Service known a few times on here. I think it silly and poorly run and nine times out of ten there is one person working the counter at 4:52 pm and they are talking on their cell phone muttering about the rude people lining up to do things like, I don’t know, mail stuff. Pffffft. As if!

 

A few weeks ago we got a notice in our mailbox that we’d missed a certified letter that obviously had to be signed for. Of course we got this notice on a Friday and I spent the whole weekend fretting about it. B kept telling me it was fine, and I kept ranting like a mad woman, telling him “NOTHING GOOD COMES VIA CERTIFIED MAIL. ONLY BILLS AND BILL COLLECTORS AND HAVE YOU PAID ALL YOUR BILLS?” He’d assure me he had and then I’d wring my hands some more, wondering what horrible omen waited for us in that envelope we had to sign for. It was going to be bad, I just knew it. No one sends your birthday card certified mail, you know?

 

On Monday B told a few of his coworkers how silly I was about the whole thing, laughing the whole way over to the post office where he signed for his certified letter. They laughed too, “OH SO FUNNY THAT WIFE OF YOURS” until he came back and had to tell them (and eventually me) that the letter was definitely from the IRS and it seems they misplaced B’s tax return from a few years back (that we have proof was filed & paid for) and they’d like us to take care of it by paying them again + a whole lotta interest & fees and stern warnings about how not paying your taxes is a FEDERAL CRIME. (Which is precisely why neither of us ever took Fed Tax in law school, but I digress.) I gloated for awhile while flouncing around the house cackling about how I was RIGHT, nothing good ever comes via certified mail.

 

(We hired The Namby Pamby and we remain assured that this matter will be dealt with swiftly & with much vengeance.)

 

Imagine my surprise when we got another certified mail slip this week. I was doubly annoyed by this one because (well, first, see above theory: nothing good comes via certified mail) but also because the mail carrier had buzzed our house and B buzzed her in without talking to her and then called to tell me “Hey I just buzzed someone in.” No one came to the door so I told him to quit buzzing vagrant bums into the building only to find the slip an hour later when I went to down to check the mail. Then I was mad because: lazy B, lazy mail carrier, I WAS HOME, I could have signed for it. I grumbled and groaned and was thoroughly annoyed with all parties involved in the situation. Especially my husband who should quit doing things that lead to certified mail scary times.

 

The next day B went to collect the certified letter. Imagine our surprise when we discovered his coworkers, wishing to help out our marriage, decided to prove me wrong, paying an exorbitant fee to mail us (certified!) the following:

 

cat1cat2

Glitter cats! They sent us glittery cat stickers! Would you like some? We have plenty.

 

Of course then B came home & sheepishly told me that while he was at the counter signing for our very own GLITTER CAT STICKERS!!! he left my favorite Starbucks thermos on the counter & when he called later, it was no where to be found. (Proves point! Certified mail always leads to The Bad! Also, US Postal service: INEPT.)

 

So please, go ahead, guess how this ends? Oh you can’t? Well here, let me fill you in:

 

A large, bubble wrapped package arrived in our mail box the next day with the return address of the post office & the mail carrier’s number who found the mug, looked up the certified mail receipt & kindly sent us our thermos back, after washing it out.

 

Well played universe, well played. I’ll eat my words with a side of skepticsm.

Chicago, US Post Office Failures, US Post Office...Well