Mental Confetti

Anybody can have, and is allowed, a bad, bad day. But resilience, perspective and determination are formidable tools that have sprung up in the wake of planting seeds and are indispensible to moving forward.

Much like exercise, being in school has the capacity to boost self-confidence. Especially when everyone wants to team up with you because of your grades.

Yes, I did fall off the wagon with smoking. But, I’ve resolved to get back in the ring and overpower the demon.

I am hardly able to fathom that the little boy who fit snugly in the crook of my arm at one time (and who pooped in it) is going to be sixteen on Sunday! He once told me that he’s getting old. Imagine that thoughts that I had as his Father.

No matter how hard I try to keep up, the mail stack on my junk table grows out of control.

I’ve been in my apartment a little over two years and it still looks bare on the walls and naked around the windows. I need inexpensive ideas and a method of making them look something other than walls of white and stark panes. I have a few pictures here and there, but is it because I’m a male that I haven’t even a modicum of decorative flair?

After all this time, I still love to play my guitar. I recently dragged out some old Creedence, Concrete Blonde, Four Non-Blondes, Bad Company, James Taylor, Beatles and a mess of various artists. It’s all pitch perfect and I make a great session player. Ah, the skills I’ve acquired and excel at – all of which can’t make a living!

I’ve teamed up with a lucky woman at work who has a history of winning on scratch tickets. I’m not a gambler and never had the proclivity to spend money on gambling, but we’ve won over $1,300 in three weeks. I’ve got a feeling …

I hardly see re-aquainted girlfriend. We talk every few days on the phone, but with opposite work schedules it’s difficult to have what you would call a relationship.

My ‘secret’ gift of chocolates that I gave to someone at work post-Valentine’s day is no longer a secret. I never see this woman because she’s on an opposing end of the building, works in a different department, has hours that most times are ending at the beginning of mine and only comes to my end infrequently to keep an appointment with someone who needs her. So I haven’t seen her face to face in a few weeks. But yesterday as I was walking down a hall to fetch a cup of coffee, there she was walking toward me! An impromptu conversation ensued, I apologized for the candy-gram if it made her uncomfortable and I hoped that she wasn’t offended. She was not. She was flattered and said that she should have shared it with me. We talked small talk for a few minutes and parted with a ‘see you later’. I turned, took a small step, turned around again, took a big breath and said ‘Wait’! I asked if she’d like to get together for a cup of coffee, or a drink or a trip to Jamaica. She laughed out loud and said she’d like to get that cup. She asked me for my number and I wrote it on a nearby napkin. As I wrote she remarked that she could tell that I never gave my number out at bars. How? Because I didn’t write softly enough to prevent the napkin from tearing in places. I’m looking forward to the call.

I’ve been wakened a lot recently by charlie horses in my left leg. What, I’m going through a second puberty?

I told an eighty-two year old woman in a wheelchair that she was beautiful. She shook her head no. I repeated that she was beautiful to me and she replied “Is it because my lips are so full?”

Tenacious Me (finale)

So far, I’ve for all practical purposes lost the ability to use my LG Chocolate Touch phone that was only ten months old, taken said phone to the local Verizon store only to be ignored and left waiting for a supervisor that took ten full minutes before she showed up and told me she couldn’t help me, watched from my car as the store employees peered at me from their window perch, called Customer Service and talked to ‘Ed’, was forced to tell my full-length story for the fourth time and was left with the information that all I could do was ‘grin and bear it’ by reverting back to my old phone .

I don’t do well with ‘grin and bear it’ when it comes to giving my hard-earned cash to corporations for the priviledge of using one of their products! I’m determined that they be the ones to ‘grin and bear it’ if they have any intentions of keeping my business.

After I came home, I was still seething from the very bad customer service experience I received at the Verizon store, and although I now had a work-around that allowed me to use an old cell phone, I was more than dissatisfied with looking at the husk of my LG Touch. I was determined to receive satisfaction!

I went to the Verizon online site and signed on to my account. I must have spent close to ten minutes looking for the customer service number! Do they intentionally hide it? I think that they might because right around the ten minute mark, a box popped up with a message asking if I would like to chat with a Customer Service representative. I thought “Here we go again!”, but clicked to accept.

• A moment later ‘Emma’ wrote a line that said something similar to “I’ll be with you in a moment”.
• Almost a full five minutes of waiting passed before  I wrote ‘Hello?’
• A minute later a line appeared that said something similar to “I’ll be with you in a moment”.
• Almost another full five minutes later I wrote ‘Hello?’
• A minute later a line appeared that said something similar to “I’ll be with you in a moment”. I was about to go through the proverbial roof.
• I wrote and asked if there was an issue with my account that she had been looking up or if she was on multiple calls at once or what the issue was that caused her to take so very long to at least acknowledge me.
• A minute later a line appeared that said something similar to “I’ll be with you in a moment”.

At that moment, I found the 800 Customer Service number and dialed it. I had to go through the keypad maze of selections but eventually found my way to ‘Paul’ – a real live Customer Service representative! I immediately clicked ‘Close’ on the so-called conversation I had been having with Emma.

• I again trotted out my lengthy story – leaving out no detail at all – he got the whole saga
• I added to the story mye Verizon store experience
• I added in the work-around of having to use my old phone
• I added in the online chat with Emma from Customer Service
• I added in that I’m about to go T-Mobile on them and I’m not sure if he would be able to help me at all!

I must have taken a full 7-10 minutes of ranting (politely, but very firmly, mind you) about how badly Verizon had treated me and because of it how I would buy out my contract, spread the word to everybody at my place of business and to my friends of how poorly I had been treated and how Customer Service was used in name only.

Paul calmly took down each and every word. He took names, he took locations and he took times. He told me that he was there to fix my issue and keep me as a Verizon customer – no matter what he had to do.

Turns out that Paul was as tenatious as I was.

Tenacious Me

The cable company, the electric company, the credit card company and the cell phone company all most likely have Caller-ID lists in their offices with my number prominently in bold, flashing, deep purple neon. I might even be used as an example in their new employee orientation program.

I dislike enormously the thought that I am nothing more than a nameless cash cow for anyone. If I see an unknown charge of even $0.25 on a bill, I take it as a personal jab in my gut and physically feel my ire rankle at the thought that someone is believing that I’m not going to even notice the twenty-five cents, or call them on it.

I listen to others bitch about the phone bill for instance. Each and every month – you watch it, your bill goes up ever so slightly. And yet, you pay it. Silently. My stand is this: you gave me a quote for this and that service. You will honor that quote. Or else.

My kids know all too well Dad’s version of ‘or else’ and they could quote it back to you. But for the sake of summary I tell them that every company is in business for one thing and one things only – to make money. Who gives them that money? Why, you do of course! If you are no longer their customer, what do they have left? Less money! And to hurt them even more, you will bring that same money to their competition. It’s not personal, it’s just business.

I’ve had this LG Chocolate phone, minus the slide out keypad, that I received through Verizon for not quite ten months now. I was satisfied with my Motorola flip phone but my contract was up and while I was researching for phones, my daughter became a big influence. Not being the kind of guy who regularly texts, all I really use the phone for is calling and receiving calls. I do text on occasion and find it convenient sometimes and it was because of my daughter that I chose the LG based partly on the easy texting feature. I found it a bit odd to not protect the phone by flipping it shut, but I have been liking the touch-finger method of using the phone and text.

However, I don’t go to the Internet through the phone, nor do I tweet, or use GPS or have any applications – I find that even if I wanted to use those features, they all cost extra money. And I can’t justify to myself paying extra to get on the internet when I have a computer at home, using a mobile GPS when I also have access to that on the computer and what other applications could I possibly need (at this moment anyhow) that would convince me to pay more money each month to a phone company?

Let me tell you that I take VERY good care of my phone. I do not have a land line and it is the major method of communication with my children, so do NOT mess with my method of communication that is for my kids! I do not drop it, I do not leave it in the heat or cold, I do not accidentally splash it with liquid and I do not sit on it. Weird? Sure, but I need my phone.

Last week, my phone started to get thin, vertical, colored lines on the right hand side of the screen. I thought nothing of it and matter of fact, I shut off the phone, restarted and *poof* they were gone. Only, they come back. I began to receive those lines more frequently. Last Sunday, I had the addition of a black thick, vertical line appear smack dab in the middle of the screen making it very difficult (I’m being polite) to read or see the display. Tuesday night I saw that a thin ‘lightning bolt’ looking white line appeared originating from the upper left corner to the middle of the right side, causing everything on the screen to look slightly out of alignment as if the screen were puzzle pieces slightly out of alignment. It was the last straw – I could hardly read anything at all, rebooting wasn’t doing a thing and it began to get so bad that I couldn’t see messages or phone calls or the number/type pad. I needed a replacement.

Here’s where I lost patience.