Flying off the handle

I dialed the toll-free number for the service and repair department of a major appliance store and patiently listened to the recorded message. I become slightly annoyed at having to speak cryptic one-word answers into the handset. "Why can't I just punch a number?!?" I mumble. After 3 minutes of talking like Tarzan and 10 minutes on hold listening to product advertising, I finally get to speak to a human being.

"The water barely trickles out of the water dispenser on my refrigerator," I explained, "I need to make a service appointment."

"Have you tried changing your water filter," suggested the woman on the other end of the line, "That can sometimes cause poor water flow."

"No," I responded. Despite my calm reply, Shenequia, my angry black woman alter ego, is starting to surface. I didn't spend $800 on a new refrigerator only to have it diagnosed over the phone by some operator.

"Are you certain that is the problem?" I ask in a tone that would make Shenequia proud.

"No, but we try to troubleshoot over the phone."

"Can you send out a repairman to tell me if that is the problem or not?"

"No, we don't send out technicians to tell you if you need a water filter."

"So you're telling me that before I can make an appointment to have my refrigerator serviced, I have to purchase a water filter?"

She gave a long-ass reply that I interpreted to mean, "Even though you have a warranty, you have to spend all of your money to try and solve the problem before we spend any of ours."

"Fine," I say frustrated, "how much does a water filter cost?"

"Oh, we don't sell those but I can give you an address where you can purchase one locally."

There was a pause.

"Well, thanks for nothing!" Shenequia says before slamming the phone down.

After work, I drive to the parts store in the pouring rain and spend $38 on a water filter. I labored to remove the old filter and inserted the new one. I get a glass from my cabinet, press it against the dispenser and...(must I type the embarrassing results?)...the water flowed freely.

That poor woman. I feel bad for her. She was just trying to do her job only to be harassed by some raving lunatic in obvious need of an attitude adjustment. And all this after a friend lauded me for having the good sense to know when to keep my "hidden ghetto girl" in check. I know you mean well, Shenequia, but girlfriend, sometimes, you need to keep your mouth shut.

Who am I?

Every damn year, I wait until the last possible minute to renew my car tags. I really need to see a doctor about this rare form of selective amnesia I seem to have that wipes out all memories of how crowded the county clerks office gets at the end of the month. There has to be a medical explanation because to procrastinate again after having such an agonizing experience the previous year would imply stupidity.

Yeah, I think it's amnesia.

Do I have to?

My co-worker was scheduled to play a lunch-time gig at a local park today. My boss asked, "So, are we going to hear B. play?"

I responded with an enthusiastic, "Ummmmm...I uhhhhhh...well?"

If we didn't live just outside of Hell where it's 1000 degrees in the shade, I might have been a little more excited. But I was not jumping up and down at the idea of spending my lunch hour, my one hour of peace, in the sweltering heat watching two aging hippies trying to relive their musical youth.

Eventually, I relented and agreed to join the gang for pizza in the park. I sat at a picnic table in the blazing sun, tanning against my will, and listened to acoustic renditions of "Mustang Sally" and "Blue Bayou." I so want that hour of my life back.

Race determines quality of life?

My co-worker, M., told me that her daughter's ex-husband was trying to sell his house. "It's in a bad neighborhood," she explained. Knowing that M. lives in a subdivision where the homes cost several hundred thousand dollars, I was curious to know what the term "bad neighborhood" meant to her.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, his house is surrounded by Mexicans."

"That doesn't mean it's a bad neighborhood."

"I know that, Grizzbabe!"

I don't think she does. This is the same woman who said, when describing her hometown in New Jersey, that the neighborhood is not what it use to be because it has now been taken over by Puerto Ricans. That's like me saying that my uncle lives in a bad area of town because most of his neighbors are black. Never mind that he lives in an upper-middle class suburb where the homes cost more than I can make in a decade.

My ex-roommate's neighbor had his house for sale in a cove where the neighborhood kids congregated to play basketball. This neighbor called the police to have the kids remove their goal because he didn't want potential home buyers to be scared off by the sight of a bunch of young African-American males hooping it up. If this man could have looked past skin color for a moment, he would have seen that these kids come from respectable, hard-working families and that basketball goal has brought the neighborhood together in a way that wasn't evident when I lived there.

Race does not tell the whole story and should not be the reason that a community is deemed a bad place or a desirable place to live. A neighborhood's quality of life is determined by schools, crime rates, property taxes, pride in home ownership, etc. One's race does not influence any of these criteria.

Denial: not just a river in Egypt

I watched Sybil the other day for the first time in years. That movie is a prime example of what happens when you combine extreme child abuse, repression and denial. Sure, Sybil didn't want to admit how abusive her mother was, but if her father had taken his head out of his ass for 5 minutes, or if the family doctor wasn't so content to look the other way, Sybil may not have felt the need to dissociate into other personalities. Denial really is a bitch and fraught with all sorts of consequences.

I have MPD, does anybody else?

It has long been my belief that the reason so many nutcases post on the Internet Movie Database messageboards is because whenever the floor nurse goes on break, she leaves her computer unmanned, resulting in patients, all of whom must be on anti-psychotic medications that haven't kicked in yet, posting willy-nilly and unsupervised. Yesterday, my theory was partly validated.

There was a thread on the Sybil messageboard entitled, "I have MPD [Multiple Personality Disorder], does anybody else?" Of course, they were not alone. Several posters (or maybe they were the same person) admitted to being similarly diagnosed. I think the same psychologically challenged people must post on the espn.com messageboards too.

Lesson in love

I should probably tell you that I don't have a lot of experience with men, which explains why my naive little heart is just now learning what other people have already discovered. The vast majority of normal adults have experienced enough bumps and bruises that they have become callous to the rules of dating. I am just starting to feel out my environment and learn the rules that govern courtship. The one lesson I've learned so far is that there are no guarantees. This is something that I already knew to be true, but, much like the Law of Gravity, I didn't truly understand it until I experienced it.

It would be nice if life were more like a fairy tale and when Prince Charming rides up on his white horse, he would come to stay and to live happily ever after. The cruel reality is, that in our modern time, Prince Charming can hop back on his white horse and gallop off to the next maiden any time he damn well pleases. And vice versa. Nothing can really stop this from happening. Not verbal commitments, not an engagement ring and certainly not marriage. And this all scares me a little.

But a romantic relationship, like everything else in life, is a walk of faith. I make the choice to step out hoping that the benefits far exceed the risks and trusting that, whatever happens, I will be okay. Eventually.

Just shoot me

For about 5 minutes, the country music was louder than normal and I was this close to following the suggestion of the singer on the radio and telling my boss to "Take this job and shove it!" But then, he turned down the volume to just below the level that would cause my head to explode.

I think the country music must be wearing me down. I caught myself singing "I like it, I love it, I want some more of it..." in a twangy voice this afternoon. Somebody. Please. Help. Me.

Give her a do over

The female contestant on Wheel of Fortune had just asked for a "G" after hitting $10,000 on the wheel, making the puzzle look like this:

E __ C L U S I __ E
N I G H T C L U B

To everyone's amazement, she chose to spin again. The wheel just missed BANKRUPT before settling on $300. With great assurance and authority, the woman yelled, "K!" Pat Sajack stared while the audience let out a collective roar that could have been interpreted to mean, "You idiot!"

The 10 year-old I was watching the show with has never stepped foot in a nightclub before but even he was wise enough to know that, sometimes, nightclubs are E-X-C-L-U-S-I-V-E.

Thou shalt not covet

I'm breaking one of the Ten Commandments, I know, but I can't help it. I'm sick. Sick with envy. The object of my envy? A brand new BMW convertible belonging to the owner of the construction company located next door to my office. Although we share a common wall with our builder neighbor, there is a proverbial railroad track that runs between the two offices. In other words, the builder is loaded!

I came to that conclusion early on in my tenure at the newspaper by observing the plush surroundings in which he and his secretaries work. And if his office furnishings aren't enough to convince me that his company is rolling in the dough, then his cars certainly do: a Mercedes SUV, a big honkin' Ford F150, a Bentley and the newly purchased BMW. These are all just his cars mind you; this list does not include the high-end vehicles his wife and kids drive. It's all a vomit-inducing display of wealth.

But here's the kicker: The man just bought the car yesterday. Car dealers don't let a Yugo off the lot without having it detailed so I can only imagine the treatment his Beemer got before they let him take it home. But one day after purchasing his new vehicle, he spent cold hard cash to have it detailed again! And only hours after his car was professionally buffed and waxed, I saw him petting and rubbing his new toy with a bottle of Windex in one hand and a towel in the other. Geesh. While he was polishing the BMW, I could have sworn I heard him chanting "Because the more people notice me, the more I love myself."

Doctor visit

Twice in the last 12 hours, I had called the pharmacy to see if my doctor had called in a prescription for a decongestant. And twice, they told me no. I phoned my doctor's office and when the receptionist answered, I attempted to hide my irritation and politely inquired, "I know Dr. A. is very busy but I wanted to know if he was able to call in my prescription?"

"No," she responded, "his nurse said that you need to make an appointment since it's been a year and a half since your last visit." I let out a huge sigh that contained more than a hint of annoyance. The woman on the other end of the phone was confidently silent. She knew I would bow to the pressure. I needed drugs and she controlled the gateway to my dealer.

I despise going to the doctor for two reasons:

1. I am convinced that the medical industry is part of an elaborate conspiracy designed soley for the purpose of using my ignorance against me for profit.
2. I hate getting on those damn scales!

Despite the mafia tactics of his staff, I love my doctor. He has such a caring and fatherly bedside manner that everytime I go to see him I want to ask him to adopt me. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that he too is in cahoots with the money-hungry drug companies.

"I'm going to give you three prescriptions," he said, "a decongestant, a nasal spray and an antihistamine." Three prescriptions! I only asked for one. See what I mean about the conspiracy?

When I went to the pharmacist, I had him only fill the prescription for the decongestant. Today, there will just have to be one less cog in the wheel of collusion.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste

Warning: the following post contains adult material. If you are under 18, scram! Otherwise, click at your own risk.


I was posting a comment on a blog today and needed to confirm that I was using the term "labia" correctly (Don't ask!) I typed the word into wikipedia.com and this popped up. As I was wiping Diet Pepsi from my computer screen, I wondered to myself: What kind of woman says, "Honey, this written definition of "labia" is totally insufficient. In the interest of education, why don't you take a picture of my hooch, label it with the correct medical terminology and post it on wikipedia for all the world to see?"

I am sure millions of 13 year old boys across the country are appreciative of her efforts and are intently "studying" that picture as I type this.