Damn

Image via WikipediaUggg.

This week I am once again training in receiving at work.

I like this department even though receiving is early morning shift.

There's a fair bit of freedom that I enjoyed when I originally trained for it a while back... before they sold the store and learning the old system made no sense anymore.

Small problem... I've been on swings for so long now, that I cannot fall asleep.

I have lain in the not really a bed for two hours... unexpected texts and phone calls not withstanding.

I have tried to meditate, done reiki and gotten as comfortable as the floor can be comfortable...

I even got up early this morning despite going to bed very late last night in anticipation of needing to be asleep early tonight.

I haven't had caffeine since noonish.

Nothing is working.

I'm awake.

Like bing-bing-bing friggin Ricochet Rabbit awake.

I have to learn how to input UPC codes and scan incoming inventory from multiple vendors among other things for 8 hours not including lunch break... and then I have to do laundry at the laundromat and read at least two chapters for school tomorrow night...

And no, can't do it tonight cause the laundromat is closed and the words of my psych chapters are all just swimming on the page... see, I tried.

Coffee is going to have it's work cut out for it in the morning. I'm gonna be so bleary-eyed I'll be lucky to not miss the toilet.

Coffee's gonna have to get me through the first five hours before I can come home and drink more to get me through the rest.

Thank God it adds IQ points, because with the amount I'll lose in the sleep deprivation, I might, MIGHT, break even... maybe.

Then again, maybe with enough coffee, I'll have a surplus of IQ points...

I'll just have to prove my brilliance from the bathroom.

Guess that beats falling asleep on the loaves of pillowy looking bread when that's delivered.

And to top it off, receiving is going to be HOT (which will make me more sleepy), cause South Texas has been so hot, the native Texans are commenting... and that's just one of the joys of living in this muggy hell-hole... along with bugs the size of Cadillacs.

I think maybe it's just possible I'm getting a little sleep-deprived bitchy.

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Why Naps Are Not a Good Idea In My House

Image by Sean Molin | Photographer via FlickrSo yesterday, after my unfunny post about my instructor difficulties, I managed to get a hold of my academic advisor and she dropped me from that class.

Unfortunately, it was while I was still on the phone with her, so I couldn't go back and tell the guy that he is a sanctimonious, narcissistic fucktard what I really thought of him.

I'm chalking that up to the Universe making sure I didn't get kicked out of school burn bridges. 

After that beginning to my day, and my adorable son using up every cute point he possessed to stay alive; I decided I needed a nap.

I was drained.

Seething hatred and parenting a toddler with the energy level of a meth-head with a Starbucks Double Shot in one hand and a to-do list in the other will do that to ya.

So I corralled the kid and told hubby that I was done for.  He said that he and the roomie (yes, we still have him, just not in the house...usually) were going to go fishing... or BBQ; they hadn't decided yet.  

I suggested fishing for two reasons.

A: The obvious peace and quiet that one cannot achieve when practically deaf people play video games.

B: I hadn't done all of the dishes yet, so I didn't want to add to the pile that was being effectively diminished throughout the day.

He and roomie left, and I went in to take my nap.

I must have needed it, because I fell asleep DEEP... for three hours.

John Phillip Sousa could have practiced in my bed during a tornado, and I would have only been the wiser because of the tuba tracks on the sheets in the tree across the street.

Apparently, that was long enough to go get three kinds of meat... burn the shit out of it, and eat as much of the charred remains as possible.

And to destroy a kitchen so completely that I would have paid the tornado and Sousa to destroy it rather than try to clean it.

Seriously.

There was a bath towel on the counter... W...T...F... is a bath towel doing on the kitchen counter?

FIY, the kitchen towels and the paper towels were put up in the now-empty cabinet above the counter.

*the look on my face at this point is reminiscent of what a 6 year-old looks like when Stephen Hawking has been speaking to the child for over an hour about quantum physics*

Every... E.V.E.R.Y. dish of every size was used and left wherever there was room; which wasn't in the sink btw, because the mopping sauce pot and all of the two-foot-long BBQ implements were sticking out of the sink.

Hey, at least they can't say that they didn't know where the sink was.  They found it at least once.

Under the bath towel I found a counter with dried liquid-of-some-sort, liberally sprinkled with 11 herbs and spices and a few steak knives.  The cutting board was moved over, so as not to get it dirty.

The stove looked like Madame Curie's lab puked on it... violently (cause you have to cook the mopping sauce on the stove, Duh!).

They left me steak.  Which was awesome, cause I love steak and we haven't had any for a really long time.

Except it looked like it lost a bout with a very, very angry flame-thrower. 

My jaw still hurts from dinner last night...and my eyes are bleeding from the sight of the kitchen...

And there is not enough coffee in the world for me to not envision a postal, blood-soaked ending to this scenario.

Allegedly.

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Getting On With It

I woke up today with a monster headache... the kind that instantly has you close-eyed groping for Excedrin... or *beg pray beg* morphine, whichever you lay your hands on first (damn, it's Excedrin), and then you call your primary care physician for a referral to a neurologist cause you're positive your brain is milliseconds from exploding inside your skull like Gallagher thought it was a watermelon, or you stumbled onto the set of a Michael Bay movie.

Yeah, one of those headaches.

And yet, it still was a better day than I was having last week, so ya know, trying to be grateful.  Because my friend from elementary school kinda scolded me on facebook earlier for not be thankful that my Environmental Science teacher seems to no longer be reading my assignments, but simply giving me hundreds with mini-comments like great job.

While I'd like to think that I am a decent writer, that last assignment was phoned-in at best, so getting the hundred was almost saying to me, "Hey, thanks for taking the time to do the research and write 1000 words in APA format with a title page, citations, and references on a topic that you'd rather eviscerate yourself than give a scintilla of a damn about, and turn it in on a Friday instead of a Sunday like every other class you've taken, all during the week that your cousin died, but I just can't be bothered reading this cause I have 20 some-odd students, so GREAT JOB!"

So I said that next time, I'm going to write about the problem with bodies of salt water is that there are too many Salt-Water Taffy manufacturers out there; just to see if this guy is paying any attention whatsoever.  And my friend reminded me to be grateful.

And she was right.

Even if I wasn't in the 'grateful' frame of mind.  I was a little ashamed for bitching about a full point scored paper.

To quote myself, "If that's the worst thing to happen to me today, I'm in great shape!"

But sometimes, you are just not in the place to take great advice~ even if it's from yourself.

Sometimes when your brain goes into Inspirational-Poster mode, you just want to tell it to shut the hell up cause your Give-A-Damn went running from the building like it's hair was on fire and you're not sure you've got the give-a-damn left to make coffee.

And yet, surprisingly... I had enough give-a-damn left to bitch at people.

Sometimes, I amaze me.

 

 

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I'm Not PC, But I'm Still People PC, Apparently

Be honest, you missed my rants, didn't you?

So this morning I got up on the post-sleep side of 8am for the first time in what seems like forever. And I'm doing dishes, cause that is the joy that is my Saturday morning, when the phone rings... at not even 9am.

This kind of irritates me, because it's not one of the distinctive rings that I've allotted to my many friends, family and admirers (ok, I made up the admirers part) but the 'unknown number' ring.

See, I was raised in the days when it was rude to call someone before 10 am. My mother would sooner let us wrestle in chocolate pudding on white carpet than let us call ANYONE friends, family, 911... before 10 am.

And yet, here I am hearing a ringtone that is sure to signal some sort of bullshit call at not even 9 am... while I'm washing dishes... pre-coffee. They obviously didn't know who they were about to deal with.

So I get the Oh-So-Mood-Enhancing computer generated voice telling me that my People PC account was past due to the tune of two months and did I want to speak to a representative. Oh, Skippy, you bet your ass I do!

You see, when we first got the high speed internet, we were going to keep the dial-up account with People PC as a back-up. It was on the desktop in the back room where we couldn't get any bars for the high-speed, so we used the high-speed with the laptop in any other room in the house than the designated computer room. My life is full of ironies like this.

Well, near the end of October we had a thunder storm that caused a big rig to go off the road and take out an entire electrical pole. Snapped it clean in half. Wire was on the wet road shooting massive electrical sparks 20 feet in the air. It is so comforting to know that people driving 20 ton trucks with the capacity for snapping electrical poles like toothpicks can't make a 10 degree turn on a wet road. Does so much for the confidence in life factor with Mr. Big Rig coming up in my side view mirror at mach 12.

ANYWAY...

So, this accident and it's ensuing power outage shot a power spike through the system that must have been like a gadjillion (real word) watts cause it blew out the computer even though it was plugged into a surge-protecting power strip. Yeah. Hey Walmart, I want my money back!

Anyway... again... Thing is, all this happened on like the 22nd of October. Well, People PC calls me last month and I tried to cancel the service. Don't need the dial-up in the back room when I have no computer in the back room. Savvy? These internet nazis, try to say that I used their service and needed to pay my bill so I could cancel.

What? I didn't use your service for this cycle I'm not paying you Jack! Now cancel my shit. I've been getting billed on the 28th of the month forever. The last day the service was used was the 21st. How is that billable for this month when I pre-pay for my service?

This Indian-accented man (dot not feather) talks all over me and tries to tell me that my billing cycle is thru the 21st so I used one day of service and have to pay the full month so I can cancel. I tell him to fuck off and die that I'm not paying it and to cancel me. I hear nothing from People PC again. Problem solved... Not Quite.

So this morning, the second I hear Mr Indian-accented man (dot not feather) on the line butchering my name I tell him that I want to speak to his supervisor immediately. Cause the second Ms. Recorded-Computer-Voice tells me I now owe TWO months I'm seein' more red than a tomato festival and I know these call center lackeys can't help me worth a damn until I get to a supervisor and go all phone-postal so I can get this handled cause I'm not paying for ANY service I didn't use. EVER. Cause I'm hard-headed like that. The People PC phone nazi wants to 'verify information' before I can be permitted to talk to a supervisor.

Oh Skippy Habib, I think not.

I came a little unstuck.

He thinks that he just needs to keep talking over me and making the same request to verify my information and I'll acquiesce to his request. Uh hello? You.Called.Me. At not even 9am in the morning. What the hell do you need to verify?

I wanted to threaten to feed him cow parts.

I didn't. I was politically correct and just cussed him out with a string of blue foulness that only a true vulgarian could have made a coherent sentence out of, cause I have skillz, and no class.

In between my filth-strings of speech, I made sure he understood that if he wasn't going to listen to me, I sure as hell wasn't going to listen to him. I was getting so postal riled up that my voice started quivering. In the world of me, that's like DEFCON 42.

I said his mother did things with farm animals that a crack whore wouldn't admit to and hung up.

I'll bet you next month I get a computerized call saying I owe three months.

Hey Today Show and Neiman Marcus, Kiss My Po' A**

Image by mod as hell via Flickr

I'm still suffering from writer's block... at least I was until I came across this story from The Today Show about Neiman Marcus' fantasy holiday gifts. And all I can say is, "Hey, Neiman Marcus, kiss my po' almost outta unemployment ass! And The Today Show can kiss it twice for running the story."

Look, I know the entire country isn't in this shape. I know there are some people that have gotten back to work. I know some families are recovering. I know some people planned well enough that they never even really felt the effects of the recession to begin with. I also know, that a lot of people aren't in that boat. A LOT of people are hurtin' financially.

I know, y'all are scratchin' your heads cause a while back I posted that hubby was back to work. Yeah. That fell through. Quickly enough to continue his unemployment. But, he's almost reached the final pay out so we're at DEF-CON 4 outta 5 on the financially fucked meter.

Bottom line, we're in the same situation as a whole lot of families out there. And hearing constantly how the country is bouncing back isn't really helping cause it's all squawk no walk for most of us.

The smiling 100K-plus earning newscaster has no fucking idea how hard it is to pinch pennies. We've spent our entire earning life pinching pennies. We've pinched so hard our pennies are transparent and there's nowhere left to pinch. So when they're giving out those "money saving tips", they don't help you because you don't do the things they tell you not to do on a regular basis anyway. The "cheap outfits" don't help cause they're spending $30 on a pair of cute shoes and you spend $12 on sneakers that last you three years. And you already eat at home for less than $20 a meal, in fact that's two meals in our house with leftovers, OK? So take your mega-watt-non-helpful-faux-compassionate smile and pucker up Buttercup; Kiss my ass.

So forgive me if I get stabby hearing about the Neiman Marcus list with it's Neiman Marcus edition Jaguar with a price tag of $105,000. We could live on that, VERY comfortably for TWO YEARS ~ AFTER BUYING A NEW TRAILER! Or the customized cup cake car for $25,000, that costs more than my husband earned in unemployment benefits in two years of working his mechanic ass off. I won't even go into what we could do with the $250,000 it takes to buy the ICON A5 sports aircraft and pilot training for two.

So Fuck You Neiman Marcus and fuck you twice American media for trying to convince us that we're doing so much better. A whole lot of us aren't. A whole lot of us are still scared shitless about continuing to feed our kids and still have electricity... and that's with a trailer that's paid off and no car payments. A whole lot of people have it even worse than we do.

Maybe if Neiman Marcus and the people they're marketing their obnoxiously overpriced gifts to were to, oh, I don't know, Stop Thinking About Their Own Greedy Asses for 12.2 seconds and stop emulating George W Bush: the master of fuck your neighbor for fun and profit, and actually donated HALF, just HALF of those ridiculous price tags to people in their own country, IE: NOT ONLY STARVING PEOPLE IN AFRICA, maybe I wouldn't be quite so hostile.

And how's this for a crazy idea: let's not let all the money ONLY go to people in large cities. Because if the US government would bail out it's citizens like it does it's corporations, maybe people would have the money to spend to keep the corporations afloat without only getting in return some bullshit tax credits. I'm trying to keep FOOD on my table and you want to give me tax credits for taking on a car payment and a new home loan. Are you people HIGH? I can't pay rent or buy food or clothe my family in Walmart jeans and piss-poor quality China-made underwear with your damned tax credits.

So keep bringing me stories about where to buy homes at a steal, in places that no one can qualify for the home loans to buy them because the economies in these places are so busted out you have to have AAA credit and enough money to pay cash for the home in the first place, not to mention that you're buying in a broken down ghost town. And by all means, bring me more stories about expensive grown-up toys at Neiman fucking Marcus.

You need to know that you are no longer talking to ME. You are talking to fewer and fewer people with this twaddle. Go ahead and stay on your cloud. The rest of us are sinking and your bullshit is making us more angry by the day.

The only reason I haven't shot out my TV for showing this inflammatory craptasticousness is because I can't afford to replace it.

Why My Husband Needs To Be Shot Through The Head With A Taser aka my love affair with Taylor; pork roll that is

Image by Reznicek111 via Flickr

So, Hubby needs to die a painful screaming writhing twitching death at the hands of an over-amped taser.

The man has OH-SO-FOOLISH-ly come between me and my pork roll. For those of you who aren't New Jersey natives, nor have ever had the pleasure of passing through and stopping at a NJ diner, let me inform you, so you don't make the same mistake as my soon to be dead husband. Never Never Never EVER come between a displaced Jersian and their pork roll.

While those of you who have never tasted it's tangy, salty, makes bacon seem like a total waste of time round grilled goodness... let me just say; we do that on purpose. To save the rest of you from yourselves. There's just enough salami-sized canvass wrapped scrumptiousness for those of us who grew up teething on slices with the omnipresent red box in the fridge and those non natives who showed up in person and weren't dissuaded by the name to try it.

It is oral sex straight from the store, if during oral sex your mouth was the one having all the fun.

We eat it with eggs and cheese on hard rolls for breakfast. Oh, and not whatever kind of hamburger-bun-sized roll, no. A REAL honest to god, sesame seed covered top Hard Roll, thank you very much. We will have the same sandwich without the eggs for lunch... and then for dinner we'll go have Italian food, cause we can't all live on nitrates alone, well, unless we're single and broke, then it's another pork roll sandwich for dinner. I've even had pork roll on pizza, so it is possible to combine the awesomeness of Jersey Italian food with pork roll and you don't have to cook or even leave the house.

The rest of America has tried to duplicate this by putting canadian bacon on pizza...

People. Puh-leez.

Canadian bacon is to pork roll what Canada is to New Jersey. They both get cold and have a whole lot of diversity, but Canadians are all well mannered and polite and will wait for you to say, "Oh hey, I didn't see you there." and then you move over and allow them to pass; where as New Jersians will honk once in our attempt at politeness before we will run your ass down if you don't get the hell out of the way. It's nothing personal. We simply don't have time to wait on you. We're busy people with lots to do and see and we have zip and snap and we don't just hang around waiting for you to notice us. Pork roll is the same way. It's not sweet. It's tangy. It's not mild. It's bold. And, just like most New Jersians outside of New Jersey, it is totally misunderstood upon first meeting it.

Kind of like landing in Newark for your first visit, and then going to see the rest of the state in all it's Autumnal beauty. You wouldn't expect upon landing to like the place so much. And yet, it can become one of your favorite places for so many reasons.

So too with non-Jersians and pork roll. First you say, "Sounds gross, but I'll try anything once." and then some Jersian serves you up a sandwich with that knowing smile as you take your first bite and are addicted. Not like KFC or heroin addicted, because you can get that generic gotta-have-it-now stuff anywhere. No, you leave the state and more than 1 hour past the NJ borders, and you CAN NOT GET PORK ROLL ANYWHERE... unless you have an internet connection and a credit card.

Which brings me to my husband's untimely but fully deserved death... He denied me internet ordering pork roll because HE has never had pork roll and simply doesn't understand the lengths a Dying-of-Swine-Flu-majorly-hormonal-woman will go to in order to get said pork roll after already being denied decent aka Jersey-esque: Italian food, Polly-O cheeses, hot pretzels, in the casing hot dogs Tandy Kakes, real salt water taffy and not-from-Domino's-or-Pizza-Hut pizza delivery. I have reached my breaking point.

I have now become pork roll denied lethal. Somebody better warn this man how serious I am. Or else, y'all just need to dry clean your black suits and dresses. Fair warning. 'nuff said.

Sabotaged Sunday

Call it my upbringing. Call it my continuing fantasy that Sundays are for family time and football and pot roast. Whatever. That is my deluded little Norman Rockwell wish for my Sundays, even if they very rarely turn out that way.

I want to wake up Sunday morning and snuggle up with my husband and my munchkin and lazily get up to make coffee and a big egg and bacon breakfast which we all eat together joking and smiling over our coffee mugs and sippy cup at each other basking in the amazingness of the kid(s), making phone calls to distant relatives while I do the dishes and we settle into the couch to watch football on TV and our son runs around the living room with his Nerfball shouting "GOOOOOO!!!!" until halftime when I get up to start the dinner which has never in all my housewifing years been pot roast btw which will be done by the time the game ends, but will keep if there's overtime and then we'll all retire to the dinner table to eat and talk bout various subjects and praise the cooking and hard work of the chef (me). Afterwhich, we'll play board games or cards and then possibly watch a movie complete with popcorn and put the kid(s) to bed and retire to sex and sleep to face another grueling Monday and all that entails...

Here's the problem, aside from the obvious things like hubby not liking football and not owning any board games...

We'll call him Sam. Sam is the roommate I've referenced over the last month plus. And by all that is holy, as of Friday, we managed to clear out the camper and give Sam his own place to stay. He has a bed, space to put his things, privacy, electricity and even his own fridge. He still has to come in to use the bathroom and wash his dish(es) but, by and large, he's self sufficient... You. Would. Think.

So, imagine how perturbed I was to wake up, come out to the kitchen and find Sam in my spot on the couch hawking for coffee. WTF?

First I get no snuggle time on a Sunday morning, but now, I'm greeted by someone I thought I didn't have to have in my house 24-fucking-7, sitting in MY spot on the couch, the one I wanted to crash into while waiting for coffee to brew and watch a movie with my husband while my son ran around like a mini-maniac-on-a-sugar-high, but no. I have to see muthereffing moocher ass Sam.

Ya know, when you rent an apartment, you don't go to the landlord's apartment every morning for coffee and then leave your coffee mug there to be washed. You don't use the landlord's washing powder to do your laundry and you don't hawk around the landlord's place waiting for them to feed you. You also don't constantly ask the landlord to run you to town because you're such a fucking looser that you can't get your car fixed and registered in THREE YEARS but you can use it to go to work making just enough to pay your child support because otherwise you'd go to jail, a pittance in rent, and keep yourself in beer and cigarettes.

You would if you weren't a mooching fucking looser taking advantage of the kindness shown you by your friend handle your shit the best way you knew how, keep respectable friendly boundaries by not being in someone else's house every waking hour you're not at work, set up a budget and save up to get your car fixed so you could quit treating your landlord like a taxi service, get a job that pays more so that you could move out into a decent place of your own and buy your own food and coffee and washing powder, which you should be able to do well before you got into the above mentioned place of your own.

So, I call hubby into the bedroom after starting coffee to gently no, honestly, I was trying to be kind about it cause it's his 'friend' even if that's not how I'm seeing it so much anymore put my case to him, and you know what My Husband does? He hears two sentences and Blows Me Off to go back out and watch movies with fuckhead while the coffee brews.

Yeah, I see me not being real gentle about the Sam situation anymore. I see me turning into YankeeSuperBitch WhoDoesn'tBelieveInHospitalityOrCompassion AndDefinitlyNotCookingOrAnyOtherKindOfWifelyDuty. That's what I see happening.

He. Chose. Poorly.

Hubby's Ex-Boss Needs A Kick In The Crotch and I Predict Best Buy Will Be Going Out Of Business If They Don't Change Their Ways

For those of you that love my rants, Merry Friggin' Christmas. For those of you that don't, you're in the wrong place, leave while you can because I have more than one 'rantee' today... "Leave Stanley. Run, run, go, go, run".

Alright, now first of all let me start by saying that I'm thoroughly pissed off from the moment my eyes are subjected to the harsh glare of mid-day these days. You'd think (at least I would) that a personal, breakthrough with the magnitude of the one I had a few weeks ago, followed by another one a couple of weeks ago, would have calmed me down some. You know, helped me quell the inner fires that I'm so longing to burn everyone at the stake upon. But, no. No, these breakthroughs have left me ready to stab random people on the street for the major infractions of breathing and blinking. I'm aware of it, although unsure of how to quell it, so for now, I simply have stopped carrying mace to use on people just for the fun of hearing them scream.

OK, that said, I still have two big ass rants to share with y'all today. You're welcome.

What The Fuck, Hubby's ex-boss from before I met him? Two months ago, you called Hubby up and offered him a little side job and asked him to bring his code-reader to diagnose a vehicle. So Hubby does. All nice and neat, he shows up on your doorstep at oh-early-thirty with his code-reader and some tools in hand ready to do your bidding some 50 miles round trip from our home. He gets there, is shown to a complete and total piece of shit that a blind ghetto rat would push into any body of water to simply be rid of it, and does, as you asked him to, get codes on and diagnose this craptastic hunk of recycled beer can that's trying desperately to pass for a vehicle that your dumb ass took in on trade. Hubby does the diagnosis, tells you that it's such a piece of shit that it would take more than it's worth to fix it, You still want Hubby to fix it, and after two hours of your southern-drawl-salesman-speak, you send Hubby on his way with nothing more than a 'we'll see' attitude and your fake ass smile. Not so much as a nickle for his time or gas or any other damn thing after you told him on the phone that you'd pay him for the diagnostic no matter what.

Obviously, with being handed that sack of ass-reaming-lies, Hubby never went back, nor did he ever see a dime from you. Then Saturday, you have the nerve to show up here in your brand spankin' new pick-up truck with your perfectly groomed wife and make all polite-conversation-and-fake-friendship-like so you can ask Hubby to come to your shop Monday (today) and work on some vehicles for you. Again with the I'm-helping-you-out attitude even though you can plainly see with your own two eyeballs that Hubby is already working on his ex-wife's piece of shit that has already had an entire engine replacement that he was only told about when he finished replacing the radiator and various other small items and found that the head gasket is leaking so now, for the sin of trying to help someone out, he's up to his ass in alligators. And so, Mr. Cheap-Ass-Ex-Boss-Salesman-Think-My-Shit-Doesn't-Stink-Cause-I'm-A-Fucking-Millionaire you want Hubby to drop what he's doing so he can drive 50 miles to work on your garbage for less money than the gas it takes to get there. AND you've got the brass balls the size of coconuts to call my house at 8 something in the am to find out where Hubby is, like he's your employee, when Hubby never, for one solitary second, agreed to do the job. What the fuck is wrong with you, you cheap ass bastard?

Not to mention that I know all about how you asked Hubby if I was a lesbian the first time you met me, so you're lucky that I don't drive the 50 miles roundtrip my damn self simply to slash your mother fucking tires. Fuck you, have a nice day.

And then, there's our old buddy Best Buy...

Dear Best Buy, what the fuck are y'all thinking? I guarantee you that by placing full length and huge wall sized mirrors in your ladies room that you will loose sales. No woman who has, say recently quit smoking, or who has never lost the massive tonnage that was gained during a non-Hollywood pregnancy does NOT want to wash her hands staring at an actual-life-sized-holy-shit-when-did-I-turn-into-Jabba-the-Hut fucking reflection of herself.

When she's at home with her little over-the-sink-medicine-cabinet sized mirror, she can delude herself into the belief that she's not quite so big. Because she doesn't feel like she could out-weigh an 18-wheeler. She still has a mental image of herself from high school when she did aerobics during P.E. and wore stretch jeans and cropped-mock-turtle-neck-sweaters and hung around with the football players drinking beer after games and giggling cutely.

So she is not ready to be smacked in the face with the reality that she is now almost 40 with a child-fingernail-induced scratch on her upper lip, her hair looks all slack and sweaty and pulled back into a pony tail and that she didn't put on make-up because her Hubby said that they were just going to pick up a VW part from the parts store to finish up the ex-wife's headache-car and then he changed his mind and after getting said part, he went to His Nirvana in Blue and Yellow 'to get out of the heat', whereby his wife, in an attempt to not look quite so bad, went to the bathroom only to be hit with each and every single self-esteem demon that she has ever had in her life, and in fact, it looks as if she has eaten them, because she seems to be almost half as wide as that wide-ass mirror and holy-fucking-hell I am NOT staying in this store for one more second because I was not prepared for this mirror since Best Buy doesn't sell clothes and I didn't realize that I look so bad that I could blind Medusa. So now, I want to have both a nervous-breakdown-crying-jag and a full-out-postal-homicidal-killing-spree-targeting-all-the-skinny-girls-in-the-store-*fuckingBarbies*.

So that she comes out of the bathroom at holy-shit-it's-a-charging-bull speed, laser-targets her husband, grabs his arm and her child and says as calmly as possible, "We are leaving THIS SECOND." In an 'if you have a brain in your skull you will not argue, but will simply follow me' tone of voice that also implies that if they don't follow, they will have to do their own laundry and cooking and will be single for the rest of their lives because it's not easy to get a new wife when you've been castrated and you have to sleep sometime. Then again, it will be easier to get the replacement wife when you're filthy stinkin' rich, which you will be when you sue Best Buy for the loss of your family jewels, because any male judge will rule in your favor with his legs uncomfortably crossed from behind the bench. And then Best Buy will be the punchline to every junior high school boys' joke for the next 10 years and Circuit City will come back and you'll be the ones with all the sad, empty, unlit buildings all over town. All because of your fucked up mirrors in the ladies room.

I suggest you change them now.

This Is What Happens When I Take a Migrane Nap and Hubby Has No Playstation

How do I put this delicately? OK, I'll settle for calmly.

Aside from the obvious cure of becoming a knife-thrower with bad aim, I don't know what I'm going to do with this man of mine. I'm beginning to think that he has a gift for making me homicidal...so, it's not a rare gift, but still.

As y'all are aware, Sparky died prolonged happy dance behind hubby's back including, but not limited to, Saturday Night Fever finger points the other day and hubby has been in mourning. But, as any grief counselor will tell you, all grief is experienced differently by different people.

I'd prefer it if he'd do like he did when his brother passed away... got drunk as hell and rode around on the John Deere calling every number he had in his cell phone to expound upon the lessons he had learned in life until he ran out of gas, threw up, and passed out. I'm just not that lucky this time. No, this time, he's exacting his revenge against me because I never loved Sparky. (Yeah, guilty, so fucking what?)

Anyway... as I was lying down in an attempt to keep my eyeballs from jumping out of their sockets and stabbing me in the forehead with machetes, my husband decided that the sound system was not producing the optimal dish-shattering noise sound. The cure for this was to completely flip the living room ninety degrees. *eyeroll ~ which is pretty difficult to do when your eyeballs are armed with machetes, fyi* I found this out when I came out for more Excedrin and could barely get to the kitchen table.

I had already taken deep breaths and called my sister for my own sanity intervention, because I know how I get. And instead of completing the job, he sat his ass down and had to test the sound of the system with AC/DC and Ozzy, while the living room was still so torn up that the only one that could get into the room was someone already IN the room... in other words not me. In other words, I couldn't get back to the computer room to twitter it for further mental help because my sister abandoned me had to hang up when the music became louder than a jackhammer and she couldn't hear me anymore.

Let me tell you something about my man. He is not a planner. Nor does he have any give-a-damn for anyone else when it comes to his *expletivesosevereithasbeendeleted* home theater system. As in, it's too crowded in here, so I'm pitching, LITERALLY PITCHING, as in out the back door onto the lawn, the entire bookcase... Oh, he saved the books, but all of the magazines on it, including my entire collection of House Beautiful the magazines I keep so as to not be all suicidal that I've spent over three years in 540 sq. ft. with hideous nicotine stained would make Stevie Wonder cringe colored paint and 1970's flooring was out on the lawn, buried between broken bookcase shelves. He also informed me that the living room was his room, and it will stay this way; as if we're in a fucking mansion and he can designate any room as his domain to the exclusion of kids toys or much needed storage space in the form of bookshelves.

Once again *all together now, cause you know exactly what's coming* This. Is. Where. I. Lost. It. (and where I, in retrospect, give my extreme gratitude to the Universe that my son was completely engrossed in Harry Potter in the back room and was clueless to what was going on.)

I went into the bedroom and started unloading the drawers of his stereo magazines. The ones that he has read and re-read like a porn addict with a lone copy of Playboy... and I flung them in piles out the back door just as he had done with the bookcase... all bajillion-gazillion of them. Punctuated with an exclamation point in the form of pitching out the plastic drawers we got a while back to keep them in... (once it was empty, cause that thing was heavy!) Because I am nothing if not an eye-for-an-eye kind of gal. which is why nothing else wound up getting pitched out, or like the wrong side of a bat being taken to the entire AV system cause hell yes I was that pissed off but I was still coherent enough to recognize that retribution is a bitch and the computer room doesn't have a lock on it

It took most of the next day and my rescuing all but the October '08 issue of House Beautiful before we spoke again, and wouldn't you know it? The living room and bookshelves were not the issue. There was another deeper issue that needed to be addressed and worked through. that being the one where I discovered, much to my surprise, that I am way more damaged than even I knew and I was fucking things up on purpose because I was a closet pussy ass scaredy cat hiding inside a grown woman's body Which we did... at length. And things between us are much better than they have been in a very long time. mainly because I didn't throw heavy stuff at his head even though I wanted to, so Yay Me It's probably why I don't cringe when I walk through the living room and take in the new layout despite the fact that hubby has never once in his entire life read House Beautiful, which he really needs to do before rearranging another room, cause DAMN.

However, we've run out of money 4 days before payday, and hubby is out of smokes... so the next post may well be full of more Jesus Christ, I'm so glad I'm not her drama. Read: Look for me on the news, I'll be the one in handcuffs!

"And how was your weekend?" She trilled in a Disney-princess-sing-song with a plastic smile that she didn't mean for one millisecond shellacked across her face...

For a way funnier post about feuding with your husband from a much better blogger than me, go here.

It's A Very Serious Condition; Possibly Fatal, So It's Nothing Short Of A Miracle That I'm Posting Instead Of Hooked To An IV In A Hospital Somewhere

First of all, before I get started, I'd like to take a moment and wish my Aunt Sherry a Very Happy (number undisclosed) Birthday on Thursday, August 6th. I hope it's wonderful!!! I Wish I could be there to help you blow out the candles, but I'm missing my tiara and magic wand... which is cool if they wind up at your house, gift-wrapped by the universe as birthday presents. Otherwise, just have a piece of cake and send me the calories. I'm happy to take them for you. And just so I say it all public-like, thank you so much for being super-extra-awesome-and-wonderful to Jos during her visit. You were always such a blessing to me, thank you for paying it forward to my girl. You're awesome, and I love you!

*pause for authentic slight tear-up*

OK, now...

This week, I'm playing along with Mama Kat at Mama's Losin' It. Her weekly feature Your Assignment, Should You Choose To Accept It had a prompt that caught me this week: What's ailing you? Diagnose yourself with a syndrome. (inspired by Kimberly from Kamp KK) My mother, being a retired RN (that's registered nurse to y'all) I thought this would be fun...

Turns out, I'm one sick puppy... aside from mentally (I could hear every single person I ever met in my entire life my sister laughing-so-hard-she-snorted in my head as soon as I typed that and had to clarify!!) ...and I'm about to get a whole lot sicker, because...

I'm back here typing out my five-minute title to this post and I hear a blue streak that rivals one of mine. So my ears prick up (yes, Beavis, I said prick) cause it's gotten all quiet-like again except for what sounds like wires and such being moved. Then hubby comes flying in here like a man on a mission, grabs some things off of his mechanic's carts and swoops back out, nearly running over the munchkin (just call me shadow, Daddy) without so much as a backwards glance. So I get up to see who's life he's saving on our kitchen table because as far as I'm concerned, the only reason to mow down a toddler involves carotid arteries shooting blood all over my kitchen with the chief of police in the driveway, savvy?

So I whip out of the back room to see a pathetic black box with wires strung out from the AV system and a look of grave misgivings on hubby's face as he sits down to operate on his patient.

Uh-Huh. *eyeroll*

This is the emergency.

Shallow breathing and non-responsive pupils from the Playstation.

The Playstation that the toddler has taken to operating (properly, including game changes, might I add) without our help or supervision. Yes, y'all as of last Thursday, it is not my adorable bright-eyed-redhead slapping my arm saying, "MomMY! GeH UP!" but the soundtrack to MX vs. ATV games playing at Daddy-Loud-levels that wakes me up. Oh goodie, another gamer in the house. I'm so proud. fucking liar

And, now I understand completely. It's like when your best friend gets kinda soused at your BBQ and then runs over your beloved pet Sparky with the John Deere. You still love 'em, but you kind of can't look at 'em right now and you're trying to reserve your outburst cause you're not sure if Sparky is gonna live yet... it's like that with Hubby and the munchkin hunched over a black box on my kitchen table cause Boo still doesn't realize that Daddy thinks he's the reason Sparky the Playstation is in critical condition.

I say nothing, because I have a strong sense of survival like that and go back to my computer before he asks for my help, because let's face it, I hate Sparky. And while I'm not exactly reveling in the pain of it's possible death, I'm also not going to get roped into trying to help revive that time-sucking pain-in-my-ass either.

I know it's gotten really bad when he comes back into the computer room for a crash cart in the guise of an air compressor. Now, mind you, he's got the case off the game, and I can't, for all the tea in China, figure out what in the hell he needs the air compressor for, but again, I'm still wishing myself invisible during this *ahem* tragedy as he zips past me to perform CPR.

This is where I should have copped a fucking clue, but I totally sold my brain on eBay for gas money, so it didn't occur to me that he was going to do the compressor procedure outside, even though I couldn't hear it being used, so DUH, as in Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin's love child, Dumbass Griffson.

Cause next thing I know, here comes munchkin, holding his hand out to me. Not crying or whining or fussing. Just holding his hand out to me. I look down and his pointer finger is bleeding right in the center of the pad of his finger. He sees that I see the blood, and then he puts his thumb against it (spreading the bloodiness around for good measure) and starts saying, "Owwwww" as a few tears start and build up as I inspect the damage to now, a full blown cry. Aaaand now, as if on cue, here comes the blood for real. So I scoop up little bleeding man and off to the bathroom we head...

I'm one step into the living room, heading for the bathroom when, for some unknown mama-instinct reason, I look over and see the cause of the blood... Hubby's motherfuckingsharpassboxcuttingknife wide open. The one that he was so concerned about Sparky that he left in easy reaching distance on the kitchen table and neglected to specifically tell my dumb ass that he was going outside despite how obvious it was to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. Now, SPARKY MUST DIE AND HUBBY MIGHT NEED TO GO WITH IT. So I kick open the back door and spout some super-loud fuck you's parenting tips at hubby so that he could hear them over the compressor on my way into the bathroom with our much-more-important-than-a-fucking-video-game bleeding son... not that I'm wigging out now that I know what he damaged himself on... Nah, not at all.

I rinse and peroxide (which starts a whole new round of I'm-Dying-Mommy tears) and inspect the wound in between putting pressure on the finger with a towel ~ which, for you childless people, is way more difficult than it sounds. Picture trying to catch and hold an overfilled water balloon one handed and covered in Crisco. That kind of comes sort of close. Maybe.

I ascertain that he's basically tapped his finger against the sharp-pointy tip which, although I can't tell how deep the cut goes, is better than, say running his finger down the blade. Thankfully, despite the immediate disturbing mental picture of how bad it could have been, I can not see bone, nor is there blood coming from anywhere else. *sweatdrippingdownforehead* Disaster less massive than was possible... *deep breaths*

In my Mommy-insta-nurse-just-add-blood superhero costume I decide to put a band-aid on it. Except, have you ever tried to put a regular sized band-aid on a two-year-old finger? It's like using an ace-bandage for a sprained finger... you know it's gonna be waaaay too big from the second you start, but if you angle it like you're trying to do origami or some shit and stand on your head during a full moon, it might just work for a while until you can tell if it's a minor cut or if you're going for that wonderful thrill-ride of emergency room visit complete with explanation that won't get you arrested for child abuse on the spot.

OK, band-aid on. Munchkin bending finger to assure me that I didn't cut off circulation entirely to his finger with my creative bandaging. Tip of finger is not turning blue. We're good. Ten minutes later, munchkin can still waggle finger, tip is still not blue, and putting tip of finger to my lip, tip of finger is still not cold, ie: circulation still happening. Also, band-aid is not bled-through. Which is a good sign, but not good enough for me to stop rehearsing my emergency room recount of how munchkin came to be damaged in full view of two completely competent, loving parents. that's my story and I'm sticking to it

Half an hour later, the kid is fine, the finger is forgotten, and he's pulling out Harry Potter movies so he can decide between the Boo-version of Citizen Cane that is Sorcerer's Stone and Prisoner of Azkaban which is his Godfather Part Two... And, Yes, Virgina, there is a Santa Claus, cause Sparky. Is. Dead. *RenfieldLaughAsITwirlMySnidelyWhiplashMustache*

Except, now I have to deal with a hubby who is in Playstation withdrawals. I fully expect him to go to bed tonight at 7:12 pm. And by tomorrow, he'll be furiously hitting buttons on the game controller and making fake shooting noises at Dr. Phil and Oprah... but that's not the worst of it.

I've told y'all before that he's been cramping my computer-time-style... Yeah. I have a feeling that by Friday, I'll only be able to get on the computer from 4-6 am and only with prior written permission from a parent or guardian and possibly the Pope, or maybe the cheerleader from Heroes cause she's totally in his five so he might listen to her... and I need to consider sending Megan Fox an ape-load of tweets pleading my case so maybe she can get me some computer time too... in case the Pope and the cheerleader are busy...

Oh yeah, and that self-diagnosed disease of mine? It's Dumbass Griffson Sparky Mortality Gateway Inacessability Disease exacerbated by Spousal Pre-pubescence coinciding with the arrival of Florence.

So, as you can see, it's a very serious condition, although, to be honest, the IV I mentioned may contain Lithium and Valium.

Over-and-Over

They say that Hell, you know the place with the fire that's run by the guy with horns... OK 'they' is a fairly loose term. Let me rephrase. In the accounts of Hell that I've come across in my many readings and too many hours of TV and movie watching, along with my amateur theologian studies, Hell always seems to boil down to repetition. Arsonists are burned alive Over-and-Over. Murderers are killed Over-and-Over. Rapists are raped Over-and-Over... you get the point.

Well, I have entered Housewife Hell. I clean a room. I leave that room to put the last howdidthisgetinhere thing away, and by the time I walk the 10 paces back to the clean room, it's a disaster again. Over-and-Over.

And I have to tell y'all, they're wearing me down and out. I have had shouting matches with God at least three times in the last week. My sink is constantly overflowing. My floors continually look like I don't own a vacuum. My bed looks completely un-made within hours of being made. I wipe up the kitchen table, sit down for one commercial and go back in the kitchen, and am afraid to put anything on the whatthebleepisthat on my kitchen table. Even I have begun to look like a disheveled mess because every time I go to take a shower, there's no hot water, no washcloths, and no towels. Over-and-Over.

I used to make a list of what I needed to get done. Now I make a list of what I have done so I don't sit there playing the 'am I loosing my mind or didn't I just do that' game. I don't even have the sanctuary of my computer room anymore. It's been invaded.

Hubby has two work carts blocking up more floorspace than the old bed did before we cleared it out. And my nice neat filing system is everywhere because the man can't control the directionality of the fan. And my notebooks have pages of handwritten stereo information in them. And I'm out of printer paper cause he can't NOT print everything he sees out for future reference and messability in other rooms of the house. And my desk is a nuclear dump site. And no one can get through on the phone, only now it's not because I'm on the computer; Hubby is on the computer. And when hubby is on the computer, munchkin wants to be in the computer room with his daddy so he can play with the power tools (the battery and bits have been removed from the drill!) while hubby is obliviously lost to reality because daddy's drooling at the Onkyo website and only kind of telling Boo not to play with whateverTHATis over his shoulder. It's stereo-computer-porn. It's every day... Over-and-Over.

I've started sleeping during the day. I'm so sick of my environment that I don't even want to see it in the harsh light of the new 105-degree-heat-index day. I've started staying up all night so I can vacuum at midnight and send the disaster-makers off to bed before they can track mud and crushed Cheerios across the newly cleaned floors. Then I turn off all the lights in the house save for the dim one in the living room, which I clean up and sit in quietly. I bask in the silence and pseudo-cleanliness for as long as I can keep my eyes open. Noon is now my version of 6am.

And the hubby doesn't understand why my fuse is getting shorter and shorter. Why a single spark will light off the entire keg of dynamite. Why I've turned into a shrieking, nagging harpy that can't even stand to be around herself. And yet, in between that joyousness, I've been having so much fun watching the munchkin develop and grow more incredible every day. And I've been savoring the talks with my daughter like they're the last piece of cheesecake on the planet. So there are definite upsides. Kind of like the tragedy that leaves you paralyzed from the waist down, so you start to appreciate that you're still breathing and have the use of your hands.

OK, alright, maybe it's not quite that bad... maybe.

It probably isn't at all that bad...my perspective is warped...

Because it's Over-and-Over.

Deep Breaths

Calm yourself, Aria. *deepbreaths*

See Y'all!

See what complaining that things are all sunshine and daises will get you?

It's basically asking the Universe to sprout a tornado and stomp on your daisies. I should never worry that things are going too well... I am, after all, married... with a step-son. Therefore, no matter how un-blogable life may seem at the time, it will always pass.

So here I am again on Monday, posting late as hell with less than 6 hours sleep because we road-tripped to Austin and the only one that got any sleep before 6 am was the turbo-terror-tot. But, it wasn't just hubby and I. This time we had his older son with us. Because the boy has just graduated from high school and is hiding out from the real world and is visiting with us for the longest he has visited my husband ever before in his natural born life cause he's pissed off his own mother so much that she's ready to KILL him which is just oh so nice... for them *eyeroll*

*deepbreathsthinkhappythoughtsdeepbreaths*

OK, this is not my first foray into the world of evil stepmother. My ex-husband had two girls from his first marriage too and they were 12 & 13 when my daughter was born. Besides, my daughter was 8+ when the turbo-terror-tot was born, so even with my own children, it's a situation of much-older, quasi-grown child that lives outside my own home, assimilating to life with not only me, but a munchkin and the way we do things in the day-to-day in my (our) home.

In a way, all of my step-children have been lucky too, because I understand step-parenting from both sides of the coin. I grew up as a step-child. Both of my parents have been remarried to their current spouses for almost three times the length of their marriage to each other. And I had one step-parent that made the job look like... how can I put this in gentle unoffensive terms?... someone trying to do a root-canal without anesthesia on a naturally twitchy person who has a low pain threshold; and the other step-parent made the job look like it was the most easy and natural thing in the world, (which, I knew even then, was far from the truth) and treated me like their own daughter... well as best as they could. See the thing that I've discovered about being a step-parent is that IT, not parenting, is the hardest job in the world.

Mainly because you're in essence putting your parenting into effect on someone who is (or was) being raised by someone who's values or personality or way of doing things is so far removed from the person that you're living with that it caused those two people to divorce. They're generally, big differences. Plus, they're not yours, so discipline and whatnot are a sticky situation no matter what you do. Then you have the child's feelings toward you and toward the parent that you're with, along with whatever is being said about you by the other parent. It's a parenting mine-field combined with a spousal-relationship mine-field; and if you're lucky most of you will get out of said fields still being able to walk or not being maimed too badly to go on into later years and their adult lives... and if not, well, the possibilities are endless and none of them are pretty.

Anyway... step-son is here, and has been for several days... again. Two weeks ago he was here for over a week (before that we'd seen him about once a year because that's the way the boy wanted it) So, we're in the 'growing pains phase' of getting to know you. And before I start bitching, I'd like to point out that I am aware that I'm oh so very blessed in the step-child department. All of my step-children have been good kids with no real deal-breaker problems... none of them ever went out of their way to torment me or physically injure me, but with that said...

He's driving me crazy.

First of all, he's huge. Not fat-wise, tall-wise. Six foot eight inches in this itty bitty trailer is a bit overwhelming. And he moves mopily... I know that probably doesn't make sense, but I'm not sure how else to describe it. He does everything super-slow and super-cautious and he doesn't put common sense into the equation at all. For example; I finally got it through to him that when the ice cube bucket runs out, the last person who got an ice cube needs to empty all the ice cube trays into the bucket and refill the trays with water for the next go around of filling the ice bucket. OK, but this boy is so household-task ignorant that he was refilling one tray at a time, putting it in the freezer and then repeating the process for the next five trays. He did dishes the other day, and was using the same process. Hastily scrub one plate, rinse one plate gingerly under running water, put one plate into drainboard... scrub one fork like it's a rattlesnake, hold under running water for 1.2 seconds otherwise you might get your whole hand wet, put fork in drainboard however it lands... scrub one...

OMG. *deepbreathsmaintaincomposuredeepbreaths*

Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's because I have been doing the housewife thing for so long that I've honed everything down to a systematic science. Or maybe it's because kids these days are so used to automatic ice makers in fridge doors and pitching everything into a dishwasher that they all are really this clueless. Then again, maybe not. My 10 year old knows how to wash dishes. My step-daughters, who's mother was a super-slob the entire time I was married to my ex, knew how to wash dishes. So, I don't know. I know that none of them have ever known how to put anything back where they found it, so that's probably normal.

And, I do know I'm trying desperately hail Mary full of grace... to not go absolutely sideways on this boy. Because if it was just this mopiness, and ignorance of housekeeping protocol I could probably cope much better... But, it's not.

It's that he thinks he's grown.

And he keeps talking to my husband like he's scolding him. And my husband kinda puts up with it cause he doesn't want to ruin the 'bonding' happy time that they're enjoying now, cause who else can he act like a twelve year old with...

And I want to ring this kid's fucking neck when he does it.

So I finally spoke up and told him: We Are Grown and You Are Not. And when you've had a couple of kids and a long term relationship and a house payment and a car payment and a 9 to 5 with an hour commute each way and you've been living that life for more than a minute, THEN you're grown... and guess what? When THAT happens; We Will STILL Be More Grown Than YOU.

*deepbreathsleavetheroombeforeyouwindupinjaildeepbreaths*

Bureaucracy

This is an actual letter that I wrote, have copies of, and am putting into the mail this afternoon. Luuuuuuuuuuuuucyyyyy, you got some 'splainin to do! Can y'all tell I was beside myself, or did I not make that clear?


Wednesday, June 3, 2009

RE: Case # 4258481

To Whom It May Concern:

You people are a joke! I am absolutely furious that y'all are playing fast and loose with my child's medical coverage.

First of all, if you hadn't lost the RENEWAL paperwork I sent off in FEBRUARY to the address on the pre-printed envelope to Austin, my son would never have stopped being covered in the first place. Sure glad my husband was laid off so that I had to go down and file for food stamps, otherwise I’d never have known that my two year old was no longer insured, nor would I know that you’d relocated this department to Midland. Way to keep people informed.

Secondly, my name is Aria P DOUTHAT, not Dauthat, get it right and maybe you'll find a record of us in your system. I write my name in block handwriting when I do government forms, so this lets me know right away that y’all can’t be bothered taking the time to do your job properly. As a former employee of the State of California, I know for dead certain, that y’all are supposed to check over your work before you move on to the next case. You’re not, and my child is suffering for it.

Thirdly, I only received this letter from you on Monday, June 1, 2009, and yet this stinking thing says that if it's not returned by 10 days from the date of this letter... which, by the way, would have been Monday, June 1, 2009 my claim will be denied. You guys are combining the worst of government bureaucracy and private insurance 'don't give a damn'. I am already expecting now to be denied, and I will have to drive the 30 miles, back to the welfare office in Wharton in order to pick up another form so that I can REAPPLY AGAIN. I will be sending a copy of this letter with my NEW APPLICATION along with all the other forms you need, just like I did when I sent in the renewal to Austin, and the original (second set for me) paperwork to your Midland office. I’m also sending this back to YOU, Mister or Miss Caseworker for Case # 4258481, because you ticked me off to no end and I’m telling you to quit wasting government money sitting on your dead ass denying claims in between your ten-cup-a-day coffee habit and your twenty-day-behind caseload. We are people, not just forms and you are getting paid to do a job. Do It.

And lastly, I’ve been dealing with you jokers long enough to know what to send with my paperwork, so you obviously LOST the income verification, and are putting it back on me since you are incompetent. And let me say a little bit about the income verification; what the hell else am I supposed to send you? My husband has been laid off. Unemployment now issues credit cards, not checks, so I DO NOT HAVE A CHECK STUB TO SEND. I sent the only thing we have with any amounts on it, and that is a Texas Workforce Commission Statement of Wages and Potential Benefits Amounts. This form shows what the payout per week will be. However, unemployment being a government agency, pays out every TWO weeks, just to confuse people such as yourself who are trying to calculate the amounts awarded. Obviously, math is not your strong suit, so I will do it for you. $392 per week actually pays out at a rate of $784.00 every two weeks. We have taxes coming out of that, but for your purposes, you don’t care. That gives us a grand total of $1568.00 per month (less taxes) for a family of three. I have enclosed a copy of the above mentioned Texas Workforce Commission Wages form for your verification needs. If this does not suit your needs, then I suggest that someone in the Texas Health and Human Services Commission makes a stinking phone call to the Texas Workforce Commission and they call a truce so that people in our situation (I’m positive these numbers are growing as lay-off’s continue to climb in Texas) can get the medical help they need for their children. I won’t even go into what total crap it is that an adult needs to have a household income of no more than $251 PER MONTH to qualify. That’s why I don’t even try for myself, even though I do have medical problems, as does my husband. I guess you’ll finally shell out some money when we both die off from lack of medical care, and then y’all will be forced to make him a ward of the state. I bet you pay foster families more than $251 per child per month. Would’ve been cheaper to just give the natural parents medical so they could stay alive and raise their own child, wouldn’t it? I won't even go into what a slap in the face it is to only qualify for $26.00 per month in food stamps. When you're down and out and doing the best you can for your family despite the state not wanting to help you, you'll take whatever you can get.

So, DO WE QUALIFY NOW, OR ARE YOU GOING TO FIND SOME REASON TO DENY THIS SO YOU CAN GET BACK TO YOUR COFFEE BREAK? (this was originally in the letter, but I took it out.)

Sincerely, Fed-up Texas Citizen,
ARIA P DOUTHAT (in all caps just in case you still have my name misspelled)
Case # 4258481

PS. I’m blogging this letter, emailing it to some news outlets, as well as sending a copy to my senator and the Governor’s office. I also just found out that Barack Obama actually reads and responds to 10 citizen letters per day, I think I’ll send him a copy too.


... and yes, I did print out copies to send off to all those people and I'm emailing it to the news outlets when I get back from the post office. Pretty sure I'm still getting denied though... *totallyinnocentlook*

But hey, in all seriousness, if anyone knows about Digg or Yahoo's Buzz, would y'all do something with this. This kind of government disregard for it's people has to stop. I know I sound angry, but at this point, I believe it's called for. What do you think?