I hate, therefore I am.

My brother and his family went out of town last weekend and I agreed to watch their dog while they were away. This was the easiest of watching gigs. I didn't have to stay there (I've always not liked staying at someone's house whilst they're not there) I just had to stop by once per day and take in the paper and mail and make sure the dog was fed/watered and generally, you know, alive.
On Saturday my brother calls me and asks me if while I'm there on Sunday I'd put the garbage cans out to the curb. The garbage is already in the cans, I just have to move the cans about thirty feet. Easy peasy. Except...
I forgot.
Monday morning (trash pick up morning) I open one eye at about 8am, just to see what time it was, and before I can close the eye again, I remember that didn't do the can thing. So.
I get up, find shoes, and go over to do it. I was more than a little pissed at myself because this was designated as one of my best sleep in days this week and I just ruined it. I drive the five minutes, move the cans, and within two minutes the cans have been picked up, emptied, and returned to the curb by a guy in coveralls and a spectacular mullet. I got lucky. I return the cans, grab the paper, go in the house, resist the temptation to kick the dog, and I leave for home.
On the way home my disgruntlement grows because I have officially passed the point-of-no-return-to-sleep. I had hoped to maybe get home without being too awake and go back to bed. I blew it.
I get home and my phone beeps. I had been too rushed to actually think to take the phone with me, so I missed the call and I arrived as it beeped to tell me I had a voice mail. So I push the requisite buttons and I listen to this...
"This is the Bank of America Fraud Department calling for Bradley L. Barrett. We have reason to believe that your debit card has recently been used in a fraudulent manner. Please call 555-5555 at your earliest conveneice blah blabbity blah."
To quote Hellboy, "Aw, crap."
So I call and I'm on hold for about 5-7 minutes (I'm resisting the urge to exaggerate the times to make these bank folk seem suckier) and I get a curt woman named Sabrina on the line. I always write down names of phone customer service people so I can thank them/curse them when I'm done talking to them. Sabrina tells me that she can't help me because my account is in Washington.
No, I say, it's in Idaho.
Same thing, she says, and puts me back on hold.
I then got some of the worst hold music on earth. It was like if PBS had a crappy kids show and the theme music was by a high school band.
Every thirty seconds a not-so-soothing male voice tells me that I am very important and that I will be helped in approximately two minutes. As a way to amuse myself, I look at my clock to note the time. Seventeen minutes and thirty-four not-so-soothing comments later, I get a human being on the phone.
Angela, she says. How can she help me?
So I explain and she makes the appropriate mouth noises and then she says she needs to have me hold while she researches my account activity. Nine minutes later (and believe me, you could research my account in about nine seconds because I am primarily a cash-and-carry kinda guy) she gets back on and asks me a whole bunch of questions regarding recent purchases, who has access to my account, etc., before putting me on hold for another eight minutes. She returns and tells me that she can't help me and that I have to go to my local branch. She thanked me for banking with Bank of America and she hung up before I could ask her much of anything at all.
At this point I was very angry because had I known that I simply needed to go to my local branch, I would have just done so and skipped the holding/useless helper part.
Unfortunately, I have been on the phone for so long, I now have to get ready to go to work and I will have to go to the bank on Tuesday.
Fast forward now to Tuesday and I'm sitting in the bank waiting for the bank staff to help me. My options are: the adult guy (forties, balding, decent tie) or the kid (early twenties, dorky hair, crap tie). I'm voting for the adult, and yay(!) I get my wish. He seems to actually listen when I speak, he seems to acutally understand my needs, and he seems to be able to actually fix my problem.
Sadly, things are not always what they seem. It was his (Jeff, officially) fourth day as a banker. He didn't know shit about shit. He called the exact same number I had called the day before to get help with my account. He talked to someone who told him they couldn't help him with an account in Idaho, he got put on hold multiple times and when he was done, nothing had happened. I was there for three hours. Okay, two hours and forty minutes, but close enough I say. My account is frozen pending research, my card is disabled, and I'm really feeling hateful toward B of A right now. I was told by Jeff and Alejandro (the guy Jeff had on the phone) that all would be fixed by Wednesday. It's now Thurdsday and nothing has been done. Except for the part where they screwed up and credited back some legitimate charges (things I told them were my actual and proper purcheses) and charged me for fraudulent purchases (an $1800 Moneygram, $1200 worth of pants) that I assured them were not mine. They treated me like a criminal, constantly asking me identity confirming questions so they could gather information, yet when I asked them questions, I was told they couldn't answer these questions over the phone. Gah.
...
So now I'm at work and I shoud be working but I'm blogging instead. Blogging incoherently, I might add. Usually I am somewhat fastidious about checking for spelling errors, incomplete sentences and the like. Tonight you get me raw and unfiltered with the exception of me not writing the F-bomb several thousand times.
Hopefully I'll blog in a day or two and be all beamy-like saying how B of A really came through and fixed everything and made it all right.
Somehow I doubt it.

bored, bored, boooorrred...

I'm bored at work. Here are some things from the internet that amuse me.



Holy Freud, I have this on my bedroom door.



Not only is Charleze Theron smoking, she's smoking...with an apple bong.



How has this man not won an Oscar?

The woes of September

Later this year, September to be exact, the airport I work in will close for a month. The city is going to dig up the runway and build it again. They will also tear out all of the electrical stuff that makes up the runway light system and replace that as well. They will also address the drainage problems that have plagued the runway. The problem with this little escapade is that no flights will be able to land (not exactly true...there's a tiny, alternate runway for tiny planes...but unless the airlines switch to tiny planes then no commercial flights will land) so I won't really work that month. We will be open a little (no one knows the details of this yet but we have to be open for one-way returns, private flights and local rentals. However, there will be too many employees and not enough hours.

Problem No. 1: No work = no pay. I know that money doesn't buy happiness, but it does buy rent, food, and opium.
Problem No. 2: I absolutely do not believe that the work will be done in a month. The city workers? The guys that every time I drive by a road crew, one guy is working (slowly), one is leaning on his shovel, two are holding signs that tell me to go slow, one is sitting in his truck, and two are sitting on the tailgate drinking whatever they've spiked their coffee thermos with. Yeah, that crack staff will be timely and efficient.
Problem No. 3: They are counting on the weather to cooperate. Um, yeah. Idiots.

So I expect to have at least 6 weeks off instead of four. Luckily I have six months to work my budget into shape. I've already planned to have very little fun whatsoever for the rest of this year. Thanks city planners! Maybe you shmoes that make these decisions should have taken into account that you may be fixing a road, but you're displacing a workforce of dozens. Why not start a fund to subsidize the airport workers? I'm certain that these same planners aren't going to be out of work for 8-12% of their work year.

I hate politics and things I can't control.

sigh.

Aw, man...part II

WARNING: TMI ALERT...

So I'm at work again, and I'm ambulating towards the men's room again (still slightly mystified by the previously posted-about Turd in the Urinal) and I'm maybe ten paces behind a middle-aged guy on his cell phone. He's talking a bit too loud and he keeps peppering his speech with quaint terms like "You know it, buddy" and "You're preachin' to the choir boy, boy."
He enters the men's room right before I do and he's still talking on his celly as he enters the handicapped stall.
He does not appear to be handicapped.
He continues to speak while I hear him unzip his trousers (a quick aside...I don't use the word 'trousers' nearly enough), grunt a little while (presumably) sitting down, then grunting more (again, presumably) to poop.
This is what I hear.

Grunt.
Splash.
"Aahhh...You betcha, my friend. I'll talk atcha tomorrow."

How do people think this is okay? Is there a special ring of Hell reserved for people who do this? What is the person on the other end of the phone call thinking?
What would I say if I was the person on the other end?
It's people like this guy who make me want to go all hermit-like and never leave my apartment again.

Beardy McBeardyson

This is the "combed and subdued" version of the beard. Enjoy.