Recession Crazy

The recession seriously has some folks becoming unhinged.

Okay so, I went to my favorite local “deli” and ordered my typical lunch. I always get ½ pound of chicken salad a piece of lettuce to wrap it in and two tomato slices. Well suffice it to say that the price was different again. Last week it was $3.33 this week it’s $4.32 two weeks before that it was $3.98. Now they don’t weigh this mind you, it’s just depending on who is on the register how the ½ pound (which always seems to confuse them) rings up. Well we got the price straight finally and here comes the interesting part, there’s a new seriously hard-ass nit picky manager who chastises the cashier and is all “Lettuce and tomato doesn’t come with the a la carte chicken salad, it only comes with the sandwich.” She responds by quietly telling him that the owner always sells it to me just like that.

Now I’ve been to this place, easily 30 times this year and this has never been an issue. So when I pointed that out, the guy gets all up in my face and is like, “If your boss asked you to work an extra 30 minutes for free would you do it?”

Not knowing how to respond I just stood there shocked that he was making such a HUGE deal about this. Now mind you, they’ve always thrown in the lettuce and tomato, I’ve never asked them to like I needed some kind of produce “hook-up”. What would the extra charge be anyway, like a quarter? A whole head of lettuce is like .99 cents, so the piece they gave me would be maybe a nickel. The tomato slices maybe a dime. So that’s an extra .15 cents. Yeah it’s a hardship but I think I can swing it and still pay my rent.

While this guy continues his rant about me not doing things for free and how he really doesn’t want to go up on prices and I’m all dude, if my complementary tomato slice and piece of lettuce is going to prevent you from making payroll, then I really don’t know what to tell you. All the workers just look at me helplessly and apologetic of course, because no one wants to own up to never charging me for the tomato and lettuce, lettuce which almost always has a gnat on it by the way.

So I took my bag and informed the manager that I would probably not be back.

Rejecting Marriage

BFF: Why don’t you want to get married?

KACEE: I’m too old now and it doesn’t seem to be anywhere in the horizon, neither do any more kids. So I’m just saying whatever. Just living my life and keep doing me. I have a kid so it's not like I'll die alone. Problem solved.

BFF: WHATEVA! YOU ARE NOT TOO OLD so stop talking crazy! So you know when you’re like whateva is when he will show up. So good for you.

KACEE: Okay, I’m not holding my breath. And why should I get married anyway? What does that mean exactly? I’m 35 years-old I have a life and a career, I can find someone to share it with without some sort of societal validation of who I am. I’ll just be one of those women who has great love affairs. But not the cougar kind because dating someone half your age is just creepy.

BFF: You are clearly meeting the wrong men. For the last time you need to EXPAND YOUR HORIZONS (and you know what I mean, other ethnicities!). No there is nothing wrong with you and you certainly do not need to change your attitude or make yourself less attractive – please. This morning on the radio they were talking about this new book “Getting To I Do’ I think you should check it out. It talks about how to be appealing or attractive to someone looking for a wife etc. etc. It’s worth a look-see. Not that you need that but it may offer some type of perspective.

KACEE: Whatevs! You are not listening to me. I don’t want to get to I Do. It is not my main goal in life. That’s being perfectly honest. I’m not pressed at all. And since marriage for whatever reason has alluded me all these years and I’m practically middle age btw, “I say hey marriage, f*ck you.” How about that? I, AM REJECTING MARRIAGE. So there!

BFF: Not too shabby! Sounds very Bohemian/European/Cougarish/Exotic/Kim Cattrallish – I like it, I like it a lot. Very open minded, very free spirited thinking. How progressive of you.

KACEE: Progress, exactly! I'm not sitting around waiting to be 'CHOSEN'. And chosen by who, some cheating deadbeat who probably didn't deserve me in the first place? No, I'm taking charge of my love life, my sexuality. Life wants to throw me lemons, fine I'll make lemonade.

BFF: Well I will support you and whatever decision you make. :-)

KACEE: Thank You…

Telephone Company & Paranoid Theories (Part 1)

Bellsouth sucks! I know it’s AT&T now but I will call it what I damn well please and letmetellya the name change has NOT improved the quality of service. The company sucks. Not suckish or suckie, sucks! Not because of its mammoth corporate existence but because it takes no real pride in customer service. I say this because I’ve been a customer for more than 15 years and it hasn’t gotten any better.

I’m trying to log onto the Internet and it’s not working so I need some technical support right? So I called from my home phone (also serviced by BellSouth/AT&T) and that shit is messed up too. After calling technical support three times from my home phone, it inexplicably disconnects while I’m on hold—10 minutes the first time, 12 the second time, seven the last time. And inputting my information all over again on each call and dealing with the annoying automated system that can “hear” me speak the information but never gets the response right is really getting on my nerves.

“You said you’d like to add features to your service, is that right?” says the automated recording.

“No,” I say. “I’m having connection problems.”

“Please choose from one of the following options…”

“Connection,” I say again.

“You said you’d like to add features to your service, is that right?

“Oh for the love of God why can’t I just speak to a human being.” I scream into the phone.

“I’m sorry I’m having so much trouble understanding you. I’ll get you over to someone who can help you,” says the automated voice.

By the third round of this I am completely frustrated. But then I start to get a little paranoid, like maybe my account has been flagged for all the times that I’ve called and cursed them out. So they do this just to screw with me. But I get clever, and call from my cell phone even though it’s before my free nights kick in. But the bastards have that number flagged too apparently ‘cause I was on hold for 26 minutes that time. I couldn’t hold on anymore. These were my precious anytime minutes we’re talking about here.

So I just hung up. I have no Internet and I can’t call about it because my home phone is messed up too. This bites…

R.I.P. King of Pop

Michael Jackson was a supernova. Just like a supernova, a collection of energy so bright that it cannot sustain and quickly flames out, so was the King of Pop. Michael Jackson sacrificed his childhood to bring us the music that would be the soundtrack to ours. I remember being a little girl in Nashville, TN in 1983 and being bused across town to help integrate Gateway Elementary. It was the first time I’d gone to school with kids outside of my community and I didn’t know what to expect. But like children often do we ignored the silly barriers of things like race, and quickly came together over the things we had in common. Bonding, black kids, white kids, mixed race kids, boys and girls all over one thing--our love and adoration of Michael Jackson and his music.

Everybody loved MJ, everybody had a copy of Thriller, everybody had a glove or a jacket or a poster. Everyone imitated his dance moves. He was the greatest performer of all time. Michael may be gone, but his music will live on forever.

Rest in peace…