ammogirl

Reason #1 (of too many to list) why I am glad I’m Air Force, not Army, Marines or Navy:

I had to walk up on main base today, around…say, 9-ish. You know, late enough to be warming up, temperature wise, and muggying up, humidity wise. Coming towards me was a group of about 30 people, and they were all running towards me in a loose formation. They were all carrying either: 5 gallon water containers (full), stretchers, or at least two rifles. WHILE RUNNING. Not jogging, or walking quickly. RUN-NING. They were, of course, not Air Force, but Army. Y’all, screw that. That looked like it SUCKED.

Anyway, I have a problem to solve. Do any of you have Direct TV? Okay. Well, WE do, and for the past….three? years have subscribed to NFL Sunday Ticket, because John has people over for football nearly every week, and it sort of requires you to have more than one football game showing or…something…well, it’s all about the remote control, I think, and how many times they get to change the channel. Men. So anyway, of course THIS year, we will not be utilizing NFL Sunday Ticket because of the big move in mid-October, and selling the house (and TV!) before football season, and all that. So when they sent me a notice in May telling me they were automatically renewing my subscription and charging my account in four equal monthly payments, I wrote them an email that said, basically: No thanks, moving, please cancel. In return, I got an email that said: No problem, got it, cancelled. That was in the middle of May. BEFORE the current billing cycle. Yesterday, I noticed while perusing my bank account that Direct TV had charged me for….you guessed it! NFL Sunday Ticket! "Hmm…" thought I, "This is odd! Good thing I have my cancellation confirmation! This will be easy to fix!" and then I forwarded said email to their fine customer service reminding them I had cancelled and requesting a refund. Great, right? Easy as pie, right?

Well, no. I got an email back from them (promptly, I will admit) and it said, sorry for the confusion. I will forward this on to somebody else in a completely different section and they can call you and you two can discuss how we can "help" you.

Wait…what? Puzzled, I hit reply, and wrote: Well, I’m confused. Why would you have to call me to discuss this? It’s a simple problem with a simple solution. Cancel my subscription, FOR REAL this time, and refund my account. And, blah blah about being in Korea and you CAN’T call me…blah. Just as quick, I got the second reply that said:

"Thanks for writing. I apologize for any confusion regarding removing your NFL SUNDAY TICKET. I have forwarded your message to one of our Customer Service Representatives and let them know that you are waiting for them to contact you. Thanks again for your continued patience.

Sincerely,

Bretha
DIRECTV Customer Service"

YOU GUYS! I AM CONFUSED! If you did not notice, I highlighted a few items in pink. Is there anything…I mean…don’t you see…ARE YOU NOT CONFUSED? Isn’t "Bretha" a customer service representative? Can she not help me? Is there ANOTHER customer service that is super secret, like ninja stealthy, and you have to work your way through a labryinth of confusion before you can get to them? Is this email totally and completely redundant and without content? Is it just me? Should I write them back? WHAT SHOULD I SAY? I’m not being rude! I haven’t been pushy! I just want them to cancel that football thing, LIKE THEY SAID THEY WOULD IN THE MIDDLE OF MAY, and give me back my money. Am I asking too much? AM I?

Did any of you see that news piece from last week, where a guy wanted to cancel his AOL account, and because he had heard doing so was next to impossible, he recorded the conversation? And they went all possessive and defensive on him and TOTALLY WOULD NOT LET HIM DO IT? It was pretty funny to read the transcript. If you haven’t read it yet, go check it out…if the link doesn’t work, just Google "AOL wouldn’t cancel" or something like that, it’s worth it, I promise. I especially like the part where he just kept saying "cancel the account" over and over. Classic. Anyway, I sort of feel like I’m caught in the same type of situation. I mean, really: Hi, I’m from customer service. I will now forward you to customer service, so one of our customer service representatives can help you. Sincerely, customer service.

I need your help on this, you guys. Advice, please.

Auf Wiedersehen!!!!!!

So, I’m one of those people who jumps around and flails my arms when a bug comes near me; I’m terrified of bugs.  Many of you have had front row seats to my theatrics, and I’ve mentioned it enough times in this blog that probably all of you have read it, by now.  But just in case, let me repeat it: I am afraid of bugs.  I act like a little girl…no…a big huge baby when dealing with bugs.  I scream.  I run.  I jump around and yell for someone to get it off get it off get it OFF OF MERIGHTNOWWWW!!!  As a result of this well-founded terror, I have been forced, over and over, MANY times in my life, to hear the bug saying.  You know the bug saying.  In fact, I’m sure you’ve said it, MAYBE even to me.  It goes like this:"That little bug!  That bug does not want to hurt you!  It’s more scared of you than you are of it!!"  Yup, you’ve said it, haven’t you?  Yeah, well.  Make a note.  You.Are.WRONG.

Yesterday I went for my regular Sunday walk, right?  And as I started out, I noticed that there were more dragonflies than usual, which believe it or not, was really not a problem for me.  For some reason, my hatred of all things bug does not extend towards dragonflies.  Because in my experience, that whole bugs are scared of me thing…well, it certainly doesn’t make them shoo, does it?  They keep divebombing you, trying to land on you…that is, EXCEPT for dragonflies.  Seriously, have you noticed that?  They never try to land on you, and will do their best to stay out of your way, so, even though they have big buggy eyes and not just two but FOUR wings and are big, I don’t mind them. They pretty!  Friendly, even!

As I said, I noticed more than usual flying around when I hit the path, but because I knew they would stay the hell away from me, I just thought to myself, "Awww, dragonflies!!  I LIKE dragonflies!!!" And continued along that train of thought, even when I came to the first stand of trees and saw that there were at least 100 of them flying above me.  "See!"  I thought, "I am walking right through this dragonfly parade and they are totally getting out of my way…thanks, dragonflies!"  In fact, I kept thinking that, right up through the third set of dragonfly infested trees…and then I started losing it.  That’s when I started thinking, "You know, what would I do if one of those things DID land on me?" and once that thought got in my head, I thought, "They seem to be staying up there, and not really coming down close to me, but jeez, that wind is sort of blowing them around.  Ha ha…hi, dragonflies, I think you’re nice.  Sort of.  Don’t touch me though, mmkay?"  Then, around the 1 3/4 mile mark, when I had just passed through literally HUNDREDS of dragonflies, and all I could see in front of me was MORE of them ahead, I thought this: "HOLY CRAP I have to walk back THROUGH all those and AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
You see, at that very, very inopportune time, meaning, the time when I started feeling just the tiniest seeds of panic and fear, the wind sort of softly lobbed an unsuspecting dragonfly off it’s merry course right towards me.  And then?  I am not kidding in the least bit when I say that’s when I felt my mind start splintering.  I FUH-REAKED the fuck OUT, and spun on my heel so fast my hat almost fell off.  Then I started SPRINTING back, and the whole time, I was clenching my fists so tight my hands were going numb, and my nostrils were flaring with each shallow, panicked breath because my mouth was shut TIGHT to keep anything from flying in it and I was humming, very loudly, like this: "HummmhummHUMMMMHUMMMMHUMMMMMMMMMMMhumhumhum" and it sounded, even to me, like the sound a crazy person makes when they are going off the edge.  Well, the way they sound in movies, at least.  You know what I mean. Eventually I yanked my hat off my head and started waving it in front and all around me, but even that wasn’t good enough…in the end I made it back through my path of personal hell by jamming that hat back on my head as low as it could go, and staring ONLY at the ground while I walked as fast as I could.  I knew that if I looked up, and saw one of those damn creatures from beyond the abyss of hell fly even one-tenth of a millimeter in my direction, I would have froze in place right where I was and started crying.  And when you can, in your very own mind, picture yourself crouching on the ground in terror screaming for someone to come get you?  That’s when you know, for reals, that Um?  I’m not only more afraid of bugs than they are of me, they scare the SHIT out of me.  So THERE.

I made it off the path alright, but I was actually in such a state of panic that I walked to the gym, instead of home, and didn’t realize what I was doing until I got to the door.  Of course, I played this off by turning around and hitting the timer on my watch, to, you know, make it look like I had walked there on purpose.  And I think all those people behind me TOTALLY fell for it, so I was cool. 

For the record, I still don’t really mind dragonflies.  I doubt I’ll try that walk though, not if I see them flying around like that again.

Pretty, but….

Sorry, just…no.

Today was…you know.  Today was Monday, which means work, and work, ESPECIALLY Monday work, is boring.  However, I can now say that next week is….MIDTOUR! 

Auf Wiedersehen!!!

(pictures totally borrowed from wikipedia.org.  can I do that?)

Buying a pound of cherries at the commissary and then proceeding, over approximately 7 hours, to eat every single one of those cherries because you cannot resist the perfectly tart sweetness that is a fabulous cherry is SO NOT a good idea.  It’s just not.

So, that unfortunate thing that I had to do for twelve hours at a time these past couple of days is done with finally.  It’s so distasteful, this ‘work’, and gets in the way of all the other, IMPORTANT things I must do to survive my day, like…drink two, not ONE, but TWO cups of coffee first thing in the morning.  Or…working out.  And taking 90 minute lunches…checking my email…and do not get me started on all the beastly rules associated with ‘work’…What do they mean, no access to Blogger from a government computer?  70% of the my daily blog reads are on Blogger!  This is nonsense!  I want it to stop immediately!

Fortunately, I am so close to going on my midtour that I can almost taste it (it tastes surprisingly like cherries!) so it makes it slightly better.  Two weeks!  Fourteen days, 336 hours, 20,160 minutes…you get the picture.  It’s coming quick!  You guys, when I am on vacay, there is going to be many, many pictures, and if I am in them, be assured that I will not be frowning.  And, are you tired yet of me saying I’m excited about my midtour?  I’m almost reluctant to write that, anymore, lest you start rolling your eyes and thinking "here she goes…midtour shmidtour, when is she going to be funny again?!"  But as far as personalities go, I tend to lean towards the "fairly obsessive" and as a result of this obsessiveness, even when I’m thinking about other things it’s only in regards to how they relate to my midtour.  "I am thirsty.  I’ll have to remember to drink lots of water on vacay, the Cali temps are running in the 100s right now!" Or "My feet are hot.  I’ll have to remember to get a pedicure right before Nick and Denay’s wedding (which happens to be during my midtour)!"  You know…one track mind and all that. 

Speaking of Nick and Denay’s wedding, I finally got my bridesmaid dress back from the tailor today, and I must say, it looks FABULOUS on me.  I love David’s Bridal for making it so easy for me to buy a dress from all the way over here.  Well..okay.  So maybe Denay had to order it from the store for me, and when it came in John mailed it here so I could get it altered, so it wasn’t so much easy to buy as it looks really, REALLY fantastic and I could care less HOW hard it was to coordinate because I’m so happy that Denay choose RED for our bridesmaid dresses because I look good in red and what’s that?  This wedding is not about me looking good?  Oh.  Well.

Anyway, between my husband’s upcoming ten year reunion and talk on other blogs about THIER reunions, I suddenly realized that HOLY CRAP, I graduated SEVENTEEN years ago.  Let me rephrase that: HOLY CRAP, SEVENTEEN YEARS!  That is a long time, people. 

Ughh…irritatingly enough, I am on weekend duty standby and I just got a call that is requiring me actually DO something.  So I have to cut this short, and skedaddle.  See?  Work ALWAYS gets in the way!

Auf Wiedersehen!!