a drawer, just a drawer

Today I wait for Sears.  I wait because the door on the drawer is broken off.  Technically, the clip that holds the door of the drawer is broken.  I bought a fridge that has a drawer the width of the fridge.  It is good for storing large items, like sheet cakes, hor d'ourves trays, body parts  pizza boxes??   The door cleverly opens and closes when the drawer is pulled in and out...or NOT!  Sometimes the clip holding the door snaps off.  And so I wait for Sears.

When the clip broke the door fell off and the door broke.  So now I have a broken drawer (clip) and a broken door.  (Ok thats not what happened, I dropped the milk and cracked the drawer door which is not covered in the contract so I lied...sue me!)   I call for repairs.  I call because when we bought the fridge my husband insisted (and I resisted) we buy the 5 years service contract which cost almost as much as the damn fridge.  Sometimes he knows what he is talking about.  (and I hate it)  The girl answered the repair call bright and chipper and  as it turns out she was definately not one of the two.  I repeated the illiteration....the drawer, the door....and she repeated it back to me having to be corrected several times.  The door would be shipped to me directly and I could simply clip it back on....I WOULD IF I HAD A FUNCTIONING CLIP!!!   Ok so the door will be shipped but the service man would have to come to replace the drawer.  I tried to be patient and explain the drawer was not broken, that the clip that holds the door on the drawer is broken but I think two "D" words in once sentence was throwing her. But in the end, she got it right....the door was broken because the draw clip was broken too.  Jeez!  I would have to take off work to wait for the repairman with the replacement drawer clip.  The replacement door came in the mail as Miss Repairgirl had said it would.  So far she is batting 1000.  Good girl!

Yesterday I cleaned the fridge.  (Well at least the parts that would have to be removed to make the repair.)  I found things that had morphed into....well, clearly other things.  I think something that had started out as garlic turned into fossil fuel and a fruit of some kind was now a breeding ground for some new vaccine.  First thing this morning the repairman called to say that his 8am - 12noon window was on target and I was his second call.  It was 8:05....Yay!  And then he spoke some more.  "Do you have the parts?"  Clearly he spoke in the plural.  "Partsssssssss??"  I have a door...just a door.  For my drawer.  The one with the broken clip that you were supposed to have with you according to the suddenly failing Repairgirl.  Nope, no clip.  And to add insult to injury, didn't think he would have it on the truck either.  But he would come and take a look.

The thought that I took off from work for nothing pissed me off, so I decided to call the repair service to see if they had actually gotten the repair order right and the serviceman really did have the part with him.  I actually just needed to complain to someone other than my poor daughters.  The first three attempts at reaching the right party resulted in a dropped call, another dropped call while being transferred to the parts department and a woman who answered, said 'hold on' and simply never  bothered to come back.  At the beginning of the call there is a recorded announcement that the call may be recorded or monitered for quality purposes...clearly these calls should have been monitored in some way...but I am sure weren't.  I finally get through to someone who reads the work order back to me and it seems that the broken clip is mentioned and that the broken door is being shipped.  So far so good.  She transfers me to parts.  Parts tells me there is no mention of a clip, that the only part ordered for this repair has been shipped and it is a drawer door which I can easily attach myself....IF I HAD A FUNCTIONING CLIP GOD DAMN IT!!!

I check the drawer door box just in case the clip has been shipped along with it.  Nope, no clip.  The parts man gives me a customer service address where I can write a letter to complain about the fact that I took off work for nothing.  He seems eager to please me, and even more eager to give me the complaint address and get me off the phone.  Perhaps he knew this call was being recorded or monitored for quality purposes.  It was now 10:03 and no 'part-less' serviceman in sight.  At 11:30 the bell rings.  It takes me almost 10 minutes to get my dog to stop barking in circles and safely out on the back deck before thankfully realizing in time,  that I had no bra on. 

As expected he didnt have the drawer clip.  After much conversation about Maytag and Whirlpool parts numbers he leaves and re-appears from his truck with my drawer clip, installs it (backwards at first) and promptly leaves.  It is 11:50.  Now, with a functioning drawer door I realize they have met their obligation   8am - 12noon  Good Job Sears!

Fifty Shades of Grey Hair

I haven’t blogged in awhile for several reasons (none which I will bore you with here) but at this point in time a good therapeutic flogging blogging is definitely necessary.

My basement has been home to law students (ok just one), runaway brides (ditto), homeless friends and now….. the mother in law. Recovering from self inflicted food deprivation and dehydration. No she wasn’t trying to kill herself (us perhaps, not herself) She got a stomach ache when she ate so stopping eating and drinking sounded like the logical solution….until she was near comatose. After a brief stay in the hospital she went home where she would stagger around. It was just a matter of time before she ended up breaking something sooooo as I partied at a B’nai Mitzvah my husband brought his mom home to the ‘everything on one floor’ basement. SURPRISE! (well not really I knew that was always an option)

She is 86. She is half-deaf. (or has selective hearing, my husband suffering from the same affliction) Apparently she hates my cooking, the TV shows I watch, the basement lighting, my laundry detergent scent, the brand of ice cream I bought for her and my Keurig coffee pods. (now that is just crossing the line….I haven’t made coffee in a perk pot in years and I’m not starting now!) She takes a gazillion pills three times a day and each time she counts them one by one…I suspect to make sure I am not trying to speed up the inheritance. Pill taking takes about 20 minutes. Little blue capsule…swallow, little yellow pill….swallow, baby aspirin...swallow, big orange caplet…swallow and it goes on and on. 

My husband gave her a bell so that if she needed something she could ring the bell and one of us would come running. One of us???   Running???   Like her Life Alert system, she rang the bell several times at first to ‘test’ it. Since she can’t hear I would have to descend half way down the steps to find what she needed. Just testing. And again. And again. We have caller ID that shows up on the TV. It took me awhile to figure out that the bell ringing right after the phone ringing was her calling me to announce that she saw someone’s name appear and then disappear on the TV set. I have walked up and down my basement steps more in the last few weeks than I have in the twenty plus years I live here.   My knees cry out in pain.  If ever I needed a 'safeword' it is now...and it would be HOMICIDE.

We show her how to use the TV remote.  Cable...click.  TV...click  Simple.  Somehow on an averge of once a day she manages to completely unprogram the remote.  And that, somehow, is my fault. 
As I sweat in my 85 degree house (since I can’t put the A/C on because it gets cold enough to hang meat in the basement) I have officially been accused of causing her everything from diarrhea and nausea to the nasty dry skin on her legs, hiccups and flactulence.  Unlike touch sensitive Christian, she lets me touch every part of her body especially if it needs cream.  Ugh

While I desperately try to read how Ana and Christian are dealing with the hard limits, I am dealing with my own limits and there is nothing kinky-f@*kery about it. Unlike Ana’s, my inner goddess is happily hacking up my husband into tiny hideable pieces.

We begin our nightly ritual....I sit with her to watch the 10 oclock news.   As soon as the weather is over she makes her way to the bathroom.  I prepare her morning pills and get the bed ready for her.  Pillows for her head, pillows for her swollen feet, pillows so she doesnt roll off the bed.   I could think of many ways to better use these pillows, none of which involve sleeping, swelling or rolling.

As I sit down for the night to catch up on DVR’d shows I no longer have the time or the inclination to watch live, I try to distinguish which TV I am actually listening to…mine, the one blasting in the bedroom or the one breaking the sound barrier in the basement. I give up trying and pick up Mr. Grey again. As I turn the pages I am transported to a place where a tie is used for much more than strangling the son of the mother in law in my basement.

Today we are getting the heads up if she can go back to her own house where the lighting is better, the coffee is perfect and the temperature can stay a balmy 85.  I think I might miss her.

samples, scars and security

I am going to heaven.  The worker angels are smelting my halo as we speak.  I was talked into decided to volunteer in a program to help cancer patients.  A pre-requisite was to have blood work done to be certain I didn't have any illness that could further complicate the lives of these poor souls.  It was downtown Brooklyn and I was taking the bus...need I say more.

I started the morning off by calling 511 the new hotline for traveling by public transportation just to find out whether or not I needed a metro card or could pay with cash.  That worked about as well as my previous experiences with 311.  I got their semi-automated voice recognition system....Press 1, Press 3  "let's try that again....sorry I dont understand that...goodbye!"  The damn thing didn't understand my perfect English and hung up on me.  I opened my snail-paced computer and went to the MTA website.  Loading,...loading....loading...MTA..finally.  No where, and I mean NO WHERE on that site does it say if it takes cash.  It gives you 52 options regarding your metro card but nothing about cash.  Throwing caution to the wind, I counted out $5.00 in quarters and fit them into the change purse in my wallet which promptly ripped open spilling quarters to the bottom of my bag.  I started questioning why I was doing this all again, and then remembered that my ripped wallet wasn't anything compared to what those poor souls were going through. 

        I drove (yes it is only one block) and parked in a parking lot across the street from the bus stop.  Pacing to keep warm,  I finally saw the bus coming......and then just breeze right past me.  I cursed the driver a moment and then noticed that there was no longer a bus stop sign on that corner.  Apparently while I was zipping around in the comfort of my car, the MTA fairies came and wanded away this bus stop.  I ran to my car and jetted past the bus that had just past me.  I parked and ran (ha!) toward the bus stop and the arriving bus.  I boarded and asked the driver if she took quarters.  Not sure that she even answered me, I dug to the bottom of my bag and counted out 9 quarters.  I ignored the one I dropped for fear of landing on my head as the driver from hell lurched back into traffic. And of course, I jammed the coin slot.  At the light she banged on the box until the quarters fell in and my fare recorded.....still not acknowledging my presence other than a dirty look.  I saw the Priority Seating with its bright red writing heralding that if needed you would have to get up for the elderly or disabled.  Since the bus was all but empty, I sat.  There are alot of reasons I do not belong on public transportation, the first being the person's ass they used as a mold for the seats is apparently way smaller than mine.  I will get to the others later.  As we made our way toward my final destination the bus filled up.  At one point the Priority Seats were filled with the exception of me and a woman who pretended to be asleep whenever an elderly person got on.  At the next stop,  a man with a limp got on.  The sleeper and I eyed each other in anticipation of who would give up their seat.  The sleeper slept, so I stood and let him appreciatively sit.  This good deed doing felt really good.  As the bus emptied out stop by stop I heard the driver say that the next stop was her last, no where near where I needed to go.  I asked if I had gotten on the wrong bus to which she replied...yup, not a word! (in fairness she did point to a sign that said LIMITED)  I think this was payback for jamming her coin box earlier.  We all exited to wait for the right bus as she begrudgingly gave us transfers. 

     At the bus stop, in not the best of areas, I went over a mental check list of what was in my bag in case it was torn from under my armpit.  I befriended the limping man I let sit and a woman who had a walker....sadly  figuring they were easier victims than me as I was pretty sure I could run faster than them.  Then the right bus, sailed right by us, infuriating the limper. He raised his cane cursing the driver.  (been there, done that) Some school kids (they had backpacks so I naively assumed they were students) circled around us, too close for my comfort and I foolishly made eye contact with one of them.  He smiled.  It wasn't that 'have a nice day' kinda smile, it was more 'i know you have a wallet that in that bag' smirk.  It was the first and only time I considered risking my life and boarding a dollar van.  Thankfully the bus came, the limper limped on and the students....well they never got on the bus.  Perhaps they knew the wallet had a ripped zipper. 

     I arrived at my destination, signed in and rode the elevator up.  The room, cleverly disguised on the application as a 'suite',  was crowded and I had to sign in again.  (I guess they didn't believe me the first time. ) As I waited to hear my name called I looked around. I think I was the only one without a facial scar.   At least three women had scars straight through their eyebrows narrowly missing the eye and down the cheek.  I wondered if they all pissed off the same knife wielder.  And if so, hoped he wasn't in the vicinity. As our names were called one at a time we were made to line up in a narrow hallway holding an empty red folder with our name.   A man dressed like a janitor instructed us to put our coats and pocketbooks in one of a wall full of lockers and secure.  He said 'secure' like he knew of past problems with unsecured lockers.  I only found out later that they were making sure no one brought in a 'clean' urine sample.  It felt like we were being processed for prison confinement and I mentally drew the line at the strip search and lice shower.  We were then handed a sealed plastic cup and dixie cup.  The janitor pointed us toward the line of bathrooms and told us nothing.  I guess it didn't take rocket science to figure out what to do.  I could tell alot of these scarred women had done this all before and simply sat holding their cups and waiting their turn.  I did the same.  I wished I had my phone.  My book.  Anything to distract me from the fact that I felt like putting down my yellow donation cup and walking out.  But then I thought of those poor souls that I was going to help....as long as I had no communicable disease.  Instead I sat and wondered if anything that had crept out of someone else's coat or pocketbook was now creeping into mine in the secured locker.

     I was grateful the blood work was fast but told I still had to see the doctor.  The doctor turned out to be someone who looked like she stepped from a Victoria Secrets catalogue.  She said we needed to do a hearing test.  The hearing test consisted of her covering one ear and asking me to repeat what she whispered in my other ear.  I was sure she was going to say something obscene, tear off her glasses, let down her hair and expose her catalogue body.  But instead she just said CAT in my right ear and BALL in my left.  My urine, blood and hearing test done I retrieved my belongings from my secured locker and left shaking my jacket.  When I got outside I now began the daunting task of finding the bus stop to get me home.  I asked four people.  No one spoke English.  I walked four blocks and found every bus stop but the one I needed.  I call 511....you can well imagine how that worked out.  I saw a vendor selling Super Bowl tee shirts and like a junkie buying crack we covertly exchanged money for the bag of shirts so that the NYPD didn't confiscate his bootleg merchandise or arrest me for soliciting an unlicensed product.  I asked my 'dealer' if he knew where I get my bus, and he not only knew, he gave me a metro card that he said someone left on his table.  I boarded my bus avoiding the NYPD, avoided a coin jam with my metro card and avoided the priority seats.