A Week of Frustration

It was a dull weekend, with mostly cool cloudy weather. To be honest, I have absolutely nothing to blog about. I would advise you to skip the rest of this post and check back later in the week.

Here's what I've been up to:

I spent most of the day Sunday assembling baby stuff.

Saturday was like a tiring day of Christmas season, but without the requisite music or decorations. Having absolutely nothing for the kid, we went store to store to store in the cloudy cold weather to stock up on all the things that you need. After collapsing from exhaustion, we drove an hour and a half to eat dinner with my family, play a game of trivial pursuit, and drive back home.

(I guess there was one funny part, from trivial pursuit. The question was something like, "Who wrote ___," with a quote that had something to do with racial supremacy. After a minute or so of discussion, my mom pulled "That guy in Germany," and Mrs. theskinnyonbenny was able to take that thought and come up with the name of Adolph Hitler.)

On Friday, I waited during the prescribed appointment time for a Sears service rep. When the four-hour block proved to be not a big enough window, I called Sears to find out when I might expect my service. I had an excruciatingly long and painful call where I had to give my phone number to three people after entering it in the keypad. Then, they told me to be patient and that the dispatcher would call me back WHEN HE GOT BACK FROM LUNCH. In truth, it was much worse than just this single slight, but I can't bear to relive it in any more detail.

Other bits of frustration:

	Tracking information from UPS for my centerboard.

UPS lost the centerboard to my boat. This is a large, heavy piece of fiberglass that fits just into a particular slot on newer Rhodes 22 sailboats. This part is useful only for this particular sailboat, and only for ones that have the newer diamond board configuration. There are probably less than 100 boats who could possibly use this board, and probably only one in the world where the part is needed now. I would love to find who ended up with my centerboard and see what they're doing with it.

Stanley Steamer sent a guy out to clean the grout on our kitchen counters and bathroom floors last week. Because he had forgotten his grout tool, he guy used a furniture tool on the counters, and it marred the tile with big lines. So he came back with some sort of solvent, which seems to have not only removed the lines, but also the glossy finish on the tile. This story is still ongoing, but I'm doubtful that they can fashion a repair.

This cleaner was the same guy who removed the heater register from the floor in the bathroom, cleared his mind, and then stepped right down into it. He knocked the vent clean down under the house. The air and heat guy beat him to our house the next day, and being back and forth under the house and in the bathroom, he tracked in some dirt. Stanley the knucklehead got to our house later and began sealing this dirt into the tile.