Where is My Bailing Bucket?

A lot of peoples' safety rafts have sprung a leak lately, and the government is handing out billions in bailouts. Most of us know that by now. The big 3 automakers are asking for help now also. Well I guess I should say more help, they have already received money. Millions of jobs could be lost should these companies fail. I say let them. Greed runs rampant within these companies, from the bottom up. A town I use to live in had both a Ford and GM plant. Once a worker was in the union they would make anywhere between 15 - 20 dollars an hour to do work a monkey could do… okay, maybe a parrot or dolphin given the right appendages. The work is simple for the most part is the point. They get in the union within a few months of starting at the factory. Why was the union created? To ensure FAIR wages for the employees. Now when these companies were making tons of money the workers deserved it, but now these companies are looking at bankruptcy. Instead of the unions coming forwarding and saying hey I would rather have 5 dollars less an hour then not receive a paycheck at all they set back and wait for a bailout or ask for more, you know raises and such. Now let's look to our Mercedes, Hyundai and Toyota plants. No unions, good wages, and they are doing very well. Hyundai said they may have to a cut back a few days due to the lack of demand but people aren't getting laid off, out of work for weeks nor are factories closing. Not only that but more foreign car factories are set to open, two being KIA and Volkswagen. I'm not putting all the blame on the worker, I mean if I could go and work for 20 an hour at an easy job I would too. I blame the unions, the company themselves for over pricing their products that for the most part isn't worth it most of the time in my opinion and everyone else just for only thinking about how much money they want (which is always more than what they have) and getting themselves into this mess in the first place.

What I want to know is who is going to save me? When I got divorced the court order my ex to pay on a house we had bought together but he never did. It foreclosed and completely ruined my credit. (FYI I had paid on the house for two years by myself while the divorce was going on.) He may not have been able to handle it due to the fact the adjustable rate kicked in a couple of weeks after the divorce was final. I don't know. He could have just wanted to be a complete ass. Still though, my credit it is useless due to a court order that was unenforced. I don't believe this is fair considering I did everything I was supposed to. Who is going to bail me out I wonder?

New Hours

So right now I am not finding time to write three times a week so for now I am going to cut back to two times a week. Since Monday seems to be a bad day for me just out of things I always seem to have to do I have picked the days of Tuesday and Friday. Tuesday may change after the holidays due to the fact it is a day my husband should have off, but for now he only has one day off a week. So goes the life of a retail manager and his wife.

What -ism It?

By now we all know who the president elect is. If you don't what rock have you been hiding under? Barrack Obama received the nod from the American people, without or with the help of racism. Personally, I didn't vote. I thought they were both good men, and both would do the country a great service whoever should have been the winner. Most people I personally know voted for McCain. I don't talk politics, so I don't know their reasons. My parents are republicans so that was their reason. My husband voted for Obama. So here is the point. We all know of someone who didn't vote for Obama because he is black. That is racism plain and simple. I know of people that would have got out of the military nor would have voted for Hillary Clinton because she is a woman. This is sexism. What I wonder is what is it called when you vote for someone just because they are black or just because they are a woman? I can site reasons that sticking to your own kind just because they are as being a bad thing. I think Obama will be a great president. I also think if someone voted for him just because he is black that it was a bad idea. I just wonder what -ism is it?

Saying What? to Real

To Whom It May Concern:

I was watching TV one day to see a good message about saying no to fake, over processed food and to say yes to eating something actually good for you. I was very shocked to see the product you were pushing. Mayonnaise! Seriously? I know your point is that with a balanced diet you can eat just about anything, but to try to sell your product by suggesting that mayonnaise is actually good for you is just a bit wrong. Tomato, lettuce, bread and turkey do make for a healthier lunch than a burger and fries. Omega-3s are good for you. However, a lot of hamburgers have mayonnaise on them too. Are these bad or good? Mayonnaise does not make something a better choice. All the experts I have heard say a big no to mayonnaise. The fact is a person that eats healthy and exercises can eat what they choose. This is because they are choosing healthy foods and a small amount of mayonnaise would not kill a healthy diet, but mayonnaise is not part of a healthy diet nor is it not good for you. There are two ingredients on your label that should make anyone question the 'real' of your product, natural flavors and Calcium Disodium EDTA. Real food doesn't have natural flavors added to them nor should they need them in my opinion. If you are supposed to eat it then nature would intend for it to taste good. The second screams of processing to me. Calcium Disodium EDTA as stated by your label is used to protect quality. Preservatives have been suggested in studies to be the real reason for hyperactivity in children, so another hit towards your commercial for suggesting it would be great for them. One table spoon of your Mayonnaise would be 15% of my daily intake of fat, and that dear sir or madam does not to me suggest it should be pushed as something healthy.

The ad.

The Blog Network

Today I started a Yahoo! group called The Blog Network. I started it for semi selfish reasons, I wanted to know that people are actually reading what I have to say and knowing that people might actually read this will keep me updating. I knew that if I felt like it was pointless to write not knowing if anyone was reading, than others most likely felt the same way. There are similar web rings out there, but I have hopes of bringing the rings together because the more overlap there is the more readers everyone gains.

I have decided to update my blog on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Three times a week seems more manageable for me at this time than everyday, and having scheduled days will do better than just saying "Oh, I will update it tomorrow" because we all know how that usually ends up...

To Snub or Not to Snub

A couple celebrities come to mind on this one in the past few weeks, one being the funeral of Estelle Getty. Most people would disagree with me it seems, but in some ways I can see why her co stars did not attend. Betty White said They were there when it mattered, and on some levels I agree with her about the funeral in a celebrities life being a media event rather than chance for people to mourn their lose. Personally I would have gone out of respect, but I am not a celebrity. I don’t know if I could handle watching my grief displayed over and over for the whole of the nation to judge if it was sincere or not. That is the point really, most of us aren’t celebrities. We aren’t judged by a twitch of an eye by journalist just out to get (or fabricate) a story to display to a mass of TV viewers. Personally, I can understand the reason of not going. A worse tragedy would have been poor Estelle held up in her room by her illness with no one to comfort her in the years of her being ill. Had they ignored her then would have been unforgivable, but that is not the story of the week is it? By the way, I still watch Golden Girls in rerun and was on vacation when I heard the sad news.
The next snub that really got my goat came from Mrs. Jennifer Lopez, or whatever she is calling herself these days. She went on a morning talk show to talk about her training for some triathlon or some silliness as if ANYONE cared. Who did she snub? Michael Phelps. “She was overheard saying after her Good Morning America segment that she “couldn’t understand why everyone is talking about that swimmer,” according to a GMA source. “She couldn’t come up with (eight-time gold-medal winner Michael) Phelps’ name, and then she yammered on about how she was the one training for a triathlon just six months after giving birth, and how that was the big story right now, not ‘the swimmer.’ ” (From a column by Courtney Hazlett, The Scoop MSNBC here.) SIX months, oh my, we should all just fall to her feet. Mrs. Lopez has always felt that way though, the mass of the nation should be kissing her feet while she scarfs her green M&Ms (A diva demand for her trailer, a large bowl of M&Ms and they all must be green). After September 11th when everyone decided to show appreciation for the military she was a “celebrity” that decided to “appreciate”. What happened? When a military member asked her for her autograph, she would deny it UNLESS there were media present. Who was she trying to get appreciation for really? Herself in my opinion. She grew up upper middle class, and tries to pass herself off as a home girl from the hood. I like some of her movies, a tiny bit of the music but the person I can do without thank you.

Congratulations Michael!

I watched every race. Okay, admittedly I turned the channel yesterday in time to watch the breakdown of the finish. I thought I had turned the TV from my husband’s video game in time to watch him lose. I was upset for a couple of minutes until I finally heard them say he had won. Perhaps Mr. Cavic should have held his tongue until after the race about who his win would have been good for, although he was quoted after a protest that ended in the same results as saying “I’m very, very happy," Cavic said. "I don't want to fight this. It is a gold medal at stake. It's a difficult thing to lose. But you have to understand I came to this competition with the goal to win a bronze medal. I went my best time, and I did better than bronze, I got silver. And I almost got gold." (From column by Vicki Michaelis, USA TODAY here.) It was amazing to watch history being made, I still remember Carl Lewis in Atlanta. This will be very hard to beat I would think. I don’t know how many events one can even be in before you have to cross over to other sports. Male gymnasts have a chance at 8 but they have to win them all which include the team, the all around, and all individuals. There are probably some track and fields that people can try and get all of, but I can’t see a sprinter against some of those shot-putters. I guess we will just have to wait and see in the coming Olympics. Congrats to Mrs. Torres on her 3 silvers, Miss Coughlin’s six medals and to the whole US swimming team who also did an outstanding job.

The Joke's On You...

So I call the child support bureau and state I didn't receive the child support I was suppose to this week. Then they tell that joke that you know they all must keep tally of somewhere of how many times they have said it to share with their friends. "You need to contact the father..." Oh ho ho... funny... If I could contact him why would I be contacting you? If I could speak to him without wanting to strangle him, scratch out his eyes or rip out his heart I don't think this child support thing would be an issue.

There has to be a better way for these people to do this. If you could trust the man to pay it in the first place this agency wouldn't really be all that needed. I know now a days it must be hard for some women to keep up with what baby daddy paid what, or saying they aren't getting when they are, but I know personally and most people I know would just be happy to get what they are awarded without having to drag it out with threats. I actually had to threaten mine with jail time to get him to start paying and now he isn't again. I waited over 2 years before I told him I was over being nice, and he could sit in jail for all I cared. (And f he thinks he has under the jail time amount he is very sadly mistaken. $40 dollars a month over 4 or 5 months does not pay off a near $7,000 debt.)

So there must be a better way to do this. I don't think it should be a state thing, it should be a federal thing. I know the IRS does get involved at some point, but at what point I have no idea. I know that they can keep better tabs on my ex in Alabama than Indiana can. Indiana does try as much as they can I guess (not much) but with all the men not paying it must be hard to keep tabs on any one case. Their information comes from the federal government or from the tip line of people turning in the fathers and occasional mother. I think the states should still determine the amounts awarded, but the tracking and enforcing should be federal. Mine gets tips so that he doesn't have to report them or "give them to me" as he would say. That's why he's a deadbeat pizza boy. I laugh now because most tips are left on the debit cards I would think. My husband and I don't even carry cash any more, neither do most people we know.

In my opinion if they weren't trying to not pay the support there would be nothing to hold them back from having a relationships with their child, and that is the most important part of all this. It isn't the money, it's the kids. So if there were a better way for the government to get the money for the kids, there wouldn't be a reason for the fathers to be trying to hide from the mothers who have the kids. Everyone wins in the long run if there were a better system.

Sexual Side Effects May Include…

By now most of us have heard about have heard about the Olympic swimmer Dara Torres, the 41 year old who qualified for her 5^th Olympics and broke her own record. Now instead of celebrating her victory people want to say there is no physical way a woman her age can do that so she just HAS TO BE using drugs (You know because we are all suppose to have spread out by then and be steadily approaching Grandma Moses speed). It made me think, if this was a man would this even be an issue? I know there has to be one out there somewhere that has qualified many times although none are coming to mind. The women of sports are still breaking new ground every year, and in many ways are still looked down upon by their male counterparts. I think the worst male opinions of female athletes come from the ones that couldn't run a mile if there were a keg of beer and a ribeye steak waiting at the end for them.

I think just because she did very well some people are jealous. Well I can't do that so there is no way anyone else could. If that is the case all of them should be tested (which aren't they anyway?) I know I couldn't do anything any of them do. Should I belittle their accomplishments for that reason? No. I write better than a lot of people. A lot of writers write better than me. I can swim, but mostly just enough to save my life. I once served a volleyball game within one point of victory against members of the school volleyball team of which I was not a member. (I didn't try for it, that ball is painful on my stick arms.) I was a member of the color guard my senior year, but I would say a good 75% of the time I dropped my rifle during competitions. I was a rifle expert in the Marine Corps. My husband and I are tied at the Bass Pro Shop target arcade in shooting matches. (He won't go back; I think he thinks I am going to win again. I asked him once if it was better just to stay tied and he said yes.)

No matter what it is, there is always going to be someone better, and we should congratulate them for it. It is how it is, and we should just accept that fact.

You’re Insufficient

Going through an old topic list for my blog and I found one about insufficient funds fees that was connected to an earlier blog about check being cashed a month and an half after I had written it. It had wrecked my finances only a week or two before Christmas. My friend just had the same issue because of a miscalculation, but it did remind me to write this post. Shortly after the checked cashed and the Burger King bounced, (here's that post) I realized what all had went wrong. The credit to my account that was suppose to be in there didn't post for at least a week after I had returned an item even though of course they took the money out of my account the very instant I purchased it. Well I had also needed gas that night when I had returned that item, but I should have had money in the account because there was not suppose to be check. So I got charged $25 for -$0.63. Then I also got charged for gas another $35 fee plus the $20 or so for the actual gas. I want to know what gives people and banks the right to charge such outrageous fees on people that obviously didn't have the money in the first place for them to charge extra to. With all the technology and tracking of information we have now, they can know who the serial offenders are and who just made an honest mistake and who just got hosed for someone else being wrong.

This brings me to the next point. Your bank charging you a fee when you cash a check from someone else and it bounces. What the hell kind of bull shit is that? I have know people whose pay checks have bounced and they have already paid their bills with it before it had came back is bounced. I am sure you can guess what, but I will say it anyway. They get charged a fee for the bounced pay check, all the money from the check is taken away, the checks for the other bills bounce, and they get charged a fee for each of the bounced bills, and not only does that happen once, but it keeps happening because the people they owe their bills too keeps trying to cash the check and each time they get an additional fee. It doesn't matter either, everyone says oh just call, you bill people understand. That is a load of crap and most of them are just out to make money so why should they help you. Even if you do call, oh they didn't get the word in time or some other form of hogwash but they don't stop trying to cash it. You can tell them to toss the check you will send another, guess what. They don't, they cash them both. They think just because they post a little warning that they should be allowed, but I think it is wrong. Why should a person be charged by the bank and the retailer for an honest mistake? $0.63 in the red cost me well over $60.00, and if you don't call a 2 ½ month old check an honest mistake I don't know what is.

We Are All Doomed...

Or at least that is how we should feel if you watch the news. My husband was consistently reading about the economic failures of our society and telling me about it. Two weekends ago I finally said "You know what? I don't care." I was sick of hearing him tell me the world is coming to an end, the news telling me we are all doomed to suffer from this country's economic dilemma. I think he got the hint and stopped telling me about it. Then this weekend what is the topic of his family's visit? You guessed it. If you didn't, the economy, and who is heading the doom and gloom conversation? He's mother. She is an expert because she saw it on the news. Personally I think she too gullible to watch so much TV. She even tried telling us all how we are about to start a war with Iran because of our ships in the Persian Gulf. I tried explaining to her there is ALWAYS ships in the Persian Gulf, that a MUE leaves every 6 months and that is where they go. Well she knows what she saw and I am just wrong. HELLO WOMAN, I think I should know they leave every 6 months. Their last stop is Camp Lejeune before heading across the ocean. I have personally been on the beach when they left and came back, and have had phone calls from the beach as they were about to board. They have to pick up their Marines. Of course, no one backs me up. Then she goes back to all our money woes, and I guess someone mentioned a change of subject. (My guess her husband because he gets tired of talking about money just as much as I do.) but she informs us all this is what all families are discussing around the family table. So let her live in her hell, and I went back to laying on the grass with my son thinking you all don't have anything to worry about because you don't have anything anyway. They and the media are waiting for the next Crash and until then are trying to freak the rest of the populous out.

Why don't I care? It will happen if is going to and there is nothing as citizens we can do about it. I would say buy American, but hardily anything is wholly American anymore and if it is it is expensive as hell and who can afford it with the prices of everything else. All we can do is prepare for the worst and hope for the best. (Isn't that a motto somewhere?) So how do you prepare? Buy a few extra cans when you go to the grocery store of vegetables and meats. If you have a way of storing dry goods, do it. Learn the lost art of canning. My husband grew up on a farm without electricity, so why him and his mother are freaking out I have no idea. At least they know how to store food, most of us don't. Plant a garden if you have a yard. If you don't you can still plant them in pots, what better way to decorate then with your own edible foliage? Maybe have a little petty cash stored some where.

Worrying about this doesn't help or fix anything. I'm not saying completely ignore it either, but if you are prepared then you'll be ready for whatever may come.

@rocketmail.com

The first e-mail address I ever had was through Rocketmail. A couple years later Yahoo! took them over, and then a short time after that the addresses where phased out. Today I found that I can now open a new Rocketmail or Ymail account through Yahoo! in what I am guessing is an attempt for people to stop having to be the 1 million sweetie something, now you can be THE sweetie, but only if you act now! I say having to because it seems that a number of the world's population cannot come up with something original for a screen name, but how many originals can you REALLY have before you have to start doubling up? I'm a little ticked off, I have several e-mail accounts from different applications and for several purposes, but the first I ever had was gotten rid of for me. Now they are opening it back up. The name wasn't anything special but at the time it meant something to me, and hey it was my first. I can't remember the first yahoo account I had, but I have been using the same one for 10 years. Now after all that time I have to remember to type in the @yahoo.com...

On a Side Note: I am unable to get my old address back. Someone either already has it or my old address is floating around in there somewhere... now if only I could remember the password...

Remembering the Past

What caught and held my attention today wasn't anything on TV or in the news, although hearing George Carlin had died was a bit sad. No, what has me up at this hour posting instead of returning to bed is something most of us (most likely all of us) are guilty of, which is over analyzing our past. We try to change it in our minds, trying to tell ourselves that the reasons that we had done something were wrong, and if only I had done it this way instead my life would be 10 times better today. We paint ourselves these rosy pictures of would ofs and should ofs and are always better off in the end had we known then what we know now. We pummel ourselves for what now looks like the wrong thing and rarely just let it be what is which is our pasts and as such can do nothing to change it.

Here is an example. At this moment I am trying to figure out how to numb myself from the T5 down and telling myself I knew I should have told that Corpsman¹ the chit² she wrote was bullshit instead of taking it and storming out. At the time I was stationed in 29 Palms, California, in the middle of a desert on the side of a mountain, and upon acceptance of her findings this left in my hand a chit stating I was not to run on sand or hills... I did what all of us probably do in most medical situations and what the doctor says is it or in some cases so shocked you don't know what to say or do for fear of violence. The thing is I knew there was something legitimately wrong with me and the chit she wrote told my Instructor that there wasn't and he proved daily that he thought I was a PoS³ that deserved to be run into the ground. You would hope in your heart of hearts that he would have been more understanding and could just tell there was something wrong but there is a reason for that chit. Personnel fresh from bootcamp and MCT⁴ arrive at MOS⁵ school and decide I have done nothing but run and PT⁶ my ass off (literally in some cases) and I want a break so I'm going to say that my ankle hurts or whatever and get out of PT for a couple of days or weeks. Thus was born the 'this guy is faking' chit, and now I had one. So I was pissed, and we ran back and forth on the same stretch of flat road one time, then oh well you can run this hill, it has pavement, then the mountain runs, which honestly I would have found really fun, except for the fact by the time I got back to my barracks my ankle was purple and the size of one of those small basketballs. Was it the Instructor's fault? Absolutely not. Was it all the Corpsman fault? Honestly I can't say that either. I didn't stand up for myself, and I was the pig headed fool when the chit ran out in a couple of weeks that didn't go back to BAS⁷ and say I was still in pain for fear I would get another bs chit. After a few months of running on one bum ankle and compensating on the other I moved up the hill to a new Instructor. The platoon Sgt told the Instructor there was really something wrong with me and should be forced to go BAS, which I was, and now I had what the bone doctor at the hospital and the therapist accidently tells me are double ankle train wrecks. After a couple years of therapy the left one doesn't get any better, I am sent packing with a medical discharge with other injuries due to ankle instability, and wishing every day of my life I would have told that Corpsman she was wrong and I wouldn't have been so pig headed about getting myself taken care of.

Best case scenario had I told her off, I would still be a Marine loving my job. But what about the other hand?

Here is the point of this blog, we always think things will come out on the rosy side, but what if it hadn't? I could have gotten fixed in school, and by the time I had gotten to my duty station I would have been great and ready to go (instead of being sent back to the shop or to the truck). I would have been sent overseas and I might have come home with worse injuries than pain filled joints or I might not have come back at all.

There is another one we always want to change… our love lives. Oh I wish I wouldn't have dumped him, because my life would be great now. The fact of this analyzing is that we either are single and lonely or perhaps we had a tiff with our current love and think well so and so would have agreed with me. Maybe if I had of done things this way he wouldn't have acted that way. Abused women never remember the pain of being hit, but they remember the ways he apologized, and go back thinking well if he was that sweet he must have meant he wouldn't hit me again. I remember watching a program on photography and one photographer interviewed showed photos she had taken of herself months later after being hit where she was still bruised all over her face. She had to pull out the pictures to remind herself not to go back to him. We have a way of shoving away the pain and remembering the way we felt those first couple of months where when he winked you giggled like a school girl or when he snored all night keeping you awake but it was the cutest thing in the world. We forget the ways they ignored us or lied to us almost every weekend about oh how much they loved and missed us but they were always too busy with something else to spend time with us. The way he never said thank you or notices the things you do for him but you just know he appreciates it. Or how you stayed up all night or weekend thinking he was dead because he said he would call or come over and he was a no show. We always turn everything into our own faults too. Oh if I hadn't lingered those extra few seconds to look at this one item he wouldn't have lost me in the crowd for hours.

Let's face it people, there are reasons we do the things we do. Everything happens for a reason in my opinion. Had my ex not been crazy (literally) I wouldn't have joined the military. If I wouldn't have joined the military I wouldn't have met my ex husband and my daughter wouldn't be here, but also my joints would still be intact. If I wouldn't have been a disabled veteran perhaps my views and opinions wouldn't be what they are today thus I wouldn't have had that much in common with my husband, and we wouldn't have hit it off as well as we did. I would have blown him off and end up waiting for a guy that in the end would have run off to do what he does best which is being single.

There is a reason you gave him up, and you may tell yourself you were just being scared of going to the next step, but if you allow yourself to remember honestly you would know you had a reason to be scared and it wasn't because you have commitment issues, it is because you knew deep down somewhere it would continue the way it was as long as you were with him.

¹Corpsman

An enlisted person in the U.S. Navy or Marines who has been trained to give first aid and basic medical treatment.

²chit

doctor's note

³PoS

piece of sh*t

⁴MCT

Marine Combat Training, which teaches the rest of us none infantry folk the basics because you are always a Marine first and your MOS second.

⁵MOS

military occupational specialty

⁶PT

Physical Training

⁷BAS

Battalion Aid Station, or medical (It’s like a nurse’s office in school on a larger scale.)

Flying Cars

In this day and age everyone thinks we should be living like The Jetsons, with the most important invention not yet created being the flying car. Am I the only one that thinks this is a HORRIBLE idea? I understand the conveniences that an invention like this could provide, direct routes, faster commutes, and less traffic, unless you can recall The Jetsons and their skyways, their traffic was as bad as LA! I would love to have my husband home sooner from work and leaving later in the mornings, but I see many more disadvantages that an invention like this would cause. Are the people that want these inventions actually paying attention to what is going on our roads or are they too busy on their cell phones or perhaps there mind has wander to that grand invention that would take them in to the great blue and away from all the hassles of paying attention to the other "morons" on the pavement? While down on the ground, I am the one dodging the cell phone users and daydreamers thinking to myself 'why, oh why did I bother to leave my house?' I know the question in most of your minds at this moment, and yes, I have used a cell phone while driving. I only use it if I have to i.e. I am running late for an appointment because someone in front of me was sending a text message while behind the wheel and has crashed into the elderly woman and now the texter is trying to blame the crash on her feeble old mind and not his utter lack of paying attention to anything beside that little vibrating communication device. Maybe the vibrations in his lap are why he wants the phone continually going off, but I digress. If an invention like this actually took off I wouldn't even be safe in my home anymore. I am sure there would be "skyways", but as of late there is at least once a month someone crossing the center divider and plowing into someone minding their lanes and/or telephone conversations. We also can't forget the 20 year old drunk in a Jetta that kills a semi driver because the courts didn't put her in jail for her first couple of offenses nor any of her little bar buddies and pothead friends. Maybe we can look forward to the flybys of teenage boys that no longer need to get their thrills by plowing through a corn field during the middle of the night but instead now are seeing how many people they can wake up before the cops catch up to them. Or maybe my house will be the next finish line for the Need for Speed crowd, which I am sure my ex would enjoy thoroughly. Then you have the insane exes and other folks that do not quite have all their marbles but yet still have their licenses. Small town Indiana isn't even safe from things that a deranged mind can do with a flying projectile, case in point this Plane Crash where an 8 year old little girl was killed by her own father in his attempt to get back at his ex and her family. People don't even need cars or licenses to wreak havoc on unsuspecting citizens, for example the teenagers on an overpass dropping rocks on passing cars. Yes, why not put those same teens stories above the ground and see what kind of damage that same rock will do. Or maybe the job of the crazy that goes to school and shoots up the place could be made just that much easier by just taking their flying car mach 1 straight into the building instead of walking up and down hallways. You may think those are just random instances that would not be normal everyday life, but even if these things do not effect you every day the fact is everyday someone tries to commit suicide, murder or some sort of crime, and this would make things a lot easier. Here is one that probably effects everyone everyday that they drive. The five people that run the light after it has turned red (Shelbyville Rd and New Lagrange Rd, Louisville) while the guy behind you is honking his horn because the light has turned green and one second has passed. The impatience and road rage would not end just because we are now floating in the heavens. More accidents would be tragedies. I for one am not looking forward to the day the mass of this or any other nation take to the skies above me or my family for their daily transportation.

The Salesman

We ran into the salesman we had all those problems with at the end of last year, beginning of this year while out to lunch at a Chinese restaurant. I groaned upon noticing him, and while filling my plate at the buffet I know he saw me too. To confirm he had recognized me we overheard him tell the other man he was eating with (which he made sure we overheard it because he said it really loud) "They receive $1,500 in free furniture, and we're the bad guys." No dumb dumb you are, and it was $1,000, get it straight. You must have us confused with one of your other mistakes. So my husband was up refilling his plate, and they "bump" into each other. I had heard them talking, just not what they were saying. So my husband sits down and tells me what they had said. The salesman said he was going to say hi to me, but I didn't look like I wanted him to. (DUH!) So my husband goes on to say oh no, we think y'all did an awesome job and when we go to buy furniture we want to use them again. I tried not to laugh because the guy can see me but I know why my husband wants to do business with the same salesman... My husband wants another $1,000 of free furniture!

Buying Furniture: Conclusion

Our bed finally arrived. The same guys that set up the first had come back to drop off the correct one, and boy did he get a story. A couple weeks after we had initially bought the furniture we get a phone call from our finance company. My husband has used than over the years for a variety of things and is a valued customer to them. They hadn't approved us for $4,000, they had approved for only $3,000 and were refusing to add the extra $1,000. We were also informed the same sales guy that sold us the furniture had told our financier that was fine if they didn't provide the extra $1,000 that he would just have another company do the $1,000 because we had discussed it in the store. For those interested here was that conversation, Me: "Ugh, 'other financier'." Him: "Do you know them?" Me: "I hate them." (Personally I have never done business with them, but an ex had financed a computer for his family through them and they were a pain in the rear section.) I am trying to figure out where in that conversation he got the understanding it would be fine to finance with them. Our financier informed him that he will not do that, the finance company would inform us not to sign anything to cover the extra $1,000, (Which they did, right after they hung up with him they called us and gave us this whole story.) the furniture company would eat that $1,000 and we will all go to court if we had to make sure they would. FINALLY someone on our side! Besides my husband being such a valued customer, and them knowing that he would pay his bill even if they added the $1,000 it seems this salesman had done that three other times in the past week to the finance company, and they had had enough. He had continually done it to a different branch of the same finance company until they had stopped doing business with that store. Now we have to call the corporate offices again. They had removed our bed from the cost of the furniture which was going to save us $300 or so but we had not signed the new paper work as of yet for, but now we had a whole other issue. We had received this phone call in the car. No sooner had we gotten home was there a call from the financier that was going to cover the extra $1,000. Now he had given out our personal information as well.
To make this a little shorter, they dropped the extra $1,000, and we finally got our bed a couple days after they said it would arrive, and everything is going good now.
And the salesman you may ask? He still works there. According to the VP he is the best salesperson they have. So it seems that even if he costs them $1,000 here and there he still brings in enough for them to justify not firing him. My husband said if he worked for him he would have been long gone, but to each there own we guess.