WHAT MADE YOU GRIMACE & GRIT YOUR TEETH TODAY?

ok, I give up.
I have no idea what any of your last post was about.

one of my youtube favorites got deleted due to some legal BS...

I sent out a VERY important piece of mail through the USPS, certified and return receipt, on August 22. When I went online to track, I was informed that the mail was scheduled to be delivered on the 25th.

It did not reach the city to where the mail was addressed until the 26th, and then nothing. I tried calling (you should pardon the expression) USPS "customer service". All I could get was a robot, who basically repeated what I had seen on the net. I could not reach a real person.

The tracking service advised that basically after five days,(the 27th) I should begin to worry. (They did not quite couch it in that manner, but I think that you get the drift.)

By today, I was biting my nails, and reaching for my bottle of tranquilizers.

I picked up the mail, (the 29th), and sure enough, was the green return receipt. The mail had been delivered on the 26th, but according to the internet tracking service was still rumbling around Austin, Texas.

Instead of being happy, I am furious. Next time, I will mail either by FedEx or UPS. Maybe I will fly to Texas, and deliver it by hand. At least I will get to see the country!!!

Oddly, I've liked them lately, the few times I've used them, but for me they are too far away (Diane and I sent a big package to the east, delivered smartly). Spoiled brat that I am, I'm used to post offices being walkable-to from where I live. Here in Abq, and probably a lot of other cities and towns, that isn't so. The UPS store, much handier, will also send via the post office system if you want, and in my case, the guy who's been the one to usually do the work when I am there has been smart, helpful, funny, kind. I should probably write a note of praise to the corporation.

I have my own gripe and whine.

I've long been apparently allergic to insect bites and have been lucky on all that. My mother went into anaphylaxis from a hornet sting when were driving through Indiana to Chicago and that was a close one, my father getting her/us to a hospital, back in the early fifties (they gave her ACTH).

I react to horse fly bites, big welts. I react to ants, ordinary ants, aggravating but no big deal. But this time, goofus (goofa?) left a bag of chips I thought closed near the bed and ants gathered and I didn't notice them until.... until... and then just pulling off the sheets, even carefully, brought ants to my bod. Squished ants, but they got me.

It's been four days now. Itch city. This is not infection. This is not anaphylaxis. It's allergy described as nothing to worry about at this point. Treat with this and that, which I have and it's working, is better.

This will go away, but now I'm more than ever engaged in ant war.



I can't help but comment re people dealing with ebola, the sheer impossibility in many places of 'hygiene'.

I got a call from the police dept. in a neighboring state, saying my car had been impounded. I loaned this vehicle to someone. Now I have to pay towing and impound fees...how's that for gratitude?

Grrrrrrr at "someone".

Life's lessons are often 20/20.

Sometimes, though, we never learn!

So true!

Who will f**k you over faster than a friend or relative? No one, that's who.

Yep...and then we keep hoping! I forgot to mention we had to drive there and prove identity before the vehicle was released.

You were trying to help and this person is whack (presumably), and you, in an already difficult week get all this happening after trying to be helpful.

Some weeks can just about kill us, that's all I'll say.

Before anyone calls this first world problems, I'll just say, shut up.

No, don't shut up. Sometimes it's difficult to say no to people we care about. You're right though...seems like, when it rains it pours. I'm more hurt about the stupid choices this person made, rather than the inconvenience to me (although a big one). We had been helping this person, and then the path he chose was the worst one for him.

For what it's worth, USPS is much cheaper and they usually get it right. 3000 packages a year since 2003, and a number of goofs I can count on my fingers

This happens over and over, I'm not wise, a listener here.

I've also had good will work (long long story) but much else not.

Realising that my hospital appointment is on Tuesday - I've tried to forget it for weeks - and it's nearly here!!!

and soon over (((hugs)))

Thanks Jo - I'm an awful coward, as you know, but good wishes from friends always help

Hospital visit? I thought you were done with that stuff.

Wishing you well.