As I have said before, my mother is a special needs teacher, and has been for most of her working career (which is in its last decade). Most of the children she works with are lovely, would that the same could be said for all the teachers.
She was called in to do an assessment on a child with spinal problems. She recommended that the child be given a special chair so that he could sit comfortably in class. This was approved by the educational authority, and the chair was issued. Imagine then her surprise when on a follow-up visit she found the child seated uncomfortably on a standard school chair. At once she went to the headmaster.
“We issued X with a special chair for his spinal condition,” she said. “What happened to it?”
“Well,” the headmaster replied. “It was such a good chair that I took it for my office.”
Unfortunately regulations prevented her from replying as she would have liked, which would have been extremely saracastic and related to just how much of a sorry excuse for a man he was. Nevertheless, she did reply.
“So, we sent this chair FOR X BECAUSE HE HAS A SPINAL CONDITION, and YOU TOOK IT FOR YOURSELF. That’s defrauding the department, and refusing to help a disabled child. If you want one of these chairs, pay for it out of your budget, and GIVE X HIS CHAIR, OR YOU WILL BE REPORTED.”
Needless to say, the headmaster, who I am sure was terrified, did as he was told.

(This story happened while I was a child, waiting to get my hair cut. Another small boy, about one and a half to two years old, is also waiting with a woman I presume is his mother.)

Small boy, to his mother: Apple?

Mother: No, buddy, your apple’s in the car.

Boy: Apple?

Mother: Not right now, buddy.

(The boy walks over to a communal box of toys kept there for children waiting for haircuts, pulls out a Mr. Potato Head, and brings it back over to show his mom.)

Boy: Apple?

I love my husband with all the love in the world but sometimes I just don’t understand his logic.

We recently bought a composter and I have been collecting dry things such as old paper, thin cardboard, paper bags, and leaves for it for a few weeks now. We are now making breakfast sandwiches in the kitchen when this conversation happens.

Husband: Can we compost bread?
Me: I am actually not sure. Let’s look it up!
Husband: Ok good. I just didn’t want you to get mad at me for throwing it out.
Me: Truthfully, I was going to throw out the ends but we are learning together…. So it looks like you can compost bread and used chopped-up cardboard boxes like from pizza boxes as well as paper towels.
Husband: Cool.

A short time later I go to throw something away and I notice a cardboard box in my trash from a pan of English muffins. I asked why it was in the trash and all he could say was “food stuff”.

This man thought to check to see if bread could go into the composter and has been collecting cardboard all week to prepare for this composter but couldn’t put two and two together as we were talking about it. I love him, but sometimes I don’t know where his head is at.

I was getting tired of the same calls about insurance everyday, so I decided to have some fun. Telemarketer: We are calling about your Medicare part B insurance. Me: This is Mary’s insurance company, how may I help you today? What type are you looking for? We sell Health insurance, life insurance, Medicare plans, ( i was rattling off as many forms of it that i could think of, trying my best to sound like a real agent). Hmmm……….I wonder why they hung up first, LOL!

They did not call back. If you can’t beat them, play their game back to them.

For Christmas, my dear parents sent me a frankly over-generous amount of money, and while I squirrelled most of it away, almost serendipitously my now 10-year-old computer started failing on me, so I put some of the funds into buying a decent-spec gaming computer – nothing top-of-the-line, but nicer than my previous rig by a mile. I purchased through a well-known company that sells gaming PCs, including the one that my husband has.

And then the waiting begins.

For context, this was early January 2021. On top of the pandemic, I knew there was a parts shortage in the tech world, so I was prepared to have to wait a while. Given all that, the estimated ship date of 3-4 weeks seemed reasonable enough to me. And even when, about 2 weeks in I got an apologetic email stating that my computer would be delayed and my shipping ETA was updated to 4-5 weeks, I was fine with that. Things still weren’t exactly business-as-usual, right?

However, when week 5 came to a close with no further communication, and according to their online tracker, they hadn’t even begun gathering parts for my computer, I began to get antsy. I sent a polite email to their customer service address asking if I could get an idea of when my computer might ship. The response I received read thusly:

“The estimated ship date for your order is looking like late February.”

That was the *entire* email, mind – no apologies or even a greeting, just that single line. It didn’t exactly inspire confidence, and I was disappointed to tack another 3 weeks onto my wait time, but at least I had an ETA, right? And 2 days later my parts had begun to be gathered, so all seemed well, right?

Well, after they finished gathering the parts a week later, they apparently sat. And sat. And *sat*. For three more weeks. It was now March, and my computer was a box of parts on a shelf. Now, even at this point, I would have been willing to give the company a pass. Had I not, in the meantime, found their reddit page, featuring customers showing off their shiny new computers that they had ordered in some cases a full month after I did.

I sent a decidedly less polite email this time, pointing out that now three promised ETAs had come and gone, meanwhile people who purchased well after me were happy as clams. When the f*** was I getting my computer, and how the f*** did I go about getting a discount?

I was told that in order to apply a discount, they would have to cancel my order and reprocess it, which would make the machine even later. I shot that down. I would have disputed the charge at this point, but alas, I had purchased through a loan company (foolishly thinking this would be an easy way to bolster my credit score) and their dispute period had already passed. I finally left a complaint on the BBB website, out of ideas, and that at least netted me a measly 5% discount, but at this point, I just wanted the damned product.

After another 2 weeks of back and forth, my computer finally has been assembled, and then after yet another 2 weeks, it actually ships.

I am now writing this from in front of my fully functional gaming computer… after purchasing separately the power cord they shorted me, and the keyboard they forgot altogether. No word yet about a refund on those items, and frankly, I don’t expect there to be one. At this point, I’d rather just have done with the whole mess, to be perfectly honest.

At least the keyboard I got off amazon is cuter than the one I bought from them anyway.