1) Sometimes I get exercised about something and become a tower of rage. I’m not proud of it, God knows - my mamma brought me up better than that - but it happens, especially if it involves Verizon. Which would bring us to a ring on my doorbell at 8 PM (!) Monday evening. At that hour some young man with untidy hair and a Verizon crossing guard vest wanted me to stand around talking about how to cut my bill in half - and did I mention I wasn’t wearing pants? Infuriating - and i let him know! Later, over my dinner at Doyle’s, I found out from one of my favorite waitresses that they’d ordered him out of Doyle’s because he was bothering staff and customers!
1a) I was so exercised I began attempting to contact Verizon to get them to stop sending people to my house - a practically futile effort. Just to access the account online you need a password, security code, answer to a secret question, a glyph, and the blood of a virgin sacrificed under a full moon with a stainless steel blade manufactured in a NATO country. Once in, and once the bots did their thing, I waited forever for a chat to begin. It didn’t. Attempts to interact through ye Fycebykke were equally bot-oriented and futile.
1b) The matter was finally resolved Tuesday afternoon via more failed bot-initiated chat attempts and actually reaching a person on the 800 number. This is more difficult than it sounds. The rep I spoke to last, Greg, fell all over himself apologizing (which was appropriate), coded my record so I won’t be contacted this away again, and explained what was going on. I at least got to leave this frustrating odyssey feeling that I had been heard.
1c) I really do need to get a little brass plaque for my doorbell that says “No Soliciting, Canvassing, or Proselytizing.”
2) Possibly as a result of all this unnecessary temper on my part, Tuesday afternoon a painful headache began to flower all the way down to the bottom of my shoulder blades. After dinner, two ibuprofen before turning out the lights and retiring at 9 PM (!).
2a) In the night I woke from a dream with the storm music from the William Tell Overture in my head (and why not?) and it reminded me of the story records I had as a boy: William Tell, Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island - were there others? The stories of these classic novels narrated by actors with classical music in the background and other sound effects. I had not thought of those in years.
2b) OMG, a quick search of ye Yewtybbe reveals they were Tale Spinners for Children! Here’s Treasure Island. “Not with a barrel of apples aboard!”
3) “Now,” in the words of the late Marguerite Gauthier, “all goes merrily!” A sound night’s sleep always makes the world look better.