Well, this was an interesting anti-rant way of starting off the New Year. I got a call from a life insurance company trying to “locate a client”, which client turned out to be me. I told them I had never done any business with them, and the lady said “Did you not work for xxx?” Turns out I did, and as I understand it, they were generously paying into a life insurance fund that can now provide me an annuity (or possibly a lump sum cash payment – they’re sending documentation).
No, this isn’t going to make me rich, but I can always use a bit’o’cash.
I ordered a box set of used books off of Ebay. Twice in the description it stated, “hardcover.” The photos were not dispositive as to hardcover v. paperback at a glance, and given the description, I didn’t zoom in and examine them in detail. Sure enough, when they arrived they were paperbacks.
I initiated a return based on incorrect product description. Seller refused to refund return shipping (seller has a 30-day return policy that does not include shipping). Stated that the ISBN returned a description of “hardcover,” and he’s not responsible for that (bullshit). A subsequent message stated that, “clearly you’re a collector, because only a collector would be looking for hardcovers of these, and a collector would know that there are no hardcover box sets…” Fuck off. I have bookshelves, I prefer hardcovers, and I was nostalgic for these books I read when I was young.
Anyway, escalated to Ebay proper and they refunded the shipping, so all’s well. It just annoyed the piss out of me.
Ate some rancid potato chips and sat on the throne the next day excreting liquid. I mini-pit myself for not realizing that something was off about them when they smelled like almost-freshly-applied paint. I ate them because the smell was frankly pleasant. I wouldn’t have eaten them had they tasted of definitely freshly applied paint, because that would smell too volatile to be food and plus it would remind me of wet paint signs and being dirty after painting something. Instead, it reminded me of a clean wall whose paint had just dried. Optimistic and ironically fresh smelling.
I think it must have been a different oil that had gone rancid versus the last time I had rancid oil a couple of decades ago. That oil didn’t smell like paint, but smelled like the least objectionable parts of a fart. Again, not terribly unpleasant, but that time, my gut also didn’t have the same opinion that my mouth did.
Had to take the Christmas tree down today. It took two million years to get the lights off. Packing up all the ornaments, stockings, figurines and wreath, I felt like the Grinch. After Christmas is so lame.
I bought a thing on Etsy. It’s a pretty book meant to hold 150 thread bobbins in little plastic compartments. The seller said returns were accepted, so I bought it.
The little plastic compartments are too small for thread bobbins. They don’t fit at all. So I got something else that works better, and initiated a request for a return.
I got a response basically arguing with me that the bobbins actually do fit. She told me to take a hair dryer to let them expand. I’m not asking for your advice on how to use this thing, and now I’m feeling vaguely insulted that you think I’m mistaken about whether or not this product works for me. I just want a refund.
So the air filter on my wife’s car is due for a change. The service dept suggested it as an additional service during her last oil change, but of course I declined because they are so easy to replace.
I bought the filter, opened the hood, and unclipped the two steel clips that secure the air filter housing. If you’ve done this before, you know that the steel clips just flip down and hang there until you put them back in place. As I am putting the new filter in, I hear one of the clips fall off and bounce off of some part below the housing. Now on every other car I have worked on, it would simply fall to the floor. But not on this car, which has panels below the car for aerodynamics I suppose. I look down and can’t see the clip, and even if I could I would have been unable to reach it. So I had to remove two of the panels under the car to retrieve the clip. Twelve bolts and three retaining clips in total. I was able to get the steel clip and fix everything, but a one minute job turned to into a twenty minute job.
The cabin air filter is next, and it looks easy to change. Two minutes at the most. I’ll let you know how long it actually takes. Hopefully less than an hour.
After the event yesterday we get changed, go back to the car, drop our bags & grab cameras to get some photos. After the pics we’re walking back to the car again. While the beards may be a bit scruffy (pure laziness on my part, I haven’t been in the office in a couple of days) we’re otherwise dressed decently in clean clothes & I have a Nikon camera hanging from the strap around my neck & a small backpack on. As we approach the corner I see a car with the woman in the passenger seat holding something in her hand out the window. I say to JR they’re going to ask us for directions. As the car gets closer we can see an magnetic sign on the passenger door, “Homeless outreach” & she asks if we want a sandwich.
WTF, we’re not exactly wearing tuxes but we don’t look homeless either?
Not exactly true. I’ve dropped plenty of stuff though the engine bay of a 2001 Accord, a 2008 CR-V, and my 2024 Frontier. But this car, a Mazda CX-50 got me. I’ll be more careful from now on.
But that reminds me that I need to get some skid plates for the Frontier. I take that off road enough to need them.
Eh, I just assumed laziness on their part; they didn’t bother to look closely at the info the ISBN returned.
But, at that point, when the buyer points out your error, the proper response is, “oops, that is totally my fault. I will, of course, give you a full refund.” It was the attitude that really pissed me off.
At three o’clock this morning I want to get an ice bag to put on my bad leg. and on the way my foot slipped and I went down to the floor. I wasn’t able to use my walker to pull myself up, even after crawling to my couch. Fortunately, I was wearing my Bay Alert medical alert pendant, so I pressed the button to summon help. I heard the base unit call out that help is being called. Now, usually this is followed by someone coming on to ask the nature of the emergency, but this time, nothing. I pressed the button again, and once again heard the automated announcement that help was being called.
After 3:30 I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands. I pulled myself up to where I had left my cell phone charging and called 911. After explaining what had happened the operator asked about access to the house, and I told him that there was a lockbox on the front door, and gave him the access code. (This had been provided by Bay Medical, who had the code so they could give it to the EMTs so they wouldn’t have to break down my door.)
Now here’s the kicker: Five minutes after I call 911 Bay Medical comes on the callbox to see why I call called for help. Note that this is nearly 45 minutes after I had first pressed the call button. I remember thinking that it’s good I hadn’t been having a heart attack. I told the operator that I had gotten tired of waiting for them and called 911 myself.
The EMT’s arrived, got my on my feet and sitting on the couch. After they take my vitals and go through the usual routine of verifying that I hadn’t hit my head, wasn’t feeling dizzy or otherwise impaired, and didn’t need to go to the ER (I had to sign off on that) I proved to them that I was capable of standing up and using my walker. I thanked the EMTs for their help and went back to bed.
Monday I’m planning to call Bay Medical’s customer service number to register a complaint.
That is unacceptable service from an emergency phone line.
I would be steaming mad.
Thankfully you were able to take care of things on
your own this time.
Yeah, you’ve had it pretty rough recently, and I’m so sorry to hear about your troubles. I hope things go much better for you in the coming months and years.
Regarding Bay Medical, this is way beyond unacceptable. There should be legal sanctions. I’d sue the bastards. Is there some regulatory body that you can file a complaint with? Is there a different service you can use instead? I fear that just complaining to some drone at a call center may not be very effective. Make sure you have a record of the exact time and date that this happened (and all the other particulars) in case you later escalate to upper management or some third party. If anyone challenges you, the 911 call and EMS visit will be on record to support your case.
A book I ordered for a gift back on November 29th first had a delivery date of December 26th, then January 3rd, and this morning I got an email from Amazon stating that the delivery date is now February 27th.
BTW, I have also seen the year referred to as "2020sick ".
I’ve been paying about $45/month for this service, which I got after several months of having a friend expressing concern over the fact that I lived alone (and this was a few years ago, before the recent problems). I have called on them a few times before and have never had this sort of non-response. In fact, there was at least two times when the button was pressed in error , including once when Rascal walked across my chest, and I had to explain this to the operator when they responded.
Things have been going better for me over the past week. In fact, yesterday when the physical therapist was over we practiced going up and down my front steps, and I was able to get up the steps (which the hardest for me) without assistance.
By the time the EMTs were through with me the leg pain had eased to the point where I didn’t even feel it after I was lying in bed. Which was good, because I wasn’t sure I wanted to try to get back to the kitchen