Walking Is Highly Over-Rated

I went a bit crazy - in an entirely different way than usual - recently. I bought four pairs of shoes in less than a week. This is completely unprecedented. I theorized that it might have happened because I was slightly upset that I have gone up two pants sizes in two years. As in, "Hey, my ass may be growing by the second, but my feet... my feet are still slim and trim!"

Given my 'druthers, I'd never leave my house, and therefore not need shoes or pants. But since I still have to work, I attempted to bolster the portion of my self esteem and body image that was sagging by buying cute shoes.

There is one major problem with that. New shoes suck.

Oh, sure, they look all seductive and awe-inspiring on display or nestled in tissue paper beds in their pristine boxes. It's all an illusion. They're just waiting for the chance to maim your feet. You might as well stick your foot in a bear trap and call it a day.

I was deliriously happy when I brought home my purple Converse Chuck Taylors. So delirious, in fact, that when I decided a couple of days later that I also required the turquoise chucks, I slid my naive little feet into the purple chucks and headed back to Kohl's. I did not yet have low-cut socks, and didn't want to wear my ankle-high ones and destroy the impact of my chucks or cover any part of my violet anklet tattoo, so I wore them sockless. But no problemo, right? These are canvas sneakers, and inherently comfy.

Wrong.

In the few minutes it took me to navigate the store, locate the shoe department (I am starting to suspect it moves randomly around the store with some kind of primitive footwear sentience), and find the turquoise chucks, I was nearly crippled. The blisters on my heels forced me to walk like a person without ankles. When I got back to the car with my new shoes - and a pack of low-cut socks - I immediately stripped off the purple chucks, put on a pair of socks, and then put the shoes back on. It didn't help much. I had three more stops on my errand route, and by the time I got home I was vowing never to wear shoes again.

Trying to look on the positive side, I did have a really big blister on my left heel. (Yes, that's the positive side; stick with me a minute, here.) Since I am psychologically incapable of leaving such a thing alone, I had the brief moment of fun when I punctured it with a needle and spurted blister-juice all over the leg of my sweat pants.

(I know. Ewww. But in a good way, right? It's kind of like popping bubble wrap, but on your foot. And with a little bit of spurting.)

I spent the next couple of days with band-aids on my heels and trying not to leave my desk at work so as to avoid any walking. No need to exacerbate existing injuries. Though painful, I do always sort of appreciate any reason to keep my butt in my chair.

On Monday, I got to work and retrieved the plastic mat that goes under my desk chair. We'd had the carpet cleaned, and the mats had been left up so that the carpet could dry. I repositioned it and rolled my chair into its customary location. However, the edge of the mat was curled up a little, due to having been lying upside down on top of the chest freezer all weekend. I knew the bumps on the bottom of the mat were jaggy sharp... but I didn't realize the edges were like razor blades. And, apparently, I tend to shuffle my feet while making my way around my office prior to 8:00 AM on a Monday. The result?

(Note bloody, scrapey-cutty lacerations to the tops of both feet. Also... awesome tattoo.)

The semi-cute, relatively comfortable tan suede mary-janes were not directly responsible for the injury, but they were accomplices. If I'd had on the chucks, my heels would probably hurt, but my instep would have been protected.

I got a roll of packing tape and firmly affixed the edges of the mat to the carpet, because there is no doubt I'd have shuffled up to my desk at least five more times during the day, accidentally amputating my own feet just below the ankles.

Painful heel-blisters would seem to demand sandals. Which, technically, I can't wear to work because they are an OSHA violation, but I spend almost no time in the "working" area of the clinic. But even the pretty-pretty sparkly sandals I bought at the same time as the purple chucks and the mary-janes were a poor option. The top of them rubbed on the instep-injuries.

There is a reason why "old shoes" are "old shoes." Because they are comfy and protective and non-injury-inducing. Otherwise, they'd either still be in the box in your closet, not yet having failed to live up to their potential... or you would have donated them to charity, hoping that the person who received them had really tough feet or lots of band-aids.

Until my feet heal, toughen up, or my shoes decide to call a truce, I'm pondering my footwear options. True, I am barefoot half the time at work. But I do (against my wishes) have to walk around from time to time, so I need to at least take shoes with me. Then I discovered these, and I'm wondering if they might be the answer...

(Socks that look like Converse high-tops. True, my chucks are not high-tops, and these would cover both my anklet tattoo and all or part of the ambigram on the outside of my right calf, but I doubt they'd cause blisters.)

If I can avoid stepping on anything capable of impaling me through the bottom of the sock, it might work. Of course, if I didn't avoid buying shoes until every single pair I had either disintegrated or became too filthy for even my low standards, I wouldn't be stuck with all these new shoes at once.

I don't plan ahead.

On the other hand, I haven't fallen down the stairs or set my bangs on fire for a pretty long time, so that's good.

Perhaps the root of the whole problem is that I'm still a born-and-bred hillbilly, despite living away for 26 years, and shouldn't be wearing shoes at all. When I get back across the border to the motherland, I'll leave all my shoes with some deserving urbanite and stick to sneaker-socks and fuzzy slippers. And maybe, for formal occasions, some flip-flops.

Say Anything

I promise to write more soon. I have an idea. Really. Several of them, and at least one of them might make it out of my head and onto the blog.

In the meantime, I was recently interviewed for the Say Anything blog, and that edition posted on Monday. So, please stop by, read the bit, and leave a nice comment for "The Redheaded Stepchild" that maintains the blog. Let her know you loved the interview, and that - yes - I truly am that awesome.

Expect a new post soon. It'll probably involve shoes and/or injuries. The two might or might not be related.

And I might whine some more concerning the house I posted about yesterday, though I might have uncovered its fatal flaw. I do not see evidence of any other means of reaching the upstairs (writing lair, jacuzzi tub... you know, the important stuff) other than the spiral staircase.

(Killer Spiral Steps Of Death, shown at right mid-ground of photo. Beautiful, but oh-so-fatal. Probably. Darwin would think they were fun, though.)

As you are well aware, I fall down regular stairs often enough, and I'm not even always under the influence when it happens. So when I have to resign myself to the gut-wrenching fact that we won't get that house, I shall console myself by saying, "Oh, well, I'd have broken my neck three days after we moved in, anyway. I know I said this is the last house we're ever buying, so this is the house I'm going to die in - possibly literally - but I don't plan for it to be in the first week."

I'd Spring Into Change If I Could Figure Out How

"Spring is when a young girl's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of... not being excruciatingly bored."

Yes, I butchered an old-fashioned quote to suit my needs. Because I am bored. I don't just mean I'm bored right this minute, or today, or even this week. This is more generalized boredom. Like the kind that permeates your brain and every aspect of your existence. There's not really a good kind of boredom, but this one is especially soul-destroying.

At this time of year, there should be something to look forward to, first of all. Winter is over, things are turning green, and it should feel as if all things are possible.

By spring, we are usually planning some sort of summer vacation, but this year we aren't able to do so. Ragweed isn't playing anywhere near, or at least nothing has shown up on their schedule yet... and I check. Every day. There's the potential for a repeat of last year's road trip (most awesome time ever!) to see them on consecutive nights in June, but we're not sure. Tom doesn't technically have any vacation yet. I did reserve the Walnut Room (Formerly the Brick Room) at the Walnut Street Inn again, though. Just in case.

I don't typically get all psyched up and giddy about things at work, but this year I'm even less motivated than usual. As you might recall, I'm inheriting some money (more on that in a minute), so I know that my time at that job is limited. I'll be taking the plunge and working at writing full-time. (And? I. Can't. Wait!) Which makes it seriously hard to give a shit about payroll percentages or back taxes or which employee is being bitchy to which other employee from one minute to the next.

With everything so "up in the air" right now, I can't focus on starting the new book, so I don't even have a writing project to excite me and make me feel like I'm doing something other than wasting away from the inside out. At this time last year, I was in the "zone." I was writing constantly, churning out those chapters, and Make or Break was as real to me as my own life. Perhaps even more real. Definitely more exciting. I loved every agonizing, terrifying, satisfying creative moment of writing it.

Basically, my life is being held hostage by the incomprehensible maze of federal estate taxes and all related nonsensery. When I found out about this all last November, I initially thought that by spring everything would be sorted out and the next chapter of our lives would begin. Wrong. Then it looked like it would be around the end of this summer. Again... wrong.

The latest information I have is that we should receive about 25% of the total soon, 50% anywhere from 6-12 months down the road, and the final 25% when the estate is "closed."

While I appreciate the idea that we should (should) get some much-needed cash soon, with which we will pay off some credit debt and start fixing up this rat-hole of a house to sell, the rest is making everything crazy.

How am I supposed to plan? I don't know how long I'll be remaining in my job, I don't know when we'll be able to put the house on the market, I don't know when we'll move, I don't know way too many things. We want to save a little. Travel a little. Write a lot. We want to finally have a home that feels like "home."

And I have no idea when the hell that will be.

I know this sounds ungrateful. In these trying economic times, most people don't have a known windfall on the horizon. Or just over the horizon. Or wherever the federal government decides my horizon will be. We do. But part of my brain has already disconnected from this chapter of my life, ready to move on.

Except I can't move on yet. Which means I'm floating in this misty gray limbo, not fully present and participating in my current life, and unsure when/where the start of my "new" life will be.

We started looking at property listings shortly after we decided that this money would be used to finance a move. We've wanted out of this house practically since the minute we moved in. Coming from Indianapolis, we essentially had two days to select a house. This one won because it had a large yard that was already fenced for the dogs. There was another house we probably would have liked more, but the exterior was wood (Tom was not enthused about the need to re-paint every couple of years), and the yard wasn't fenced. So here we are, in this split level that was not made for drunks, klutzes, the middle aged, or old dogs. All four of those have presented problems on more than one occasion. At least one of these times required stitches.

Plus, it's boring and ugly. Zero character. 1972 split level. Requirement #1 for our new (and final... we are not moving again... ever) house is "no split levels."

But looking at listings is torture. And right now, I'm in agony. On Saturday, I found it. The house. (I'll link to the virtual tour, but later, when someone is finding this in my archives, the link probably won't work.) It is... perfect. Small. Just 1050 square feet. Living room and kitchen downstairs (and a bathroom). Master bedroom, master bath (with... my tub!), and a small loft bedroom (my writing lair) upstairs. Beautiful views. Log construction. Fenced yard area. Over 11 acres. A gazebo. This house is so gorgeous, and the price is amazing, and I want it want it want it want it wantitwantitwantit. Immediately.

Behold:

(Front of house, located in Cutler, Ohio.)

(From kitchen, looking into living room)

(Back of house, and fence-y part of back yard)

(More fence-y back yard... and gazebo, which would totally require a hot tub)

(View)

(I tried to upload a picture of the writing loft, but for some reason my security program suddenly decided that the Blogger uploader is "malicious." Whatever. You can see it in the tour, or just take my word for it that it is gorgeous.)

But with two mortgages on this pit, and no inheritance dollars yet in hand... and a financially remedial brain... I have no idea how to go about this. I'm pretty sure there is no way.

Here's the part where I show how mature, introspective, and self-aware I am. (Hush. I am so!)

At this time last year (today, in fact) we were celebrating The Boy's wedding in Orlando. So I'd had that to look forward to, and I knew we were doing the Ragweed Road Trip in June. This year, I'm stuck spinning my wheels, waiting for the cash to arrive, and can't do a damned thing about it.

I did sign up for an online workshop on writing query letters, so maybe that will motivate me to get Make or Break submitted and published. Maybe.

But mostly... I just want that damned house!!!!!

A Strange Day And Pictures Of My Feet

I was having a normal Thursday morning sitting on the Sofur and checking out Facebook. I was totally minding my own business - and everybody else's, because that's the whole point of Facebook - when several people started mentioning spring clothes.

I had been avoiding thinking about spring clothes. Even though our high temperatures are getting into the 70s now, it's still a bit soon to pull out the short sleeves and canvas slip-ons here in Minnesota. But it's really nice out today, a reminder that I don't have very long to figure out the spring wardrobe situation.

I have about ten pairs of Capri pants. That's what I wear through as many warm months as this stupid climate decides to give me. I have awesome tattoos on my calves and ankles (and a new one, coming soon!), and they're hidden nine months out of the year. When I can show 'em off, you'd better believe I show 'em off. So. Capris.

The problem is that I spent most of the winter virtually sharing a blood supply with the Sofur... and eating. Odds of last year's Capris fitting were pretty damned dismal. When all my Facebook friends started talking about cute spring clothes... I sighed. Fine. I have to go try on my pants and see how many - if any - will actually zip.

Out of ten pairs, five are more or less okay. Two or three are "no freakin' way," and the rest are maybes. To break it down, even the size 6s that technically fit still look like I should have asked a sales clerk somewhere if they had those pairs one size larger. The size 4s just laughed at me. I'm going to burn them in the wood stove later.

I was already planning on going the seven miles to Rogers, because that's where the nearest branch of my preferred library system is, and I needed to return Tom's book. (I don't have books anymore. I have George-the-Kindle.) Happily, there is a Kohl's right near the library, as well as a SuperTarget (need food) and liquor store (hey, tomorrow's Friday).

I got ready, and as I was driving toward Kohl's, it dawned on me. The entire reason I'd been planning to go to Rogers, which led to the thinking-about-Kohl's and potential clothes-buying, was to return Tom's library book. Which was still on the dining room table.

Rackenfrazzle.

But I was now in that foolish, delusional state, the way I always feel before a clothes-buying expedition. I'm notoriously awful at shopping. I hate it. Everything is ugly. Tops are solid color, or have no sleeves, or look like maternity tops. Nothing fits. If I find something I like, I can't find anything to match it. Yet I always start out hopeful.

As I was wandering around Kohl's, getting the lay of the land, Tom called. I informed him that I had three pairs of Capri pants in my hand, but hadn't found any shirts I liked. But after our conversation, things got better. Much, much, (too much) better.

One small bit of this was good strategic form on my part. After the size 4s at home laughed me out of the room, and the size 6s sighed and rolled their eyes, I didn't try on any pants that were not a size 8. This was the only sure way to prevent me from having a psychotic break in the fitting room. There's nothing worse than discovering you have to buy everything a size bigger than the previous year - and two sizes bigger than the year before that - and you don't want that sort of episode to occur in a public place.

I ended up with three pairs of Capris (sage, brown, and sort of a golden-fawn color), and three tops... which somehow mix and match with the pants in several different combinations. All without Garanimal Tags on them. A-freakin'-mazing. And then I got a purple print t-shirt, because... I loves purple. Loves, loves purple. There is a reason that my violet anklet is my favorite tattoo.

Then I got a little crazy. I headed for the shoe department. I knew my white eyelet wedges, my go-to shoes for work in the summer, were trashed. I replaced them a few weeks ago. But my tan shoes were just as bad, and tan shoes would go with everything I had in my shopping bag at the moment. So I found these:

(This shot is a bit washed out. They're light tan suede flats. Fairly cute, and comfy. Very practical.)

Yes, they are practical. And I am not a shoe girl. I've sometimes only owned two pairs of shoes at a time. "Winter," and "Summer." I have more now, since my gastric bypass, and went a bit nuts on heels for a while, and ankle boots. But I am not a recreational shoe shopper. Or... I wasn't. Now, I'm not so sure.

One thing I learned today: Shoes do not care how big your ass is. Unless you gain a huge amount of weight, forcing your poor, over-burdened feet to smush out into a larger size (which I know from experience), your shoe size stays pretty constant. Suddenly this is very important information.

So I kept looking at shoes. And I found these:

(The color is "bronze multi," and they are much sparklier with gems and glittery-things than this picture shows. They are prettyprettypretty. You may also admire my awesome violet anklet tattoo and purty red toenails. If you're into that sort of thing. Tom, after 28 years together, still insists my body ends at the ankle.)

A couple of weeks ago, I read Christopher Moore's "Bite Me," and the main character, Abby Normal - vampire minion and wanna be nossssssssferatu - had a pair of lime green "chucks," referring to the traditional Converse Chuck Taylor rubber-toed shoe style. Very retro. And totally awesome. I wanted a pair of lime green chucks. Did Kohl's have lime green chucks? Yes! Yes, they did!

But... they not only had lime green chucks, they had turquoise, pink, navy... and purple.

See previous reference about "loves purple." (Me. I love purple.)

Must. Have. Purple. Chucks.

Immediately.

Kohl's might have purple chucks, but they do not have them in my size. WTF??? I corner the very busy shoe-department-lady and ask her to prettyprettyplease look and see if she can find them. Ten seconds in the back room, and she returns with... Purple Converse chucks. In my size.

I experienced what may have been my first shoe-buying-related rush of euphoria. Behold!

(Purple chucks match violet tattoo, see? Color coordinated! And I bought that purple t-shirt. As long as I always buy everything in purple, I will match.)

And that's it. Other than (hopefully) getting some cheap ($5) Haines shorts at Wal-Mart sometime in the near future, which I shall never wear outside the confines of my own home, I am finished with shopping till fall. (Fortunate, since the Kohl's card is now toast.) By then, I hope to be "retired" and not need fall work clothes. I will, however, most likely need several loose, comfy, possibly purple, track suits for sitting around writing my next bestseller.

And now I need to go prepare for the "Tom Just Got Home From Work And Must See All My New Purchases Fashion Show." I'm pretty sure he hates that. And he's going to flip when he sees the purple chucks. But they make my toes tingle in a very happy way.

Bullying Is Not Customer Service

Let's have a rant today, shall we?

Remember when I was super-annoyed at a certain duck-sponsored supplemental insurance company whose representatives would not leave me the hell alone, despite being told about eleventy bajillion times that we were not interested? Well, here's another one.

When this clinic opened five years ago, one of our owners (who is no longer with the business) signed a five-year service agreement with Cintas for our floor mats. Shortly thereafter, she had some sort of issue with the terms of the service agreement. I'm not sure what it was, but she wanted to modify the service or delivery schedule or billing in some way. The company refused, and we were locked in for five years under the current conditions. While we never had a problem with the service provided by the actual guys who bring the mats every two weeks, the corporate philosophy and their attitude toward "customer service" once they had you enslaved for the term of the agreement sucked. Massively.

Remember, this started five years ago. A little over a week ago, our driver handed the receptionist a three-part carbon form that he needed us to sign. I glanced at it and started to sign it, when our practice owner went, "Noooooo!!!!! Don't sign anything from them! We do not want to renew for five more years! We need to renegotiate this whole thing!"

Okfine.

The very next day, Cintas started calling, telling us to sign the agreement and fax it back right away. Um... no? I emailed their customer service and said we were interested in going month-to-month, or we needed a shorter term, something. Basically, we weren't happy with feeling like we were trapped for at least four of the last five years, and didn't want to spend the next five years feeling that way. Work with us, or we may elect not to renew.

I got a call from our representative. Lovely. I had a few very simple requests, no reason we can't cover the options over the phone and have them fax over a revised agreement, right?

Wrong-a-roonie-doonie. Apparently this required a face-to-face meeting. This seemed like a considerable waste of my time. I mean, really? I have to set aside what is sure to be at least a half hour for a meeting, when this should be a five minute phone conversation. Either you can do something to accommodate what we want, or you can't. We're at the end of our contract. If you can't, there are other companies who can. But noooooo. I was basically strong-armed into accepting this meeting, which took place on Monday. (Sometimes, despite my best efforts, I'm just not assertive or bitchy enough.)

The meeting didn't go terribly. I started out all prickly, because it all felt like bullying to me. I don't blame the guy personally. I get that it's the corporate philosophy, and he's probably under a ton of pressure to get and keep accounts. If he reports a canceled account without having met with the customer, he probably has to wear the big dunce hat at the next meeting or something. I don't know. I'm pretty sure corporations don't flog account managers anymore. Maybe they threaten to reassign them to whichever region is the one with the highest crime, lowest revenue, and worst climate. And giant bugs. Unless that actually is Minnesota, and then I don't know what you have left to threaten them with. Maybe we're back to flogging.

At our meeting, he presented me with a proposed service agreement which cut our bi-weekly costs by about 30%, which was nice. However... doesn't that sort of make you wonder why they've happily been charging us 30% more up until now? (Oh, yeah, that's right. Because they could.) He also offered a 24-month agreement, with prices fixed for that term. He even wrote in a clause that we could cancel service during the agreement with 30 days written notice, which essentially made it a month-to-month deal.

I was feeling a bit more favorable. We even discovered that he handles the account for Tom's store, too. I talked to Tom, and he likes the guy, so there was another point in his favor. But I was still kind of annoyed by the whole "this must be done in person, so I may charm or intimidate you into staying with Cintas" approach. I likened it to those "free" health club memberships. You know the kind. You enjoy your free month, and then they take you in a teeny tiny office and two enormous, muscular trainers stand over you and say, "Hey, you are going to sign up for a year's membership... aren't you???"

I do not like being bullied. You can wear a spiffy little uniform and smile a lot and ask about the Cody pictures all around my desk, but that doesn't change anything.

On Wednesday, I met with a representative from another company. His agreement is essentially identical to the one offered by Cintas, and it is about 25% less cost per delivery. And the guy didn't make me want to escort him from the premises even once. Win.

This morning, I emailed our Cintas rep, informing him of our decision, thanked him for meeting with us (because that's the polite, conciliatory thing to do), and asked him when it would be convenient for someone to pick up the mats. His email reply didn't answer that question. It just asked for the phone number where I could be reached.

I started to have a bad, bad feeling about things. Again.

I provided the phone number, and a short while later received a call from - guess who - our Cintas rep. And guess what else. He wanted to set up another meeting.

As far as I was concerned, I had cut them a huge amount of slack agreeing to the first meeting. There was no way a second meeting was going to turn out at all well. Our decision had been made, and this should have been Cintas's clue to bow out gracefully, thank us for our past business, and come get their mats in a reasonable amount of time.

It should not surprise you that this is not how it went. At all.

I declined a meeting. Seriously, I have way too many things to do to spend another half hour on this. Our rep pointed out that this involved his company's reputation, and I get that. But... he was not helping that reputation by engaging in more of the overly-aggressive sales tactics that had put us off them in the first place.

He mentioned that - technically - he could hold us to the 60-day written notice of cancellation clause... but that he wasn't going to do that. He was very emphatic that he was not going to do that. Yet he kept bringing it up. Repeatedly. I pointed out that if he wanted to force us into another 60 days of service, perhaps there wasn't much we could do about that, but if he was worried about his company's reputation, that probably wasn't the way to go.

I told him, very politely, that I didn't wish to discuss ways in which we might still sign another agreement with them. That ship had sailed. It was half way to Portugal. When he asked for reasons for this decision, I told him that the very fact that we were even having this conversation was exactly why we preferred to do business with another company. I said I was not going to engage in further conversation about a service agreement. The only thing I needed to know at this point was when they would like to pick up their mats.

Along about here, he went back to the "60-day written notice of cancellation" thing for the umpteenth time. You know, that thing that he had no intention of forcing us to comply with. Because he's a nice guy, and Cintas is a nice company, and they've done business in good faith, and we should also do business in good faith (meaning we should meekly submit to the 60-day written notice thing).

I was very, very, very tired of this conversation. Weary unto death. I again told him that I did not wish to discuss this any further, asked him to please stop pushing for the new agreement (I actually said "please" about eight times in a row), and tell me when they would be by for the mats. When he started in again, I pointed out that we were at the end of the five-year agreement, and as far as we were concerned, it was over.

The next conversational gambit consisted of his telling me that the 60-day written notice would have had to come at the end of January, in order to terminate our agreement at its... termination. Otherwise it was considered to have auto-renewed. Not for 60 days, but for another 60 months.

Can you see me getting less and less happy with each syllable that came out of his mouth?

Was he really saying that he was going to force us into another 60-month agreement - which we weren't happy with the first time, and that's why we had our "meeting" to begin with? Did he really want us to spend large portions of the next 60 months telling everyone in every business we know about how we were steamrollered into extending an unsatisfactory service agreement, simply because we forgot to mark our calendars (in 2005) to remember to send out a 60-day written notice in 2010? We only became aware that the renewal period was upon us when they handed us the new agreement, only a week before the end of the original agreement.

I told him we were so not going to go there, and told him to please just inform me when we might expect someone to come get the mats. He kept interrupting me. Finally, I told him that I was going to hang up in fifteen seconds, and the only thing I wanted to discuss in that time was whether someone would be coming for the mats, or if we should place them in a safe, secure location for later pickup.

Guess who did not seem to hear a word I said, and kept talking.

And guess who did, in fact, hang up fifteen seconds later.

Dr. White was in the office and witnessed the whole debacle. Actually, she started making "slam the phone down immediately" motions about two minutes into the conversation, but I was trying to salvage some civility. Cintas had the option to accept our decision gracefully, and leave things on an up note. They opted to continue to apply pressure, coming dangerously close to threats, harassment, and intimidation. We're still going to be done with them one way or the other, but now I have an everlasting bad taste in my mouth for Cintas.

He kept mentioning that my husband was very happy with them, and that is true. Tom told me just the other day that he'd gotten a feedback card and had given them very high marks. I informed my rep that I knew that, but that I am not Tom, and this is a different business, and none of that was really relevant at all.

Following my decision to hang up and preserve some of my sanity, and not begin screeching obscenities into the phone (I do try to avoid that), I received an email from the rep telling me that the mats would be picked up within the hour.

See? Was that so hard? That's all I really wanted to know in the first place. But now I have high blood pressure, an everlasting aversion to Cintas, and I'm writing a ranty blog.

(Which, by the way, I am fairly certain will come to someone at Cintas's attention. Most companies have Google alerts or something so they know what is being said about them out there in cyberspace. Hi, Cintas person! *Waves at Cintas person.*)

Then I called the "very-nice, not at all annoying, didn't make me want to rip my own hair out even once" rep from the new company to arrange delivery of our new mats.

I'm thinking that if any of those duck-sponsored supplemental insurance company people find themselves out of work, they should apply at Cintas. They'd fit right in. In over twenty years of administrative and management jobs, these are the two worst examples of obnoxious, pushy, rude, steamroller-into-submission behavior I have ever encountered.

And now, fully vented, I shall take Ozark out for a potty break and get back to work. Cintas has eaten up just about enough of my time.