Snowflake

Obviously I am not going to win the "RCN Words CONTEST".  Here is the transcript of my conversation with an RCN cable agent Sunday morning. I have not edited anything out other than my address. We'll pick it up where I explain my problem....

11/26/2017 11:07:07AM		Alan: "No local channels. Been off and on since Friday. I have restarted Tivo box numerous times. I was afraid this would happen when I was sent a message that RCN would be upgrading Tivo boxes. I need this fixed NOW! and I need charges discounted for this month"
		.
	11/26/2017 11:08:05AM	Agent (Gabriel B.): "Hello Alan! Thank you for contacting RCN! I am happy to help you today! I'm so sorry to hear that you are having issues, but I'll be more than happy to help you today! Can you verify the full address on the account, including the city, state, and apartment number if there is one?"
	11/26/2017 11:08:37AM	Alan: "xxxx North xxxx Avenue, Chicago, Il first floor."
	11/26/2017 11:09:12AM	Alan: "My neighbor on the second floor with RCN is also having the same problem."
	11/26/2017 11:09:40AM	Agent (Gabriel B.): "I see you have been a valued customer with us at this address since 5/24/16. We thank you for your loyalty and look forward to providing you many more years of enjoyable service!"
	11/26/2017 11:11:06AM	Alan: "If I am even one minute late with my payment, you guys charge me extra. So I think I should get a discount for putting up with this all weekend."
	11/26/2017 11:11:26AM	Agent (Gabriel B.): "I see there is currently an issue affecting your area. While I am not showing an estimate time for this to be resolved, please be assured that our technicians are working to fix this as quickly as possible! We know that any service interruption is inconvenient, so we appreciate your patience as we get you up and running again!"
	11/26/2017 11:12:10AM	Alan: "Football starts in two hours. The s**t will hit the fan if it isn't back up by then.."
	11/26/2017 11:12:26AM	Agent (Gabriel B.): "Our company considers that content and language to be inappropriate. Out of respect for our employees, if the content and language of this chat does not improve, this chat will be terminated. I want to help you – how about if we start over?"
	11/26/2017 11:12:39AM	Alan: "English?"
	11/26/2017 11:13:44AM	Agent (Gabriel B.): "No using profanity"
	11/26/2017 11:14:08AM	Alan: "Okay, then how about ****"
	11/26/2017 11:15:22AM	Agent (Gabriel B.): "it's still inappropriate but we are working on this & will try to resolve this as soon as possible"
	11/26/2017 11:15:28AM	Agent (Gabriel B.): "Is there anything else I can assist you with today?"
	11/26/2017 11:15:50AM	Alan: "No."
	11/26/2017 11:16:00AM	Agent (Gabriel B.): "Thank you for chatting with me today & for choosing RCN! Have a wonderful day"
	11/26/2017 11:16:02AM	Session Ended

Moments later, Jehovah's Witnesses came knocking at my door again. Good thing I know how to manage anger. I just keep saying my mantra over and over again, "F**K, F**K, F**K, F**K, F**KITY, F**K!" (For the tender souls out there, change that to ****.)

The Dog Did It

Every year I try to be responsible. I don't want to keel over with a sudden heart attack, so I ration my Thanksgiving meal. More than the threat of heart attack, I don't want that super full feeling after dinner. So I plop down just one spoonful of each item onto my plate. No more than the size of a fifty cent piece. Little round pile of mashed potatoes, a dollop of cranberry sauce, same with the stuffing, and just a sliver of turkey. Not enough to keep a man alive if that was all he ate every day. After dinner I accept a sliver of pie. Really, so thinly sliced that you could slip it under the door. What I want to know is why, just five minutes into the Thanksgiving dinner, do I start feeling bloated? I know I didn't eat that much. At least I don't think I did. There must be some ingredient in the Thanksgiving menu that expands after it drops into your stomach. I excuse myself from the table and make my way to the living room. Fifteen minutes after dinner my eyelids feel like they have lead weights hanging from them. I sit on the sofa staring at some inconsequential football game while fighting off sleep. I lose the battle and wake up thirty minutes later with gas. Now I have bloat, gas, and I'm still sleepy. So I try to sneak some of the gas out while sitting there. Not a very nice thing to do, but I feel like a beached whale and I don't want to get up and leave the room.

"Oh god Alan. Did you fart? Oh my god..."

"No. Must have been Chandler."

If you don't lift yer feet, you can't have any pudding.

Mom is home from the hospital. After a week where it was touch and go, she finally started eating a little bit and got strong enough to go home. She wouldn't have had to go in the first place if she had just listened to her doctors and her daughters. They would tell her that she needs to elevate her feet whenever possible or she'll get fluid buildup in her ankles. The only time I ever saw her elevate her feet was when she knew the daughter who made the biggest deal out of it, was coming over. It's kind of weird to see the situation reversed, where once I was the disobedient one, the one being told what to do. Anyway, Mom is back in her home, but it was determined that she cannot live there all alone anymore. Not at the age of ninety five, almost ninety six. So my sister has hired somebody to watch over her. A very pleasant, Eastern European woman. Now Mom will have a live in nagger to tell her to put her feet up and to eat her dinner. Ah, the circle of life.

A Beat Off

I was on my way out to the suburbs to see Mom in the hospital on Tuesday. As I zoomed down Lake Shore Drive, I suddenly could feel a flutter in my chest and a bit of light headedness. So I slowed down to sixty miles per hour. A few moments later it happened again and this time it did not go away. All I could think about was having a heart attack and driving off into Lake Michigan. So I slowed down a little bit more. That feeling of something fluttering around in my chest continued all day long. I considered walking down to the ER at the hospital my mom was in, but quickly pushed that out of my mind and drove back into the city. Wednesday morning I still had the feeling in my chest. Normally, when I lived in Florida, I would call my doctor and he would tell me to come right over. So I called my doctor here in Chicago. I got a automated machine that kept asking me questions. Finally I was connected with a human who asked me more questions.

"All I want is to see if I could get in to see the doctor today?"

"Sure, let me see what I can do....   Ummm, no. The doctor has no open appointments this week. I can connect you with a nurse who will help you."

"Okay." I said, and shortly a nurse was on the phone. She asked me what the problem was and then told me that she would have to turn me over to a triage nurse. After ten minutes of answering more questions, the triage nurse asked me if I wanted her to call 911 or was I feeling well enough to call them myself.

"No! No 911, no ambulances, no lights and sirens outside my house. All I want to do is go to the doctor."

"Sir, from what you have told me, you need to go to the emergency room right away."

"But I don't want to go to the emergency room." I said, nearly sobbing. "I just want to go to the doctor's office."

Well, the triage nurse convinced me that I needed to go to the ER immediately. Which I did. I had my friend Dennis drive me there and on the way my nurse sister called me and told me to make sure I tell them that I was having chest pains.

"That way they'll rush you right in there ahead of everybody else."

So I did, and they did. Still, it took five hours of poking, sticking, prodding, and waiting around. I was wired up like my old component stereo system. During the course of the day I saw five doctors. At least a couple of them were very young and cute, which made things a little bit more palatable. What I was told by the doctors was that I had an irregular heartbeat, that it was a beat off. It was explained that this was in the upper chambers and not much to worry about. They called it 'palpitations' which I thought only happened to antebellum ladies of the South along with the vapors. Anyway, I was sent home but I am still wired up with a monitor attached to me. I get to wear this thing for two days. I can't take it off, I can't take a shower with it on, and as of yet I don't know how the hell I'm going to sleep with it attached to me.

I'm smart and I want respect!

I know that I'm not a genius. Without spell-check and the internet I'd look like a complete moron. When I was a kid, I did horrible in school. I never understood English grammar, I still don't. I just write what sounds right to my ear. Math was confounding to me. And algebra, what the hell? To this day I cannot understand how you do math with the alphabet. One thing that I was taught in high school, was how to think for myself. Every day in Miss Green's class, each one of us got our own copy of the Chicago Sun-Times. She then taught us how to read the paper. How to recognize the difference between editorial content and news content. Before our regular lesson we would have a short discussion of what was on the front page. Miss Green was a good teacher. So with all that said, I can also say that I am not stupid. There are things that I do know. Somehow I managed to work twenty five years in the computer industry. Somehow I kept myself employed and earning a decent wage since high school. I have common sense. For instance, I know that you should never, ever, buy something from a door to door salesman. Not religion, not cosmetics, not a vacuum cleaner, don't buy anything that way because you will be sorry. So how come I let some sweaty young man with a clipboard sell me electricity?

A few months ago this kid came ringing my doorbell and I answered it. He assured me that if I signed up with.... let's call them Energy Indirect (Not their real name), I would save money. It was hot that day as we sat on the front porch and the young man assured me that it was the right thing to do. So I signed up. As I watched him walk slowly down the street I immediately knew I had done the wrong thing. Yesterday I got my first electric and gas bills since signing that contract. It turns out that I am not saving money, not breaking even. The cost of my gas and electric went up considerably. That young man who I gave a glass of ice water to and I let sit inside for a bit to cool off, lied to me.