Post Christmas post

The Wilson's have survived yet another Christmas Season. Some people become stressed, others become depressed, some become victims of the commercialization of the season and still others go to Church for the second time all year (Easter being the other time). I am not one of these people. I forbid holiday stress to control my enjoyment of the season, I have my depression issues but holidays are not one of them, I am too cheap to fall into the commercialization trap and Santa is a downplayed figure in my house so this is not an issue either. I work at remembering Christ each and every day all year long and look forward to welcoming the Christmas/Easter crowd at church in the hopes that they are touched by the Holy Spirit as they fellowship this year. Having said all that, Christmas is still a tiring time of year. I am going to take this time to type out my twelve pains of Christmas as I tell you about the survival of another season.



First, let me tell you about a little thing called Reindeer food. These are the directions.

MAGIC REINDEER FOOD
On Christmas Eve, sprinkle this magic reindeer food on your lawn. The sparkle of the glitter in the moonlight and the smell of oats will guide Santa’s reindeer to your house.
(Do Not Eat)

Ingredients:

Oats

Sugar

Glitter

What has been left out of these instructions is that while on the lawn they might attract reindeer, but while in a baggy resting on Gracie's' playroom floor, they do a great job of attracting Bo (our dog). Dogs love reindeer food, who knew. A few days later its Saturday and Angie's sisters are coming for dinner, turkey has been in the oven overnight and is now out and cooling. Its like 7AM or so and I am greeted with Gracie yelling from her room that Bo has pooped in her playroom again. Mom wakes up enough to tell her to clean it up (yeah right) and the fit then ensues. I am awake enough to catch the phrase, its different poop, I don't want to touch it. Different poop? Different poop! "don't touch it, daddy's coming." Bo has indeed left us an early Christmas present of 3 Bo logs. But these are not just any Bo log, they are oh so special Christmas Bo logs. Like little itty bitty Christmas gifts, all that was missing was the ribbon. The logs in question, the 'different poop' was made almost entirely from undigested oats and glitter packed tightly together by doggie intestinal fortitude. They were white and sparkly, almost pretty, thanks for getting Christmas off to a good start my little fuzzy friend.

The second pain at Christmas is shopping. I enjoy Christmas shopping, black Friday is a wonderful time of year. I like smiling at all the grumpy people. What I detest is the grocery shopping. We cooked two huge meals this year, one for Angie's family and one for mine. I did the turkey and oyster casserole for Angie and she did the rest, for my family I did the dinner and Angie did the dessert. As I mentioned above, I forbid stress in such things as this, my wife,'blink...blink', has no such rule. She fuses, frazzles, and frays at the ends. Most of this is self inflicted because she procrastinates and is not organized in her thinking and doesn't manage her time well. The result is a whopping 6 trips to the Grocery store for me. The last one had me arriving back after our guests were here already.

The third pain of Christmas is the stress fallout from everyone else. Grumpy people want to make you grumpy too. They insist that if they are stressed and you are not you must be doing something wrong or not doing enough or not helping them, or you are just in their way. The dressing is not right, the cheese it too thick, the grocery is too crowded, the room is too hot, the room is too cold, we don't have anymore tape, the presents are not wrapped, the fridge is too full, the parking lot is too crowded and I wanted that spot, I want the spot that your in so please hurry up and move so I can get it before somebody else finds you too. I am not stressed so will you please stop wiping your stress on my sleeves. Thank you.

The fourth pain at Christmas is the decorations. I would put up a ceramic tree or maybe a little one footer with a half dozen ornaments if it were up to me. A wreath on the front door without a bow and maybe a spot light in the yard just to show that I did shed a little light this year. But oh no, I am married and have a four year old so up the 7 foot tree must go with garland and icicles, lights and fake snow. I must put lights on the ceilings and light on the roofs, risking life and limbs to make things a glow. Ornaments that talk and ones that are shiny, ones that make noise, and ones that are piney. I lug all the boxes, bags and totes up the steps, down the steps all of it must go.

The fifth pain at Christmas is the decorations. I lug all the boxes, bags and totes, down the steps, up the steps all of it must go. I must admit I have little more spring in my step as I put them away. I am smiling like the Grinch robbing Whoville as I tear down the lights and stuff them in bags. I have a gleam in my eyes as the Christmas dishes go bye.

The sixth pain at Christmas is the decorations. Its the after Christmas sale season. All those lights that you just bought for 6 bucks are now on sale for 2 bucks and since you had to hang them all three times to get them right this year your going to need more to replace the ones you broke, didn't work, or tried to hang yourself with this year. We will of course look at a new wreath and more garland and more tinsel and snow, I really really really don't want to go.

The seventh pain at Christmas is family. I love my inlaws and I love my family but Grandma didn't get run over by a reindeer by accident. She was the victim of a drive by. Nuff said.

The eighth pain at Christmas is left overs. We cooked a 22 lb. Turkey a 9 lb. ham and had (take a deep breath) corn, mashed potatoes, green beans, oyster casserole, broccoli salad, sweet potato casserole, dressing, mac and cheese, veggie tray, meat-n-cheese tray, shrimp tray, rolls, Italian cream cake, blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream, and a white birthday cake with the words,"Happy Birthday Jesus" inscribed on top with green icing next to yellow flowers. This is best defined by the Yiddish word, "oy"

The ninth pain at Christmas is over stimulation. Particularly with small children but this phenomenon is present with all ages. The expectations of Christmas build for at least a week and then the gifts start arriving. Gracie got gifts for days on end. Each day she would ask and expect more more more. By the time Christmas morning got here she was both burnt out and spoiled beyond and reasonable sense of management. Her first comment on Christmas morning was,"why didn't Santa wrap these, I wanted them wrapped" It didnt get much better. A chorus of I want somebody to play with me was whined off and on all day. Add do this the overstimulated mother who is worn out as well and put us all in a church setting where we need some semblance of quiet and sitting still and, well lets just say I was searching my pockets for a spoon with which to pluck out my eyes.

The tenth pain at Christmas is Christmas cards. We send out 100 cards every year. No matter what we always have somebody that makes some comment about not getting one. We always have a relative (who shall remain nameless) who asked did you send one to so and so and if I say no, then I am told that I really should have. It doesn't matter that I haven't spoken to Aunt Bunny in 30 years I should still have sent her a card. She sent me one with a balloon in it for my birthday when I was 8 so I should sent her a card now. Let me again quote that ever so useful Yiddish phrase. "Oy"

The eleventh pain at Christmas is work. No body wants to be here and it shows, nuff said.

The twelfth pain of Christmas is that football is almost over. A myriad of useless bowl games and a few lame NFL games from now its all over and the sports world goes blank for months. The best part is after its all over I still wont know who the best team in college football is. I am going to just decide now and get over it. Go Bucks.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a speedy recovery.

Christmas with the Wilsons

My heart doth swell

at that sweet little voice

a message from Gracie

may we all now rejoice

from China with love

this message is true

from the mouths of babes

to the spirit in you.

Bless you all on the Christmas Season.

May God cover you and keep you all of your days. May you rejoice in the birth of our Saviour and the coming of the King of Kings. May your hearts be warm and your spirit joyful in this coming new year. In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

and

Amen.

Christmas with Mike.

Thanks Mike.

I love that he spent his money to do this and if the others follow, which they might, I know who set the standard.

I believe he is being sincere. If he is fooling me, thats okay too.

Cheer?

The current climate of Christianity is full of argument. Do we ban and boycott Harry Potter. They promote witchcraft and the gay lifestyle so we should ban the movies and boycott the outlets and burn the books. We have Santa coming out against the newest abomination called "the golden compass" We must not let the children learn to kill god, we are doing well enough killing Gods Will on our own. Halloween is another "issue". The conservative Christians come up with "fall festivals" and "harvest parties" to avoid some Halloween stuff, really Conservatives keep their kids away from it all together and go do something else instead. Santa is even an issue, "lets put Christ back in Christmas" ( I should credit my friend Amy www.atypicalgirl.wordpress.com/ with the inspiration on this as well as the Todds' "extremely hot wife" Kim www.mrssnuffy.blogspot.com/ , his words just too keep myself out of trouble. You can read their more sincere commentaries on the issues of "The Golden Compass" and "Harry Potter" on their blogs, they are well done I might add) Now, I bring forth a different issue, I think as Christians we need to focus on the truly evil things in the world, we need to band together and ban Cheerleaders.
Yes that's right, cheerleaders are the creation of the devil himself and we need to gather ourselves and stomp out this abomination. They do nothing but cause havoc and serve no real purpose except to assist in total economic collapse of our nation, the moral bankruptcy of our youth, and the imprisonment of our young adult. Yes, cheerleaders are going to be the cause of destruction of life as we know it. Why? you might ask. Well think about it, what exactly do cheerleaders do? Well, by definition, they lead cheers. Do we really 'cheer' at sporting events? I think not, we root for our team, we woot for good plays, but 'cheering' is only ever done by the cheerleaders. So, I submit they have no purpose because they have no followers right? Now, we have established with some certainty I believe that since we dont sit in the stands and 'cheer' go team go that we are not following their lead. Now, some may say, but we chant things like "de-fence" but we do not follow or require cheerleaders to do that. The chants are always prompted by that really drunk guy in the front row who won his ticket to the game by being the 16th caller on some pop radio station game. Its his job and he knows it, he does it well. So, cheerleaders have no purpose, but then why are they still around? Its an evil conspiracy I tell you and we need to end it now.

How can you not like cheerleaders? They are so cute and perky and bouncy. They are being used to destroy us all. The most deceptive part of it is that even they are not aware of their roll in the path to oblivion. Did you know the most common sport related injury is to cheerleaders? Think about it, they are always jumping and flying around and twisting up those frail little bodies of theirs. They get nailed on the sidelines by football and basketball players alike, but rarely to you ever see a game stop to haul one of them off, they are just drug by their perfect hair under the stands someplace never to be seen again. Eeeery isn't it.

So, how are they destroying the world. First off, they are skewing the self perception of young and old women alike all over the country. Real people don't look and act like that. I have heard women say, "look at that fat roll hangin out on her, she doesn't need to be out there." She weighs in at a whopping 115 lbs. people, that's not a fat roll, those darn spanky pants are just too tight. People in this country think cheerleaders are beautiful and want to emulate them. They are not real, its an evil demonic rues. We must destroy them.

Next, moral depravity is their greatest weapon. Nobody pays any attention to cheerleaders during the game, we came to see the game remember. However, life size posters, Internet web sites, commercial endorsements all selling what, sex of course. What does a scantilly clad young lady with her stuff all hangin out go to do with sports? Nuthin. It is there just to tantalize and titillate. It is there to lower the moral standards of America and send us down the long spiral to depravity and doom. Young men who cant help themselves chase after these young ladies and end up in prison because of things such as these.

Stop the madness.

Stop hurting the young girls.

Stop torturing the young boys.

I suggest a boycott of all sporting events with cheerleaders. Dont buy their posters, dont visit their websites, and when they come out at halftime, stand up and turn around. Together we can make a difference.

Destroy the cheerleaders, save the world.

Service

For those of you who do not know, I work in what is called a job shop, machine shop. I am the foreman, machinist, shipping receiving, expediting, purchasing, inspecting, customer relations, engineering and administrating guy. We are a small shop with one part time engineer, 6 machinists, one truck driver and one owner who does some drawing, some sales, and a lot of really good PR. Job shop means we don’t have a product line, we just make parts to fix, repair, upgrade or modernize other peoples equipment. We do some engineering design work to try and solve other people’s production or safety issues. You break it, we make it sort of thing. People use our services because the machines they use to make whatever it is they make, (hot dogs, playing cards, drugs, steel, soap etc.) are either made by companies who longer exist or by over seas companies who take weeks and months to send replacement parts that broke. That is the issue at hand. Simply stated, nothing is made here anymore and I view this as a problem. As I sit here thinking about this issue I decided to take a look around my desk. My monitor was made in Japan, my mouse was from China, my keyboard-Canada (Oh Canada, my home and native land……………..sorry) My pencil sharpener, Taiwan. The desk itself, you guessed it, China. The notebook on my desk, India. The speakers on the computer are China as well. The taps on my desk say Britain, and the end mills say Korea. The Chrysler I drove to work this morning was assembled in Canada. I can find literally nothing nearby me that says made in America on it. We manufactured a shaft for Siemens last week that required us to send Certification of material type with the part. When I received these documents concerning the large piece of steel I had just purchased from a local steel distributor, it listed the location of origin as China. Now, in the global economy its not a problem to find things made from all over the world, but, I cant find anything that we made here. Well, I am told that this is because we have switched over to a service and information economy and have left the industrial age behind. I think this is dangerous for several reasons, not the least of which is that we totally stink at these things. I spent an hour this very morning trying to get my Windows XP to stop crashing and just open up. If I had not been able to fix the issue myself I would have had to call Microsoft technical support and hope for a little service. This brings me, finally, to the subject at hand. By and large as a sum total, we stink at service. Everyone who is in the service industry thinks they personally are doing a fine job, but usually this is not at all the case. Let me run some things past you, lets call them rules for good or at least adequate service.
If you have hours of 9 to 9 posted on your front door that means you are open from 9 until 9 at a minimum. This does not mean you unlock the front door after a donut and cigarette at around 9:15. This also does not mean you stand just behind the door and stare at me for 3 minutes until your watch says its 9 and then open the door. It also does not mean you lock up and stop answering the phone at 10 til 9. If you are there, answer the phone, you might make a sale or do some business and that is why your there in the first place, just in case you forgot.

Grasp and understand the term “rush” It is that temporary influx of people that lasts briefly. Examples, rush hour, dinner rush, pay day rush. This is what happens when a lot of people try to accomplish a logical task in a logical time frame. It happens at restaurants, banks, grocery stores etc. The thing that needs observed is that a rush is temporary and will only last a little while. So, having said all that, here are a couple of do nots and I don’t cares. Do not close you teller window with 30 people in line because its you break time, you don’t need that donut anyway. Do not close your check out lane because you have already put in your 4 hours and its time to go, if the boss isn’t in your kitchen closing the drawer for you, stay put, if the boss is there then we customers can shout them down and make them run the register. Restaraunts, if its dinner rush or lunch rush, I don’t care if you need to go to the bath room, tough it out. Most of us only have 30 minutes for lunch and you should have taken care of that before now. Lunch rush is always going to be, well, at lunch time. Pee before 11 and after 1, otherwise tie it in a knot or cork it off, I need my food.
Speaking of food, rule number 3, if you wont eat it, don’t give it to me. I don’t like tomato cores or pickle butt stems on my burger. Fries may be crispy, not crunchy, if I want crunchy potatoes I will eat chips. Ketchup and mustard are to be inside the bun, not on it. Cold food should be cold and hot food should be hot, duh. I don’t want warm cole slaw and cold bar b que, you wont eat it, don’t give it to me. This one may not be as obvious, if its ugly, do it over. Ugly constitutes many different sins. Messy, burnt, too small, fell apart, etc.
At a sit down dinner, any level of sit down dinner, you have a fixed allotment of real estate to work with. The table only holds so much, so, believe it or not as my so called server, its your job to remove the stuff I don’t need anymore. You know, those empty glasses, those bread plates, the menus even when appropriate. If you do not, I do have recourse however. I can pile up all the plates and stand at the end of the table until you show up, if you do not show before my feet get tired I will simply set them back down, on the floor of course.

Rule number 5, the “service counter”. If you work retail and work behind the service counter, please at least acknowledge that I am there. I have been to many a service counter with people doing anything but talking to the people in line, or better yet, talking to me when I am the only one there. It is especially unforgivable to make eye contact with me and still not do anything or just keep chatting with other “service providers” It not my job they may think or maybe they just want to finish what they are doing or not doing before talking with me, fine, but say something, “I’ll be right there, be right with you, coming as soon as I finish scrapping fungus out from under my nails”, something, anything. To just look at me and keep going is to say to me, “just stand there dork boy, I might get to you and I might not but you’re a waste anyway”

Grumpy people, stay home. If you cannot manage a smile or at least a pleasant demeanor, don’t deal with the public because what ever you might be doing ceased to be called service. I know you need to be paid to do this because you wouldn’t be doing it otherwise, but without me spending my money, no body would be paying you, understand the relationship? I don’t require you to be my friend, my buddy, or flirt like you want to be my lover, but, being friendly is certainly not asking too much, and honestly a little flirty is even okay as long as its an obviously harmless flirt. Its like me flirting with teens and old ladies, its obvious the middle aged homely fat man is just being friendly. (keep in mind, flirty and suggestive are too terribly different things)

(And I will call you my squishy and you shall be my squishy, ouch, bad squishy, bad squishy) Okay, if you have a heavy accent of any kind and you have difficulty speaking or understanding English, do not work in a call center of any kind. It is not that much of a stretch I don’t think. If your job is to talk to me and convey information to me, I need to understand you and you need to understand me. Nuf said.


If I say no thank you to what your hockin, stop. I don’t want it, I don’t need it and I will not be changing my mind. This applies to warranties, the newest and latest whatever and the upgrade that upgrades what shouldn’t have needed upgraded.

Rule number 9, appointments. If I have an appointment with you for a certain time, it means that time. 5 oclock is just that, not the next convenient opening after that. Telling me that you will be arriving between 9 and noon is not an appointment either. If you tell me 9 to noon I want a call that narrows that down as soon as it is obvious to you, particularly if your going to be late.

And the last rule on the top ten list of poor service practice is for employers. If its broke, fix it, if its not broke, don’t fix it, and the most important one,


“you cant fix STUPID”

Now, lets all have a really nice day, and I am smiling politely when I say that.

things kids say.

Well, it has been a long and tough weekend. We spent all day Saturday at a new members class for a Lutheran Church and right now I am concerned about things but that's a different blog. During the class Angie got a call from her sister saying her Granny was not doing well at all, gangrene has set it. Granny is 86 years old and not up to a major infection like this. I may speak more on this later, but for now I want to provide an update on Gracie. For the uninformed Gracie is my 4 year old daughter. She is adopted from China and the highlight of most of my days. She has a certain wit about her that is priceless. I understand that all toddlers live life through their limited understanding of things but this has been a week of note on things kids say. Below you will find comments about panties, poop, Grannies toes and last but not least, raisins.
First off, earlier my wife had taken Gracie on one of her favorite adventures, shopping. Angie needed to go buy Christmas presents for dad. I got (yes I already know) a shop vac for the mancave and fireplace, a couple pair of PJ's and a couple pair of boxer shorts. Angie calls me from the store to ask a question about something and while talking to daddy on the phone I hear Gracie say, in a loud voice of course, "and we got new panties for daddy, with Grinch on them" Priceless I am sure for all those who were near enough to catch that one, new panties for daddy. HMM.
Next we come to Saturday night, Gracie has been at the neighbors all day and thus has had no nap and too much sugar. She goes off to bed with some protest but gets us a while later to go to the bathroom. She is in there quite some time before the festival starts. We are downstairs and can hear her talking to herself, not that unusual but its longer than normal and getting louder so we turn down the tv to listen.

"get out, get out, get out" (some tears and crying here)
"Gracie, whats wrong"
"poop wont get out of my butt, it wants to stay there forever"
"Gracie, can one of us help you?"
"Nooooooo, I sit on toilet forever, I stay for long time, it takes a long time"
(more tears, more crying, mom goes upstairs)
"no, no , no, NNNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHooooooo. I don't wont medicine, my butt doesn't like medicine. Poop is stuck in my butt and wont come out"
"Gracie, there is nothing there, does your belly hurt?"
"no, poop is stuck in my butt, my butt hurts"
"Gracie, let me clean your but and you can go back to bed and try again later"
(none human sounds pierce the night sky as this evil practice of butt cleansing takes place)
Gracie goes back to bed, sort of.
A short while later, back on the throne she goes.
(cries and tears from upstairs)
"Gracie, whats wrong?"
"poop wont get out, my legs hurt from sitting here too long. It takes a long time"
Repeat process with dad taking his turn, except the butt cleaning part. Gracie goes back to bed, dad goes to bed, mom goes back downstairs, process starts all over again. It is now something like 1AM. Gracie goes downstairs to cuddle mommy on the couch and dad goes back to bed, again. Mommy and Gracie come to bed, who knows what time at this point, but we are far from done with this little adventure. Gracie gets out of bed and goes back to bathroom, fit ensues again. Dad's turn again. This time I sit on her little stool and talk with her a while, convince her to stand up and walk towards me. I then take this opportunity to flop her over my knees with her butt in the air. I discover a really really hard little turd ball the size............... and consistency.......... of a jaw breaker, wedged half in half out. I grasp a piece of toilet paper and grasp hold of the offending turd and with no effort at all the turn jumps right out and lands on my big toe. Nice. Now I have her here so I might as well wipe the butt for her, but not gonna happen. Those little cheeks slammed closed tighter than Ebenezer's wallet on Christmas day. Gracie managed to wipe her own butt, yet it was not time to come back to bed yet. She needed to wash her hands, change her clothes, and brush her teeth. People, its almost dawn now and she wants to disinfect, sanitize, and brush. I really am raising a girl. As for me, wipe off the toe, flush the turn, rinse off the hands and I am back asleep. Oh, but the sleep wont last for long, back to the bathroom she goes, mommas turn. Momma moves slow at this time of the morning so it takes her a while to reach the local center of constipation crisis management. Once reaching it she is greeted with, "the poop left my butt, all by itself, I don't need your help" Yeah, crisis over. We didn't make church this morning, too tired. We did make it to see Granny in the hospital. We had to explain why the toes looked like that. Gracie wanted to know, well, everything. We explained that the doctor was going to help her and then put a bandage on it so it could heal. Gracie just turned around and walked towards the door while saying "I dont think I need to see that" again, priceless.
But, we are not done yet. I have saved the best for last. We had to stop buy the store and buy some groceries for tonight. We got potatoes, juice, toilet paper (seems we ran through some) and raisins. Raisins are not something we normally would have in the house, but for some reason this just sounds like a good idea. Gracie, on the other hand, asks me the question,"why do we need raisins" my answer was honest if not well thought out, "Gracie, they will make your butt not hurt anymore"
Gracie" I don't want raisins in my butt, don't put raisins in my butt."
Daddy" they will make your butt not hurt baby"
Gracie : I......... dont.........want..........raisens........in.......my.....butt"
Daddy," Okay honey, but they will make it feel better" (we have now caught up to momma and momma hears this for the first time)
Gracie " But I don't want raisins in my butt, don't put raisins in my butt please don't do it, I don't want raisins in my butt"
Daddy" okay I wont, but it would.............."
Gracie, "no,no,no I don't want raisins in my butt.... are you teasing me?"
Daddy, "no, raisins.....
Momma," stop it........ both of you"

Okay, so maybe that was evil but it was fun. The public at large seemed to enjoy it, even if they couldn't grasp it in its entirety.

Thus ends the update on Gracie.

Oh Fernando.

I just love saying the name, Fernando, Fernando, Fernando. I say it over and over again with a terrible accent that is probably not even geographically accurate. Fernando Servanti is the name. As was discussed in my post "Nissan Calling" Fernando assured me he would take care of the problem and call me back. He told me he didn't think it was possible to send me a letter stating the problem was solved but he would address it and get back to me, give him until Monday he said. I have been brimming with confidence and counting every breath until I get to speak with my main man Fernando again. I just kn0w he has everything settled, a great big fat apology for me, and a discount on my next Nissan lease or purchase. I am all giddy just thinking about the marvelous customer service Fernando is going to bestow upon me to keep me happy and keep me buying Nissan's. I know in this tough market he will bend over backwards to make sure I am satisfied to the best of his ability. He is in a different time zone, an hour behind at least to I shouldn't expect his call too early, but I know he will take care of it first thing Monday morning.

"One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small................."

"Follow the yellow brick road, follow the yellow brick road, follow follow follow follow.............."

Well noon on Monday comes and goes and would you believe it, Fernando still has not called me. I don't want to butt line into all the people he is rendering wonderful customer service to but I think maybe I should just go ahead and call him. He might appreciate the initiative and it might keep him from having to look back up my phone number that I am sure is posted someplace important on his desk.

"Good day to you so nice of you to notice me, looks like rain wait and see, likely rain all over me, guess that's just the way that it has to be here in my glooooomy place. "

"Hello this is Fernando Servanti at Nissan customer service, I am not available right now but if you leave you name and account number I will return your call"

Not available Fernando, not even for me? Hmm, you must be really busy making people smile right now. Actually, the first thing I noticed was that the end of your message needs a little freshening up. "I will return your call" is just not all that refreshing. Maybe you should say "have a nice day" or maybe you should say "thank you" maybe you could say "as soon as possible" you could even tell me to kiss your arse but saying you will return my call, when you work in a call center is a bit on the skimpy side my brother. Well, maybe he works an odd shift or something, I will wait a while longer and call again. I am sure he will answer the phone this time.

"I don't mean to toot my own horn but I am a rather excellent surgeon. I might be able to help you with that hump."

"what hump?"

Well its well into the day now and I sigh strongly and call my close friend Fernando one more time. I receive the same lame voice mail message and leave another message, again ending with ,"I look forward to hearing from you, have a nice day" Any sweeter and I would be a southern bell.

"Just a few more days fo to tote the weary load."

"As God as my witness, I will never go hungry again" (Insert over dramatic music here, in Technicolor of course)

And the day drags on and on and on with mysteriously no Fernando. Should I call the Texas State Troopers and have them start looking for him, surely his momma has reported him as a missing person by now, its been all day. Maybe I should call Chuck Norris and put him on the case. Nah, he is busy working with my man Huckabee right now, the Rangers will have to look for him own their own. I call one last time, still gracious, still full of glee and hope and I still get the same lame recording. I leave another nice message and inform him that I will be calling again tomorrow. My plan is to stay in his kitchen until this is resolved. I will slowly begin to eat his voice mail box until I get him.

"I need more power Scottie"
"Im gibbin it all she got capttum, I dont know what holden her together"

Tuesday has arrived, my patience has departed. Nine AM, call number one, same result. Call number two eleven AM same result. Call number three, lunch time.

Phone doesn't ring, at all.

"Fernando"

(nice phone manners, I am bursting with joy it is the one and only the infamous, Fernando)

"Well, good day Fernando, this is Chris calling from Cincinnati to see if you have resolved our issue yet"

"Yes"

"Yes?"

"Yes, could I have your SS number"

(you should have me on a post it note on your forehead right now, but if I am not the most important thing in your world right now I guess I can play along)

"blah blah blah"

"Yes"

"Yes?"

"Yes, I have an email from our taxation department they say the property tax has been remitted from your bill, but as for the letter, they are less than receptive"

(less than receptive huh, maybe less should be less receptive of my payments, or less respective of my business, or less respective of my referrals)

"it has been removed"

"Yes, it will no longer appear on your statement"

"Fernando, if its on my next statement, you know I will be calling you again"

"Yes, I know"

Well thus ends the saga of Fernando, for now. I have the utmost confidence in the fact that Fernando has indeed taken care of the issue with the valiant effort of sending an email. One little email from the powerful desk of Fernando will have resolved what a fleet of other call center employees could not muster. I have faith in my man Fernando. I did forget to mention to him that his voice mail message was lame and bordering on apathetic, but I will save that for next time because I have this prophetic feeling that the paths of Fernando the powerful and myself have not crossed for the last time. And if they have, and I am truly done with Fernando, I will call him one last time to wish him a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year.

"Merry Christmas, every one"

BCS Championship game

Tradition

Opponent

Fear the Vest

Januarary 7th

New Orleans

"This one is for all the cookies"

Go Bucks!!!!!!!!!

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