The Happenings

The Balloon Fiesta officially started Friday. I’ve yet to see a balloon. It’s been windy and a storm just blew in. In fact, it started raining at about 7:30 last night and rained until about 7:30 this morning. My backyard is swamped. However, the three tumbleweeds (TUMBLEWEEDS!) growing in my front yard should be very easy to pull. Still… no balloons.

Balloon Fiesta means more crazy drivers and crazy, stupid driving on the roads. The locals know to drive more defensively than ever and to never, ever look up while driving. The 90k visitors, however, drive like they text only it’s up versus down. Scary stuff.

I finally gave Mojo a bath yesterday. Forgive me, Father, for it’s been two months since his last bath. My penance? Four hours of washing, conditioning, brushing, clipping, cutting, Pedi curing (The dictionary wouldn’t accept “pedicuring” and offered this instead. Pedi is “the Bantu language of the Pedi people, belonging to the Benue-Congo branch of Niger-Congo language.” I’m guessing they are feet people. Ha!), brushing, and fluffing. Lil’ Mojo is so happy and appreciative! He’s been (despite the fact that I was tugging on him all day.) sitting on my lap and refuses to leave me. He actually looks cute but he’s got a couple of chunky spots due to big ol’ hunks of tufted hair having to be cut out. Poor baby; that had to hurt.

I went to Costco on Friday and picked up a few things for my staff meeting scheduled for the next morning. As I started to put the stuff into the back of the truck, I noticed that the tailgate was half off. Earlier that morning, sleepy and about to drive to work, I’d noticed that something seemed askew on the back-end of my truck. I thought it was just the angle and not enough coffee. I’d been driving around Albuquerque with my tailgate half on/half off.

It seems that someone tried to steal my tailgate. This is the new thing, here in ABQ, and I’ve seen it on the news many times. I had no idea that it almost happened to me until I tried to put my muffins in the back. A nice guy stopped and helped me put the thing back on. It’s so hard to tell a nice guy to stop doing something when he thinks he’s helping a damsel in distress. I had it all figured out but didn’t have the strength to put the thing on by myself. I kept telling him that we didn’t need to jam it, hit it, or punch it onto the hinges and he kept jamming it, hitting it, and trying to punch it into place. Finally I just said, “STOP! We need to just carefully align it onto the hinges.” I finally got him to listen to me and we successfully had the tailgate back in position. It was very nice of him to help me but, Lordy!! He really messed up my back end. (Double entendre all ya want.)

Unfortunately, the tailgate, light and right side of the truck are badly scratched. This happened because it was half on/half off and I was driving it around and/or the person who attempted to steal it was wearing a belt buckle, and/or from the dude helping me jamming it, and/or, all of the above.

All I have to say about that is: “WTF?” What in the hell does one do with a stolen tailgate? I guess, from having watched the news, that they are worth over $1,000 and are a big hit on the stolen parts market. F’n people.

I was talking to my mom and we found out that we shared a similar experience last Thursday. It seems that she’d placed an ad on Craig’s List for someone to clean her house. (To which I cringed and worried…) She’d found a couple and seemed happy with their references and set an appointment for Thursday. They never showed-up, called, etc… This made her so mad that she furiously took it out on her house by; you guessed it, cleaning it! She’d recently hurt her back so this was not such a good thing. I’m hoping she finds someone else so she doesn’t over do it. 

Anyway, curiosity got the best of her and she decided to finally call the woman to find out what happened. I mean, really, maybe they wrote down the wrong day, time, or were swamped with work. Right? Oh…. Noooooo…. The woman told my mom that she thought her husband had been kidnapped and was dealing with the police and had to hang up. This woman is pregnant with her gazillionth child and her husband had supposedly just quit his job to join her ’cause she was making so much money cleaning houses. Methinks he may have simply high-tailed it out of there and disappeared himself.

Jeez.

I’ve been dealing with a rack jobber that works for my company who, a.) Never shows up on time or on the right day, b.) Has been milking the clock, c.) Does a terrible job. To make a long story short, I confronted her on it, set a time and day, and then she proceeded to not show up… totally disrespecting me. I called her boss… then her boss’ boss… then her boss’, bosses, boss… and got some VP on the phone. Through a series of phone calls, she finally called me and set a second meeting time for Thursday, from 2-4.

Well, 2 came and went… then 3… then 3:15… until, finally, at 3:25, she showed up. She was talking on her cell phone and completely ignored me. She began walking through the store, then into the backroom, then got on my phone, then back on her cell phone, and never once acknowledged me. Finally, I caught her between phone calls (all seeming to be of a personal nature, btw) and asked her what she was doing. She replied a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about what she couldn’t do because of what she didn’t have and a bunch of blah, blah, blah.

I then reminded her that we had a 2:00PM appointment. She looked at me (and I could see the wheels turning) and told me that she said she would be here between two and four.

Well, anyway, I told her that she could put her product away and could then leave and that I didn’t want her back in my store, ever again. I then called her DM and told him what had happened. He apologized and said he’d have someone new for me, which might be difficult, to which I replied that I’d take a new person, any day, over this incompetent and disrespectful employee of his.

This has started quite a little shit-storm and the DM has accused me of being difficult and has suggested that there may be bad blood between us. Um, hello! There’s never been a chance for bad blood to occur and I am simply trying to hold her accountable. I have the backing of my own DM and all of the store managers in the area. Unfortunately, they all just accept her behavior (“Oh, that’s just Linda…,”) which only adds to her DM’s thinking that there may be bad blood. If any one of these SM’s had made a phone call, this crap wouldn’t have continued to occur.

Why do people accept mediocrity? This isn’t even mediocrity; it’s downright stealing time, doing a piss-poor job, and horrible communication skills. This reflects on my performance and I won’t have it. So there!

This woman actually stood there and tried to tell me her whole life story: bad teeth, no insurance, works another job and had to work on the day (she chose) we had an appointment, doesn’t get paid enough, yadda, yadda, yadda… While I can be a compassionate as the next person, what in the hell does this have to do with tea in China? Yo!

People suck, man. Not all people but an awful lot of them are just, well; just… well… they suck. Mmmk? Yeah.

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it. And I’m keepin’ my head down on the road. And I’m droppin’ my “g’s” like Sarah. God help me.

I just love Maureen Dowd of the NYT’s. Today’s article is about presidential grammar, or the lack thereof. Go read it. It’s funny. And, oh-so-very-darn-tootin’-true.

“Sarah’s Pompom Palaver”

I’m gonna go pull my tumbleweeds without gettin’ stickers in my fingers or a pole up my bea-uu-tocks. By doing this, I am saving myself from a day of football with S and the boys. You see the Chargers and the Broncos both have games today. I see a dinner of chicken wings, Ranch dressing, and popcorn in my future.

Then I’m gonna buff my tailgate.

Sounds a little provocative, que’ no?

And if that ain’t enough, then I’m going to plop on the couch and watch the PBS special about our “surveillance society” (if I can wrangle the remote) while warming my lap with a poodle-looking, Bichon Frise’, and eating appetizers.

It is, after all, Sunday.