Rant Against the Machine

A person can only take so much negativity. This is why I declared today a day of rest. All month, I have been fighting one entity or another – every single day. I am bone weary, not to mention grumpy. Tired and grumpy are never good in combination, so I have decided on desperate measures.

If you are easily emotional or having troubles of your own, perhaps you will want to read this another time. Then again, if you need to work yourself up into a good rant, let me help you get started…

The month started out having to deal with drugs. I mean the prescription kind, and the pharmacies and insurance companies you have to deal with to get them. I have been taking many drugs to keep me alive for years. I am used to being notified that my doctor is not responding to their query for information before they refill something. The pharmacy wants me to contact the doctor and do the legwork. Sure, I have nothing else to do. Isn’t that their job?

Last year, hubby had to hook up with Rx insurance and the mail-order pharmacy for his sudden need for multiple prescriptions. He is not used to this drill, so I became his nurse of sorts and got him all set up with the Rx world we deal with. I thought, after 6 months, I had it under control, but I began to sort out his meds for the month and discovered he didn’t get one of the Rx’s refilled. Grrr! So now I spend the entire day tracking down the Rx, requesting a refill, and so on. I planned to do other things that day, but those things carry over to tomorrow.

Tomorrow comes, but now I have to deal with other companies mistakes I am notified of in the mail I picked up at the post office. Sigh. Can’t anyone do their job correctly anymore?

Last week, I made the mistake of calling our cable company’s customer support number. I wanted them to remove some of the 200 channels we got because our bill was completely outrageous. After winding my way through their “audio assistant,” I finally was connected to a real person. He, Robert, was in Colorado and got my bill lowered. Great!

However, looking over the contract later, I discovered one costly thing he forgot to remove. I spend the next morning chatting with Ashmed in India. We had a fun time, he spoke beautiful English. Unfortunately, I don’t believe he understood my English very well. He removed the package that Robert forgot but removed all but 10 of the channels. Hubby was not pleased, and the next day I called again (3rd times the charm?) and spoke to Val. Val is in the Philippines. She went over our package with a fine tooth comb and gave us discounts we should have had in place already, and discovered we were paying for two phone lines and we only had one number.

I was gone most of the day yesterday, so I have not checked that the channels she added back were actually viewable. Frankly, I’m afraid to check. I mean, what are the odds?

These issues are only the ones going on for days. Until last night. The Pharmacy shipped out my insulin (2-day Ground, packed in ice) on May 15th. It arrived last night (6 days later.) I knew something was wrong when I took out the icepack – it was warm. All the packs were warm, and so was the insulin. It was completely unusable. I paid $105 for ruined insulin (they yank it out of my bank account as soon as it’s shipped. That never seems to malfunction for some reason.) Grrr.

So, this is why I will tuck myself in on the couch and sleep, maybe watch TV if I feel up to that. As soon as I get off the pharmacy’s website after sending a message to their customer support people. Sigh.

TTFN

Post Re-Run: My War on Tags

Original post published 11/10/2010 

I have very sensitive skin and I hate the way garment tags are always scratching & making me itch. In the old days if a tag bugged you, you simply borrowed your mom’s seam ripper out of her sewing box and removed a few stitches. Wa-Lah! Problem solved.

Things have changed. Not only do you have an annoying tag that is double sewed into your garment, but you may have 3 or 4 of them. Apparently one tag is not enough to convey all the manufacturer wants you to know. This information is so critical that they sew it not once, but twice into the garment.

Last week I bought some new “skinny” jeans. Even though I knew the size they claimed to be was a lie (I have never, nor will I ever be a size 4), I felt so svelte & sexy.  I changed into them as soon as I got home from the store, called 2 friends and made them guess what size jeans I was wearing, curled up on the couch with a good book and some snacks – hey I was skinny, I can eat! An hour later the jeans had to come off. I could not take the tags anymore. They were terrorizing my skin and I just wanted to scream. I think I did scream.

For a half-hour I painstakingly removed the little tiny stitches, and the ones under those, to free my fabulous new jeans of their gnarly parasites. After all that toil, the tag was still attached to my pants. They must be sewing them in 3 times these days. I sigh deeply and loudly cursed, then proceeded with my task. I spend another 15 minutes removing the little secret stitches, which by the way held a seam together, so now I have an hole in my brand new jeans. Oh- and yes, the tag remains.

Maybe you know this already, but I was naive and believed that I was only dealing with thread here. But no. The BASTARDS are now using GLUE. Tags are sealed to the garment by gluing them after they are sewn in. I still fume when I think about it.

OK, we get the fact you want the tag to remain with the garment. But why can’t you make a tag that is not scratchy? The garment is not scratchy, so obviously you have the technology. And what is the deal with tags so large you can write the Constitution on them? Or the five, count them five, tags sewn into one small (size 4 don’t ya know) pair of jeans? Three in the back, one in the front, and one on the outside seam below the hip.

The only person who sees these damn tags is me, and I am not happy with whoever made the garment.

And I know who you are. You made sure of that, didn’t you?