Shot one.
Collective intake of breath, shuddering.
Shot two.
Sobs break out.
Shot three.
The men weep.
The widow exhales and raises her chin, defiant and courageous. She is presented the flag from the honor guard as the hollow notes weave through the crowd behind her. She is elegant in her good jewelry and navy blue dress, poised on her sharp heels.
I can see our breath on the air. The rain continues to fall, indifferent to our tears.
The service is over. I can still detect the acrid odor of gunsmoke, silent and invisible now.
He brought many of us together today, back in his hometown after so many years spent scattered the four directions the winds blow. Family from all over the world, friends he knew, some he never met through simpletractors.com. I knew one, a former supervisor at the Co-op. He said he’d never met Kent, but wanted to pay his respects. He’d never imagined seeing me there. You never know where I might pop up.
Friends from his graduating class and mine, there with our aging parents. People I haven’t seen in many years, old neighbors and people with babies that I remember as babies themselves.
There were pictures and his plaques commemorating a job well done for 27 years. A patriot, proud to serve. There were plenty of mourners and lots of handshakes and hugs. There were many tears in remembrance of a battle fought, but ultimately lost.
There weren’t a lot of flowers, per his request. We are to donate to our favorite church or charity. I feel useful. It’ll go to the sea turtles, via Ocean Conservancy.
His eldest spoke, because he didn’t want soothing words exhalted by a stranger for his dad. He wanted to tell it himself. And that’s a harder job than I care to think about. When I bowed my head, tears plopped onto my hands.
We had one common denominator = Kent is gone and we are sad.
But there are lives to be led, jobs to return to, food to be eaten, and love to be shared. So these funerals are somber occasions but they’re also a reminder to keep going and keep laughing, and to love and cherish the people you have now. Because all too soon we’ll just have memories.
Please continue to hold the Thomas family in your prayers. And my Uncle Dale and Aunt Brenda too.
I will remind my regular readers this website is thanks to him and his unrelenting dedication to get me Out There.
I’m at the beauty shop today (there’s no such thing as natural beauty) and as usual, there was another client there expressing views and sharing gossip. I quickly learned what she did for a living, how long she’d done it, what she used to do for a living, and also gleaned what her son did for a living in the time it took for my hair to be foiled. While I was processing, I was also privy to what all was happening on her Facebook feed and what she didn’t comment on, although she would like to, but her kids would croak. Also, she would have filled us in on the plot line of This is Us, but it was way too complicated for her to get into. You really just had to watch it and focus. She implied we weren’t intelligent enough for it, but all I heard was she still didn’t have a good grasp of it, herself.
Of course, our President came up in conversation by way of healthcare. I tried to tune out and concentrate on my book, which, ironically, is Ruby Ridge. Get it here.
I gritted my teeth as the one-sided tirade wore on. Once she switched to capital punishment, I could hold it no longer. She was saying if you asked most people, they would support the death penalty, but if it was their own child, they’d feel differently.
And that, to me, sums up a lot of our problems in America today. The fact that your children can do no wrong, and if they do, they don’t have to face the consequences.
“I’ve been sittin’ over here, minding my very own business, trying not to get involved, but I’ve found I can’t any longer. As usual.”
My beautician smiled thinly, knowing what was coming and the inevitable fallout that is always in the wake of my Julia Sugarbaker channeling.
“That’s all fine and good until it’s your child that’s the victim. And I know, as Christians, we’re called to pray for people who’ve slipped. But if it was your child, raped, murdered, set on fire, you’d be wantin’ some retribution. So if you want to finance your little felon for the remainder of his life in prison, be my guest. ‘Cause it ain’t cheap to waste away a lifetime sentence in America’s finest institutions. I’m for letting them get off the taxpayers meal ticket as soon as possible.”
Intelligently, she agreed with me.
I know I voice unpopular opinions regularly. But I can’t help but think what if I was someone who had lost a sister, or a husband, or a best friend, or a child to some senseless crime and here’s this stranger touting for the other side? Holding up for a person who did evil to someone who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time?
People make me want to scream and create my own crime.
Betcha my mom wouldn’t be in the courtroom pleading for a lesser sentence. She’d be there, madder than dammit, slapping my face, shooting poison darts with her eyes, hissing venomously, “how could you be so stupid?”
And that’s just fine.
Let me begin by saying I detest the cable company with every cell of my being.
And now I will tell you why. If this was a power point demonstration, rest assured my laser would be blazing.
First and foremost, as you AAALLLL know, I don’t watch TV. Any shows or movies worth seeing are bought and reside, commercial free, in the TV cabinet and neighboring bookcase. So I was loathe to have it installed here at the Plantation. However, when I thought I wanted to write for that magazine, it required me to submit articles via Microsoft Word and not Google documents. Therefore, I had to have a WiFi signal and laptop. Since my husband is a sports junkie and all things TV fan, and he had been deprived during the last five years with me, he coerced me into adding cable. At that time, their big promotion was the “bundle” and $29.99 per service with a free DVR for 12 months. What happened at the end of twelve months was anybody’s guess, but I had a pretty good idea. So I gave him plenty of warning: “This is your job. I do not deal with the cable company. I will pay the bill, with money you provide, but I am not dealing with the hassle of those people.” Those people, of course, being low-life, fast talking, cretins whose every intent is to confuse and upset me with their trickery. I’m sure most of them are ex-cons and carnies.
He readily agreed.
I called the cable company. Well, one cable company. Xfinity. And I got a super nice feller who was almost as sad as me that they don’t offer service out here in the boondocks of KnoxVegas. He looked up my options.
“Looks like you’ve got……Charter.”
“And???” I prompted, stomach dropping, because everyone is united in their hate for them.
“That’s it,” he said remorsefully.
So I called Charter. And it was every bit as big of an aggravation as I feared it would be.
See, I spend my life on the phone. I always have. I deal with people nonstop. I hate talking to ANYBODY on the phone, even ordering pizza. I much prefer doing everything online. The invention of text was my saving grace. People can’t understand me through my accent, and I think they mumble or talk too fast. They rattle all this contract stuff off (even though it’s not a contract) and you have no idea what you’ve agreed to, but you know you want the service, so you just say yes in order to expedite the process. I remember trying to only get internet and cable, but he wasn’t having that, because I was getting a free DVR by buying the bundle, plus it was set up to be “cheaper” to just do all three. By the time it was said and done, my bill was $121.00, because, of course, nothing is free. We had to pay monthly for the cable boxes. That was after he asked me about home security, and I was like, “Buddy, I live in Tennessee. We have a fence, two mean-ass pitbulls {when in truth, only one is mean, but he didn’t need to know that}, and plenty of ammo. We do not need a home security system.”
There was a startled pause and then he transferred me to the survey.
After the initial set-up call, a visit for installation was arranged, and as I stated, I wasn’t going to go out of my way to take off work to meet the cable guy for hookup and orientation. Johnny was here for all that.
The twelve months go by without incident. Then the next month’s bill came, without precedent. It had gone up $30.00. Of course, I wasn’t surprised…maybe slightly impressed that it hadn’t gone up more and they hadn’t called or emailed about wanting to come get our “free” DVR. I showed it to Johnny, who was somewhat astounded that basic cable was that much. “Feel free to call them,” I told him, oh-so-helpfully directing them to their 24/7 service line.
He declined.
So, for three months I have paid the higher bill.
Then on Monday, we get a “SPECIAL OFFER” in the mail. It’s addressed to “Resident of” and our address. It states in bold, blue letters that many of our neighbors have discovered that Spectrum delivers the best TV & Internet services. And it’s my turn.
It’s HALF of what our bill is.
Well, well, well. It’s only for TV & Internet, but like I told the guy to begin with, I didn’t need the phone line. And it got FREE DVR service for two years.
Johnny’s all about me calling and seeing what’s up. Obviously, I am not. This is exactly what I did NOT sign on for. And I remind him of that fact. So he says he’ll call, but they probably won’t talk to him because the bill is in my name. He’s probably right, but I don’t want to admit it. I go next door while he calls.
Sure enough, they won’t give him the time of day, but his super friendly American operator tells him helpfully that I can just call and add him. That was Wednesday.
He’s mentioned it every day since.
I am a professional procrastinator, but I could see that he wasn’t going to stop hounding me (I should employ these tactics when I need him to do something for me) so tonight I called.
And it went every bit the way I had imagined it would.
You begin with the automated service, selecting whether you are a (hopeless) new customer or a (disgruntled) existing one. Those are my descriptions, but they should really utilize them in the menu because it’s true. Then you choose whether you’re wanting to add a service or ask a question. I select add. Moments later, I am connected with a lady who is pleasant enough, and doesn’t make me repeat myself. We are off to a good start. I tell her I got an offer in the mail I want to take advantage of. She asks for my address. I recite it to her, and tell her I have my account number if that will help. Johnny is behind me, helpfully whispering to tell her I already have service with them. I shoo him away. I got this.
“Oh, you’re already a customer?” She’s genuinely surprised.
Now, I don’t claim to be an expert on the way phone lines work, but it’s my understanding that the automated system was developed for ease and to facilitate phone calls.
But clearly, I am incorrect. Because I wasn’t patched through to a person who fields calls from current customers. I was thrown into the sea with all the other peasants in their misery.
And I can’t resist my first opportunity. I strike.
“Yes, I hit all the corresponding digits on the automated system.”
She ignores my punch and asks for my account number. I provide it, she taps away, then I can hear her gear up to convincing me how I’m getting a good deal already. “Before we go any further, can you please add my husband? I hate making these calls, and he’s better at them and doesn’t mind.”
She giggles and asks his name. I tell her and think, “I warned you….”
She wastes no more time and immediately launches into the spill about how I’ve already taken advantage of a promotional offer, and in fact, am still enjoying this perk, saving almost $40 per month, and she can’t help me. Her voice has changed dramatically since our initial banter.
Is that right? Well. “So, what you’re telling me is that if I want to decrease my bill by half every month, I will have to unsubscribe from your services, then re-sign up.”
“Well, yes, but you don’t want to do that, because you’ll experience a 30- to 60- day wait period between services.”
“I don’t care. This is too much of a price difference.”
Johnny, at this point, is pacing and nearly in tears at my words and the thought of losing his never-ending Viking shows, Alien documentaries, and slew of football and basketball games. “It’s okay,” he’s hissing frantically, having overheard enough. I wave him off, my blood pressure on the rise. Even though I know that Charter will never let us go. I will get the best price. Even though I have to play their game of cable communism. See, the dumbasses bring it on themselves. They want this contention. They’ve sent this exact same propaganda to every house in the state, banking on people too lazy to look at the junk mail, and the ones like me that do don’t want to make these phone calls.
I hear her sigh, like this is directly affecting her will to live, and she starts in again about how I’m actually getting a good deal and blah blah blah.
“I’ve done told you I don’t care, come and cut this shit off.”
“Hold please. And there’s no reason to curse.”
Yeah, because I’m sure she’s never uttered the first obscenity in her life and is as pure as the driven snow.
Johnny retreats downstairs, certain he has lost one of his main sources of happiness.
After about two minutes, I am connected with a woman who sounds older, or perhaps she’s just smoked more. Or maybe she’s just worn down and knows she has to keep this job until she finds another one not spent tethered to a console with a headset attached to her skull while first world country consumers bicker with her over the cost of an unnecessary (dare we call it extravagant?) service. The rat race.
She says a whole bunch of crap about how she’s going to resolve any issues, but could we begin with a survey on my current experience with Charter? I recognize this as a ploy. If I show my ass, they won’t be as accommodating. Must. Play. The. Game.
So I answer the same stock questions she’s asked other people for the last six hours. What do we watch on TV, what do we predominantly use the internet for, and is the home phone utilized regularly or for backup emergency use only?
I am patient and civil though this, and, as always, brutally honest.
Although I feel it would have been funnier if I had said porn, porn, and phone sex.
Anyway. I’m not always a heathen.
Of course she runs through how I’m still on a promotion, and again with the rules about it’s one promotion per customer, blah blah blah. When I remain silent, she goes on to say how I didn’t seem to have a problem paying the introductory offer and vows to reinstate me at our former price for 12 months. So in a year I’ll probably be writing this exact blog again.
But hold on. I’m not gonna let her off the hook that easily. “But how much is it if I were to go through with cutting service off and then starting it back? You mentioned I have to buy equipment. What equipment, exactly?”
“Well, I see you have two cable boxes, so those, plus your installation fee, so that would put you at $111.00 per month, plus taxes.”
See? They get you any way you can. Dirty, dirty, dastardly deeds.
I hate cable.
Ironically enough, I’m using my 60 mph whatever WiFi to pound out this status. But let the record show that I’m using them against my will. Someday, Xfinity will come through here and all my dreams will come true. Nevermind Charter is the company I stuck up for a few months ago when the pushy punk AT&T solicitors came by.
After hanging up, I carefully inspected the leaflets. Nowhere does it state that you can only take advantage of the one promotion during your relationship with Charter. I can’t get a close up of it because it spans the whole bottom of the page in microscopic print, but it says only “Valid to qualified residential customers who have not subscribed to any services within the previous 30 days and have no outstanding obligation to Charter.” They kept repeating how I don’t have a contract. Contract= obligation, am I right? But it doesn’t mater. It’s a $100 no matter how you slice it if you want cable and internet. But I don’t have to like it.
I’m off to leave a scathing review for Long John Silvers. We sat in the drive-thru, the ONLY customer, might I add, for 13 minutes before receiving our grease and synthesized fish and chicken. We could have had faster service at Ye Olde! Geez.
Anybody wanna fight? I’m all fluffed up like a bantam rooster.
And thank you in advance for not telling me about how I can just pay for internet and stream pretty much whatever through my Smart TV (I don’t know if ours is compatible) or subscribe to Netflix for $9.99/month. I’m also not ready to learn about the Amazon Firestick. Any communication of this variety can go directly to the man of the house. I. Am. DONE.
It wouldn’t hurt so bad if he had been suffering for ages.
It wouldn’t hurt so bad if our last meeting hadn’t ended so abruptly.
It wouldn’t hurt so bad if he had lived a good long life, if he had been as old as Methuselah. He just had so much left to do.
It wouldn’t hurt so bad if he had lived to see the grandbabies.
It wouldn’t hurt so bad if she had gone unexpectedly quick, like the wind blowing out a flame.
It wouldn’t have hurt so bad if she had known us at the end.
It wouldn’t be so hard if we could have said goodbye.
It wouldn’t hurt so bad if…if…if, if, if.
If.
But the truth is, the only way it wouldn’t hurt so bad is if we hadn’t loved them. And if they hadn’t loved us back.
But yet we tell ourselves these lies, attempting to masquerade our grief, and make excuses for why we sob as they slipped from this life into the next one.
Isn’t this true for anybody you lose? Anyone you cared for?
Eight years ago, Colonel Thomas made me a promise via Facebook messenger.
“Please don’t die,” I wrote, somewhat beseechingly. I was at KFC with Uncle Dale, immediately following the funeral of Joe Irwin. Joe had been a second father figure to Uncle Dale since Pap had passed back in’87. It was evident what he meant to him. They could frequently be found telling lies at The Round Table at Bob’s Mountaineer Restaurant, or maybe coaxing fish in the boat on the Clinch. Joe was generally around when some sort of repair or general work was being performed. He served as “The Pointer”. Anyway, I knew burying him would take a toll on Uncle Dale. He had just lost a good hunting buddy not too long before. Sometimes, people get gone before you’ve settled your mind to it. I didn’t want him to lose any more for a good long time.
“I’ll do my best not to,” Kent promised from Massachusetts.
Kent was one of my very first friends on Facebook. He was pretty techie for a man his age. But, given his career, it wasn’t any wonder. I was still learning the ins and outs of my Blackberry. That thing was complicated! I still believe if you could use one of them, you can fly the space shuttle.
Anyway. Kent kept his promise for over eight years. During that time, my uncle lost another dear friend to cancer and countless neighbors, former coworkers, friends, and family. But Kent was the closest thing he had to a brother. He came over and helped me set out tomato plants when Uncle Dale was in the hospital with his hip surgery. He loaned him a cool little machine, I would liken it to a miniature skid steer to clean out the pine thicket. He was always around, even when he lived all over the country, because they stayed in touch via phone calls and email. And I guess even snail mail back in the early days.
Please be in prayer for the family of Colonel Kent Thomas and my Uncle Dale who isn’t afraid to say he’s going to miss him so, so much.
It’s rained at the Plantation all day. I don’t mind. As I’ve said before, it gives me justification for staying home and doing nothing. Not that I’ve done nothing. I fixed breakfast (the biscuits were of the frozen variety, but the from-scratch ones are time consuming and we never can eat them all), washed a load of laundry, fixed hot dogs on white bread (how can I remember to buy cole slaw, macaroni salad, and chili but not buns?!), finished one book and started another (The Nightingale & The Winter People, if you’re interested), and updated my Goodreads. Six books so far this year. Goal is 75. Staying off social media helps, and I’ve discovered I’m not hardly missing a thing.
I baked sugar cookies and iced them then added hot pink crystal sprinkles, because sprinkles help everything. I’ve certainly needed my allocation of sprinkles lately.
Johnny put together my step stool yesterday. It’s pretty cool, very retro, and also very red. I’m short, and since we don’t have chairs in the dining room anymore, just those benches for the table; I had to have something. I had been using a cube of Mountain Dew, but as much as I weigh I decided that wasn’t a sound idea. Plus it looks cute at the counter. My great grandmother had one just like it, hers was a dark tan color, with mushroom stickers stuck on, and chipping paint revealed a black base. I’m fairly certain everybody in my extended family fell from it at least once. I don’t know what happened to it.
I fell asleep crying last night. Most women wouldn’t admit this, not even to their best friend over wine spritzers, but I’m not typical. I don’t save my tears for the shower. They fall as they may. It’s Johnny’s fault. He got to talking about me needing to think about a new vehicle, which got me feeling all sentimental about Patsy. She was supposed to be our old beater truck, around forever and ever, and then he went and bought that old rattletrap rusty Ford. He’s like, “Hold on, don’t be upset, I didn’t say you had to get rid of her!” And it wasn’t about her. It was about decisions that have to be made. When you’re married, you (hopefully) make them as a unit. Then someone dies and you have to make them alone and you’re not even sure how to do it anymore, without looking towards someone else for their opinion, their assurance or disapproval. So I was thinking about that last night, his weight heavy beside me in bed, his low snores. How many more nights would I have him? How many more decisions will we make together? How will I go on without him? I can’t even put a step stool together, when all it supposedly required was a screwdriver? And then I’m reading this book, The Nightingale, and all the men have gone to fight in the war and the women are doing it all- working all day, splitting firewood, mending clothes, standing in lines with their ration cards only to be turned away because there’s nothing left…and it’s the same thing. How would I make it in wartime? I wouldn’t. I’d be better off just slitting my own throat. That’s with indoor plumbing and electricity to get me through. And I realize that plenty of women do it already, and men too, and maybe you don’t realize how strong you are alone until you have to be. But I know I’m not a plumber, or a roofer, or a ditch digger. Or even a stool putter-togetherer.
I guess my emotions are just on the very surface, like a blister ready to pop. Kent is not doing well. Every update his wife posts sends an arrow straight to my heart. And if it’s affecting me this strongly, how is she able to even stand to type out a message to us? How is my Uncle able to hear it?
You just go on because you have to.
And so it was a normal day and I was thankful for it.
Anybody who has ever read a single post on here can thank Kent. All credit is due to him. He was the one who forced me to start it. He came over and we learned together, pecking buttons over Uncle Dale’s dining room table, and then mine. Please pray for him. He is fighting. He just wants another uneventful day.
Usually by the time you find out you’re dying there’s no time to complete your bucket list.
Hopefully by the time you are dying you almost welcome it, because you’re tired, or you’ve been sick so long it’s almost a relief.
If you’re of the few who have the supreme misfortune of being in your right mind in a semi decent state of health beyond the disease that is killing you quick, all you can think of are the normal plans you had: spending time with your grandkids, where you were gonna plant what in the garden this year, and what car shows you planned to attend with your recently acquired dream machine. But you can’t even do the simple things, let alone the amazing fun things because you’re too damn sick to move. No Alaskan cruise, no trip to Greece, no skydiving. No more trips to your favorite restaurant and no last chance to see your favorite band perform one last time.
I would like to write more but my tears will not allow it.
While it would be a blessing to have the few days or weeks left with your family and friends… and to know, to be able to prepare and say your goodbyes…it is still a hardship filled with heartbreak.
Death touches us all eventually. Please don’t shield your children from it, it is a normal part of life and maybe it won’t hurt so intensely if they learn about it early on.
Don’t wait to travel. Don’t wait to remodel. Don’t worry about the cost you’ll pay in interest because by the time you’re able to afford the better life you might be almost gone and unable to enjoy it.
I’m not dying but a friend is. A very BEST friend of one of the dearest people in my life. It will touch us all and I don’t know who’s the most scared.
I feel like all I write about lately is death but it’s winter, the season for it, I suppose. It doesn’t make it any easier to cope.
Please lift the Thomas family up in prayer. And my family too. Miracles happen every day.
This book will not haunt me.
It will live in me from here on out.
I am completely swept away by emotion, from each radium girl to the author as she researched and wrote every painstaking word. It is wonderful and heartbreaking and unbelievable and disgusting. It runs the gamut of feelings and takes hold and makes you wonder what we could be thoughtlessly ingesting. It also makes me pause and give thanks to these women who were not silent, but I feel have been overlooked.
Living close to Oak Ridge it resonates with me. I take for granted being safe and guarded from potential nuclear fallout. What could I have been exposed to if it weren’t for these women? And oh how they suffered for it! Needless to say I loved this book. And it would be a fantastic choice for required reading senior year, just as young women are hoping the workforce. Five blazing stars for a story well told. Justice was brought to these pages for the women who didn’t get a voice until it was way too late. What a horrifying ordeal.
I have wept and wept.
I do wish it had more pictures, but maybe they would tarnish the ideals I have in my head of these radiant girls. I need to go out and buy 50 copies so I can give one to everybody I meet for awhile. Until I can do so, buy it right here.
I think I’m a few summers too numerous to call myself “basic”…and girl is probably a stretch at this age, too. But I don’t think I’m a ma’am most days and I certainly don’t feel like a lady…it’s my mouth, mainly.
I’m not really basic in the ways of an American young woman is defined, anyway. I’m basic in that I like simple things that everybody else in their right mind likes too: chocolate, yoga pants, puppies, candles. I’m TRULY basic in that I like coffee from the coffee pot here at the Plantation and not from the overpriced hurriedly attended wildly popular chain cafe. I’m basic in that I wear sweatshirts and if I remember to wear earrings, I’m accessorized. I’m basic in that I don’t play games and if I don’t like you, you probably knew it right off the bat. But yet here I am with my unruly hair and smart mouth and birthday from the end of the seventies writing on my blog.
ANYWAY, it feels a little snotty to be complaining about my blog but I really hate it.
I constantly feel pressured to write one, and I want to write more but I really don’t have time and since changing jobs I have found that I don’t have as much material. Our little jaunt to West Town the other day supplied plenty of fuel for the fire, I’ll tell you that. I should probably get out more. Except it made me a little suicidal. And homicidal. But other than that, lots of fruit for the pickin’. Or writin’, as the case may be.
So anyhoo, I was trying to upload a few old stories from my Facebook memories the other day so they’ll be copywrited and it gave me “generic error”. Y’all know I’m crazy, so there’s no need for me to tell you how I just kept hitting “publish” eight to twenty four times hoping it would fix itself. It never did and I sorta forgot about it.
Then, a couple of days ago, in my memories, I came across where I shared a blog post. I didn’t recognize it by the title, so I clicked on it to see what escapade I’d been involved in that day and got a blank page.
Bizzare.
I figured it was a Facebook glitch, and, while irritating, didn’t give it another thought.
Today, I go to my website oh-so-conveniently shortcutted on my home screen so I can see if I’ve already shared a particular story. I knew what heading it would be under so that would be faster than scrolling through years of posts on my WordPress page.
My website was down.
Like, white-screen-error-page.
Even though the page was white, I saw red.
I saw stars.
Because I didn’t even want to start a blog. I didn’t want to be all techie. I didn’t want one more thing to keep up with. I didn’t want to dread writing and resent having to post stories with cute pictures and helpful links.
I just wanted to write.
And that’s what I’ve been doing- I’ve not been worrying about how lucrative this page could perhaps be if I gave it a little more effort. I haven’t dwelt on how much money it cost to set up and annual fees and what a pain in the ass it was to become an Amazon Associate but have yet to benefit from a single sale, although I know Johnny and I have both bought through this site. I haven’t stewed over how Google never had the courtesy to even bother shooting me a rejection email or perhaps reach out to say I didn’t provide the correct information to host their ads.
But I’m a hopeless optimist and I thought if someone famous didn’t stumble across my sparkling posts, at least I could make enough off sales to pay for all the website costs. And, barring that, my work would be copywrited. Because that’s important. Not cool to be plagiarized. I’d probably cut someone for that. But anyway.
And while I have renewed all my certificates and securities and all the other bullshit my site is DOWN?!?!
MY.
SITE.
IS.
DOOOOWWWWWWNNNNN?!!?!?!!?!!
No.
Not just no but heeeeeeeeeeeecccck no.
So I login over to the good people at Bluehost, who have never failed to help me. (WordPress, on the other hand, can suck it). Immediately, someone at the help desk logs in to chat. She asks me to verify the last 4 characters of my passcode.
Hmm.
I plug in a common one.
She politely informs me that it is incorrect and to recheck.
So I do, and she’s right.
I say she’s a she, because her name was Arabic/ Egyptian/ otherwise unpronounceable for a redneck like me and I decided she was a she, okay?
She has me fixed in less than ten minutes. Some problem with the PCP verification update.
Now.
I get lots of emails that I used to read when I thought they contained pertinent information about how my account has upgraded, no action was needed on my part, blah blah blah.
Obviously that is not the case. How long had this been down? At least a week, that I knew of. How long would it have gone on? Was everybody who had Bluehost suffering the same botheration? (Yes, that’s a real word and I like it a lot).
So what about if this was my business? What if I was out backpacking and my website was so popular and it just ran itself so I could get out in the wilderness away from all the crazies and then it just crashes and nobody can get ahold of me because I’m communing with the sun and trees? And I lose thousands of dollars? What about that?
And that’s why, ladies and gentlemen, I’ll never be a successful blogger. I don’t want all these problems. I just want to write stories and get sympathy because while you may not have ever been in this exact situation, you’ve been in something similar and while you don’t feel the need to whine to all your friends about it, you can depend on me to pull some equally ridiculous stunt and blab it all over.
I see you.
So drink your Starbucks and burrow down behind your cashmere scarf and oversized Jackie-O sunglasses and read my blog. And laugh, because you know it’s true. And be glad I’m not too proud or too lazy to tell it like it is, all day every day.
Freaking blog. Freaking millenials that can navigate all this interwebs business so effortlessly.
If someone, or a group of someones, wants to buy me a typewriter and copy machine and stamps we can do a weekly post via snail mail.
Now there’s a concept I can get on board with. #weretakingitbacktotheoldschoolcauseimanoldfoolwhossocool
January Writing Challenge, Day 1
Unopened.
There lies one present under my tree. It is unopened. It belongs to my cousin, and since I don’t see her very often it will probably remain unopened until next year. Does that make me sound cheap? I’ll probably find something else between now and then that I will be unable to resist buying, so no worries.
I also had to open one of Johnny’s presents today-an audio book i bought by accident instead of the paperback he wanted. But it’s ok, he was still really excited about it. Even after we realized I had bought book 2. I mean, how bad can I screw up a simple gift, I ask you?
Evidently pretty badly, because it was an MP3 that won’t even play in a CD player so now I have to burn it onto my laptop to put over on a CD. Did I mention it came after Christmas, to beat all?
Christmas presents sure can be a lot of trouble.
I also ordered him part one today. So he’s got another present on the way to open.
Last year I got my mermaid phone cover after Christmas, and it’s been one of those enduring gifts that make me smile every time I see it. Strangers really like it, too. She’s fabulous.
Anyway. Unopened. I guess that’s what I’ve got for now. I need to go check all the places I’ve ordered from to make sure all his stuff arrived because I’m really not sure. I got carried away internet shopping that Saturday.
