This is why we can't have nice things

I swear I am usually not this grumpy. Or….I am but I hide it much better most of the time. It just seems lately things are always BLEH with me. Wake up and there are ants. Go outside and something is wrong with the car. Open my mouth and someone wants to tell me I am wrong.

Sometimes the only thing that gets you throw the day is knowing that in a few short days you will be on vacation. XD Or else the entire situation/day would be even more frustrating!



So last week (or the week before) my husband went to take his car in to fix his breaks. He comes back with a broken AC. I am not blaming the car place he took it too (Pep Boys), I just find it magical and fun. So this past Monday the husband took his car to a different place to get an estimate on the dead AC. He came back and told me the repair cost would be 1k. Once I was done choking on my cookies I suggested we take the car to my boss. He is good with cars and I enjoy saving money so I ring him up. He says he will look at it tomorrow.

Tomorrow becomes today and off I go. He takes my car over to his buddies and I sit and wait in the meantime. Cue incidence number one.

Mother. I love you. I get that you are a Republican and a hard core one at that. You have programmed to hate Obama and everything he does. I am glad that we finally stopped with that Anti Christ thing but there is still work that needs to be done.

Like his health care plan. Now I am not going to pretend to know the ins and out of his health care plan. In theory it sounds like a great idea and I am sure everyone can agree something needs to be done with the crazy cost of just being alive. I will also concede the fact that Obama needs to take more time to think over all the possibilities and not jump into a plan because he is feeling pressure from the American people.

But when you start off your argument with “Fox news says” it weakens your argument. I am not going to dog Fox news. I am going to say that getting your news source from ONLY one network, a network that only has point of view, is a weak argument. Clearly you are going to get skewered facts on the subject and it will make you look biased.

Then when you say well it didn’t work in “Blank and blank” give me more than that. Why didn’t it work? How long did they try it out for? What are they doing now? Because if you say “well it didn’t work there” I will just give you “well it worked here”. Give me solid reasons and don’t just keep repeating this is a bad idea!

Don’t try to get snide with me and say I could afford health care if I just was more careful with my money. You know if my husband and I didn’t do anything fun at all and just ate really basic foods all month I am sure we could afford the most basic insurance. And the one medication we would probably need at this point in our lives. That is best case scenario of course since neither of us have been to the doctors in years and don’t really know if we have any pre-existing conditions. If we did..yeah, I doubt we could afford any insurance at all.

What we can’t afford is what insurance doesn’t cover. My mother says she constantly worries about something bad happening to us and we would go into debt up to our eyes balls. I tried to explain to her even with insurance if something bad happened to us we would still be in debt up to our eyeballs and then some. So no, I can’t afford to give someone money when at the end of the day I will still owe 50 percent of a huge bill. Either way I am screwed.

I try to bring up all these points, even that I think Obama should wait until this health reformed plan is more solid. But even though I am being calm as I can be she still gets pissed off at me. “You must be watching CNN” and “well then EVERYONE is going to want this health care so why would anyone pay for health care”. Apparently she doesn’t understand that if we get universal health care it will force the other companies to shape up and stop overcharging people. OR in her mind, it’s going to fail anyway and the system will stay the same. So in her mind how is this a bad thing?

So after all was said and done and she stomped out I called her up and told her that even though we don’t agree on things I still love her. I love her even though she has no idea what she is talking about because her health care is FREE and has been free for the last 27 years. Sigh. So maybe it is not really fair to blame her for not knowing how the system works. You would think though if someone didn’t know enough about a subject they would gather information for more than one source. Or be like me and simply say yes things do need to change and we will have to wait and see if this works.

Oh and I fail to see how I can afford health care after my boss comes back with said broken car and says that not only is the AC broken (but he said it is hard to determine what since there is no Freon in the stupid thing) but there are other issues that need to be fixed too.

Despite our impending poorness I happily skip to Marshalls because I need new pants. Well maybe not happily since my butt has decided to grow a bit and my usual size was a bit tight. I did find one pair that was okay (rarw to it being too big at the waist because of said big butt) so on I go to pay. I wait in line and the cashier is telling the customer at the register she needs to ask a manager something. So I am waiting and two people behind me are waiting. I am not going to be all bad_service dramatic and say the wait was TOO LONG and mog where were people?! If anything it was like 4 minutes and two more cashiers came up. The first cashier returns right as I get up to pay two spots down and shit hits the fan.

Yeah I was listening in on their conversation. I am a nosy person. And yes I am going to make matters worse. That is just how I roll apparently.

So it turns out this couple and their teenage kid were trying to return an electronic item. They didn’t have the receipt nor did the item have the Marshalls tag on it. I am not sure if everyone is aware but Marshalls is a bit different that some regular stores. They carry mall brands at a discounted rate. Sorta like last season things that didn’t sell well and things like that. The pants I was buying for instance said American Eagle and listed the original price and the Marshalls close out price. On some stuff I have gotten there in the past it has the actual store tag still on the clothes while others simply just have a Marshalls tag telling you the original price and how much you save.

The point is that everything has a Marshalls tag on it and some might have the original tag. These people had something with only the original store tag. When the girl went back and told her manager she took the item with her. I am not sure what the manager said but it was something along the lines of without a receipt there is no way of showing this item came from our store. That and it sounded like the manger didn’t believe the item came from the store anyway.

Another problem with this scenario is the couple was trying to return the item for the price tag on the thingy thing. You know, the price tag from another store. So even if these people weren’t trying to be lying scammers and they did get this item from Marshalls there was no way they paid 250 dollars for it. That was the price at whatever department store it came from. There is no way these people paid 250 bucks for this thingy thing at Marshalls.

So the cashier lady tells the couple that unless they have a receipt or the sticker so she can scan the Marshalls price there isn’t anything she can do. The second she says that it is an explosion of FUCK YOUS! Not oh, is there anything else we can do or can I have the number to corporate. Just FUCK YOUR STORE GIVE US OUR MONEY.

I am going to give these cashiers the internet award for calm. The first fuck you directed at me and I would have backed off and refused to deal with them. Or the more likely scenario would have been I would have backed away and run to the back to get someone else cause that is how I roll. I do think the cashier dealing with them was a little shocked. She was young looking and probably had never had this happen to her before. The cashier next to her was older and looked more seasoned than the others. She calmly asked the man to calm down or he would have to leave. He proceeded to tell the older woman to fuck off and handle the problem, that no one was making him leave.

I have no idea where this moment of bravery came from. Or rather a moment of stupidity. But I was really tired of how he was treating these woman. I looked at him and told him he needed to calm down or they were in their rights to call the police.

This was clearly the wrong thing to do. Because now all the Fuck yous and Mind your own fucking business were directed towards me. I told him it was rather hard to mind my own business with all the cussing and screaming going on and if he wanted people to stay out of his business maybe he shouldn’t be causing a scene.

This was also the wrong thing to say. He became more belligerent and started saying this store was full of scammers and they just wanted their 250 dollars back and I needed to Fuck off. So yeah I tried to stand up for the cashiers who weren’t in a position to give this moron a piece of their mind…but now I made him even angrier.

So what ended up happening? I don’t know. After I was rung up I told my cashier that they needed to call the police and they didn’t have to take this abuse. Outside the customers that were near the register at the time were gathering and were watching the scene unfold. We all gossiped about what a jerk he was being and how they were clearly trying to scam the store. Oh and how it was convenient that they were speaking English just fine when the cashier went off to get help but when they heard no suddenly it was accent time and why don’t you understand us crap. But then we all went to our cars and didn’t do a damn thing. :(

So what was the purpose of these stories? That maybe I should keep my mouth shut. Or…know my audience a little bit better before I open my mouth. It is easier on the internet to go back and change something that sounds wrong. But once the words leave your mouth in real life that’s it. You are screwed.

Oh and the next time I want to defend a cashier I will find a manager and tell them about the situation. No more putting myself in the line of fire again! Or at least not this week anyway. XD