😀 Honest to GAWD!
WHY??? Why is it that EVERYTHING I WANT OR NEED TO DO has gotta be done the hard way?
This, as you may instantly have surmised, is one of those days.
You know: the kind of day when everything you touch, everything you want to do, everything you have to do goes ker–SPRROOOOIIIINGGGGGGGG!
Look crosswise at it, and it flies apart.
Immediate case in point: The Mayo has assigned me to some new doc I never heard of. Last I talked to them, I got the impression she’s at the hospital up the freeway off 56th Street. That’s a long way away, but nowhere near as far as the one in Scottsdale, which is halfway to freakin’ Payson.
So I go to look this woman up…hmmm… No luck there. Call the hospital to confirm my suspicion: NO ANSWER! This is a freakin’ holiday!
Yeah. Labor Day.
Like those of us who don’t work know it’s another blank day on the calendar, hm? And NO ONE is answering the phones over there.
Got that?
A huge institution with a hospital and two large office buildings and an army of doctors and staff plus a nationwide telephone network, and not one person is fielding phone calls.
IS there a question of whether we live in a Third-World country? If so, whence any such question?
***** 6:09 p.m. *****
Wow!
The day went straight downhill from there. And wouldncha know: it’s Labor Day, so there’s no help any way you look!
Okay, so the Labor Day phenomenon explains why NO ONE is answering the phones at the Mayo. Like…they can’t afford to pay one minimum-wage receptionist overtime for ONE DAY to answer the effing phones?
Y’know…when you don’t work, there are no holidays. Every day is a holiday.
JAYZUZ!
What a day from Hell!!!!!
Out in the backyard, I’m futzing around the pool. And…and…wondering why the cascades of cat’s-claw vines that cover the back wall and pile up high enough to keep passers-by from peering into the pool areas are all dried up and dying.
Yes. The vines appear to be withering away.
So more futzing..futz…futz…futz…a-a-a-n-d WHOA!!!!!!!
What should I find, while batting around in the shrubbery, but that the soaker hose that I ran along the base of that wall in behind the shrubs, the hose that’s been on a timer for all these years, has been CUT!
Say what???
Climb around climb around climb around the poking, stickery shrubs…and…and…yeah.
That hose has been SLICED IN TWO!
What…
The…
FVCK!!!!!
No wonder the plants have been withering away.
They’re pretty xeric shrubs. So they’re still marginally alive, despite not having any city water for God only knows how long. They’re as close as they can get to dead without being dust-to-dust…but I think they’ll come back if they’re liberally watered.
But…ohhhhhh the fishiness of it.
In the first place, that hose is way back against the wall underneath the thick plants. The only way you could get at it to slice it in half — and that’s what we’re looking at here: a clean slice, like a knife cut — would be either to climb under the plants or to pull it out. From the look of it, the perp apparently climbed under or through the shrubbery to get at it.
So…I think Gerardo may just have gotten fired. We shall see…but it’s going to depend on whether I can find another yard guy, and if so, what kinda yard guy.
Speaking of events in the Back Yard, I took the New Harvey up to Leslie’s to get whatever is wrong with it fixed.
The guy told me it was on the warranty — that the work would be free.
Yesterday when I got home from the store, I realized…hey, waitaminit here…they charged me 45 bucks!
This afternoon, drive back up there, march up to the door, and…yeah. They’re closed.
Of course. It’s Labor Day.
So tomorrow I’ve got to lay siege to those clowns. But I won’t have time to do that because I have to trudge up to the Mayo to see a new MayoDoc, and that will soak up the better part of the day.
JUST what I wanna do with another day of my goddamn time!!
Ohhhh well. On the way back from the doc’s I can stop off at Leslie’s and do battle with them. Yay. What fun.
Meanwhile, I can’t get into my goddamn checking account…AGAIN. This, I discover in the process of trying to find out whether there’s enough cash in there to cover a $2280 (!!!!!) AMEX bill. So that means that in addition to suffering through a miserable doctor’s appointment with a new doc to whom I have to try to explain EVERYTHING all over again without sounding like a raving lunatic, I’m going to have to do battle with the credit union.
NONE of the secret codes they’ve given me will get me into my account online. So that means I have to traipse all the way over there after I get away from the Mayo and ask them how much is in my checking account. This will require me to drive halfway across the west side, adding another 50 minutes to tomorrow’s traipsing time.
ohhhhh gooodie!