Tough Shit Tuesday

Tough shit is one of my favorite terms.  It's hard, a pain in the ass, but you need to get over it.  It does, however; suck when it's directed at me.

Even more so, I hate when I have 2 tough shit moments in one day!

So I'm totally stoked about having a Noodles and Co in DeKalb, IL now...no more driving to Geneva to get my fix of Pasta Fresca!  I convinced my husband to hang in the car with the sleeping baby while I ran in to get myself some yummies for lunch.  I get in there and there's a line a mile long.  The Moose, doesn't sleep long in the car if it's not moving.  Awesome-ism #1.  When we finally get down to only one person in front of me I was excited.  That is, until I heard her say "So..uhm...what's good here?"
FRICK!
The girl running the check, out who looked like she'd been drinking until 8am this morning, just stared at her and asked, "What do you like?"
I shit you not, the lady answered, "Well...I like noodles..."
SHUT UP!  SHUT THE HELL UP!  If you didn't like noodles would you go to a place called Noodles and Company?!?  I think we effin know you like God blessed noodles!
This back and forth go nowhere banter goes on for about 4 minutes before I decided that this woman standing between me and my spinach, tomato, oily goodness had to move her ass out of my way before I started gnawing on my own arm out of hunger (yeah...the diet...not going so well...well it's going great if you consider looking at your dog as a nice piece of red meat normal).
I pipe up and say, "If you like spicy stuff get the Penne Rosa, if you don't then get the Pasta Fresca but for the love of God pick something or get the HELL out of line and let people who know what they want go!"

After she scowled at me for a second, she ordered the Penne.  Of course, she went back and forth for another century about chicken or no chicken and roll vs flat bread...and thus my tough shit moment #1.  Wanna get your food and get out fast?  Tough shit cuz the idiots are out and eating noodles today!

After inhaling my food like a Hoover, we moved on.  (PS.  Thanks to my husband for feeding the baby while I was in Noodle Hell trying to get my order.  XOXO.)

With our upcoming (God only knows when) impending move of doom, lots of unnecessary household items and old unplayed with toys have found a new temporary home @ a storage facility.  It's supposed to be top of the line, climate controlled, high security, with a guarantee that you will always be able to 'easily access your unit without any problems'.  Yeah.  Right.

Now, let me just say, I have a respect for people who do jobs that I myself consider menial.  Don't take that the wrong way, they're jobs someone has to do, but they're just...well...not for me.  I did my time in bars, retail and tanning salons.  The one thing it taught me is I don't want some bullshit, barely pays the bills, unable to respect myself, kinda job.  That's why I work for myself, that's why I chase hurricanes and publish books.  It's why I document the most important moments of people's lives.  I just don't see myself wiping 30 something years old and someone else's sweat off acrylic or refolding the same pair of jeans 30 times in one day because people are too lazy to pull something out of a pile nicely.

That being said, I have respect ONLY for the people who do their menial jobs correctly and with a sense of pride in them.  The property manager at the storage place...is NOT one of these people.

My 'unit' is not large enough (thank God that's not a problem at home!) which is issue #1 and of course, there are none of the next size up that are available...and the property manager is a BIATCH x 10 which is the second problem.  This summer we had enough wasps around the units to scare Billy the Exterminator away.  I very nicely (and trust...that doesn't happen often) went into her office, knowing damn well it's her job to maintain the property...and told her how bad the problem was and asked if someone could spray so I could get into my unit without having to dodge dip duck dive dodge the swarm of stingers coming at me.  Ya know what she freakin said to me "it's not my problem".

Not your damn problem?  WTH?  How are the dinner plate sized wasp nests OUTSIDE the units not your problem?  Do you understand the concept of manage?  Does not the phrase "easily access...without any problems" seem to be in direct opposition to the phrase "holy fuck I almost got stung like forty seventy hundred times"?
Her next response:  "someone sprayed a few days ago" followed by "I had to buy the spray myself" and then "yeah again, it's really not my problem".  I called the corporate number and after they assured me that buying wasp spray and hosing my own unit was not necessary, they had the district manager call me.  He called back later and said he would comp a few days off my bill and that the manager had been way out of line with me...great...she got in trouble, I'm sure she wont be a problem again.  *eye roll*

So months go by and I go to my unit today and low and fucking behold...my lock had been cut off and one of their locks put on.  Now, I may fly off my rocker at top speeds sometimes but I rarely do it without being provoked and  never unless I'm 100% sure that I'm in the right.  So I strapped my ass to the seat long enough to call the corporate number, have them verify that my payment had gone through and that even if it hadn't gone through my lock should not have been removed until the 20th of the month...today's the 19th...and find out what protocol is.  Should I have not paid my bill and should I have come in after the 20th, they could have cut and replaced my lock with theirs until said bill was paid, but that was not the case.

I hung up with the very nice lady at corporate (after explaining what my situation was and having her apologize profusely and say she would notify the district manager immediately).  I very calmly got out of my SUV, walked to the cargo area, removed the giant bolt cutters which I have with me at all times (don't ask why) and with gusto, I cut their lock off my unit while cussing up a storm.  I realized that some lady and her husband were watching me with their jaws on the floor.  When I turned and looked at them they both went quickly back to loading their truck.

Once all of my boxes had been placed in my unit, I rummaged through my tool box which happened to be with me and found a lock to replace the one the biatch manager had cut off...a titanium one no less...like to see her try to cut that bad boy off.  Back into my car and up to the main office and breakneck speeds, ok more like 15 mph because its a small drive and there were people on both sides.  I huffed into the office  and just as she looked up, I tossed the lock at her.  She caught it and her eyes went 10 ft wide.  Guess she remembered what unit was mine.  She exclaimed, "That is our property!  I will have you fined for cutting that lock off!  And I am going to contact..."

I cut her off, "Your district manager, John?  Yeah nice guy.  You wont need to contact him, I just got off the phone with him and he'll be calling you shortly.  He's not real happy that you cut my lock off, although not as pissed as I am.  My bill is paid.  YOU submitted the payment to corporate which means you KNOW it's paid and even if it wasn't you are required to not only send me a notice if it's not paid but also call me neither of which you did."

She started to argue and I shut her down.  "And let me tell you something," leaning over the counter toward her and getting very quiet and calm, "I am the LAST renter here you want to fuck with.  I don't care about your job and the things in my unit are more valuable than your life.  If I catch you fucking with my stuff again, I won't call your boss."  She started to back up and I smiled a little, "Ya know, someone smart once told me that you should never wear a pendant on a leather strap, if it were to get hung up on something you could strangle yourself."  Her eyes were as wide as open garage doors!  What?  I wasn't threatening her, I was just saying!  I used to wear a quarter on a leather strap all the time.

As I turned to walk out I saw her touch her pentagram choker and it was all I could do to not laugh.  Honestly, all that's in my unit is some furniture I don't really like anyway, a few rubber tubs of toys that the kids have outgrown but that I promised them we wouldn't throw away, a couple not so great paintings I did, and an old Kitty Kat snow mobile that doesn't even run.  Gotta wonder if she's flipping through the want ads now trying to find a job where she won't have to interact with me or trying to figure out what is in my locker.  There is a distinct possibility that all the SOA I've been watching lately has gone to my head.  *shrug* whatever.  I'm fairly certain that my stuff will be left alone.  Hopefully it will be out of there soon.  The fact still remains that a $20 lock that I paid for was cut off, I spent almost a half hour of my time there screwing around with calls to corporate and chewing out some broad who obviously has a God complex with her managerial title at her $8/hr job.  Tough shit for me...wasted $20 and some time.

I guess that's life though.  It's a Tough Shit Tuesday for me.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better!