Truth in advertising? Bait and switch? Just plain not paying attention? First day on the job?

This is what I ordered.......

(the one on the bottom left, the hot fudge sundae shake)

And this is what I got.

Things that are not awesome - Grocery store edition

I discovered at 10:15 p.m. that we needed a few things from the grocery store. "No problem" I thought, I'll just make a quick trip over to our closest store, they're open until 11:00.

I walk quickly through the store, trying to find the things on my list. Unfortunately, the grocery geniuses had recently decided that all of the merchandise was in the wrong place and had moved everything around.

I search every isle trying to find the items that I came for, and finally just settled on the most crucial of groceries because I couldn't find where they put the other stuff.


Then I happily walked off to the check out stands only to discover that they close the regular check outs at 10:30. It was 10:45.


Now the only option for me was the self check out.


I loathe self check out.


Seriously, I really, really intensely dislike having to scan my own groceries.
Since this now was my only choice, combined with the fact that we really needed milk, I decided to just suck it up and deal with the stupid self check out.


I waited in line with the other people who were grumbling about the stupid self check out, and watched while the one and only worker assigned to the self check out ran back and forth between the 4 different stations, resetting the machines, deleting things that scanned twice, figuring out how to scan stuff that wouldn't scan...............


It seemed to me that if the store were just to have this same guy open a regular check stand, that everyone would have made it out of the store much faster.


FINALLY, it was my turn.
I took the first item out of my cart, scanned it then put it in the bag.
I took the second item out of the cart, scanned it then put it in the bag.


So far so good. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.


I scanned a gallon of milk, however, I didn't think it should be put in a bag, so I returned it to the shopping cart.


The stupid self checkout machine started beeping at me "PLEASE PLACE THE ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA!"


Only there really wasn't room to place the gallon of milk in the stupid bagging area. I found a spot very near the edge of the platform to sit it in so that the stupid self check out machine would stop yelling at me.
The next problem was that I was buying three gallons of milk. There was no way that I could fit two more gallons of milk in the stupid bagging area.
But I had me an idea!


I scanned the second gallon of milk but instead of trying to find room in the stupid bagging area, I put it back in the cart and lifted up the first gallon of milk then sat it back down.
I was feeling rather clever until "DO NOT REMOVE ITEMS FROM THE BAGGING AREA! PLACE THE SCANNED ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA!!!"

I must have looked like I was going to cry because the employee assigned to the self check out came over, scanned the remaining milk, typed some special code into the stupid machine then put the milk (all three gallons) into my cart.

I thanked him, then picked up the tomatoes from my cart.

Were you aware that tomatoes come without a bar code?

I was standing there, wondering what I should do, listening to the stupid machine tell me to "SCAN NEXT ITEM OR PROCEED TO CHECK OUT!! SCAN NEXT ITEM OR PROCEED TO CHECK OUT!! SCAN NEXT ITEM OR PROCEED TO CHECK OUT!!"

I finally figured out that I needed to indicate that I was buying produce, then place the tomatoes on the stupid self check out scanner to be weighed. Easy enough, but then it asked me what kind of produce it was.
Stupid machine, they're tomatoes.
A screen came up with all sorts of different produce. I scrolled my way through all of the fruits and vegetables until I found the tomatoes.

Do you have any idea how many different varieties of tomatoes there are?
I was pretty sure that the store didn't stock even half of the different tomatoes that were shown on the stupid machine.

I kept looking through the tomato pictures, trying to find a picture that looked like my tomatoes, or just trying to remember what the sign said about the tomatoes that I was trying so desperately to purchase........

Self check out employee guy came over and typed in his magic words until my tomatoes showed up on the screen and the stupid self check out machine was able to charge me the correct amount.
Self check out employee guy then needed to go rescue a teenager who was attempting to buy a candy bar, but his stupid self check out machine wouldn't scan the candy bar.

That's right folks, ONE candy bar, and the kid couldn't get it to work because the stupid EVIL self check out machine didn't recognize the item.

I picked up the tomatoes and put them in my cart........returned them to the stupid bagging area so the stupid, evil self check out machine would stop yelling at me again.

I finally got to the last item in my shopping cart. It was a small pan of brownies from the clearance area of the bakery. (Hey, I said that I only got the most crucial groceries)

I scanned the brownies, which had been marked down from $5.00 to $2.00, and much to my dismay, the stupid, evil self check out machine charged me full price!!!

Now, I was beyond angry. As much as I love brownies, there was NO WAY that I was going to pay $5.00 for them when they were marked $2.00!
If I had been using a regular HUMAN cashier, they would have picked up on that and fixed it even before there was a problem.
Fortunately, the self check out employee guy came to my rescue once again (I did have to wait for him to help another teenager who was buying a bottle of Gatorade) I explained to SCOEG that my brownies should have only been $2.00. This time he typed something into the computer on is desk, and magically, it changed the price on my screen.

I had finally scanned all of my items, so I proceeded to check out. Eventually, I made the stupid, evil self check out machine understand that I wanted to pay with a debit card, then made the payment and left as quickly as I could. (following the instructions of the self check out to "REMOVE ALL ITEMS FROM THE BAGGING AREA!")

I'm pretty sure that from now on, if it's past 10:30, I will drive across town to the Wal Mart so that I can have the option of NOT using self check out if I so wish.
Plus I'll get the added bonus of seeing the peOple of Wal Mart, which is something that I don't usually get to see at our local grocery store.
Another thing that will not be seen at our local store would be the grown woman, yelling at the stupid self check out machine "I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT KIND OF TOMATOES THESE ARE! I'M GOING AS FAST AS I CAN! I CAN'T PUT THAT MILK IN THE BAGGING AREA, THERE ISN'T ROOM! I'M SCANNING AND SCANNING THIS ITEM, WHY CAN'T YOU SEE IT? THE BROWNIES ARE MARKED DOWN TO $2.00!! I REPEAT, THE BROWINES ARE MARKED DOWN TO $2.00!!
WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME NOT TO TAKE THE ITEMS FROM THE BAGGING AREA? JUST 20 SECONDS AGO YOU TOLD ME TO PUT THEM THERE!!!!!"

Would you like some crazy sauce to go with your tamiflu?

Actual conversation we had while ordering pizza at a popular place to buy pizzas "Hot and ready"

Pale and sickly looking cashier girl: "Hi, welcome to Tiny Cheesers*, how are you this evening?"

Us: "We're doing well, how are you?"

PASLCG: "I'm sick"

Us: ?????

PASLCG: "Yeah, I really don't feel good, and I have to be here for another two hours."

Me: "Oh I'm sorry to hear that."

DH: "That's too bad."

PASLCG: "Well, I'm pretty sure I've got the flu, I really don't feel good. What can I get for you?"

DH: "We don't want the flu."

PASLCG: "I'm just the cashier, I won't get you sick."

DH: "We've had our shots so we'll have two hot and ready pepperonis and we have a coupon for a free order of crazy bread"

PASLCG: "That will be $10.71."

We pay the girl and another healthier looking girl comes from the back, hands us our food and we leave.

Seriously, if you're at work and you are sick GO HOME! If you are the manager of such an establishment and one of your employees is sick, SEND THEM HOME!

* Not the real name of the establishment, if you use your imagination, I'm sure you can figure it out.

If you are the owner of such an establishment, please be sure to properly instruct your employees on what to do when they are sick.

If you are with the health department, contact me and I will provide you with the location of the establishment, and the date and time we were there.

He's a big boy now!

Yesterday, we finally moved Max out of his toddler bed and into his "big boy" twin sized bed.

We spent the better part of the afternoon moving things around in his room, and finally moving the big bed from the storage room into his room.

I've never seen him so excited!

He was running around in circles, dancing back and forth.....



The thing is, this bed is much higher than his short little toddler bed. (Seriously, this bed is huge. It's a captains pedestal with two sets of drawers)
I never worried about him falling out of the toddler bed because it was so close to the floor. In fact, many times I would go into his room to check on him, only to find him sleeping in the middle of his floor on top of a pile of blankets and stuffed animals.

I told him he would probably need a railing for the side of the bed, so he wouldn't fall out.

DH wasn't completely convinced that we needed the railing, until I pointed out that the $20.00 for the railing would cost less than the co-pay for the ER if he fell out and got hurt.

We had a late dinner, so at 9:00 I was ready to go buy the railing. I decided to take Brielle and Aaron with me and as we were walking out the door Max started to follow.
"No Max, you can't come with us this time."
"But I want to come with you! We need to buy my railing."
"No, it's too late for you to be out buddy, you need to stay home and get ready for bed."
Then Max says:

"I CAN'T GO TO BED NOW! I DON'T HAVE A RAILING ON MY BED AND I WILL FALL OF AND BUST MY HEAD!
AND I DON'T HAVE A VERY STRONG HEAD!!"

I explained to him that he didn't actually need to go to bed, but just put his pajamas on and be ready to go to bed.

So the three of us got in the car and headed to the Mart of Wal.

When we were nearly there, we noticed fireworks in the sky. We automatically assumed that they were in celebration of Bagsalody Day.

When we got in the store, we got our mandatory shopping cart with the squeaky wheel that causes everyone to stare at us and mock us as we're walking by, and headed back to find the railing. We looked through the isle with the cribs and toddler beds and finally found a bed railing.

For $32.00.

I knew I had seen one there for $20 the last time I looked.
I finally found the place where the less expensive railings had been. They were all gone.

Stupid Wal Mart.

As much as I love Max, I wasn't about to spend $32 when I knew I could get one for $20.

I started banging my head against the stupid shelf. I DID NOT want to drive to another Wal Mart. I whined for a while, looked around the aisle a bit more, then back on the shelf (you know, in case one of the cheaper railings just materialized out of nowhere while I had my back turned) then decided to leave and make the trek across town to the other Wal Mart.

For some reason, as we were leaving we walked down a different aisle and lo and behold, what was sitting there right in the middle of the shelf, surrounded by items that were completely unrelated to bed railings?

One box containing the last $20 bed rail.

I might have done the happy dance right there in the middle of Wal Mart. (my kids just love it when I do the happy dance in public) (they really do)

When we got home, Max was in his pajamas and exceedingly excited about the new bed rail.
We sat down on his bedroom floor and opened the box. The outside said that there was some assembly required, but that no tools were needed to assemble the rail.

I tried to dump the parts out on the floor, but they were wedged inside the box so tightly that it took two of us to pry them out of there.
I pulled apart all of the plastic bags then read the instructions. The first line said (and I kid you not)
"Sit down, and take a deep breath."

So we all sat down and took a deep breath.

Then the instructions said not to be overwhelmed and assured us that the assembly would be easier than it looked.

The instructions were numbered and I followed each one exactly, until I got to the part where we had to assemble the lower rail. I put it together, and it promptly fell apart.
I tried it again. It fell apart again.
I even tried to take another deep breath, but it still fell apart.

I was beginning to wonder if I should have shelled out the extra twelve dollars for the other railing. I think it came assembled.

The instructions didn't even any diagrams to follow, so we just threw out the directions and tried to make it look like the picture on the box, and guess what?
I got it together the first time!

As it turns out, those directions left out a whole, crucial step in assembling the railing.

Stupid instructions.

I have to wonder if the person writing these instructions was about to quit their job the next day and really wanted to cause a problem for the company who manufactures them.
Or they are a practical jokester, and giggled the whole time they were writing the instructions, knowing the frustration that it would cause parents.
Or, whoever was translating the the directions from the language they were originally written in, got distracted and completely missed step 5.

Either way, we finally got the railing put together, and Max got to sleep in his big boy bed. I checked on him a few times after he fell asleep and guess where he was?

Laying right next to the wall, as far away from the rail as possible.

Overreacting over an inch?

Warning: Rant ahead.

Yesterday I wanted to make Brielle a new workout outfit. She wanted matching leggings and a top, so we went to our local fabric store to buy some black spandex fabric.

I arrived at the store with my 40% off coupon, which was a good thing because the fabric was several dollars more per yard than the other fabric store that I frequent.

We took the bolt of fabric to the cutting table, took a number and patiently waited for our turn.
I should have known that something was up when the lady in front of me finished and rolled her eyes at me as she walked away from the cut table.

When our number was called, I stepped up to the table, handed the bolt to the girl and asked for two yards.

She looked at the bolt and said "I'm not sure if there's that much here" then she unrolled all of the fabric and started to measure it. She seemed to be having great difficulty deciding which end of the fabric to start measuring from. She finally decided on an end to start with and tried to line it up with the yardstick.
I immediately noticed that the edge of the fabric had been previously cut at an angle, and she was measuring from the longest edge of the fabric. I pointed this out to her, and she tried several times to straighten the edge, she was about to trim it even and then decided that it wasn't that uneven (which it was)
She continued to struggle with measuring the fabric, complaining that the spandex just wouldn't cooperate, and finally measured the two yards and there was just barely an inch of fabric left over.
She asked another employee what she should do with this remaining inch of fabric.

"You can offer to sell it to her for 50% off."

She turned to me and asked if I wanted to buy the remaining inch of fabric for half price. I stood there dumbfounded and said "You're really going to cut that off?"

She looked at me with a straight face and said "Yes, unless you want to buy it. We will give it to you for half price."

Then I said "ARE YOU SERIOUS? I have NEVER been to a fabric store where they were this close on measurement and haven't just included the extra inch or two."
She replied "I'm sorry, this is my first day here and I'm just doing what I was told to do."
Then the older lady chimed in "We need to come out even on our measuring. it needs to be exact because sometimes they measure the fabric at the checkstand and we need to be correct."If you want to buy the extra fabric, we will sell it to you for half price."

I then pointed out to the older lady that the edge of the fabric had been cut unevenly on an angle to start with and the girl jumped in and said "It was only a quarter of an inch and I already gave that to you!"
I knew for sure that this wasn't true because I had watched her measure from the very edge of the fabric.

By now I was fuming. "What on earth are you going to do with one inch of fabric?!!! You can't do anything with one inch of fabric. You're only going to throw it away, I can't believe that you are really going to cut that off!"

"If you want it" said the older lady "we would need to charge you for it. If they measure it at the checkstand, the numbers need to add up."

I couldn't believe what she was saying. Never in my life have I seen them measure fabric at the checkstand at this particular fabric/craft store.

So I told her to go ahead and cut off the inch.

She trimmed off the inch (with much difficulty, I might add) handed me the fabric and told me to have a nice day.

I went to the checkstand and paid for my fabric. Nobody measured the fabric again. I kind of wished that I had because when I got home, I measured the fabric and it was one inch short.

I measured it again, it was still one inch short.

I measured it a third time. You guessed it, One. Inch. Short.

This was spandex fabric and I think she might have stretched it a bit as she was measuring it, either that or the yardstick on the cutting table is short.

Over the years, I have spent literally thousands of dollars on fabric at this particular fabric store. I have been buying fabric there for over 20 years!

Tomorrow I will call the manager. Do you think I should ask her to refund the money they overcharged me on that inch of fabric that I didn't get.




This really happened, I only wish I was making it up.

The reason why I feel like beating my head against a wall. Again and again and again and again.........

So, as it turns out, due to some strange things going on with his teeth, CJ needs to have some surgery done.

When we first met with the oral surgeon in December, he hadn't seen the x rays yet (I think the office may have lost them) and they couldn't find the letter sent to him by our dentist. He spoke in general terms about what would need to be done, and said he would request another x ray from our dentist and call me in a few days. He felt that we could schedule the surgery for spring break.
Several weeks later I still haven't heard from him, so I call the office to check on things. About an hour later, the doctor himself calls me. He has just looked at the x ray (? just looked at it?) and feels like this really can't wait until spring break, and we should have the surgery right away.
I speak with the office staff who gets us on the schedule as soon as possible which ends up being 4 weeks later.

That would be 28 days. (remember this number)

I assume everything is OK, and we make arrangements for the surgery to be Feb 20.
Last week, I get a call from the office telling me what the estimate for the surgery will be, what our insurance will cover and how much we sill have to pay. At the time I received the call, I was half asleep, dealing with a super nasty headache and the numbers didn't really sink in until DH came home and I told him about the call.
The numbers were all wrong, because we knew darn well that our insurance would cover more than what the office girl said.

DH called our insurance. They had no record of anything being submitted for an estimate or pre approval from their office.

I called the Oral surgeon's office the next day.
Me: "We spoke with our insurance because we're pretty sure that they will cover more than you quoted, but they couldn't tell us anything for sure because they've never received anything from your office."
Office girl: "Yes, we submitted that. We just fax it in, and they fax us back a copy of your benefits and we figure it out."
Me: "They have no record of that."
OG: "Well, I can submit it again"
Me: "Please do that."

The next day, we call the insurance. Still no record of anything being sent. We also learn that we need to get a pre authorization before the surgery.

I call the office again.
Me: "Our insurance still hasn't received anything from you, and we need to get pre authorized before the surgery."
OG: "Well, it says right here that it was sent."
Me: "Well, they still don't have any record of it."
OG: "I can send a pre estimate, do you want me to do that?"
Me: "YES!"
Because basically, that was what was supposed to have been sent in the first place. (and what I thought had been sent)

This week. Insurance still doesn't have any record of anything being sent.

I call the office. Again.
Me: "Our insurance still doesn't have anything from you. Did you send the pre estimate?"
OG: "Yes, but we haven't received anything back."
Me: "We also need to get pre authorization before the surgery. It's scheduled for this Friday. That's only three days away."
OG: "Hmmm........I guess what I can do is call the insurance company and give them the dental codes over the phone."
Me: (sarcastically in my head "could you really?")
Me: (out loud) "Yes, that would be great. Please do that."
OG: "I'll do that and call you back."

The next day, she calls me back.
OG: "I just spoke with your insurance, and got the pre authorization over the phone."
Me: "Great!"
OG: "And your insurance won't cover any of the anesthesia."
Me: "According to what I just read in our benefits, our insurance will cover 80% of anesthesia."
OG: (giggling) "Well, that's kind of tricky. They might cover it, and they might not. It just depends on whether or not they find it dentally necessary."
Me: "My son is 6 feet tall and nearly a black belt in karate. I'm pretty sure the doctor will want him asleep for this, because if he's awake, he might fight back."
(and just between us, I've met the doctor, and I'm pretty sure CJ could take him)
OG: "Well, they also said they won't cover the rest of the surgery until they see the x rays."

WHAT????

OK, the surgery is in two days, and she's just now finding out that they need to send x rays to the insurance?

Seriously?

This doctor is a preferred provider with our insurance. One would think that the office staff would know the insurance policies.

YA THINK???

So today we call the insurance and find out that they do indeed need to see the x rays before approving the surgery, and it may take up to 20 days after receiving the x ray to approve the surgery.

Which is tomorrow.

We call the office. They are sending the x rays today.

Now if you do the math, I scheduled this surgery 4 weeks ago, plenty of time to send x rays and allow for the 20 day approval time from the insurance.

I just called to cancel the surgery for tomorrow. OG was annoyed. Especially when I asked her WHY the x rays hadn't been sent earlier.
OG: "Well, sometimes they don't require it."

YOU ARE A PREFERRED PROVIDER THROUGH OUR INSURANCE COMPANY!!! YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF THE BENEFITS, AND YOU SHOULD KNOW WHEN THEY REQUIRE X RAYS!!!


So, I just rescheduled the surgery.


For March.


Spring break.