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Dec 13, 2010

A Message On Driving In Snow

December 13, 2010 By

Note: I wrote this post as the third post EVER on this blog. And look, five years later it is still relevant! Please enjoy this repost today (slightly edited for relevance) since I doubt many of you were stopping by to read it the first time.
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A message to Ohio drivers on this snowy day:

Hi everyone. Most of you have lived in this state for more than one year, I’d guess. Therefore, you know what Ohio weather can be like, and understand that our unofficial motto is, “Ohio: Don’t like the weather? Wait 5 minutes.” So it should also come as no surprise that while Ohio celebrates all four seasons, it doesn’t necessarily throw them at us in the correct order. And when it does, it can be sudden.

Yes, it was a beautiful fall, with many warm days. But today it’s snowing, and has been on-and-off for the past week. Now I know that sometimes that takes a little adjustment, but you’ve all been through this. I know you didn’t learn to drive only on clear, sunny days. Surely you can remember how to drive in the snow by the time you reach the end of your driveways.

And yet you still can’t figure it out. You still drive like idiots, causing massive backups, traffic jams, and accidents, all because of a little snow (or rain the rest of the year). I’ve noticed that you tend to fall into one of two categories:

The fraidy-cats: You’re probably the ones who used to live in the south and never saw snow before, or maybe you were raised to be scared of anything. I don’t know, but why must you drive twenty-friggin’-miles-an-hour on the highway? OK fine, 25 miles an hour if you’re right behind the salt truck. Yes, the road is slick when it’s snowing, but going that slow is actually more likely to cause an accident, since those of us who drive at reasonable speeds have to slam on our brakes to avoid running over you like a speed bump, which then makes us skid. Oh, and please, if you do speed up, don’t slam on the brakes the minute you start to go over a bridge – that just makes it worse.

The invincibles: Of course you love to drive fast – you’re either 18 and have no sense of your own mortality because you only read the Cliff Notes of The Great Gatsby in school or you’re a 40-something man driving your mid-life crisis sports car trying to prove you still have testosterone even though your hair is running for the border. I don’t care about your reason – it’s SNOWING! Driving 80 mph and weaving in and out of traffic is a sport for a sunny summer day, not a snowstorm. And while I could care less if you want to wrap your ribs around the smashed up melted plastic bits of your steering wheel and an unsuspecting tree, I do have a husband and daughters I want to get home to see, and if I wreck and die because of you, I will gladly spend my afterlife kicking your ass.

So, to all my fellow Ohio drivers: please drive carefully today. Snow does require more caution when driving, but it doesn’t mean you can’t drive at a reasonable speed. Just use your brain, people.

Lecture over. Now go drive safe.

Filed Under: rant, snow Tagged With:


Nov 3, 2010

Apple Thinks I’m a Mom-Blogger Thief

November 3, 2010 By
Last week I had a very pleasant surprise when I received an e-mail informing me that I was selected as a winner of an iPad from a drawing held at BlogWorld in Las Vegas. There was much celebrating in my house that night, for I’m never that lucky and especially not with a prize as big as an iPad.
A few days later, it arrived in the mail. I had already been reading up on features and apps I wanted to download, but I was waiting to see which model it was. I received the 16GB wifi model, which is a very nice product, but Aaron and I talked it over and decided that the 3G version of the device would be even more useful.

So yesterday I made the trip out to the Apple Store to upgrade my new precious to an even shinier model. I carried it into the store – still in the box it was mailed in – and took it up to the counter. I quickly met the eyes of an employee and put on my best smile to attract his attention. “Hi, I received this iPad as a prize when I went to a blog conference recently, and while I love it a lot, I’d really like to trade up to the 3G model.”

The man looked the box over carefully, reading the label, peeking inside to verify I did have an iPad in there and checking to see which model it was. “Oh, OK. Well, do you have the receipt for it?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, no. I received it as a prize. What you see here is all that came with it. But I can show you the e-mail they sent me.” I took out my iPhone and quickly pulled up the e-mail.

He looked closely at the screen. “Hmm…but it doesn’t have any receipt for purchase on it. Let me go find someone to help you with this.”

While he was away looking for a manager another store employee, who was standing there listening the entire time, took the iPad out of the shipping box and said he’d throw away the box for me.

The other employee came back with a manager, who told me without a receipt they couldn’t do an exchange. “We just don’t know where this iPad came from,” he explained, “It could have been purchased in a number of places, and we’re rather you return it to that place of purchase. A lot of our products are popular, and there’s a lot of theft, you know.”

I again explained that I received it as a prize and showed him the e-mail from the PR company who sent it to me, along with the shipping slip. I was confused at this point, and starting to feel like they thought I had stolen this iPad. “Your company makes the product. Why should it matter where it was bought? It’s still the same product. I don’t want any cash for it – I’m only asking to pay the extra money and upgrade to the 3G model.”

“Well, without the receipt, we can’t do anything for you here,” the manager responded. He then smiled and added, “But it’s a popular product, so you shouldn’t have any trouble unloading it some other way.”

Unloading it. Seriously? I hoped for a moment that maybe “unloading” was new hipster-speak for “finding a legitimate way to trade it in somewhere else” but quickly realized that they totally suspected me of stealing this iPad.

“I don’t want to sell it,” I insisted, “I want to USE it. But the 3G version would be more useful for me, so that’s why I’m trying to exchange it.”

“Well, we have to have some proof that the serial number on this model matches what was purchased. If you can produce a receipt with the serial number on it, then we can help you. Like I said, iPads are hot. I’m sure you won’t have any trouble unloading it.”

I was furious. I wasn’t angry about the exchange policy – if that’s their policy, fine. What I’m still angry about is the way I was treated. I don’t care how popular their products are – when I walk into their store, I expect to be treated with respect, not as an enemy.

From the moment I said I didn’t have a receipt, nothing else I said mattered to them. I was no longer a customer – I was a scammer. Forget the fact that I was planning to spend $130 to upgrade. Forget that I was likely to buy a case and other accessories to go with it. Even with an e-mail, a valid explanation and a shipping box showing where it came from, they couldn’t help me and could only suggest I turn to a reseller market to make a little cash off of it.

Oh, and about that shipping box: as soon as they made it clear they wouldn’t help me, I asked for the box back. The employee who originally helped me looked surprised as to why I wanted it back. “I’m not walking out of here holding an iPad box for all to see. It screams: ‘Mug me’ don’t you think?” They grudgingly found my box and gave it back to me. I packed everything back up and left.
When I got home, I took a closer look at the box. On the original label was the original sender’s address, which just happened to be Apple HQ. And there was an order number, which was a valid order number when I entered it on Apple’s website. Not to mention the iPad’s serial number was also on a sticker on the outside of the box. Yet the store employees refused to look for any evidence to back up my claim, and nearly threw out my proof.
I’ve experienced my share of bad customer service, but this trip to the Apple Store was one of the worst yet. I was made to feel ashamed, as if I was doing something illegal, just for wanting to exchange an unopened product for a more expensive one. It completely stripped away all of the excitement I had for the iPad.
I’m still unabashedly appreciative and grateful to the company who hosted the giveaway and randomly selected me as their winner. And I still hope to get the iPad upgraded to the 3G version somehow. With 3G, we can take it with us in the car or in other places that don’t have wifi, and I plan to load it up with apps for Cordy. There have been several apps designed for children with autism, and I’m hoping the iPad can be a tool for Cordy as well as a useful tool for me, too.
But I have absolutely no respect for Apple and their poor customer service at this point, and will tell my experience to anyone I meet.
I didn’t deserve to be treated like a thief.

Edited to add: After all that drama, it was suggested in the comments that I try Walmart. I took it to my local Walmart, and they let me exchange it with little hassle. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Apple could stand to learn a few lessons in customer service from Walmart.

Filed Under: me me me, rant Tagged With:


Sep 1, 2010

Don’t Mess With My Money

September 1, 2010 By

I’m generally an easy-going person. It takes a lot to make me really angry, and there are generally few topics that can make me go totally unhinged. Messing with my kids tops the list, of course, but other notable triggers include social injustice, intentionally rude people, and cheating me in some way.

I’m also very protective of our money. Not that we have a lot at the moment, with Aaron unemployed and all, but what we do have I guard over like it’s the lost treasure of Atlantis. Every penny is accounted for.

Which means you can imagine how I flipped when I recently discovered someone was writing forged checks from our checking account. They had somehow stolen our bank account number and printed up new checks with a different name, address and phone number.

At first, I tried to give them then benefit of the doubt. Oh, maybe this guy got new checks and accidentally wrote down the wrong account number, I thought. This will be an easy fix by the bank, we’ll get our money back, and I won’t need to turn into the Incredible Hulk.

But then my theory fell apart. The address and phone number on the check was for a business in Indiana. The name on the check was not associated with the business. And the bank listed on the check was also not the same bank as ours, despite having the same routing number. It was definitely a forgery.

The bank has been very kind in helping us through this, especially considering I must have looked like a crazed woman as I fumed at being told I’d have to shut down my checking account and get a new one. I’ve had that account for over 15 years. The account number was never listed anywhere because I had it memorized – and now I have to learn a new number, as well as change all of my direct deposit and debit information for the bazillion utility bills and loans attached to the account.

I feel completely violated that my checking account number was somehow found and used to steal money from our account. Not as violated as I felt when our house was broken into and robbed, but enough to wish a lot of karmic harm to that individual. It’s a struggle to earn what money we have, and it pisses me off that someone thinks they can earn their living by stealing accounts and using the money from other people.

The stolen money has been given back to us by the bank, thank goodness. But I’m still angry about the incident. When we filed the police report, the office gave us our report number and basically told us no one would be looking into it. I appreciate the honesty, but it frustrates me even more that this guy (or woman – the check was written to a plus-size women’s clothing store) got away with it because it isn’t enough money for them to bother investigating it further.

We have a new checking account now, and once we pick up our new checks and check cards we’ll even have access to it. (Seriously, waiting a week for my check card is like making me live a week without any money at all – who has time to physically go to the bank for cash?)

I know we’re lucky to have caught it right at the first fake check. The check number wasn’t even that far off from our current sequence, so it could have easily slipped past if I wasn’t (obsessively) examining the account daily and looking at every check image that shows up in our account.

The funny part? When I told my mom our account had been compromised, she immediately launched into a lecture about how this will be all the more common now because of how we use plastic cards for everything and it’s so easy to steal credit card numbers electronically. I think she’s convinced the world will someday end because of our reliance on computers, like our computers will suddenly steal our credit card numbers and buy parts to start building Terminators to enslave humanity. I cut her off with, “Yeah, but this wasn’t my check card – it was all paper fraud, mom! Old-school paper checks!” Ha.

I hope you check your accounts online daily. It’s too easy for a scammer to steal a little bit here, a little bit there, and you might not even notice. Don’t let them take money from you, too – keep your account passwords safe, destroy any paper account information and monitor them vigilantly.

And if you ever meet someone who thinks it’s no big deal to use forged checks? Kick him in the balls for me, OK?

Filed Under: daily life, money Tagged With:


Aug 5, 2010

Some Book Titles Need No Explanation

August 5, 2010 By

…and then there’s a book like this one.

Discuss.

Filed Under: clearly insane, random Tagged With:


Jul 13, 2010

Full Circle

July 13, 2010 By

It was almost exactly four years ago that our house was robbed. A man living across the street from us watched our house carefully, finding the one day of the week when no one was home for several hours and then broke our back window and helped himself to everything of value.

The new laptop I had purchased just three days prior – intended for my first BlogHer trip – was gone, along with Aaron’s laptop, our game systems and games, the video camera, and several other small electronics. The videos of Cordy’s first steps and silly moments were on the tapes he took with the camera. My engagement ring – set out to be re-sized – was stolen as well.

None of those items were ever recovered, even though we provided the serial numbers for everything. But thanks to my eye for tiny details, I spied a small drop of blood on the curtain, and it was through that speck of DNA evidence that the thief was caught several months later.

However, even being a repeat offender doesn’t guarantee more than a slap on the wrist, and the thief was released on probation, with a restraining order preventing him from coming near us or our house for 5 years. The final part of his sentence was a requirement that he pay us for our insurance deductible.

We never expected to see the money. Truthfully, I didn’t even care about the money. My sense of security had been shattered and I didn’t even feel safe in my own home. We always take precautions of locking doors and windows, but it wasn’t until then that security systems or other additional precautions to protect our home had even crossed my mind. Replacing the items we lost was costly, but the greater cost to me was in trying to replace any comfort I felt while at home.

As the years have passed, the sharp emotions of that day have dulled. Of course, we keep the house locked up and protected more than ever now, but I’m no longer waking up in a panic in the middle of the night, double-checking locks and systems I know are secure. Most of the items that were stolen were replaced.

But this past week, a letter arrived in the mail from the courts addressed to Aaron. I was completely puzzled, wondering if we had done something wrong, like missed a parking ticket or something like that. Instead, I opened the envelope and found a check for the same amount as our insurance deductible, with a receipt stating it was a restitution payment from the thief!

I never expected to see that money. Holding that check gave me just a little more faith in karma and in the system. It added one tiny bit of closure to an otherwise painful memory, and it just happened to show up during a time when we really need it, too. I only hope that the thief has used this past four years to turn his life around, finding a productive manner of contributing to society instead of shattering windows to take treasured belongings – and peace of mind – from others. Or at the very least, that he no longer lives anywhere near us and never comes into our neighborhood again.

Filed Under: daily life, memories Tagged With: