I never thought I’d see the day when NOBODY “knows somebody” locally that they would dare send their friends and family to. Yet, here I am. Over the course of the last several years, I’ve had a need for dozens of different service providers in our area and haven’t been able to find one solid referral from my (extensive) personal network.
I shouldn’t have to go to Angie’s List or Kudzu to get a referral to a business down the street. We should be able to ask our neighbors, friends, parents of our children’s friends, and the person in line next to us at Kroger. When you specifically go looking for quality local businesses to spend your money, it should NOT be this damned hard!
Not once have I had someone say “Oh, you have to go to my … salon, mechanic, contractor, dentist… they’re so great!” The warmest suggestion I’ve found in all this time has been “well, I’ve never had x done, but they do ok with y… I guess you could try there”. Trust me folks, if the highest recommendation you’ve got going for you is “I guess they’re ok”, I’m gonna keep looking!
When did the world at large decide that receiving substandard quality of work and service is just something you have to put up with unless you do it yourself? What the hell kind of sense does that make? “Here, I know you just filed the skin off my knuckles while you were doing my nails, but please take my $45 PLUS TIP to make up for the trouble of having to clean my blood off your equipment. See you in 2 weeks!” ????????
If I have to have screwed up fingernails, scary eyebrows, and a broken porch railing for the rest of my life, I will not spend any more money on shitty service from people who are phoning it in at work.
Local Small Business Owners… listen up… we’re out here. We have money to spend on the services you provide. We WANT to be able to refer you to our friends and become loyal repeat customers. We WANT to be able to say “why yes, I do have a fantastic mechanic, nail salon, tax person, dog walker, lawn service…” We just can’t find you (or you’re one of the ones doing a CRAPPY JOB). Give us reasons to refer you to our network and we’ll love you forever.
Courtesy of MotivatedPhotos.com
Have you ever seen a more irritating, poke-your-eyes-out-with-a-stick, vein-throbbing-in-your-forehead phrase in all your life? MY BAD.
I have teenagers. They used to be children. They used to say “Oops. I’m sorry.” when they screwed up or forgot to do a chore or stepped on someone’s toe. Not anymore though. Now it’s MY BAD.
DUDE, I KNOW IT’S YOUR BAD! Otherwise, I wouldn’t have said “you forgot to pick up your towel from the bathroom floor.” I would have said it to your sister.
Is it because I take the shackles off to let them leave the house and go to school every day? Is that where they pick it up? Is it Nickelodeon, or Radio Disney? Do we let them watch too much PG-13 television?
I really need to know… how do they suddenly go from “I’m sorry, Mommy” to “Oh. MY BAD”???? And how do you get them to go back, short of threatening their life (cause that didn’t work)? Otherwise, someone tell me how to turn off the twitching, because that look is so not working for me.
Since starting middle school 2 1/2 years ago, my middle child has had a friend whose mother just refuses to be responsible for. It never fails that if there is an event at school (or THIRTY MILES FROM SCHOOL) that this child is participating in, I will get the following phone call:
“Mommy, can we give Niki a ride to (home from) the performance? (dance, pta meeting, etc) Her mom can’t come get her (after dark, in the pouring fucking rain).” In the beginning, I felt bad that Niki wouldn’t get to participate in these things if I said no, so I became the cab for someone else’s kid.
But you know… it’s been 2 1/2 damned years. Not once has an adult in this child’s house shown up for a performance she’s in, or provided transportation for something that they signed the permission slip saying she could attend.
This weekend was my middle daughter’s birthday party, so color me shocked when (an hour before the party) I got the question.. “Mommy, can you go pick up Niki? She wants to come to the party.” ……. uh, no. We’ve got 20 guests arriving in an hour, I’m not playing taxi tonight.
“Well, she’s going to walk and she wants to know if I can walk half way and meet her?” … uh, no. We’ve got 20 guests arriving in an hour to see YOU and you’re not going to be walking down the road in the dark when they do. And if she comes, I’m NOT taking her home!”
Amazingly enough, someone managed to find it in their heart to drop the child on my doorstep during the party. Of course, she ended up inviting herself to the sleepover afterward, because she couldn’t get a ride home. Raise your hand if you’re surprised! Yeah, me neither.
Finally, yesterday about 3:30 in the afternoon, my husband had to take the girl home because it was raining and still nobody at her house would come and pick her up.
How do people do this? How the hell do they just dump their kids off for everyone else to be responsible for? How do they promise that the kid can participate in things at school and then let them down EVERY FUCKING TIME? How do they break their kids’ hearts at every turn? And, even more importantly, how do they teach their kids that it’s acceptable to beg, whine, needle, cajole, and negotiate to get other people to pick up their sorry ass slack?
Some people need to wake the hell up, get off the sofa, and be parents to the people they brought into this world. And some of us (or me) need to stop enabling those other people to dump their kids off for us to care for.
To say that I’ve been under a little stress lately might just be the understatement of my life. So yesterday, while dangling at the very tippy edge of my sanity, I posted this on Facebook:
C.R.A.N.K.Y. ……. if you love me, you will find me a nice quiet warm place to be with nothing breakable within reach and shove chocolate under the door. #thatisall
A while later, while puttering on Facebook during a conference call (which he can do… because he works from home… 
in his underwear… and nobody can see him surfing on Facebook during his calls. fucker.) my husband left this comment on my post:
My arms work?
Did I say fucker? I meant … I love you hunny bunny and always will!
After the FOREVER LONG DAY I had yesterday, I drove my cranky self home … and sat in the driveway for 5 minutes flipping a coin to see if I should go in or just go crawl into a Mexico Lindo margarita. I went inside, bracing myself for the “ZOMG MOMMY YOU HAVE TO HEAR ABOUT MY DAYYYYYY” deluge.
I opened the front door, ever so cautiously… to a nearly spotless living room. Something was definitely wrong here. I sniffed and asked “Uh, what the hell is that smell?” and a child responded (sedately…?? WHAT) “Oh, M lit candles for you.” and then “Oh, and he poured you a glass of wine too. Here you go, mommy.”
Sounds from the house started penetrating the fog that is my brain. Washing machine going. Dryer going. Someone washing the dishes. At this point, I MUST have had the confused tilted head look on my face. I mean.. it looked like my house on the outside. These looked like my children.
My husband is the most amazing guy on the planet. He marshaled the troops (kids) and they all pitched in on a “Take care of mommy” night. After asking just a couple of procedural questions, he got dinner started while I puttered on a couple of chores. With a stern look, he picked up my wine glass and told me to follow him to the bedroom. (Get your mind out of the gutter!)
He took me to our bathroom where there was a row of lit candles around the bath tub… and a small dish of chocolate truffles… and began to run a bubble bath for me. Smiling from ear to ear, I reached into the tub to stir up some bubbles. And then…DUN DUN DUN….
I stood up and collapsed into a heap of giggles in my husband’s arms. Just when I started to believe that I came home to the wrong house… NO HOT WATER. The youngest didn’t take a shower before school, so she took one after school instead and used up all the hot water.
I blew out the candles, ate all of the chocolates and checked my email. But I’ll tell you what… I was smiling the entire time.
12… twelve… TWELVE! That is the number of travel mug lids in my kitchen cabinet. No mugs. Just lids. I am not kidding!
I have no idea where they go, or how they’re getting there. Obviously there are multiple meanings to the term “travel mug”. I never dreamed it meant they’d be traveling alone… and leaving their handy dandy partners (the lids) behind!
They aren’t in my van (ok, one was, but it had the lid on it…). They aren’t on the porch. None in my husband’s car. None in the kids rooms. The dogs are NOT happy that I keep looking under the beds and finding their stashes of things (mismatched socks….. hmmmm) and shuffling things around. Still no travel mugs. I’m almost certain they have been devoured by the long lost (and obviously more vicious) cousin of the Sock Monster. I think we have a Travel Mug Monster.
To all you bigtime travel mug maker companies out there… please put one of those baby glove attachment strings between the cup and the lid. That would be so very helpful. Maybe then I would have a cabinet full of half washed mugs to bitch about instead of just those sad, lonely, pitiful looking lids who are pining for their missing mug companions. If we could save just one travel mug from this evil and malicious monster, for under $.12 a day… oh wait… wrong plea… If we could save just one travel mug from this evil and malicious monster by attaching a teeny tiny connector, life would be so much more pleasant for the people who have to be on the road with me in the mornings.
OH and while we’re on the subject… if you could all just pick one darned size of lid and stick with it, that’d be great. Have you ever spent 20 minutes fishing through (TWELVE) lids to find the one that actually fits your mug so that you can go to work? It’s annoying as hell.
So, in conclusion:
- Attach the lids to the mugs so they don’t get traumatized by the separation (and then give me one for my birthday)
- Make the lids uniform size
- Get a doggie gate for the laundry room so the “sock monsters” go away.
That is all.
Dear Mr. Big Radio Talk Show Host,
The endorsements that come out of your mouth are bullshit at its finest. Which is a shame, because your real message is amazing and changes lives. I believe in your financial advice… and until I found out how WRONG I was, I believed in your famous Endorsed Local Providers.
After hearing you talk about how your Endorsed Local Providers are the cream of the crop who “have the heart of a teacher”, I decided to take your advice and get my taxes processed by someone on that list. Your financial advice may have never steered me wrong, but so far the other companies you endorse are shit.
After spending almost 2 months repeatedly answering questions, following their suggestions, and trying desperately to get them to return a telephone call or answer an email in a timely manner… we finally got our taxes for last year filed… only to find out months later that they didn’t do the whole job. So we had to file an amendment and flurry of other paperwork to get things sorted out.
Last month, the IRS told us that none of the numbers on our personal return matched the numbers on our business return and now we have to file ANOTHER amendment.
Oh yeah… and we’re going to get audited.
OH YEAH… and the IRS rejected our otherwise qualifying Offer in Compromise, costing us SIXTY THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS.
OH YEAH AND… now these amazing Endorsed Local Providers refuse to return phone calls, return emails, or schedule an appointment so that we can file yet another amendment to fix their continued screw ups. YIPPEE!
I should have learned my lesson, but no. I thought that, since this wasn’t the first time we had been unable to find a reliable tax accountant over the last 5 years, this was just the way tax firms worked in the 2000s. Completely lazy, unresponsive, and incompetent.
Holy Cow was I wrong! Last week, I took my car to one of the shops you advertise in my area about 10 times every single episode. Good mechanics that don’t screw you out of hundreds of dollars a pop are getting harder to find, so I took another shot with someone that you recommended.
After two full business days (not including the holiday weekend), we still didn’t get a call from the garage with the ESTIMATE. So, my hubby called today and guess what… oh, I’ll bet you know… they haven’t even looked at it. Amazingly enough, not even an hour after he called, we got the estimate.
They say we’ll get a call today when the repairs are finished. Maybe. Given the track record, I’m not holding my breath.
Lesson learned.. Rest assured that this bitch won’t be using your endorsed insurance, investment, or real estate providers.
Truly,
Bitchy Momma
Dear Asshole in the SUV,
I would just like to take a moment to THANK YOU for providing my 16 year old daughter a Valuable Driving Experience this weekend. You see, if not for you deciding that her RIDICULOUS adherence to local traffic law was incredibly offensive to you and completely unnecessary, she wouldn’t have learned that a trip to Wal-Mart had the potential to be deadly. She wouldn’t have known what it felt like to be completely terrified just because someone else was an impatient DICK. She also wouldn’t have known what it was like to have someone swerve around her while blaring the horn before cutting her off in the turn lane.
So thank you, you worthless fuck, for deciding it was time to Teach a Lesson to the girl in the minivan who obviously deserved to be run off the road and into the curb so that you could get that one last piece of credit card debt from the Wal-Mart toy section. If not for that lesson, she may have done something so idiotic as to ever get behind the wheel of a car again. She may have even FINALLY *GASP* taken her drivers test after a year and a half of parent supervised practice.
I would also like to thank you for providing all of these lessons to my child while my husband was in the passenger seat and not me. It’s the only thing that saved your life and kept me out of prison. I hope that crumpled SUV on the news last night was you.
Truly,
Bitchy Momma
Don’t you just love how even the fast food places have tip jars on the counter now? Why the fuck would I tip you for putting bread and cheese on a bun and wrapping it up? Isn’t that why your boss pays you to be there? And yes, I know working fast food sucks. It also sucks that your boss only scheduled YOU alone during the 5:00 PM dinner rush. But guess what… also something you’re paid to do! It’s Subway, not Top Chef. You suck it the hell up and get through it.
Do you want to know WHY I’m not tipping you? Let me just tell you:
- You glared at me during my order (even though I’ve worked in food service for years and was nothing but polite to you) and were a cunt to the woman in front of me when she didn’t speak loudly enough to suit you.
- You gave me attitude when I actually expected you to *GASP* put some fucking vegetables on the sandwich. I mean, how the fuck dare I ask for LETTUCE!? Not even extra lettuce. Just some.
- I thought you were going to pop a vein in your forehead when I asked you for an extra sandwich wrapper so that I
Mine looked NOTHING like this!
didn’t have to be the asshole customer who holds up the line in order to separate half of one sandwich (so my child who stayed after school, in the land of Stripper Shoes Wearing Step Dancers, could have dinner before her show).
- Everything you said to me, and every other person waiting in line, was said with such venom and indignation that it was a blessing for you that the sneeze guard was between my fingers and your throat.
So.. HELL NO I’m not tipping you for doing your job badly. Want to make more money? Try being nicer. Try treating your customers with some fucking dignity. Or get an IT degree so you can be a dickhead and people just chalk it up to being in IT. But do NOT treat me and everyone else like we’re dirt on your shoes, and then look meaningfully at the tip jar when you swipe my debit card to pay for the sandwiches (with 4 olives and a half a slice of tomato).
It’s finally the end of the semester for the kids. Of course, this means that I’ve spent more of my evenings at their schools watching performances than I have spent at home. As if that isn’t enough to make me cranky, I also get to see all of these tweens/teens running around dressed as though they should be offering $10 lap dances at the Pink Pony.
I thought that the high school girls were the worst. When I attended the post-concert party last week and saw all of the 14/15/16 year old girls in dresses that plunged to the navel and barely covered their ass cheeks, I wondered if I was supposed to bring $1 bills. Has it really come to this? If you’re a teenager and you’re not fat (hell, sometimes even if you are) you take every opportunity to dress like a hooker? Where are the moms? OH YEAH… they’re wearing the same shit. Seriously! Stop teaching your daughters that the streetwalker look is “in”. It’s not. Unless, well… you know…
Last night, I got to the middle school for their holiday performances and almost had to get up and say something to the girls step team teacher. WTF! Every one of the 12/13 year old little girls were WOBBLING down the aisle wearing black shiny 4 inch spiked heels stripper shoes! Diary, in case you don’t know what a step team is (IT ROCKS) or why this would be significant, I’ve brought a YouTube video to show you.
REALLY? We’re expecting our little girls to DANCE in stripper shoes? They don’t need extra practice! This is not a career path we should be encouraging in middle school! Not to mention that I thought they were going to fall on their faces during the entire dance. I love that the girls worked so hard and that they do such a good job… but when I found out that the teacher said they are required to learn to dance in heels as part of the SCHOOL’S program, I wanted to punch her in the mouth.
Please… please can we let our children be children? Can we stop showing them how to prance around and show off their body parts to any and everyone before they even have body parts to show? They have the rest of their lives to struggle with body image and society’s fucked up message about what is supposed to be beautiful.
As much as I would love for it to be different, I’m a working mom. I’d love to bake and clean and do all of my errands while there aren’t dozens of (or 3) kids under my feet all the damned time. But, that’s not my life. I leave the house at 7:15 AM and I get home at about 4:55 PM.
Conveniently enough, this means that the kids are all home when I leave for work in the morning. They are also home 10 minutes before I arrive home after work. You do the math. That means I get exactly NO down time unless you count my hour round trip minute commute.. during which I usually get at least one phone call coming and one phone call going.
In the afternoons, they’ve got exactly 10 minutes of time to get completely ramped up on whatever sugar laden snack they grabbed as soon as they get in the door, make all of their “ZOMG… guess what happened to me today at school, on the bus, at lunch, here’s a million fucking papers for you to sign… they were due yesterday” declarations to their dad, who works from home. He, of course, is trying to finish up his work day and says “tell/show/give this to your mom when she gets home”. LUCKY ME! I seriously don’t even make it inside the house… most times they meet me on the porch yelling “Mommy, guess what?????!!!!”
Inside my head, I’m screaming “Please, for the love of Pete, let your mom have just 5 fucking minutes to get in the house before you unload. That’d be GREAT. You know what? 10 minutes would be better. I could take my shoes off. I could set my purse down. I might even be able to get to the medicine cabinet and pop a Xanax before I have to start dinner. Then you can tell me anything you want.”
Tweet Me!
Give me 31 Days and I’ll Give You a Dramatically Better Blog… Guaranteed