Milky? Really? My fear is that the youth of our community has gone soft. Either that, or this wall was tagged by an 88 year old who is affectionately called "Milky" by his posse due to the inch-thick cataract in his right eye.
Although the town I live in is large, it isn't a huge CITY. It's coastal and kind of quiet, for the most part. In fact, there are probably more "retirement communities" per square mile here than anywhere else in the world. It's chock full of very old people who live here in the summer and then flock to Florida the second the temperature hits "Ooooo, my hip hurts!"
Sure, just like everywhere else, there are some hooligans around but they're harmless. There isn't much graffiti in this town so when I come across some, I'd expect it to have been put there by a rebel - someone who skips school, someone who steals Mom & Dad's Kaluha, someone who is rough and tough, someone who wants to say a big "fuck you" to THE MAN.
Dear Squirrel On Stone Hedge Drive,
I get it. No, really, I get it. You weren't sure which side of the street you really wanted to be on. It's totally not your fault that your indecision happened to invade your marble-size brain as I happened to turn the corner onto Stone Hedge Drive.
It's a beautiful street in a beautiful neighborhood so I can easily see how confused you might be. In fact, you're lucky you live there. Although, I guess you can basically live everywhere or anywhere, right? But yeah, such a gorgeous street might make you doubt your decision to leave the left side of it for the right side of it. Left side? Right side? So many choices! So little time! It's a decision that must have weighed heavily on your mind CONSIDERING YOU STOOD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD TRYING TO DECIDE FOR 3 MINUTES IGNORING MY HONKS AND FLAILING ARMS.
I'm sorry. Forgive my outburst. It's just frustrating. I mean, you're a squirrel. You can pretty much go wherever you want, whenever you want. But I guess having so many options would make anyone a little skittish, I guess. I get that way in the tampon aisle of the grocery store; I know which ones are better for the environment but the other ones are more likely to prevent against leakage, but the first ones have an applicator that is smoother but....well, let me just say I can relate.
But... for a second there... a brief second, while I was at a complete DEAD STOP, I was fairly certain your little creepy eyes locked onto mine. You stared. I squirmed. I could be wrong, but I believe I saw you give your bushy, gray tail a little cavalier swish back-and-forth, as though you were mocking me a little. Were you? I hope not.
I wasn't trying to hurt you in any way. I hope you believe that. I'm an animal lover. Well, except for birds. And bats. And mice. I'm partial to squirrels but I would never hurt you. I only stepped on the gas a teeeeny, tinnnnny bit to try and force your hand. I wanted you to pick which side of the street you really wanted to be on, and just GET THERE. I'm sorry if I scared you. I saw your little heart pumping right through your fur and I felt badly, but still - you held your ground. Impressive.
I'm not mad at you. Sure, it was embarrassing when someone honked behind me. I don't think they were able to see you, so they probably thought I fell asleep in my car in the middle of the road. The expletives yelled at me only stung for a second.
So, um, can I talk to you about something, though?
You have eyes, right? I mean, I know you can see. And I know you're fairly intelligent. Don't you, like, hide acorns and then go back to them months later? So, with all due respect, I have a question: Did you have to sacrifice the "decision making" part of your brain in order to be able to have that part of your brain which allows you to remember the two-thirds of an acorn you put in the dirt in the far right corner, under the Dogwood tree with the white flowers of some random house 8 blocks away?
Or does it go deeper than that? Have you and your squirrel buddies hatched some sinister plot against me. How come you always [always] decide to MAYBE, possibly, POTENTIALLY, want to cross the road then stop midway across and just STAY THERE when I am driving along, minding my own business? There were three cars in front of me. You waited patiently until they passed. Why me? Why do you always pick me?
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you are safe. I'm glad you finally decided to run BACK across the street to where you originally started. The grass is probably greener on that side of beautiful Stone Hedge Drive anyway.
Love,
Sherri
In case you are new to this blog, I feel the need to preface this post by stating that I live in a really lovely, pretty place. The fact that my next-door neighbors are disgusting slobs should not taint the rest of my lovely neighbors and neighborhood. Their house was once very cute, with nice grass, nice flowers, a deck and a pool. Now, it looks as though it has been hit with a SCUD missile.
This family is just one bad apple on our neighborhood tree. One rotten, gnarly, wormy, slimy, disgusting, bad apple. I have seriously contemplated buying the domain name myneighborsareslobs.com and starting a cool project where people send in pictures of their disgusting neighbors. A way to vent, perhaps.
As detailed in a previous post, the level of my dislike for my filthy next-door neighbors is off the charts. Over the years since they moved in next-door the following has happened:
- Mowgli [my name for their hairy, unibrowed 7 year-old daughter] scratched the entire side of my car with her scooter which she decided to ride up and down my driveway one day.
- Mowgli and their 10 yr. old son [Sassy Sally - he often dresses like a girl and stands outside doing "jazz hands" and no I'm not making this up] threw tons of garbage - toys, plastic, giant rocks, over the fence and tried to get my dogger to consume toys, plastic, giant rocks on more than one occasion.
- Their vicious dog [one of three] bit me.
- All three dogs chased me and Winnister while on a walk. Twice. One of these episodes resulted in another neighbor shepherding us into his garage until the pack of wild mongrels was gone.
- They dumped unbelievable amounts of dog hair [yes, I said... dog hair] at the foot of my driveway for weeks. You can read about that and see pictures here, since I know you're scratching your head right about now and saying to yourself, "Huh? DOG hair?"
- The mother [and by "mother" I mean the scary, teeth-missing, pill-popping, looks pregnant but isn't, always barefoot with dirty, black feet, looks like she just rolled out of a dumpster and probably smells that way too, creepster who can't control her kids or dogs] almost ran me off the road.
[This picture doesn't do the pile justice because in order to get it, I had to sneak up to the fence separating our properties, and JUMP, holding my camera above my head and snap the picture.]
By the looks of the pile, I'm still holding out hope they are moving. Or maybe Sanford And Son just moved in. Or, the junk pile while just swallow them all whole.
I recently detailed [somewhat] my conversation with one of the several Comcast Customer Service Representatives that didn't provide me with anything remotely resembling "customer service" for some internet problems I was experiencing. The story, my friends, did not end there. In fact, it got much worse and ended in one fiery ball of rage in the form of the dreaded... internet feedback form.
In a bold move, deeply hidden within their Executive and Director lists via their corporate website, there is a "feedback" form that a loyal customer like myself can fill out. This feedback form goes to Rick Germano, Senior Vice President of Customer Operations. Below is the actual message I sent Rick. [please note: I said I was "loyal" but I never said I was "stable" in any way, shape, or form.]
____________________________________________________________________
Hi Rick,
I was recently having some trouble with my Comcast high-speed internet. After speaking with two of your reps [neither of which could help me figure out the problem], they told me I needed a technician to come to my house. They gave me an appointment... a week from when I had called. Crazy! I pay over $159 a month and yet am expected to wait an entire week for help?? It never takes you a week to cash my check. Maybe for my next bill, I will pre-date my check for one week. Will that fly with you? Probably not, huh? Oh well.
Back to my story: Within a few hours of speaking to BOTH of your customer service reps, I ended up solving the problem on my own. And so I called back and cancelled my appt. Beginning at 3:30pm that same day, I started receiving phone calls from an "out of area" number: 866-761-0209. Each time I picked up the phone and said hello, there would be no response.... just silence. Deadly silence. Within a span of just 15 minutes, I received 4 calls from this number, all with the same result: no one responding when I answered the phone. Finally, I called the number back. Much to my surprise, a recorded message came on stating it was Comcast's Outbound Cust. Service Call Center! Who woulda thunk it? I stayed on hold for about 17 minutes, listening to some top-notch Muzak, and guess what? No one ever picked up. Maybe I needed to stay on hold for ONE WEEK and thenthey would pick up? We'll never know because I had to pee, so I hung up. Ten minutes later, I received another call. Then another. Then another. Well, you get the picture, Rick. Finally, or rather EVENTUALLY, someone actually spoke! They were calling to CONFIRM my appt, which I cancelled 8 hours ago. I explained how many calls I was receiving from them and to remove me from the database since my appt was cancelled. I was told I would be removed. THREE MINUTES LATER - can you believe it?? Another damn call.
Your company is intrusive. Your company is harassing. It's interesting your company can call me 10 times within an hour, yet I must wait ONE WEEK for a technician to come to my house. Here's a suggestion: clearly you have a lot of Customer Service Call Center Reps who are bored since they called me a million times in a short timeframe. Why don't you take some of those people off the phones and train them how to do the technical work so your customers won't have to wait ONE WEEK for someone to come to their houses. Less Customer Service Reps on the phone = less calls to people like me. More technically trained people = less wait time for some help.
You know Rick, if you go to Google.com and type in the Outbound phone number [866-761-0209] you will be surprised to see pages and pages of complaints about this number and the calls. I understand the use of Call Centers. Really, I do. Heck, I even worked at one once. What I don't understand is repeatedly calling someone's home, every few minutes and not responding. The Call Center rep said it takes some time for computer-dialer to connect to the rep once the call goes through. I'd buy that except that I stayed on hold a long, long time saying, "Hello?? Hello? Hellllooooo?" - only to never receive a response. By the way, I also asked to speak to a supervisor and was told none was there. Lies! Either the supervisor is lazy and didn't want to come to the phone, or maybe just tired of the complaints. Poor guy/girl - you should give that person a nice, big, fat raise!
My experience today with Comcast has me considering switching ALL of my services to Verizon. And I know I am just ONE person. And I'm sure ONE person doesn't mean much to a big corporate dude like you. Yup, I am just some random chick in NJ, solving her own internet-related problems.
I see that it asks for my phone number down below this form. If you really need my number, just call your Outbound Customer Service Center at 866-761-0209. They should know it by heart since they called it over 20 times today.
Thanks, Rick.
Have a great day.
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At 8:45pm that evening, I received yet another Comcast-related phone call. This time it was from the "Executive Office" - but not from Rick. The outcome? A credit for $45.95 on my next bill. That breaks down to $2.70 per minute that I was on hold for the ONE call I made back to their Outbound Call Center. I'm pretty sure that the four year olds in Kathy Lee Gifford's sweatshops made more than that. But I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. That amount should be just the right amount, should this sort of thing happen again, to buy some TNT from Acme, Wyle E. Coyote's outlet of choice for when he needs to blow things up - you know, like Call Center buildings.
