Stop the day; I want to get off

Hmm. Looks like there's a double entendre in the post title. *grin* It's not intentional, but I suppose it would be one way to forget the day I've had.

The body shop still has my car. For those of you at home keeping track, we are now in the middle of Week Four of my car's surgery. You'd think it had been totaled instead of just dented. When I called last week, they said it was up on the rack "right now" and I'd get it back next week. I called again today and was told they were "waiting for a rack" to put it up on and I'd get it back NEXT week.

Perhaps this body shop simply has a high broken-car-to-rack ratio. Like, 17,000 cars and one rack that they can only work if Duane is in, because there's a trick to this rack, see, and Duane knows how to work it. But Duane's been out a lot, what with his mama being sick and all ... But with all due respect to Duane's mother, I'd really like to drive the car I own sometime before the warranty expires, you know?

So I did the only thing I could think of: I tattled to the insurance company. "Um, hi, this is claim number 87-Y203-6849? I'm calling because I've been in this rental car for, like, three and a half weeks now, and I'm beginning to get worried that you guys won't pay for it much longer ..." They said they'd look into it.


My network connection at work today was severed. I couldn't go online, check e-mail, access our servers, print, or pretty much do anything that required my computer to talk to another one.

Now, keep in mind that this is the second time this week that this has happened - the first being Monday, our production day, when accessing those outside sources is of vital importance. When I called IT on Monday, I moved to another computer and kept an ear out for my phone. Twenty minutes later, I found a voice mail (left in the last five minutes) from a tech saying it was really hard for them to fix my problem if I wasn't going to be at my desk. I returned the call, apologized for working at another desk, and explained the problem again: "I'm on a Mac, and -"

"A Mac? Ohhh, I can't help you. I'll log your complaint with someone else."

Five minutes later: a call from a much more helpful tech - who, ironically, could not help me. After we tried a few things, she said she'd have to send someone down.

And in another half hour, the person she sent arrived. He fiddled around in the dark, scary server room and pronounced me all better. When I asked him if there was anything I could do myself in case this happened again, he told me the only things he'd recommend would involve hammers. (Later, I found out that's his "solution" to the problem of Macintosh computers' existence.)

That was Monday. Today's episode was much less complicated, but infinitely more frustrating. I have no connection; I call IT; no one calls back for two hours. I return from grabbing takeout to find a message from a friendly IT tech asking me if anyone's helped me yet. I call back and leave a message: no, no one has helped me, and the problem has not gone away. Two hours later, having heard no response, I call again. Finally, he comes in, fiddles around, pronounces me all better. Hurrah.

(Mike, if you're reading this, I used your computer while mine was down, so I apologize if I inadvertantly screwed around with any of your settings. And sorry about replacing your entire iTunes music library with Nickelback songs - that was my bad.)


Our flag football team is only two games into the season, and we already seem pretty demoralized. In the very first game, our quarterback did something to his knee that has required him to drop out for the season. Last night, one of our players hit his head hard - I think he might have a concussion. I have these nightmare visions of the entire team being carried out on stretchers, one by one.


And, as usual, I have WAY too much work to do tomorrow.