The Saga of the Fridge



empty old fridge

Once upon a time there was a boy and a girl who lived in a house. This house was over 50 years old and had some issues, but this boy and girl made do and tried to make things better as the time passed.  

In this old house there lived an angry old fridge that liked to let everyone know it was angry by periodically making a loud Kerrrrrr-cHUnK sound. It did this several times a day, and also multiple times in the night while this boy and girl were sleeping. For the most part they ignored the angry fridge until one day (that happened to be a Sunday) Old fridge just decided it didn’t like them anymore, and instead of it’s usual Kerrrrrr-cHUnK it made a high pitched humming-rattling noise that drove the boy and girl (and the cats) crazy. It would rattle-humm for two hours then stop for twenty minutes then rattle-humm for two hours and then stop for twenty minutes…. And the pattern continued all day and all night and all the next day. But by the end of that first day, angry old fridge decided that it no longer wanted to keep the cold things cold, or the frozen things frozen so it let the frozen orange juice go squishy, and the freezer jam to melt.

the contents of my fridge

Now, this didn’t sit well with the boy and girl who lived in the house. They could put up with the angry old furnace that periodically Ka-Booms! As it starts to heat, and they were even putting up with the lack of hot water pressure from the bathtub faucet… but they would not put up with the angry old fridge that was refusing to do it’s job. So after a full nights sleep the boy and girl got up and went to work the next day. The girl spent all day researching refrigerators on-line, looking at prices, and brands, and sizes, and dealers… Eventually it came down to this. They needed a fridge. It needed to run. It needed to be quiet. It needed to be cheap. It needed to not have an ice maker. It needed to fit into the pre-existing spot of the old fridge… but most of all, they needed it NOW.


empty living room

So girl found a store that happened to be on her way home from work so she stopped there, walked in said, I need a fridge and I need it delivered tomorrow.  

empty kitchen w/old fridge



And the sales man said “I can do that.” So he showed her a fridge and she said “I’ll take it.” It wasn’t fancy, but it would do the job. So now, girl had to go home alone, (because boy was working ALL day,) and clean out the old fridge. Armed with coolers and ice girl emptied the angry old fridge listening all the while to it’s rattle-humm that was digging into her brain. Once everything was out she pulled the plug on that old monster and gave it a good swift kick.

Then she realized that she needed to do more work. There was only one way in and out of this old house and it was thoroughly blocked by the gathered possessions of this boy and this girl… so again, she got to work. Placing all the random chairs that gather at the table into various other rooms of the house she started moving things around in the kitchen. She yanked out that old fridge and knocked out some wooden trim that had previously adorned the cupboards and walls surrounding the fridge. She pulled out the computer desk and pushed, and scooted it across the floor with the subwoofer and printer in tow, all while trying not to knock the items and knick-knacks off the top.

She hauled the plastic drawers full of computer crap into the junk room and took a deep breath… but it still wasn’t over. When she turned around she saw how hideously dirty the floor was so she swept and swept and dusted the cob webs off the walls, and then for good measure she pulled out the steam mop and cleaned the entire floor as best she could. And yet she still wasn’t done. Next she moved to the hallway and removed at least three years worth of Christmas cards and pictures of family and friends that had been taped there. She took down her pictures and ripped out the taped down phone cord that belonged to the phone that no longer existed.

new fridge



She pulled down the picture frame and made a neat little pile and put it all on the previously moved computer desk… Then it was on to the living room. The path between the door and the hallway was strewn with obstacles. First she put away all the shoes that liked to gather together near the door and she told them to all stay put because she didn’t want to see them in front of the door for at least another twenty-four hours. The shoes all agreed and settled in to their now/old spots for the time being. Back in the living room the girl looked at the collection of CD cases and decided that they had to go too.

She pulled out her handy screwdriver and disconnected the brackets from the wall and pushed/pulled/rocked the CD case away from the wall into the middle of the room. Then she moved the lamp and the other case that is much lighter and not attached to the wall. That was it. The pathway was cleaned and there was nothing left to do but wait for the delivery man…. So the girl went to bed, and the boy finally came home from working. It was late at night. 

The next morning boy and girl got out of bed and got ready for the day… the fridge wasn’t supposed to come until the afternoon, but then the phone rang and the man on the other end said “I’m bringing your fridge now!” and the boy and girl rejoiced. 

new full fridge

It was a tight squeeze, but delivery-man got the old one out and the new one in pretty darn quick, and then boy and girl had to wait for it to cool before they could bust open the coolers and refill the new fridge. The new fridge was so quite and so clean, it made the boy and girl happy. It only took a few hours for it to get to temperature and again boy and girl rejoiced. Once the old food was in the new fridge girl decided she didn’t like the shelf placement, but she’ll have to fix that later there was to much else to do. Next it was into the living room… the floor was dirty so before anything was moved back girl had to vacuum. Then back to the kitchen where boy and girl used some cooperation and pushed the computer desk back into place and made the cords all nice and pretty and made sure the speakers worked. Then the plastic drawers came out of the junk room and resumed their place next to the desk.



all back together again



Then back to the living room where together they manipulated the heavy CD case back into place and screwed the brackets back into the wall…before realizing that the lamp cord needed to go behind the heavy CD case. So they unscrewed the brackets and put the cord in place and screwed the CD case back to the wall again.

 Then the lighter CD case went back into place. Boy hung the famed proclamation back onto the hallway wall, but alas, the pictures did not go back up. Finally, boy and girl put all the chairs back in their places and sat down for a deep breath. What a day… and it was only 11 am. Nap time.

The end.

Junk Mail I am SICK of!

Don't Accept New Coin! Please help do this.. Refuse to accept these when they are handed to you. I received one from the Post Office as change and I asked for a dollar bill instead. The lady just smiled and said 'way to go' so she had read this e-mail. Please help out....our world is in enough trouble without this too!!!!!

U.S. Government to Release New Dollar Coins

You guessed it 'IN GOD WE TRUST' IS GONE!!!
If ever there was a reason to boycott something, THIS IS IT!!!!
DO NOT ACCEPT THE NEW DOLLAR COINS AS CHANGE.
Together we can force them out of circulation.
Please send to all on your mail list !!!

___________________________

GOOD HELL PEOPLE!
Has no one LOOKED at this coin??

IT IS ON THE SIDE!!

Don't forward the email to everyone you know! Infact if you get this junk mail go a head and tell them (and everyone else they sent it to) how wrong they are. Ugh!

But you don't have to take my word for it... The United States Mint can clear that up for you just as well as I can... and they even have a cool 3D Flash thing to play with so you can look at all sides of the coin.

Thanks for listening to my rant.

At The Office

The girl who sits behind me at work listens to her music too loudly. It's just loud enough that I can almost hear the words, but not loud enough to make any sense. It drives me crazy! I have asked her to turn it down several times in the past 3 months, but I think she thinks I'm just being rude. I'm not, I try so hard to sound nice and friendly about it, but she never does anything to fix it. All I can do is just put my ear phones in and listen to my iPod, but sometimes, I just want quiet and no music, but I never get that since she started. Why can't people moderate their listening volume while at work because there are other's to consider when making your music selection. errgh!

 

Legal Troubles

As most of you know I'm currently being sued, and though I cannot discuss the details of the case with others I feel I can at least share with you the frustration of it all.

Recently (within the past 2 weeks) I was asked to answer some questions for the plaintiffs legal team (I am the defendant). I did this and got it back to them in a very timely manner and I was told that they would email me a final copy to look over sign and return.  Well time passed and the due date of 11/27/07 was quickly approaching and I hadn't received anything so on Monday morning (11/26) I emailed the law office asking where this was. Come to find out that the secretary was told to email the information to me but instead she mailed it. So yesterday (the due date) I finally get something emailed to me I had to go to a stupid bank (I hate banks) to get it notarized and had to deal with an idiotic asian woman who was just making me angry by her very existence and the attitude she was giving me because I didn't have cash to pay her $5 so I had to write a check. After getting the paper they told me to sign notarized and dealing with the rude people at the bank and spending MY money I dropped it off at the law office because the deadline was November 27th and it was their stupid fault that it was late because I told them 2 weeks ago to email me the forms and the legal secretary MAILED them.

 THEN we had to drive home in the snow that took us 1.5 hours and when we got home there was a message on the answering machine from the insurance company of the car in front of us asking for our insurance company information and basically stating that they're coming after us because this was OUR fault. So john had to call state farm and tell them AGAIN that this was not our fault and go over the whole accident AGAIN for their records and the dumb ass who hit us hasn't even reported this to the insurance company yet.

While he was doing that I got the mail and in the mail was a package from the lawyers office that had what I thought was the same thing they had emailed me earlier and that I had signed and returned. Well this package was much thicker and so opened it up and it was completely different then what was sent to me earlier. The back page that they told me to print off and return was COMPLETELY different then what I had just paid $5 for and I got really angry. I am really angry. So I had to call Rachel at work and tell her to bring her Notary stamp home so I could just get it done last night and I didn't have to let it fester all day today and go through this all again.

So the stupid legal secretary's mistake added to State Farms stupidity and all the stress I'm dealing with and the pain in my knee all bubbled up to the surface in a bawling rage fit that lasted 2 hours and I just don't understand what I ever did to deserve this horrible life I've been given and I'd rather just stay in bed with a blanket over my head then to have to deal with the world around me.

And then to top it all off I was 45 minutes late to work today because all the idiots in Davis County don't know how to drive even though it snows EVERY YEAR!! and now my system isn't working so I can only do half my work and can't print anything. I'm done, and I just want to go home.

After sending a very professional business email to the law offices telling them of my frustration I did get a personal call from my lawyer to apologize for the mistake and saying that this should have never happed in his office and that he was so sorry that I had to deal with this. Now they are sending a runner to my work to pick up the second paper so I don't have to make ANOTHER trip out to their office. I'm still angry, but that helps a little.

Music That Makes me turn off the radio

Jack Johnson
Maroon 5
Jason Mraz
KT Tunstall
Gorillas, Inc.
Finger 11
Rage Against the Machine
Kid Rock
Nickleback

Junk Mail Junk Mail Junk Mail

In response to all those chain letters I receive in my in-box on a daily basis all I have to say is:

If I don't send this to 3 people or back to you what's going to happen to me?? am I going to have bad luck for a year? or will I get gangrene and my fingernails will fall off... or will I have horrible health problems and suffer from chronic depression and back pain??? Will I end up in 2 car accidents and a lawsuit? Oh, my! What will happen?? I delete all these "pass me on or else" messages... Is that what is mine and John's problem??? Oh, if only I'd forwarded all those messages to fill my friends in-boxes with junk... woe is me! woe is me!

And now we can move on with our day.

Pet peeve

If the digital screen on the printer is flashing red stating that the tray is EMPTY refill it. Don't just walk away.

Roar!

Things that annoy me

Men that dye their hair.

Now don't get me wrong, there are parameters to this annoyance. If you are a man and you can dye your hair without anyone noticing that's fine that doesn't bother me at all. It's the men (currently a man I work with) who one day was a dirty blonde with lots of gray in his hair looking his age but the next time you see them their hair is dyed brown. And it's not even a nice brown. It looks bad, it looks fake, and it looks like something died on his head.

Please, if you are a man and you dye your hair make it nice, natural, gradual and ask your wife's opinion.

What I hate even more then people...

Traffic.

This morning on the way in to work, traffic was worse then usual at 6am. And what was the reason for this jam up? I blame the stupid electronic freeway signs. I believe these are a tool of the devil. I have been in several traffic jams lately and each of them can be traced back to one of these blasted signs. Traffic can be backed up for miles because all the morons who have to slow down to 20-40 mile per hour to read the stupid things. They were put in to HELP traffic flow by warning of problems ahead, but the signs ARE the problem. It took me an hour one afternoon to get from the mouth of Cottonwood Canyon to a stupid sign on 1300 East on I-215 one day all because of this stupid sign warning of lane closure ahead. After sitting in this traffic for so long I was angry but when just after the sign the traffic broke up and was moving at 70 mph again and guess what!? THERE WAS NO ROAD WORK AHEAD. That's an hour of my life wasted because of these stupid signs.

Back to my original story… traffic was heavy this morning bumper to bumper 50 mph up to the electronic sign in Centerville warning of an accident on the I-215 split off and left lane was closed at I-215. Yeah, what ever, that happens every couple of months anyway so it's no big deal and traffic picked up again. When we got to North Salt Lake traffic grinded to a halt again… ugh this is where I thought the I-215 traffic was going to catch us, but right there in the middle of the freeway was a disabled Semi. Why was it disabled, well, it was missing a front tire and I think that had to do with the little white car facing the wrong way against the cement barrier on the left hand side of the road and the glass and liquid (maybe gas) strewn across all 5 lanes of traffic. It couldn't have happened to long before we got there because police hadn't had a chance to close any lanes at that point and we just zoomed through… okay we crawled through giving all the rubber neckers the chance to look. (My comment to that is if more people carpooled it would cut down on traffic & rubber neck slowdowns because more passengers could look while the driver continued to drive) As soon as we were through that everyone started merging into my lane to be in my way and then to merge into the farthest right lane in hopes to avoid the accident on I-215. Which again included a car facing the wrong direction and lots of police cars. I being the driver didn't get a chance to rubber neck that one because I was driving.

Argh. People who can't drive make me angry. Traffic makes me angry. Being awake and commuting at 6 am makes me angry.

I’m a little miffed

Last night I was searching through old files on my computer it’s been a while, and I’m not to sure what I do or do not have since my previous computer “Lenny” died and our friend tried to save what he could off our old hard drive. So it was fun and interesting for a while... lots of old letters and journal entries that are really random and lots of new/old revelations of what I would let people get away with and what I would share with others. I was a lot more open before my mission on what I was thinking and what was going on. Apparently once I even let Toby read my poetry and stories and it sounded like I was okay with it. (it is not often I let the big gray binder out of my hands) **shrug** Does she even remember that? Funny what a person can forget in 8 years. :)
Anyway as I was reading through a file entitled “Memoirs” I was pleased to read most of my poetry from 1996-1999 it was enlightening and insightful and a little dark and lonely.
However, about midway through my memoirs there is a story entitled “Sojourner” that is incomplete.... somewhere along the way the last half of my story was replaced by “////////////////////adljl;sg .........//./////////////””????>:”:”:{?>?> ??/////////////// _ _ _ _ _-----///////////FGH ;;;;; /////////” let me tell you that made me quite angry and sad to wonder if I still have that story written on paper somewhere and if so, where. I know that they are just words, and that no one will probably ever read them but me, but it’s now like a missing piece of my soul that I don’t know if I can retrieve.

Fondly called the "blue screen of death" this is what i've been staring at for the last 10 minutes.

Work Woes

So I am the Plan Lead for CHC of Oklahoma. I specifically work with a woman who we’ll call “Hilda”.
Hilda is truly coming off as a horrible person all the way around. On the phone she sounds all sweet and friendly, but in her emails and other correspondence she sounds so bitter and disgruntled and I don’t know if it’s just the email that makes her sound that way, or if she really is just that bad.
Lately she has taken to emailing my manager instead of me like my manager has the time to baby-sit me and my apparent failure to keep track of my own files. Or my lack of credentialing knowledge. It’s not like I have worked in this field for the last 5 years or that the job I came from was a million times more detailed and more difficult then this job is.
Nice that she just goes over my head and bothers the management like I am and incompetent fool who can’t count to 20 with my shoes on. ARRGH! She makes me so angry.
It’s been so bad that the Manager of Operations here at the CVC got fed up with Hilda’s over my head emails that she emailed the Oklahoma Manager stating:
“I have observed that there really seems to be a lot of conflict involved with Hilda. She has certainly NOT been the most consistent or accurate person we have dealt with for OK. Her constant attacks on Liz seem unwarranted. Truthfully, Hilda needs to get a better understanding of her role before attacking Liz. Liz might be new, but she knows her job as well as Hilda knows hers.”
I’m not a horrible person. I just can’t stand working with this woman.
Do I just invoke anger in people? Is my aura causing others to react angrily with me? Am I provoking all the evil that comes my way??

Like I had said to someone yesterday: I think that Heavenly Father is trying to teach me patience and love for my fellow man, but it's really hard when I hate everyone.


All views expresed are my own and not that of Coventry Health Care.

the worlds most insensitive question

There are a lot of these types of questions, however at this point in my life the question is:

So when are you and John going to have kids?

I don’t know if this question is causing me to fester and rot this week because it’s “that time of the month” or maybe because John’s best friend & wife just had another baby or maybe it’s because the nice lady who sits beside me at work asked the forbidden question on a bad day... who knows, but for one or all of these reasons I have been filled with rage.

I have my off the cuff answers to this question. “John and I just aren’t ready for kids” “I’m too selfish” “We can’t afford kids” “I want to stay at home with my kids and we just can’t do that right now” or the one that people are the most impressed with “When John and I can afford to feed ourselves then we can work on feeding someone else”

All good excuses, but overcome-able if the need arose. The fact is: I am currently unable to have children. I guess I could just say that and make the person feel stupid for asking, but I do have a little common courtesy so I just give them the lie. But each and every time that question is asked I acquire more rage and it stacks on top of all the rage from the last time someone asked and one day when they least expect it I’m going to pop and someone is going to be very sorry, maybe me, maybe them, who knows.

But I have been such a raging beast this week and it seems that every little thing is getting on my nerves and poor John gets the brunt of it. Poor John. For the first few days I couldn’t figure out why I was so angry, but the other night as I was lying in a bubble bath, prepared by my cute husband who just wanted to make me happy, I thought about the week and what’s going on and pondering why I feel like I just want to cover my head and cry and/or kill someone, it hit me like lightening. I was fine until I was asked “the question” and then got the “we had a baby” email on the same day. Grrr.

And it’s not like I CAN’T have children, it just in my current health state it’s not an option. According to my doctor she says that if I continue to lose weight my body should regulate itself and everything should be fine... would, should, might all not very comforting words to hear from a doctor, but it doesn’t change the fact that I want a baby now. And what if I lose all this weight and I still have problems, what if I don’t ever get to have my own babies and adoption is way too expensive. I’m tired of other people’s children.

I guess that maybe I should just be thankful that after all these years I have finally found some doctors who believe there is something wrong with me and are doing something about it.

Commenting on Comments ~

Again a judgmental comment from someone who is to good to even leave a name.

I am no different now then I was then and if you think differently then you really didn't know "Sister Pears".
I had 13 companions. 6 I loved. 1 I had twice. 1 I am indifferent towards and 5 I hated and made no secret about it.
It’s because of people who judge me and think they know me that I find it very hard to wake up for church on Sunday mornings.
Don’t get me wrong here. I always had a respect for the District Leaders and Zone Leaders leaders I was able to serve with, and here in post-mission life there is only one District Leader I respect enough and adore enough that his opinion would even come close to counting, but all things considered no one really knows what happens behind closed doors.
I had companions that were so awful to me that I literally hated myself by the time we were separated and many times I had money in my account to just go home because I hated everyone so much. I have had my faith and my self image shaken to the very core by missionaries that were supposed to be serving the Lord not belittling their companions.
For the larger part of my mission I hated it. I hated everyone around me and everything about it. Did you know that? Did you ever look me in the eye and ask how my companionship was and if I was happy? Did you ever sit in the closet and cry with me because I had been told for the thousandth time that I was a terrible missionary? Were you in the car with me when a certain sister insulted me and then just walked away like she was the better of the two? Were you in my president interviews where I would ask if I could just go home or have a new companion? Were you?
I have always had the same opinion about these people that has not changed. I have not changed. Perhaps life experience has made me more bitter towards the outside world and opened my eyes to the fact that people are generally rotten to the core and then there are those rare ones who can sit and listen to an opinion and just take it as an opinion. I'm not spouting gospel doctrine here. Just because I have my opinion doesn't always mean I'm right, but the last I checked I was living in America where I have a inalienable right to say what I think.

Walk a mile in my shoes. You might find that life isn't peaches and cream for all of us.

Don't Judge Me

most days I'm not so bitter and all is well in my world with it's black sky and shades of gray highlights. Sometimes the stars come out.
However, today I was reminded of the fact that there are stupid people in the world. People who think they're so much better then me and so selfrightious and stuck on themselves.
How dare someone come to my blog and tell me what I can and cannot say about things. I have a right to my own opinion and I can have opinions about people that other's may not agree with. Does that make me a horrible human being? I would be a horrible human being if I added that person to my hit list and followed through with my plan of ridding the world from all stupid people. But then... I'd be the only one left and that would be lonely.
So to you "Hermana" who thinks you're so much better then me. You're not.
Thank you. Drive through.

My New Slogan

After working with Health Plans in the state of Oklahoma for a little over a month now I have decided that this is the new slogan:

"Oklahoma! Where the Farmer's and the Cow-men sometimes call themselves Doctors."