Mike and I had a brief conversation yesterday about inconsiderate people. People that are just oblivious and insensitive to the people around them. (The kick-off to this conversation was regarding those who leave food in the fridge at the office and let it ROT, or leave their dirty dishes in the sink for days or weeks on end.)

Mike seems to run into inconsiderate people pretty often, so he was ready with a great example that had occurred just that day at the grocery store. The woman in front of him in line was chatting on her cell phone while waiting for the cashier to ring up her cart full of groceries. When the cashier finished scanning the last item (and not a moment sooner) the woman got off the phone and started digging in her purse to find her wallet. Note I said she started digging in her purse. I know what I would have been thinking had I been in Mike’s place, and you may be thinking it too… could she not have taken care of that while the cashier was ringing up the groceries? Mike was thinking that too but he actually put it into words:

He raised his hands, fanned out his fingers and waved them around and exclaimed to the woman, “Surprise! You have to pay!”

I guess the cashier just about peed his pants trying not to laugh, but the woman just ignored Mike. As if she did not hear him. Inconsiderate, I tell ya.

I am so frustrated with the way people drive around here.

Today I was walking to the gym and was completely disregarded (as were the several pedestrians near me) by two cars turning right onto the street we were crossing. They just drove on through, not even looking to see if there was anyone crossing the street. And we’re downtown. During the lunch hour. There are people everywhere. And those drivers didn’t even think to LOOK.

Then this evening I was cut off by a car merging onto the freeway – he entered the freeway and then immediately moved in front of me, into the left lane, traveling at a whopping 63 miles per hour (70 mph was the limit). And of course the car that was merging before him was in the right lane, as it should have been, only it was traveling just a tad slower making it impossible for me to get around. The car in the left lane eventually passed the car on the right but then it stayed right there in the left lane. Who are you passing, Dude? GET OVER!!

I wish I could say today’s encounters were out of the ordinary but I see drivers like this every single day. It’s very irritating, to say the least.

I can’t put it off any longer. I have to let it out. I don’t claim to be Grammar Girl or anything. I am not the expert, but there are some certain phrases that make my skin crawl when I hear them:

“Me and her went to the store…”
“Him and I went to the store…”
“Between you and I…”
“I seen that you bought that book…”
“I graduated college…” (I know what you mean, but I still think you need a do-over)

I also cringe when I hear someone use words that aren’t really words, like irregardless, and I have a particular pet peeve about people saying “I could care less” when I know they mean they couldn’t care less.

Now I understand when speaking there is little time to edit, and I don’t expect people to edit themselves. I do it from time to time and I know I’m not the only one… I caught my little brother correcting himself once. He was smooth about it too, he realized his mistake immediately, followed with the correct word, and kept on going with his story. I was so proud.

Anyway, there are other sins that are committed on paper or in print or on signs that I just have a hard time forgiving (and I’m sure I’ve committed some of them on accident, but that’s in stuff like emails and blogging. You know, stuff that doesn’t really matter). It’s this kind of thing that drives me UP THE WALL:

They paid to have that printed on the van. I shudder at how many people proofed that and said nothing.

I am so afraid of what this world is coming to.

My husband has the worst luck with telephone customer support. I don’t know why he doesn’t just opt for the e-mail route. He says it’s because with email he doesn’t get that instant gratification with the problem is resolved. I say it’s because he doesn’t have enough excitement in his life.

This latest issue came about when I was balancing the checkbook and noticed that Microsoft had deducted a larger than usual amount of money from our account for Mike’s XBox Live subscription. When I asked Mike about it he knew right away it was wrong so he did some investigating. He had switched from a monthly billing to a quarterly billing, and apparently Microsoft – the biggest software company in the world – doesn’t have the adequate software to handle that kind of change. What happened was they charged us for the regular monthly subscription one day before Mike switched to quarterly. And since Mike changed the billing to quarterly ONE DAY after the monthly subscription started, they just tacked on the quarterly billing. Forget about prorating, that one day just cost you $8. Thanks for playing!

Mike didn’t waste any time getting on the phone to Microsoft. Since it was after hours he got bounced around between several people, none of whom can call English their first language. He tried desperately to explain the situation but they kept trying to argue with them, citing really ridiculous reasons as to why we got billed for that extra month.

Excuse #1: “You’re behind a month because we don’t charge your card until the end of the subscription period.” This is just absurd. When we made our first payment back in February, that’s when our service started. We didn’t call them to in January to sign up and they said, “Oh yeah, don’t worry about paying for awhile. We trust you.” Cuz it’s not like they can repo the online service if we don’t pay.

Excuse #2: “Your card was declined when we tried to run it in November.” We may not have much, but we surely have at least $8 in our account at any given time. And they did take the money out of our account. I’m a nerd, I keep track of these things. It was at this point that Mike was given a warning because he used a swear word. “Sir, I’m trying to keep this professional.” I think professional was out the window when they started making stuff up.

Excuse #3: “Because you switched your subscription after the monthly subscription had already renewed, you got billed for both.” I think this is where Mike gave up for the night. He called back the next day and got the same explanation. He did get the employee to agree that billing him $8 for one day of service was not fair, but unfortunately he couldn’t do anything about it.

I was at work when he called the third time, but I wish I could have been there to witness it. He got the employee to agree that he had paid for 13 months of service for the time period of February 17, 2008 to February 17, 2009, but that’s where he hit a wall. The point of argument was how many months there were between those two dates. Here’s how I imagine it went:

Mike: So you agree I paid for 13 months of service and only got credit for 12?

Microsoft: No, you paid for 13 months and got credit for 13 months.

Mike: HUH??

Microsoft: Your subscription runs from February 17th through February 17th.

Mike: Right, that’s 12 months.

Microsoft: No, that’s 13 months.

Microsoft has over 89,000 employees all over the world. I think this one was in the bottom TEN. Last time I checked, February 17th of 2008 to February 17th of 2009 is 12 months (roughly). To be sure, I ran a calculation on timeanddate.com:

From and including: Sunday, February 17, 2008
To, but not including : Tuesday, February 17, 2009

It is 366 days from the start date to the end date, but not including the end date

Or 1 year excluding the end date

Mike had to really spell it out, but they finally agreed that he did indeed pay for 13 months and only got 12. It took some persistence, but Mike got our 8 bucks back! And he’ll be using the prepaid cards for XBox Live from now on. That is, if he doesn’t decide to switch gaming systems altogether

I was at the grocery store today with Luke and I overheard a humorous conversation between a young couple, not unlike conversations I have had with my husband.

Man: “Are these the right size Q-Tips?”

Woman: “How would I know? You’re the one that’s so anal about your Q-Tips.”

Man: “I just want to be sure, because the smaller ones really hurt.”

Woman: “Well, you are jabbing a long pointy thing into your ear.”

I had to chime in because they could see I was standing there next to them (we were both shopping for barrettes) chuckling to myself. I will tell you what I told them because it is a very important life lesson:

Don’t skimp on the cotton swabs. It’s just not worth the money you save to buy the cheap kind.

I told this story to Mike and he reminded me that he knows better than anyone how true this is. He went to the E.R. once because he was bleeding from the ear. We had just found out he had a brain tumor so we were scared out of our gourds that it was related to that but it turns out it was just from an ear-cleaning accident. Between his freakish strength and the cheap crappy cotton swabs I had bought to save a buck, he had ruptured something. Thankfully he was okay, but it should still serve as a lesson to all of you who may think the brand you clean your ears with doesn’t matter. It does.

My dear husband, Mike, has been known to learn the hard way. Every so often he does something dumb, but he almost never makes the same mistake twice. (The exception would be that he still plays the airplane game with Luke even after he covered his face with baby vomit. It was hilarious. I’m anxiously awaiting the repeat.) The great thing is that Mike is able to laugh at himself when he makes these mistakes. When we need a good laugh we reflect back on the stupid things he has done. We’ve often thought we should make it a recurring subject on this blog so that he can share his newly acquired wisdom with others.

Today the word of advice is this: when you are playing the roar-roar-roar game with your six month old, be careful not to let his finger into your mouth. If you close your mouth by accident, your teeth are sharp enough to make him cry. A lot.