mosker

What's that supposed to mean?

One morning recently I walked into the building with a colleague and she turned to me and said "You're not usually here this early!"

I know it's juvenile of me, but about a dozen responses flashed through my mind in the split second that followed--none of them polite. Really, how would she know and is that any of her business? And does she really have enough time in her day to monitor the work schedules of people in other departments? Maybe she was just trying to make conversation, but it rubbed me the wrong way (I said it was a juvenile response, didn't I?), and I never know what to say in those kinds of situations. It's like when people ask me if I've lost weight. Yes I have, but I don't like being the center of attention, and someone making a comment about it in a crowded room makes me want to cringe. "You've lost SO much weight!" is no where near as complimentary as they seem to think. They might as well shout "Oh my gosh, you were such a cow!"

Sometimes people try to pry for information about the reason for my weight loss (it was time), perhaps expecting me to blurt out news about some horrible cancer that has me wasting away (for the record, that'd be no), or try to get me to share my "secret." Sorry, no secret, just the healthy diet and exercise that medical professionals have been preaching all these years. I have to make the decision each and every day about how to stick with the changes I've made, and sometimes I just have to deal with being hungry, but that's not what they want to hear.

That is exactly what I've been saying

Don't get me wrong--I know I'm fortunate to have prescription drug coverage, but I wish they didn't have to be such jerks about how they administer the plan. Jen had a problem recently getting a prescription filled with her mail-order service. The prescription wasn't called in precisely right, so rather than filling the med for the 90-day supply that her plan covers, the company sent only a 30-day supply and behaved as though she were unreasonable in asking for the balance. I'm guessing they probably charged her the 90-day price though.

This is exactly why I'm afraid to switch my prescriptions back to the mail-order service even though I would save money. I suppose it's just a case of getting what you pay for. When I visit the Target Pharmacy, several of the employees recognize me, they're friendly and actually answer my questions, and when a prescription runs out, they just take care of it automatically. If there's a problem with the way my doctor wrote the prescription, they call and get it straightened out. All without trying to behave as though they've done me some great, amazing favor. That's just what they do. Like Jen, when the mail-order service decided to fill one of my prescriptions for 30 days instead of 90, I had to call them five nights in a row, explaining the whole situation each and every time I called before they shipped the rest of the supply. That was at least 10 hours of my time, so it was almost that much of their staff time too. That time, at least, they were willing to overnight it to me at my mom's house where I'd gone on vacation. The last time, however, there was a problem because all of the sudden my asthma med had fallen under a new "step-therapy" restriction, despite the fact I'd been taking it for some time. Had it been at my local pharmacy, I could have paid out of pocket for enough to tide me over while my doctor promised his first born child as collateral that indeed I needed it to breathe. Instead, I had to do without for over a week and was laid low for nearly three weeks while I recovered. The insurance company may have saved a couple of dollars by withholding my meds, but they doubtless paid far more for the care that was required when my breathing declined so much that I couldn't even go to work.

I'm trying to pinch my pennies this year while I build my savings back up after last year's window and furnace replacements, but I'm just not sure the trade-off is worth the aggravation and risk to my health. I'm prepared to cancel my lawn service and cut my own grass, but I just don't think breathing is optional.

Could somebody please buy that city a snowplow?

Apparently the city of Independence, Missouri is in dire financial straights and cannot afford to deploy snow plows on their public streets. There can be no other explanation for their bone-headed decision not to clear snow from roads they know will be heavily traveled on the last weekend shopping day before Christmas. This road was relatively clear compared to the one on which I got stuck.

Just in case you think I'm being too harsh--that perhaps the city was simply overwhelmed with the mountains of snow we received yesterday (excuse me a moment while I stop laughing), here's a shot from a neighboring city (one with a much smaller tax base) taken less than a half-hour later:

Pardon me while I make my purchases (and pay my sales tax) elsewhere while they figure this out.

When it rains, it pours

I am so frustrated. It is well beyond crunch time trying to get my last assignments finished and turned-in before finals and I have been beset by computer problems. I'm sorry to break this to you, but even people who work with technology for a living have computer problems. We don't like it any better than you do. I don't have time to deal with the broken computer case right now, and I found a temporary work-around for the annoying error message that persistently pops up when I try to use wireless. Now, however, the keyboard is freaking out and I cannot type the letter "u" without purposefully and carefully pressing the key. I don't type with the speed and efficiency of my sister, but this is frustrating enough to have me in tears soon. It only takes a few minutes of typing to realize how many words contain the letter "u".

I have postponed calling Dell for warranty service because I wanted to finish the semester. What is wrong with technology working when we need it anyway?

Love/Hate relationship

I am an admitted news-junkie, so when there is a big news event, particularly a school shooting, I basically just mainline the news coverage. I don't like to be disconnected from my source. But the wall-to-wall coverage also reminds me that while I need the media, it doesn't mean I like them. Watching Paula Zahn made me cringe, particularly as she asked each and every student whom she interviewed to say they were angry with the campus police for failing to lock down the campus. Since when does interviewing mean putting words in people's mouths? Zahn is irritating and strident, so I couldn't help the malicious pleasure I felt when each of the interviewees thwarted her by saying they were angry at only the gunman and they were just focusing on helping their fellow students.

The news media has seemingly interviewed everyone they could grab off the street, some of them multiple times, but now that they are running out of witness statements, they appear to be filling in the time with speculation. We don't know why the campus police decided not to lock down the campus after the first shooting in the dormitory, but the news hounds telling everyone that it was the wrong decision isn't particularly helpful. We will undoubtedly learn more later and make our own judgment about it. I haven't even heard anything that indicates the campus has any mechanism for such a move. I work and study at an urban campus of a state university, and I seriously doubt there is an effective way to transmit a lock down order to all of the disparate offices, classrooms, and libraries in a timely matter. And that presumes faculty and staff know what to do if, which we don't. I realize they have to speculate in order to fill the air time for folks like me to continue to watch the coverage, but it's getting hard to take them seriously.

And while I'm complaining about the news coverage that gives me my fix, I will also make a suggestion: Stop talking about how this is the worst mass shooting in United States history. You might as well be waving a red cape at the bull. Some kook out there is going to see that statement as a challenge and will try to outdo the nut that outdid the clock tower shooter. This is a not a record we want to ever be broken.

Feeling a little crabby today

To the thank-less college student who walked into the building with me:

• I did not open the door for you. If you insist on pushing your way through before me anyway, at least say thank you.

And to the village idiot:

• "Take a few minutes to read the handout" is not code for "take a smoke break".
  

• No one wants to see your disgusting wife-beater tee. Don't undress in the middle of class and expect us to appreciate it.

• We also don't want to see your oh-so-baggy sweats with the hole in the crotch. Please close your legs.

• I never asked you to sit near me. If you insist on sitting between me and the aisle, have the courtesy to allow me to pass if I have to walk to the front of the room.

• Stop text-messaging during the lecture. It's rude to the instructor and rude to the class. Do you really believe your time is more valuable than ours? Okay, that's a stupid question. I know you think that, but you're wrong. Very wrong.

• But most importantly: Thank you for leaving early. It's incredibly disrespectful to walk out of the room in the middle of a lecture, but everyone is happier when you're gone.

A special kind of stupid

There are three police officers enrolled in my graduate program. Each of them has come to class in uniform at least once, and I have always assumed they are armed even when wearing street clothes. This week the officer in my evening class arrived in plainclothes with his handcuffs, badge, and gun attached to his belt. I noticed it when he walked in, not because of the weapon, but because of the shiny gold badge. It was no big deal.

Most of us spent the last few minutes before the class start time cramming for the scheduled exam. The exam itself took about 20 minutes, and then we talked about it. In the middle of that discussion there was a knock on the door. The instructor opened the door, and instead of the scheduled guest speaker, there were three campus police officers who appeared a bit flustered. They look around the room and then tell the instructor they are looking for someone. We all, including the instructor, assume they want the village idiot. Who else, after all, could they possibly be interested in finding? No, the instructor insisted, he (the village idiot) left right after the test, about 10 minutes earlier. The officer says no, they are investigating a report of a man with a gun. Everyone, including the instructor and the detective, was confused--gun? What gun? There's no one here with a gun. When the officer pointed at the detective and said they wanted to talk to him, we still didn't get it. After all, he's not a man with a gun, he's a police officer enrolled in our class.

Turns out someone called in a report to the campus police about a man with a gun, giving the building and room number of our class, and a clothing description consistent with what the detective was wearing. The problem was, he had been in the classroom for at least 45 minutes. If someone had seen him in the hall (and not noticed the shiny badge right next to the weapon) and been concerned enough to follow him the to the classroom, they would have called in a report before 45 minutes had elapsed. And it was obvious that the police hadn't taken their time about getting there--one was pretty winded from racing up the stairs, so they hadn't taken a leisurely stroll.

That left only one reasonably possible source of the report: the village idiot who left the class with his books about ten minutes before the police arrived. But how many kinds of stupid do you have to be to make a report that, while factually true, is knowingly misleading and therefore false? He knows the detective is a police officer--not only has it come up in class any number of times, but he also asked me about it. No, I don't know for sure that's who made the report, but considering how lame-brained so many things he's said and done this semester have been, it's not a stretch. I can only hope they go back to the recording of the call to track down whoever made it.

Hostility

I'm beginning to think I will need anger management therapy before this semester is over.

Every week I head off to my evening class thinking this guy cannot possibly be as bad as I remember. It's just a trick of the imagination, I tell myself. I just need to be patient, to be tolerant. And then he walks into the classroom and I feel this enormous wave of antipathy and resentment. The instructor walked into the room and commented that everyone seemed so angry. Well, duh. There is just no way to adequately describe how disruptive and obnoxious this guy is. When the instructor commented that we might not have class on an upcoming date because he would probably out of town, the moron chimes and says "I'll teach the class." When we discussed a case involving the KC Police Department, moron blithely argues that the two officers should be prosecuted for first-degree murder. How about operating on the facts instead of knee-jerk reactions? Even muzzling the guy wouldn't help. After the lecture had already started, he pulled out the desk next to him and swung it around to increase his writing space, screeching and scraping loudly and knocking into the surrounding desks. He always thinks the classroom is too warm, and often tries to open several windows, to the chagrin of the people sitting next to those windows. This week he made a big show of flapping his shirt to express his discomfort, before finally stripping down to his wife-beater t-shirt.

I hate feeling like this. I don't like to be angry and I don't enjoy feeling such antagonism toward anyone. I like the content of the courses I'm taking this session, but I can't wait for this semester to be over.

To whom it may concern

The fact that you were unable to turn before the left turn arrow went red does NOT mean you can pull out into the intersection anyway--particularly when you are the third car to pull out after oncoming traffic got a green. I'm not suggesting that very large truck should have plowed into you instead of screeching to a stop, but if it had, I would have waited for the police so I could be a witness to your glaring and inexcusable failure to yield the right-of-way. Just so you know.

And congratulations to the owner of the blue Toyota Yaris Liftback that followed me from View High Drive to Chipman Road last night. You must be quite proud to have purchased an inexpensive, yet fuel-efficient, vehicle. I hate to put a damper on your enthusiasm, but I think someone should tell you that a vehicle the size of a tin-can does not have much crumble-space in the event of an impact. You might want to reconsider tailgating other vehicles. If I had been required to brake, you would have slammed into me. I might have been forced to replace the bumper on my truck, but your miniscule clown-car would have balled up like a used sheet of aluminum foil.

Let the whining begin!

The other day I complained about people who insist on going to work when they are ill, spreading their infectious germs to everyone with whom they come in contact. Yeah, that. I lost 20 hours of work this week because I developed bronchitis after being exposed to whomever shared their miserable illness. Maybe misery does love company, but I really don't want to participate! And did you notice the part where I didn't go to work because I didn't want to make everyone else sick too?

Now I'm tired and would really love to sleep soundly for 10 hours or so, but although I can take sick from work, I can't from homework.