Crazy Insane or Insane Crazy?

So at about 5:30 this morning a lady was driving down the street that leads into the building where I work. Apparently she had a diabetic seizure or something to that effect. She missed the left hand turn, hopped the curb, plowed through the lawn and smacked into the side of our building.

Somehow she didn't end up going through the wall, but she did take out some bushes, an AC unit and our phone lines. Only our fax line and our internet are still functional, three of our four main phone lines are down, and since I'm the glorified receptionist here this totally makes my day. I get to actually get some work done and not deal with the crazies that call in all the damn time.

Oh, and from what I hear the lady is going to be fine. Which is great. Otherwise I wouldn't take much enjoyment out of her suffering.

Working with Psychics

So a psychic called in and placed a classified ad today. She's called Mrs. Rachael, and she's based out of Sanford. Anyhow, she prepaid with a credit card, but when I attempted to process the card for her payment it came up as an invalid number. I was tempted to call her back and say to her: "Hey Mrs. Rachael, did you see this phone call coming? Because you're card is no good!" I make myself chuckle sometimes.

Things I Think v3

A little more long-winded this time around.

• Solid reporting again from the Associated Press. This article answered many questions I had that were left unanswered by other reports on this story.

• I didn't notice the DOW Jones Industrial Average fell more than 400 points today, did you? It doesn't seem like much, only 4% of it's total, but it seems like a whole lot more when you consider that $632 Billion was lost. $632 BILLION!

• So why the Hell are they moving Daylight Savings Time around like a chess piece this year?

• I'm thinking of getting a digital camera with my newly discovered wealth and photobloggin' a little bit.

• I watched parts of Airborne on HBO last night. It's not half as cool as I remember it being. Seth Greene is in dire need of exposure to sunlight, Shane McDermott really isn't all that cool, but Jack Black was amusing. I don't remember him being in the movie. He has short hair too, very strange.

• I was debating politics with somebody the other day and he says to me, "it's not about Russia and China, that's a red herring." WTF does that mean anyway? It just makes me crave tuna.

• One dare I would never take is to spend a week in Saudi Arabia amongst the locals. Same with Iran and Pakistan. I couldn't feel safe there.

• NCAA Basketball beats the NBA for drama and entertainment on any given night. You can't play 82 games and give it your all in every single one. I don't care who you are.
  

• Being a nerdy coin collector I feel comfortable saying that Euro coins are a whole lot cooler than our plain Jane stuff.

• "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" is based on a true story. Who knew?

• A lady looking to be in her late fifties came in today and placed an ad for an Estate Notice for her husband that had just died of a brain tumor. Like a lot of people in this area she proceeded to tell me the whole story, and I listened mostly because she probably just wanted somebody, anybody to listen. She told me about the last eight months of his life, how much he loved his cars, and how he would never admit to anybody that he was going to die soon. It was very hard to listen to and I'm sure it was much harder for her to experience. I deal with half a dozen of these notices every week and I've never really thought about the people these names belong to.
  

Things I Think v2

More things I think:

• For some reason I really like the way hispanic names sound.
  
  
• One of the best names in NASCAR, Boris Said.


• I have a goal of traveling to all fifty states before I die. 13 down, 37 to go.


• Clint Eastwood knows how to direct a great movie. Not bad for the Pale Rider.
  


• Another goal I have is to someday have a Wikipedia article about my life.

• I really would like to figure out what the Hell it is I want to do with my life. I know of at least one thing I don't want to do, and that's anything involving accounting. It sucks the big one.

• I miss people, lots of them.

• 1.5 oz Grey Goose, 1 oz Blue Curacao. 10 oz Ginger Ale and ice of course. I call it a Swingin' Ginger Goose.

• I love being around my family, we have a lot of fun together when we go out. Moving out to NC really brought us a lot closer. Except of course for my younger sister, who disowned us and stayed behind in Utah so she could be around her boyfriend. Because of her decision she will never be as much of a tight-knit member of this family that the rest of us are. It makes me sad for her, but it's what she wanted.
  

Things I Think

I keep a piece of paper in my wallet. I use it to record things I think about that day. Sometimes thoughtful, rarely profound, and mostly useless. Anyway, I'm going to post them here.

• I'm not much of a clothes shopper, unless it involves the Old Navy clearance rack and pants that look great on me.

• I'm usually pretty easy going. I don't get mad at people often, but if you really want to piss me off mention in my presence that you believe the internment of US citizens of Japanese dissent during WWII was a great idea.

• Who is Ricardo Montalban?

• Am I the only person that doesn't care that Britney Spears shaved her head?

• I'm told people here have had complaints about my ability to stay on top of things here. I wish they would talk to me about it so I know which areas I need to work on. All I know is that I work my ass off and I don't take a smoke break every hour. I barely have time for a lunch break.

• I don't think there are any cameras in this building...

• That article left too many questions unanswered. I don't give a rats ass about her home design business. I want to know why her husband decided they weren't returning to the US. How was she finally arrested? Why is her daughter choosing to stay in Kuwait?

• I have a racist relative. He says he isn't racist, that he hates everybody. That may be true, but he also happens to really really hate Mexicans and anybody that might look Mexican.

• A buttered piece of toast always lands buttered side down. A cat always lands on his feet. If you strap a piece of toast, buttered side up, to a cat, does the cat defy the laws of gravity and fly?
  

On angry callers

It's Friday. Deadline day. I spend all week preparing for deadline day, and this day was actually pretty good to start. Having worked with newspapers before I get a happy feeling on deadline days when everything just falls into place.

Then Ann called

Me: Fuquay Independent, this is Jason, How can I help you?

Ann: Hi, my name is Ann Psychobitch, and I'd like to renew a classified I've been running.

Me: Which ad have you been running?

Ann: It's an ad for Firewood For Sale, the phone number on the ad is 919-IMA-WENCH

Me: Okay, looks like your ad expired on the 10th, how long would you like to renew it for?

Ann: Four weeks

Me: Alright, that's $20 for the first week and $18 for each additional week, so that'll be a total of $74.

Ann: Wow... that's just ridiculous, why did you raise the prices so much!?!

(Me on the inside: Are you kidding me Smalls? These ads have a circulation of almost 30,000 homes. People are always telling me about how cheap our ad space is!)

Me: We raised our rates one dollar per week at the beginning of the year.

Ann: I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU GUYS ARE CHARGING SO MUCH! I ADVERTISE WITH THE TRIANGLE SHOPPER AND THEY'RE ONLY CHARGING ME $55.20 FOR A MONTH!

(Me on the inside: And I'm supposed to care because...?)

Me (for reals): Really?

Ann: Yeah! Anyway, can you just charge my credit card?

Me: Sure, do you mind giving me the information over the phone?

Ann: WHAT!?! I GAVE YOU GUYS THAT INFORMATION WAY BACK WHEN I FIRST TOOK THE AD OUT IN OCTOBER!

Me: Well, for our customers protection we destroy any records of credit card information after we process your payment.

Ann: JESUS CHRIST! I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS!

(I'm seriously considering placing an ad in the paper with all of her credit card information in it)
Me: ...

Ann: FINE! the number is 1234-5678-1234-5678

Me: And the expiration date?

Ann: WHAT THE HELL!?! HOW MUCH INFORMATION DO YOU NEED!?!

(I'm literally flipping the bird at the phone)
Me: The more information we have when we process your card the lower your service charge.

Ann: FINE! it's 03/09

Me: And the card verification number on the back?

Ann: JESUS CHRIST! 444

(Jesus loves you Ann!... I think)
Me: And a phone number to reach you?

Ann: THE ONE ON THE AD! You know what, I'm going to call my husband and tell him about this, I'm not sure I want my ad.

(I'm already pulling out my garbage can to throw the ad form away)
Me: Would you like me to hold off on this until you get the okay from him then?

Ann: NO! HOW ABOUT YOU RUN IT AND IF I CALL BACK AND SAY TO CANCEL IT THEN CANCEL IT! THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE!

(If it were possible to slap people through the phone your face would be red right now)
Me: Okay fine, I'll get this in there for you then.

Ann: (click)

(Damn it! I wanted to hang up on her!)

I was half tempted to call her back and hang up on her once she picked up. I needed a good fifteen minute coffee break to recover from that one. I want her to call back, I'm not going to be as nice to her next time.

They call me the Dude

If you're trying to get my attention I answer to three names. You can call me Kubota, sometimes Bobby, or Jason, or you can call out "Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!"

At least that's what my three-year-old nephew calls me. When he comes over to visit on Sundays I know when he's there when he pounds on my door and hollers "Dude! Come play!" or "Dude! What are you doing in there!?!"

The name has been following me around for maybe two years now, and it got started completely by accident. Schyler (my nephew) was starting to learn his first words with mama and dada and all that jazz and everybody in my family was trying to teach him how to say their name. I'm a bit of an idealist, and I thought doing that was a tad bit conceited, so I decided instead to sit him down and teach him his first word that he could actually use. So I sat down with him and a couple matchbox cars (his favorite toy) and got started.

"Dude"

It didn't really register to him at first, but we worked on it for a couple weekends and he started saying it on his own. Then one day we were sitting at the dinner table and we were trying to get him to say all of our names: Mom, dad, then he stumbled through Sharlee and Chris, then Momo and Popo (which means grandma and grandpa when you're not even two) and then his mom pointed at me.

"DUDE!"

"No," I say to him, pointing to myself, "I'm Uncle Jason."

He shakes his head at me, "Dude!"

And thus I have been known as Dude ever since. I didn't mean for him to associate the word with me when I first taught it to him, but it stuck, and now I'm Uncle Dude, and it isn't likely to change. When he would visit my parents and I was away at school he would open the door to the basement and yell "Dude!" to see if I was there.

It's not going to go away, either. Now everybody in the family refers to me as Uncle Dude around my nephews, so it's likely to carry on through all of my future nieces and nephews. Schyler has just recently figured out that I have a different name when somebody asked him "Who's Jason?" and he answered correctly for the first time "Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!"

I guess being called Uncle Dude is far better than Uncle Lazy Bastard. So I wont complain.