Sickness

Well, the past couple of days have been pretty gloomy at our house. One kid gets it and then it is not long before the other one joins in. Natalie is old enough now that she can use a Kleenex and wipe her own nose, however, she likes to wipe only once with a tissue and then get a new one. It is almost like she is making some kind of close encounters mountain in the living room. The other one, is puking:( Yuck. What makes it worse is there is no warning. She will be just sitting there and then, BLAHHHH. Not a fun place to be right now, so everyone who reads this, pray that they get better fast! And if it helps, "If you tell three other people in the next ten minutes to pray that my kids get better, you will receive a $1,000 check by mail".







--Please note: It may take 6 to 8 business centuries to receive your check, if you do not receive your check in this time frame, please wait a little longer. Batteries not included.

Slayer Mom

My mom recently got a pretty nice laptop designed for gaming. That's right, I said mom and gaming in the same sentence. Since then I have introduced her to a few games like Medal of Honor, Starcraft, Simcity 4, and Axis and Allies. She has been doing pretty good at the games. Medal of Honor was her favorite for a while and she even made it through all the missions. (I didn't even do that!) What impresses me the most however is her performance on Diablo 2. She got the game and I help her out with a character build. I gave her a Druid zookeeper. Now, for those of you who know the game, this isn't a very powerful build. I thought, however, that she could summon her animals and stay back out of the fighting a bit. Well, it seemed to work. In less than 2 weeks she has already beaten Baal once and is well on the way though nightmare. She has earned the rank of Slayer and I wouldn't be surprised if she makes it to Hell this week. (Sounds mean, but it is actually a compliment)

Closed Doors

There was this hotel we went to a while back that had "theme" rooms. Rooms like a casino room, cave room, forest room, etc. Everything about these room was based on the theme. The cave room had curved rock walls, floors, and ceilings with a round bed with a bear skin and whirlpool. The forest room had real trees in the room with greenery everywhere. A couple of the rooms we multiple stories. There was a hot air balloon room, that had the bed in the balloon basket floating above the living area. It also had a two-story waterfall going into a whirlpool. There was also a moon landing room. That had an Apollo 11 replica space module that had the bed in it with a tv and video games. This spaceship had its landing gear down and stood 2 stories tall. The whirlpool was stationed right under the ship. We thought this would be a very cool place to take the kids to stay for a night. We called them up to make a reservation only to find that kids a not allowed! Apparently the insurance doesn't cover kids when there is a whirlpool in the room. So I guess the flying saucer, hot air balloon, and Sherwood forest rooms are just for adults trying to relive their childhood. Nice.

Closet Menace

We were finally ready, the color was picked out, the design drawn, the parts picked out, and the kids at the Grandma's for the weekend. Perfect time to redo the closet. We took out all the clothes and piled them up wherever we could find a space. Then I got the hammer out and gutted the closet. Amy started on the primer for the closet, while I went over to the Home Depot to get the paint and custom closet parts. Everything was going as planned until I got to the store. I went over to the flooring department (closet - flooring - ok?) and started looking for the closet unit. It was called the C-12 and it was no where to be found. I wandered around until I found a guy and asked him if they had any. He looked where I did, then said he would check in the back. I waited, and the guy came back out and said they were out and in fact that they we discontinuing them. Crap! I asked him if he could check and see if any other Home depot had some.

He checked the computer and came back and said there was one left in Wisconsin, about 300 miles away. The store he said it was at, was actually only 15 minutes from my Dad's house. I so ok, and left. I quickly called my Dad and had him drive over to pick it up. He got over there and asked them where the C-12s were. They said, "we don't have anymore". So he called me up to tell me this. Oh great I thought, but my Dad stopped my disappointment by telling me that the people at this store said the C-12 was being replaced by the C-26 and it is the exact same unit. Ok, they had three at that store, but we called our store first to see if they had any C-26 units. They said oh yeah, we have 3 of them. So I told my Dad thanks, but we will just get them at our store.

Back to out Home Depot I go. I get to the store and ask them where the C-26s are. "Well", they say, "we can't find them. I have been looking all over my department and don't see them. I know they are somewhere in the store and I am guessing they are in gardening or kitchen. We have had alot of turnover lately and things have been moved around. I got your number and I will give you a call when we find them." Well, there goes the planned weekend. First of all, as a customer I don't really care about your turnover problems. I just want good service and not all this runaround. So we wait about a week with no closet and our clothes all over the house when finally they call back with some news.

"Well, we looked all over the store and can't find them. What we think happened is they tried to put them together as a demo and broke them. But we can order one and it will be here in one week." What could we do, so we had Home Depot order one and we waited another week. The day came that Home Depot said the closet would be in and we gave them a call to make sure. We asked if the C-26 unit was in as we had ordered it last week. They said it had never gotten ordered! What the hell is wrong with these people. They said that they we in the middle of doing inventory and couldn't order anything new. Well, that was all the bull shit we could take, so we called the store manager. We told him the same story you are reading. He said he would take care of it today. He told us that they have trucks coming in everyday from other stores. So all he had to do is call up another store and have them through it on the truck. By the end of that day we had the unit in our hands.

What pisses me off the most is they could have done this weeks ago and we could have had the closet the weekend we had free! Instead we had to go through all this trouble and waiting, and never got a discount or an apology. Just excuses! Well, Home Depot, now the 3 million people who read this blog know what kind of customer service you have.