Now I Have To Go Wash That Off

I've been doing a lot of shopping lately. Mostly comparison shopping and let me tell you that you can find most things akin to Pottery Barn elsewhere and at much better pricing. Honestly, who knew that [Cost Plus] World Market has such great furniture? I purchased some leather chairs, an end table, couple lamps and a trunk. Happily, our bedroom is finally coming around thanks to World Market and Pier 1. I'd been everywhere for months now and the vision is coming to fruition. Give it a few more months and a couple coats of paint and we'll be good as new. This depends on when I can actually settle on some color schemes. I'm pretty ADHD about this and won't argue over how ADHD I am about it. I just am. One day I'm with chocolate browns. The next day it's slate with a hint of blue or green. Then, I hit my chocolate brown and blue/green phases. Sometimes I'm totally off the chart with purple or red. Lots of wall = lots of colors. Mostly I come back to brown and blues. I'm a color person and I'm not afraid to use them. Just coming to a solution is a bit tedious and most likely annoying to the husband. I have to admit that he's got the "whatever you think, honey" bit down perfectly. I get no arguments there. Awesome! How can painting your bedroom be so panic at the disco distressing? It's just paint. I need Prozac, obviously. Or is it Ritalin?

Furthermore, I have found my next dinning room table. Actually, I found 2, but the husband is being mean and saying I can only get one. What?! Only one table?! Who lives with only one table? "But we can switch them out whenever we want and we now have a dining room that also needs a table . . . and one has a bench, so sometimes we can have a bench, eat with our hands and pretend we're, like, in medieval times and then others, when we have to be more formal . . . Well, one can be my work table and one can be the food table . . . Plus we are still paying less for two tables than we would for one Pottery Barn table. It's only fair . . . I have a table fetish that needs feeding . . . No, really, I. need. two. tables." I've thought this through very thoroughly and no matter how I've done so, I don't believe I'm going to win this one. That's a bummer. As you can see, I've tried every angle.

But this isn't the point of my post. This is.

I pseudo-destroyed my Treo 680. My red Treo 680. I loved that phone. Loved it. So much so that I almost fell into a deep depression when I crushed the LCD screen in the trunk of Coco Chanel. It was an awful crunch of a sound. I looked at the top of the car to see what had actually fallen on the roof to make such a noise, because it was so undiscerning, yet disturbing. I didn't see a thing and became a bit bewildered with a tilt of my head, like dogs do when they hear something they don't understand, until I saw a light and then absolute nothingness from my what was my mobile phone sticking out of the crack between the trunk and the back window. Utter panic ensued. How to live without my cell phone? This can't be! The screen is not cracked. The screen is not cracked. The screen is not cracked, as if repeating that mantra over and over again would make it true. Nope. No amount of CPR could save it either. Lord knows I tried.

I managed to get a few calls out, but had no idea what numbers I was dialing. How in the world did we manage back in the day when it was only rotary dialing? [Yea. So? I'm aging myself a bit here. Whatever.] Anyhow, I have to see the screen to be sure I am hitting the right number keys to be sure I'm dialing the right person. So, I went through a bit of a panic attack having hit numbers without a caller ID letting me know who I was actually calling. It worked after a few miss dials. The screen is toast though, which upon further discovery lead me to an even deeper depression, because a greater thought hit my little brain. . . . how am I going to text(!), [*gasping for air; cannot breathe*] which everyone who knows me, is the life force of my existence. It's charming really. Aside from bargain shopping, my other obsession is text messaging. I'm good at both - master of none. And now the life force has been sucked out of me by the cell phone vampire. I'm empty inside.

A trip to the mobile phone store did little to ease my pain. I left only to return a day later. I outright bought the phone this past May this time around so I would not have that stoopid upgrade contract to contend with whenever my phone died. Those contracts are crap. The phone always dies before your contract is up for a new upgrade. They get you for two years and believe me when I say, I am not going to switch providers. It costs too much to quit and start over. I've been with you for over 6 years I'm not going back. I'm lazy and that is entirely too much work for me. So, even though you buy the phone outright to avoid contracts, one still ends up with one. Yep. You do. Apparently, since buying outright in May my new upgrade isn't due now until January 2008. "Huh? But I didn't sign up for. . . what do you mean that doesn't matter? This is treacherous." Long story even longer: I do not qualify for another phone. I do not have insurance on the phone, because they wouldn't sell me insurance on the phone. Why? Because, to use their words, "the phone is too expensive of a cost to us to carry insurance on it." So there. I am screwed. The words of Leo Getz rang out and echoed through my head:

"They #*@$ you at the [cellular store], okay? They #*@$ you at the [cellular store]! They know you're gonna be miles away before you find out you got #*@$ ! They know you're not gonna turn around and go back, they don't care. So who gets #*@$ ? Ol' [Godiva Jen]! . . ."

It was either buy a new phone or try to repair the screen.

I tried both options. Even trying to repair the screen went awry. It still cost more than it should and the salesman was just creepy-McCreepster. A few hours later the husband half-mentioned, "Did you notice how that A***o T*k guy just kept staring at your boobs?" Seriously? What was that all about? "I noticed, but I was hoping it was just me being overly freaked out by shameless sleazeball of a guy." And I don't even have a chest that is worth mentioning in print. "Am I wearing a revealing shirt? Oh my God! I'm wearing a shirt that makes revolting men stare at my chest!" The husband, chuckling, retorted, "You're not wearing a revealing shirt. He's just a guy." "Well, he's not getting my business that's for sure. I'm not going back there. Ewww. Gross." I said it just like that with the italics and bold in the appropriate places too. And with a hmph, I was said and done. The husband just laughed and drove me to the cellular store where once again I am pretty sure I got the short end of the stick.

I now have a Samsung BlackJack and it's nothing like my Treo. I miss my Treo. RIP Treo you're sorely missed. The husband says I'll eventually love my BlackJack just like I did my Treo, but the skeptic in me just refuses to believe.




*** If you're wondering why I didn't just buy the red Treo 680, it's because I couldn't bring myself to do it again. That's a lot of bills, people! The same phone within two months time frame? Naw. That's just not right. Besides, with the cost of that phone I could buy a second dining table! Well, I have yet to buy the first, but the point is, it is the same cost as those 2 tables and I can't eat off my phone. So, I spent less bills this time around, which most likely is why I'm still kinda hating on the BlackJack. And it's not the BlackJack's fault, really. It's mine. I can't watch out for my own preciousssss phone, then I don't deserve it. I suppose it's the whole "cut off your nose to spite your face" kind of deal. I must live with my mistake.

So there.

Happy Independence Day!!!