My mom thinks I should write a book. "It's all so funny!" she says. "Or, at least it would be, if it weren't happening to you."
Landlords from two years ago who still refuse to give me my $3500 fucking security deposit, despite the fact that I have, after discovering their new, non-discontinued phone number by chance, called them dozens of times in the past few days. It is a much longer story than that, but the summary should suffice.
A cat who vomits all over the house every day.
A current landlord who has yet to fix our kitchen faucet that was a known issue when we moved in three months ago.
A boyfriend I never get to see because he's working all the time because I'm stupidly unemployed.
A client who owes me $250 for a project I finished a week ago who has yet to tell me when I can expect payment.
Another client for which I'd like to start working but who asks me the same god damned question nine fucking thousand times before it sinks in to her thick fucking skull and who has yet to give me the go-ahead, despite two meetings and almost 60 (SIXTY!!!) exchanged emails.
I just got an actual job today, freelance, of course, working at a monolithic financial corporation, which should make me REALLY FUCKING HAPPY but for some reason makes me more depressed than ever. Going back to do another computer job at some depressing downtown office across the street from the WTC that requires passage through three sets of guards, a metal detector, and a daily visitor photo ID scan, just for the privilege of making yet another set of corporate-defined financial websites, is most defnitely not my idea of where I want my life to be right now.
Tonight, I called almost every god damned number in my cell phone and not a single person answered. "I'm sorry, I'm away from my..." "I can't take your calls..." "Leave a message at the..." I seriously felt like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone, where I was the last man on the planet.
My cell phone, purchased in November, if you recall, has stopped accepting dialed numbers while I am on a call -- which means I cannot check my voicemail because I have to enter a password. So I called AT&FUCKINGT to complain, and they decided to send me a new phone. They passed me through to their automated Warranty Replacement service...which immediately asked me to enter in my cell phone number WHICH I CANNOT DO BECAUSE MY PHONE NO LONGER ACCEPT NUMBERS.
I just spilled half a glass of CHARDONNAY all over myself because apparently the cosmos decided that I was TOO FUCKING DRY and needed some added MOISTURE on my PANTS.
My bank just charged me a $30 overdraft fee despite the fact that I had just made a deposit, and took money out of THEIR ATM. "If I didn't have the money in my account," I asked the teller, "why would the ATM have given it to me? I would like to point out that it was, in fact, an ATM in the lobby of this very bank, which should know the status of my account if anything should." "I don't know," the teller said. "The deposit you made looks like it hadn't cleared yet, but it shouldn't have given you cash. That's weird." "Yes, it is," I replied, and then they told me to call their 1-800 number to see if I could talk to a supervisor and maybe, just maybe, get the charges reversed.
I called the number. "Press one to continue in English," the dulcet tones announced. It was at this point that I clawed out my eyeballs and my eardrums to live a life of quiet contemplation. Just like Helen Keller.
Maybe mom is right. Maybe this is all really fucking funny, and I just need a little bit of distance to realize it.