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Okay, remember how I talked about my husband being MacGyver and fixing my computer (computer power cord working liking a charm by the way), and how I tend to break things that he ultimately has to fix? Remember that? (Scroll down in blog entries if you don’t).
Well, I broke something. Surprise, surprise, right? For the last few mornings, taking a shower is more like taking a dribble—not a shower at all. Scott soaked the showerhead in Lime-A-Way, but it didn’t seem to help. This morning’s shower was a joke—drip, drip, spit some water, drip, drip. I went and bought a new showerhead. That’s a good thing, or so I thought. Then I tried to install it. Not such a good thing. Someone should have stopped me, because a plumber I am not. I couldn’t get the old one off, so I twisted and twisted. I got out the pliers and twisted some more. The stupid thing just wouldn’t budge. Dag nab it! I figured if I just tried a little harder-- Snap! I turned on the water, and all the water now runs down the tile and the metal pipe-pole is VERY, VERY loose. None of the water makes it to the showerhead. I think I completely made the situation worse. Shouldn’t it be easy to put a new showerhead on? Yeah, it should. That’s what I thought. Easy-Peasy. But NOOO!! I called Scott. “Hi,” I said. “You love me, right?” He hesitated. “Yeah.” He dragged out the word, fearful of where this conversation was leading. “Why? How much is this going to cost me?” (He knows me too well). “It shouldn’t cost a thing,” I said. (I’m pretty sure it’s going to cost something). “All I need from you is your time and MacGyver skills.” “What did you do?” I proceeded to tell him how I was such a good wife that I had thought I would surprise him with a fully-functioning shower and that I kind of installed a new showerhead, but “somehow” it wasn’t working right. “There’s a leak,” I said. He expelled his breath slowly on the on the phone. “I assume it’s a big leak, right?” “Well,” I said. “What do you mean by ‘a big leak’ exactly?” Silence. “I love you,” I said. After a moment. “I love you too. I will look at it when I get home. You know I spent all day yesterday repairing and replacing a sprinkler valve, right?” “Yes!” I said. “That you did, and I had NOTHING to do with that.” (Which is true, by the way. I don’t even know how to turn on the sprinklers. The sprinkler valve had nothing to do with me). “And since you were sooo good at fixing that problem, you should be a whiz at fixing this one. I know you can do it.” Silence. “I love you,” I said. “I love you too.” **Update: Scott is home. He just came out of the bathroom holding the entire showerhead—pipe device. “What did you do?” “I didn’t do that,” I said. “That was still attached to the wall when I left. It was a little loose, but attached.” “You broke it.” “No I didn’t,” I insisted. “It was still hooked.” “By a little metal piece of pipe—” “YOU broke it!” “Angela.” He looked at me with a great deal of irritation. “I didn’t mean too.” He expelled his breath again. (He looked like one of those guys with the smoke coming out of his ears, but without the smoke part). “You broke it the worst possible way. I’m going to have to tear a HUGE hole into the wall to fix it. I am going to have to retile the WHOLE shower. We are not going to be able to use this shower for a VERY long time. Do you understand just what trouble you have caused here? ” “YES!” I say. “I do understand. I will never, ever do it again—EVER. A total cross-over-the-heart-promise.” He nods with squinted eyes, resigning himself to the fact that what is done, is done. “But can you fix it by tomorrow morning?” **UPDATE: Scott is NOT happy with me at all. I REALLY, REALLY broke the shower. We may have to remodel the whole bathroom now. He thinks we may have to *gasp* call a plumber.
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  Got a glue gun? Got a pink marker? I can fix it.
Yes, my husband is MacGyver/MacGruber. He is amazing—a genius. My lap top power adapter has been having issues for a while. I would have to wiggle it this way and wiggle it that way to get power. Then all of a sudden—nothing. My battery kept counting down 48% power. 32% power. 10% power and then my laptop died and I had no way to recharge it. I panicked. I freaked out a little (okay, a lot). What was I going to do? What was I going to do? WHY ME? I cried a tear or two. I called Staples. I called Best Buy. I called WalMart. Yes, they had a universal power adapter. It would cost me $100. I was willing to buy it. I was just about to do it too. I needed power. I would pay the electronics department man at WalMart anything he wanted—one hundred dollars? Two hundred dollars? I would find the money somehow. I would. Need a kidney? I have two. But I had a meeting. I had a meeting with my wonderful, wonderful critique group/friends. It would have to wait until I was through. I was anxious. I have important things on my laptop—my novels, my notes, my eBay store, my facebook friends. How would I ever be able to keep in touch and update my status? (I actually have 3 other computers in my house, but my pink laptop is my baby. Mine. My toy and no one else can touch it). My meeting ran long. I came home and my miracle worker husband said, “I believe I can fix that.” He got out the utility knife, a soldering iron, tweezers, the plastic pink casing off a marker, some black tape, my glue gun and a wad of gum (just kidding, no gum was used in this process. But a marker? Come on. That’s genius). He went to work. He soldered the completely broken connections, used the plastic marker to cover up the very dangerous open innards, hot glued it all together, used a bit of tape and Waa-la—I HAVE POWER!! I love that man. I love him a lot. He is a master of all things broken (I kid you not). I have seen him build a wooden shed from scratch; put in a pond and stream in our backyard; rebuild blown down fences; replaced our LCD screen on our video camera; upgrade the memory on our computers; and he has plans to repair our bent-in-half trampoline. What a guy! We are the perfect couple: I break a lot of stuff and he knows how to fix it.  You read that correctly. There is a live spider in my stainless steel fridge. I came home from church, opened the fridge and saw a cup with an envelope over the opening and a small dish on top of it. This looked weird and I asked, “Does anyone know why there is a covered cup in the fridge?”
I truly expected Callie to come running. She is my creative child, my interesting child. In her room, she has a drawer full of rocks—her collection and she refused to part with any (even though they all look the same). I told her one time, that she needed to get rid of some of the rocks. “We have no room for rocks in the house,” I said. She came and handed me two that I could put outside—two. She has probably fifty. And some of them are rather big and heavy. If the cup wasn’t Callie’s then I thought maybe one of the boys was doing something odd. The imagination of children amazes me—the things they can come up with. OH,BUT NO!! No child came running. It was my husband. He ran to the top of the stairs and yelled down to me, “Don’t uncover that cup!” Oh, boy. “Why?” I asked. “Because there is a spider in there that I want to take a picture of.” Huh? “Ooo-kay. Why is it in my fridge?” “I heard it slows them down and that way I can take a really cool picture.” My husband, if you cannot tell is into photography. My husband, if you cannot tell, is crazy. “What kind of spider?” I HATE spiders. I hate spiders in the yard. I hate spiders in the house. I especially hate spiders in my fridge. I’m trying to make dinner. I am creeped out. “Just don’t look,” he said. OH, GREAT!! It must be a really, really big, ugly, scary looking spider—in my fridge. I take a deep breath. I take another. My husband is worse than the kids. That spider better be gone by evening time or I'm leaving him. After My husband realized I had been scammed, he quickly sent off an email to KSL (Channel 5) to let them know this took place. He thought they might want to do a story on it.
Well, guess what? An hour ago they came and did a report, so tonight Scott and I will be on the 10:00 news. What SWEEET REVENGE!!!! Take that GOOGLECHEST or SAFELOCK or WEB CLEANING SERVICE or whatever the heck your new name is this month—TAKE THAT!!! I told Jordan, the customer representative, and also the supervisor for this big scam company that I would do everything in my power to make people aware of the fraud they were pulling. Blogging about it is one thing, KSL News . . . Holy Cow, that’s better, much, much better. We have filed complaints with the State of Utah and have been told that filing a Police Statement would be a very good thing to do. So we probably will. We were interviewed by Sandra Yi—Awesome!! Okay, now the problem . . . I think I may have sounded like an idiot. I was so nervous. Put a camera on me and my lips thicken up like I have been injected with collagen and words tumble out without any kind of rhyme or reason. I asked her if she could edit it to make me not look dumb, she said she would (with a laugh). So we will see. If you want to see me looking ridiculous, then check it out. I tossed and turned all night Sunday night. Monday morning could not come fast enough. I needed to call my bank and get this resolved somehow. If I couldn’t get my money back, then I at least wanted it STOPPED.
America First is awesome. I talked with a representative and she told me exactly what to do. First: she canceled my Visa debit card (that’s how this scam company took my money). Second: She told me where to find the forms I needed to fill out to file a dispute and then told me where to take them—to my nearest branch. So easy to do. One problem, on the form it had an area stating that I had to contact the company accused and give them a chance to resolve the issue. Dum, dum, dummmm!!! (Insert eerie sounding music here). I did this. I was not happy. By the tone of my voice and the not so nice choice of words I slew at them (I’m not a big swearer. I don’t make a daily practice of it. But on occasion it is known to happen), the company knew I was pretty ticked. I was a raving lunatic! I called them scummy, scum, sucking scammers and all sorts of other things that happened to roll off my tongue—making sense or no sense, it did not matter. I was on a roll. As I said before, every month the company changed its name and phone number—EVERY stinking month. What does that say about them? I called every phone number, and EVERY time I got the same customer service representative named Jordan. Jordan is in Lehi, Utah. Can you believe that? Even though on my bank statements it shows money withdrawn from Arizona and Nebraska. Jordan tried to tell me that they are not a scamming company that they provide an actual service. “What service did you provide me?” I asked. “We send you links to finding grants that you may be eligible to receive. The other service you signed up for (I did not) was for web training service. We guide you in creating the best website for your company and how to build it and clean it (I do not have company web site and would not spend $72.93 a month to have it “cleaned” ) We send this to your information to your email account.” “I have never received EVEN one email from you,” I said. “Really? That’s strange. Let me have my supervisor talk to you.” So I did. We talked. He insists his service and company is real. “Why is your name different every month on my statements?” “We use different merchant accounts and it just depends on which merchant account we go through.” Do you know expensive it is to switch merchant accounts each month? There is a fee the company has to pay each time it switches. “You should have received emails with links and also emails letting you know the amount to expect that will be withdrawn from your account—a statement,” he said. “I have never received anything. No service. No statement.” “Hmm … that’s weird.” “You think?” Anyway, supposedly this company closed my “Membership” to these two different programs I signed up for and are “looking into refunding me”. I will not hold my breath. I did though fill out nineteen, yes nineteen, different dispute forms and took them to my bank on Monday morning. Guess what? I have received almost $400.00 back in fraud charges. Better than I had ever expected to receive. Thank you America First Credit Union! I will be better in my future. I will be more vigilant. I will open my statements, and I promise you this will never happen to me again. Guaranteed.  I didn’t start out scared of snow. As a child I happily played in it—building snowmen, igloos, and caves. Snow was wonderful, beautiful, enjoyable.
Then I learned to drive. When I went away to college, I found myself having to drive in the snow either going the long way around from Logan through Tremonton or driving the short way through Sardine Canyon into Brigham City. Twice I had near accidents. The first, a blizzard caught me in the canyon. I slid off the road, terrified but uninjured. The second happened while going around the long way. The freeways were not plowed, the snow thick and heavy. There was an accident ahead, and I tried to avoid it. I hit my brakes and spun around facing oncoming traffic. Again, scared, but uninjured. Tonight, I traveled to Layton for my book club at Barnes and Noble. Going there was fine, no snow, just rain. Coming home was a whole other story. My children were at home. My oldest was babysitting. I needed to get to them. I decided to take the back roads, go slowly. Layton wasn’t too bad. Kaysville was horrible. Farmington, completely insane. The worst was near Davis High School down through Cherry Hills. I couldn’t see ahead of me. It was a near whiteout. There were no tracks to follow and it was difficult to know if I was on the correct side of the road. I drove with both hands on the wheel, white knuckling it the whole way. I could hear the slush and feel the pull of the snow on my tires. I wasn’t going to make it home. My van is old—eleven years old. It only has front wheel drive. I live on a hill. I had my doubts. Worst case scenario—I park at the bottom of hill and hike it up in my high-heel boots. I am a mother after all. A truck followed behind me, hugging my bumper the whole way. I tried not to worry about him. I couldn’t. If he slid into me, boy would I let him have it though—the idiot. What was he thinking? My old, clunky van is amazing—the best $6,000 we ever spent. Our return on the van has been tenfold. I made it up the cemetery road (steep road, but the lesser of my steep hill options). Next to come, my hill. Slowly, but surly, while forcing those wheels to spin with all their might, I made it up the hill. Now to tackle my driveway, my wonderful son was out there trying to shovel a path for me. The snow quickly covered his attempts—what a good boy. I am home. I am safe. The van is in the garage. It doesn’t matter how many successful journeys I have had driving in the snow, I am still scared and afraid. I don’t care how many years of experience I have at driving, I feel brand new every time the snow falls. Driving in the snow is one of my biggest fears, followed by heights and snakes. I don’t think I will ever embrace driving in the snow. Maybe that is a good thing—fear keeps me cautious and makes me drive slowly. Fear keeps me alive. |
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