One of those days

I was up and ready to go by 7:30 this morning. I had all intentions of having a productive day. First, I was stuck going to court in a county a half hour away for a speeding ticket. Yes, I could have paid ahead of time, but according to many online "sources," if you go to court here and plead guilty, they often reduce the speed on the ticket, which would have meant no points on my record. So, prepared for a lengthy amount of sitting around and waiting (I'm much more used to bigger city traffic courts), I packed up a whole bunch of stuff to work on. Arriving at court, I was immediately shuffled into the office used for traffic court. No actual courtroom, just an office with a secretary. She then proceeded to simply process my ticket without even offering to reduce the speed. So, 2 hours wasted driving to court and dinking around waiting for my appointed court time (which apparently I did not need to do). This should have been a good indication of the rest of my day.

I got home, and decided to call Motorola to see if they could help me with my cell phone. The screen had mysteriously gone from bright to dim to black on Jeremy yesterday while he was fishing. So, I called them, and they guided me through their repair process. This involved simply removing the battery, waiting 10 seconds, then putting it back in. Easier said then done. I spent 10 minutes trying to get the damn battery out of the phone. I finally got it out, waited, then put it back in. Nothing. Then the woman told me I needed to take the battery back out so I could get the serial number off of it for her to verify that it was still under warranty. 1. I had the receipt right in front of me, purchase date of 2-15-07, saying I had a one year warranty, and 2. she couldn't have mentioned getting that the first time I hatcheted the phone to get the battery out? This time she put me on hold so I could find something (a screwdriver) to pry it out. 10 minutes later, I gave her the number and then she told me, yes, it's still under warranty, and here are your three options: mail it in to Motorola, find a local Motorola store, or take it to my service provider. Um, thanks for the help? Time wasted: 30 minutes.

Since Jeremy needed something picked up from interoffice mail at the local bank branch, I figured I might as well go to Verizon, then stop by Office Depot to pick up the ink cartridge for the fax machine. Arriving at Verizon, I had to enter all the info into their little cue system, then wait for the three people ahead of me to finish before I could speak to the tech department. Finally, it was my turn. The guy popped off the back of my phone and showed me little white dot had turned red. Apparently, this means water got in it, and there is nothing they can do (also, why didn't the damn Motorola "help" lady mention this little factor? It would have saved me the entire trip to Verizon). Now, this wouldn't be quite so bad, but in February, I lent him my phone for 3 days when he went back to NC for work. In that three days, he managed to lose it, forcing me to plop down $200 to replace it. Needless to say, when they told me what had occurred and that the warranty was now obsolete, I exited the store mumbling several (or better yet make that a stream) of choice words, most of which started with an f. Time wasted at Verizon: 45 minutes.

By now, it was already 1. I still had not managed to do one productive thing. Since Office Depot was right down the road, I figured I might as well try to find the cartridge. Can I find it? No. Why? Because their lovely computerized self help ink cartridge system only lets you put in the make/model of the fax machine; I only brought the number for the ink cartridge itself. So I have to track somebody down to help me, which is easier said than done. Apparently, nobody works in the store on Monday afternoons. Finally I found someone, and he (I shall refer to him from here on out as putz boy) tries to help me. 10 minutes later, he guided me to the two slots for Sharp ink cartridges, and, of course, the one I needed is the one that is sold out. Putz boy says, "wait just a second, I'll go talk to my manager." I thought maybe they had a new shipment that just hadn't been restocked. So I waited and waited and waited. When he came back, he told me that the manager said they could order one for me and have it shipped for free. I asked how long it would take. "I don't know. We don't know until we put the order in." I'm just shooting for an estimate here, so I asked, "1 week or less?" He hesitated, then responded, "I don't know. Maybe?" I could order it online and have it faster than that. So I left with nothing. Time wasted: 35 minutes.

While headed to my car, I realized that Target was right down from Office Depot. Might as well give it a shot and see if they have the cartridge while I'm there. So I headed into the store. Of course, ink cartridges were not by the office supply section. That would be too easy. Instead, I had to meander through their entire electronics section, which seemed to have aisles going haphazardly in every direction, only to discover that no, they do not carry the cartridge. By this time I was just frustrated. So I looked at shorts and bought a pair of shoes. Time wasted: 1 hour.

Once I get home, I decided I might as well search for the best deal on ink cartridges, as long as I'm ordering it online. After way too much research on my part, I finally decided on Best Buy (they had the cheapest price, plus were offering free shipping on ink cartridges over $20). I went to place my order and quickly discovered that no matter how many times I entered my zipcode for tax purposes, it would tell me the zipcode was invalid. Since this is required for purchases, I couldn't check out. So, I am forced to call Best Buy's help line, wait on hold, get transferred, and wait on hold again before someone finally helped me. Could she fix this problem so I can just place my order? No. Instead, we had to walk through all my information, and she had to place the order for me. She informed me "Oh, there must have just been some little glitch because I got your zipcode to go through no problem." Um, I was still online, and I still couldn't get it to go through. In fact, while waiting for her, I entered five former zipcodes from four different states. All of them put in the tax info when I hit their little go button, then gave me the "invalid" error message when I tried to check out (by the way, Georgia has much higher taxes than either Minnesota, Iowa, or North Carolina). Time wasted in online ink cartridge search and order: 2 hours.

By this time, it was almost 5. Jeremy had somehow managed to break off some piece in his rifle while cleaning it and needed to take it to the gunsmith (my luck was rubbing off on him). I decided I might as well ride along--maybe that would be relaxing. We got there, Jeremy walked up to the door, and it was locked. I just started laughing. Then, the storeowner next door came out and told him the guy has closed down for good. There are no other gunsmiths that we know of in the area. Absolutely nothing went smoothly today, nor has much of anything really gone right. The only thing I actually managed to accomplish the whole day was paying a speeding ticket and ordering an ink cartridge. So what does he suggest doing? Fishing! No, no, no, no, no, no!!! And no!!!