There are days - weeks - months - when you just figure the universe is out to get you and that is all there is to it.
In September we left our 20 year old F150 at Master Park in Seattle and came back a few days later from Providence to discover that the steel rod behind the dashboard connecting the gear shift (which is on the column) was broken in half. Master Park asserts it was "wear and tear" because "people like us" who own older vehicles have them spontaneously break all the time. They were unable to start the truck when we left it and had it towed. (We don't know why they couldn't turn the key in the ignition as it started right up for us when we got there.) They claim the rod was either broken when we left it (which would have meant we couldn't put the truck in park but they can't explain that) or broke by itself while it was parked. It cost $600 to fix. Ford, who fixed it, said they don't know how it happened. But can't discount that old trucks break. They also can't discount that several employees pulling on the gear shift knob at once to force it from Park to Neutral wouldn't have snapped the steel rod in half as well. They won't commit one way or the other though.
So Master Park won't reimburse us. And that is the end of that.
Then someone who leased one of our aircraft refused to pay us the lease payment. And the plane was in the shop at the time and the people who owned the shop refused to release the aircraft to us until we paid the outstanding bill for the company that had been leasing it. Our plane was held hostage. So we had to pay that "ransom" to get it out so we could lease it to another company. And now we have to get lawyers involved to recoup that loss and breach of contract and everything else.
Then I ordered a refill of the test strips for my son's glucometer and received only one month's supply instead of three (as the prescription reads). The insurance company says we are dealing with a retail pharmacy and are only allowed to receive 30 days at a time. Except it is the same mail order pharmacy we have dealt with for the last 6+ years. The pharmacy says we are simply no longer allowed to have more than 30 days worth of supplies and the lady who decided this is not in the office. Not yesterday, not today, not tomorrow. Hopefully, someone else will be able to dig into her cryptic notes and figure it out tomorrow because thirty days at a time means every three weeks I'm calling to get a refill and I just don't want to deal with this all the damn time.
Plus, why do they decide this and not tell us? Why do they just do this and we have to take it while paying hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars every month for coverage? Plus, Children's Hospital just added a facility fee to all appointments of several hundred dollars. We go there a minimum of four times a year. Somehow, I doubt our insurance company is going to cover that.
And my book is coming out in three weeks and all anyone wants to ask me is what I am doing for the book and really, I thought the whole writing the book should be something, should be a lot, should be maybe even enough. But for all that you do in the writing it is nothing - absolutely worth nothing - if you want it to actually sell. I haven't written anything new in ages because all I do is deal with this book and every time I think maybe something good is happening with it I am swiftly reminded that the amount of people paying attention to my book in comparison to all the others out there is tiny. So tiny. I haven't heard from my publisher in ages. They are lovely people but probably dealing with Spring 2012 releases at this point. They have to move on. It's my job now.
And honestly, I am done.
I have had worse years than this one. 1999 was epically bad - my father died and my husband fought cancer and in the middle of it I took my oral exams for my grad degree and wrote and defended my thesis. That was a long hard year. In 2005 my son was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes at the age of three and a half and then only weeks after getting out of one hospital he was in another with pneumonia. And then a few months later he crashed one night while asleep and had a seizure which was a rush to yet another emergency room. We never slept in 2005; we just watched him sleep and waited for him to wake up. So I know that 2011 is not as bad as it can be.
But I am tired of the phone always being something I don't want to hear and the email always being what I don't want to read and nothing, nothing, nothing, turning out as I hoped for. It seems all I do is write checks for other people and know that I am being taken advantage of and there is not a single thing I can do to stop it.
If I was five I would take my toys and go home right now. If I was twenty and in college I would get drunk and date the wrong boy. Sometimes being a grown-up really sucks.
November 3
2011
04:27 PM
If I can help with anything, let me know.