#2000

So this is my 2,000th entry here at Diaryland.

A month or so ago when I noticed that my 2,000th entry was a few entries away I thought about ending the whole big damned thing at #2000.

You've heard all the stories worth hearing.

I can't remember what I've written about and what I haven't.

I've gotten so incredibly busy with other things each morning that I now update with the frequency of a lunar eclipse.

So why go on?

I'll tell you why, Buckwheat.

Because as my dear friend Bruce Springsteen once said ... "For the fans, motherfucker."

Yes ... there's still 10 or 12 of you who come to this site like those Catholics who make the pilgrimage to Italy to see the piece of toast that got burned into an effigy of the Pope.

Except there ain't no toast for you here, Chunky Style.

Just me.

And my stupid little adventures.

So if you can handle me popping in whenever I can find time and telling you all the gory details about my life at my convenience, then who am I to deprive you of your dream?

Gah.

Remember when I used to update this thing like 15 times a week?

That's what the lack of marijuana will do to an old man.

Here's a revelation for you.

In real life, I go out of my way to make others happy.

Here ... I'm a miserable old curmudgeon who pisses on orphans.

But in real life, I work hard to make people think I'm a nice guy.

That said ... yesterday I managed to piss off four people which is a new record for me.

The first was the nurse at my doctor's office.

I had a return check-up at my doctor's office after all the stress tests, heart caths,MRIs, etc.

And usually someone from the doctor's office calls to say "You've got an appointment tomorrow. Please don't eat or drink anything after midnight. If you have to masturbate, please ejaculate into a dirty sock and leave it under your bed for several months until your son finds it one day and asks why Daddy's sock is all stiff and crunchy and as you stand there in horror watching your son play with your fossilized semen, let it serve as a reminder to wear loose fitting clothes to your next stress test. See you tomorrow!"

I did not receive such a call.

And yesterday morning, me be HUNGRY.

So I had a banana because ... and listen ... here's my train of thought.

I'm eating healthy these days. My appointment was at 9:10. I figured I'd be there at least an hour because my doctor likes to sit in his office and play Tetris for about 55 minutes, then come in, squeeze my arm, ask if I'm peeing okay and then charges me $800.

So by the time I got out of there, I'd be racing to my day job and wouldn't have time to get anything healthy to eat on the way there and would have to stop and get a Sausage Egg Bacon Ham Tater Tot Burrito or something and gain seven pounds just smelling it.

So I had a banana.

Well when the nurse called me back there, rather than make small talk, the first thing she said was "Have you eaten anything today?"

Goddammit.

It couldn't have been "I hear a cold front's moving through" or "Is that a stuffed animal in your pants or are you just happy to see me?"

"Yes," I said quietly. "A banana".

I swear to you ... right then and there she copped an attitude from hell.

"You isn't s'posed to eat nothin'," she said, swiveling her head around on her neck like a Tilt-A-Whirl.

"Sorry," I said. "I was hungry."

"We cain't do nothin' wi' choo now," she said, SLAMMING her clipboard on the counter.

SLAMMING.

Make no mistake, Junior. She SLAMMED that bitch down.

"Well n-n-nobody called me," I stuttered, trying to throw the blame on her. "I've seen so many doctors and given so much blood lately that some don't want you to eat and some don't care. Apparently you're one that cares."

"We gots to reschedule you," she said.

"Fine," I said sternly. "Please write down on the little reschedule card that I'm not supposed to eat and I'd like a courtesy phone call reminding me of that."

She did neither.

Bitch.

I then ... okay. I guess it's time you guys got an inkling of what my day job is.

It's fine. I don't care anymore. I've been fired from jobs before because of this blog ... what's one more job?

It's hard to explain but I work on various magazines ... making sure things are right with them before they go to press. It's all done on computer and I like it.

One of my jobs is putting these magazines on the internet because we're nothing but visionaries at my workplace and we've discovered this little thing called the World White Web.

So yesterday I get this call from this editor of one of the many magazines I put on the internet.

This woman is basically regarded as a pain in the ass by everyone who has to deal with her. She's bitchy for no reason.

So she calls, upset that one of the customers who has an ad in her magazine can't find the ad online.

I promise I'll figure out where it is and get it taken care of within five minutes because it's literally that simple to fix.

But it's all kinda screwed up because the lady's ad never got on the internet ... the entire magazine never got on the internet.

Long story ... don't feel like going into it right now.

So the editor calls back five minutes later after it's been fixed and says now ALL the pages are screwed up online.

I try to assure her if she would just REFRESH her page, it'd all magically fix itself.

This lady is about as computer literate as a coffee cup.

So I walk her through the refreshing stages ("See that curly Q arrow thing near the upper left? Yeah? Click that. Thanks for calling, bitch.")and she STILL can't figure it out.

I tell her to turn her computer off and then turn it back on.

She gets all huffy wondering why she has to go to such lengths to see one page.

I feel the exact same way. Just take my word for it, C-word. IT'S FIXED.

She basically hangs up on me like it was all a crank call.

Bitch.

Originally it was supposed to be last Friday, but the principal called me and canceled it on Thursday, citing he "thought it might rain".

Friday night here was gorgeous with no rain in the entire state.

So I was out a good chunk of change because of a last minute cancellation.

The beauty of it is ... on the contract that his PTA President signed, it clearly states that all cancellations must be made no later than six weeks prior to the event.

Anything canceled after that means they pay me full price because it didn't give me enough time to get another party to make up that money somehow.

I explained that to the principal and he ignored it, saying they were rescheduling for November 2nd and I'd start dealing with somebody new and not the PTA President.

The "Somebody New" lady called me and said she had no authority to write me a check or sign a contract ... but this is who my new contact is.

WTF?

I told her that I was entitled to a full payment of the money owed to me from the canceling of the school party for a lame reason.

She assured me that the reason the dance was canceled was not because of rain but because of poor advance ticket sales and that the dance had only been announced last Monday, giving kids three whole days to buy tickets.

I told her there wouldn't be a party unless I got compensated for SOMETHING and how I had given up two other parties (I really had) with two other schools and they took money out of my pocket.

THEN THE LADY STARTS GETTING HUFFY WITH ME.

"We're rescheduling the dance, isn't that enough?"

"No it's not," I say as nicely as possible. "I had budgeted for that money to be in my pocket. Your people signed a contract that states they'll be responsible for paying me in full if they cancel. They canceled. I want my money."

"You're getting your money but we've just moved it to November 2nd."

"Who's to say you won't cancel on November 1st because it's cold out?"

And then she said "That's absurd!"

I laughed. I had to laugh.

"Lady ... last week you canceled on Thursday because your principal 'thought' it 'might' rain on Friday. Every weatherman in the area said it would be sunny on Friday. Now you're telling me that's not even the reason you canceled and I was lied to by the principal. Honestly ... I really don't want to do this party."

Which is true because this school has a horrible reputation. We just had our own Jena 6 incident where four black kids beat up a white kid at a bus station. And another kid had to steal $600 from his parents' rent money because he was threatened by a kid who said he'd shoot him dead at school if he didn't bring him the money. When the parents found out, they went to the school, told the principal and sure enough ... there was a gun in this asshole's locker. He was ready to kill the kid if he didn't get $600 in protection money.

So I'm wondering if these kids really want a middle-aged balding white diabetic showing up to rizzock their hizzouse.

The lady finally told me she didn't want to deal with me anymore and I just needed to take it up with the PTA members.

I laughed in her face and said "That's what I've been doing and then the principal decided to put you in charge and neither of us has any idea why since you're not even on the PTA, you're just some student's mother."

She hung up on me.

But that's another story for another time.

Let's just say that she thinks if Santa brings Andrew a Nintendo DS that he'll automatically want to start playing "shoot-em-up" games and turn into a serial killer by the time he makes it to fourth grade.

And she ain't budging on that.

The only problem with that is ... he's already getting one for his birthday next week.

I'll take pictures of the fireworks as they happen.