Mad About U

My thoughts have been racing lately because I’ve been stressed. Well, I thought I was stressed, but an article that my buddy Damien over at Postcards From The Funny Farm wrote got me rethinking some things and then something else happened and BING!

I’ve decided that I don’t think I am as “stressed” as I think. I’ve decided I’m angry. Pissed. Peee-ohhhhh’d. I do accept the fact that the two might be intermingling, no doubt.

I do have what some would consider stresses in my life. No matter what I do, I can’t make my grandparents happy with the High Def widescreen TV that we got them. My parents, affectionately nicknamed “Drama and Trauma” (who really are two of the best people on the planet!) can be a handful at times and on top of that, I work with them.

If you’ve ever seen an episode of American Chopper, you’ll sort of understand the logistics of working for a family business.

I also have four crazy busy teenagers, one of whom is battling anorexia nervosa, which indeed does cause a lot of understandable worry for me.

Fortunately, my hubby, JW, is probably the most passive, easy going person on the planet and he keeps me grounded because sometimes I’m afraid that have enough stressful energy that if I started flapping my arms, I’d actually take off and that’s not what I want the subject of my National Enquirer article to be. I’m totally mad about him! In the crazy, swooning, lustfilled way. Not in the angry way.

HOWEVER...(you know there was a “but”, right?) none of these things really stress me out all that much. If I look at these things and my family, I just think of how lucky I am to have them all, even with their quirkies, whatever they are. They are all good people and I’m very proud to be one of them.

So, back to Damien’s article. I was thinking about it while I was at work taking a burglary report and listening to a woman scream at me. I’m a former 911 operator, I understand upset, I really do. I used my best techniques to try to calm her down, but she was having none of it.

She was reading me a laundry list of items stolen including some silverware set that I’m sure America’s founding fathers and some Pope at one time or another ate dinner using and she’s telling me that it was valued at something like $60,000. Add to that probably another two hundred thousand or so in jewelry, fur coats and artwork and you will feel her pain.

I, however, was angry, pissed, PO’d because not on one occasion, but on four separate occasions, I told her that she needed to schedule all of those things on a separate policy because there are limits for these types of items on your Homeowner’s policy.

She didn’t want to pay for appraisals for these items and now they are gone. Even though I didn’t break into her house and steal them, somehow this is my fault and I am despicable and something terrible should happen to something that I love so that I know how she feels. Charming! The only things I love are people.

The last time somebody said something like that to me was when I wrote a fire lane violation parking ticket to a gypsy. She came out cursing me and I had to go home early because I broke out in hives.

But seriously, people are very verbally abusive lately, when they are not happy.

While I was talking to this woman, an email message popped into my inbox.

It was from my long fired ex-coworker, Goonan! I really thought I had heard the last from him. It was really for my dad, but he knows my dad doesn’t check his email so he asked me to forward it to him.

Goonan is still out of work. There was a whole big plea that he’s spent 14 hours a day for 5 months on job websites and he still can’t find anything. Poor, poor Goonan.

He says he’s never worked as hard in his life as he is now trying to find employment and he wanted to tell my dad that some insurance company that I’ve never even heard of is going to be calling for a reference and could my dad please just tell them he was an “ok” employee?

Ummmmm, no. Because that would be lying and my daddy hates liars, cheaters and talker backers. It’s true. He’s always said so.

The truth is that if he was an “ok” employee, he’d still be employed.

As I read while listening to this woman wail about a teapot that Mother Theresa herself must have drank from, Goonan actually started to get nasty and a bit threatening about how we “owe” this to him for firing him because he threw a phone across the room and called a customer the "C" word. Four letters and it's isn't "cute".

I actually became a little dizzy and my heart started pounding.

THAT’s when I realized it wasn’t just stress, it was anger. Truth be told, I know this sounds really bad, but I don’t give a crap about this woman’s teapot or the fact that Goonan is still unemployed.

She wouldn’t get appraisals on these items and Goonan did himself in, yet they both expect me to clean up their messes, which, even if I wanted to, I can not do and resort to verbal threats when I can’t.

I’ve decided I don’t need Xanax. I need a punching bag and some pictures of people who piss me off. Then I can just tape them on, knock them out and move on with my day.

What do you think?

_______________________________________________________
Don’t forget to shuffle off to my raffle for an iPod shuffle! By entering, you will be helping to send a child suffering from cancer to enjoy a summer camp experience and you could win a supercool iPod shuffle or a gift certificate to 2 Belles and a Bead!