le poof

but still, sometimes, things surprise me. and i was surprised today. because today an old man approached me at the park. and he said, you know, im a pediatrician.

which is already a weird start to a conversation, because i didnt know that. and maybe i should have just rolled with it, but instead i went

wait. i dont know that. why did you think i knew that?

which didn't even put him slightly off balance.

cuz you're bald, he said, so confidently that i didnt even question it until the conversation was over. now. i was - i was over there, sitting -

and he gestured across the park to a giant pile of soft dirt that had an almost cartoonishly exaggerated ass print on it which derailed me for the second time. right? because whoever sat on that dirt, clearly, had an ass like two coconuts being fired out of a spanish cannon. whereas this man had an ass that could probably only be detected with powerful scientific instruments. i told him this in more succint terms by simply saying that was clearly not his buttprint.

now at this point we'd gotten derailed twice, and as unflappable as he'd been the first time, he was starting to get a little defensive. so he said perhaps someone with a large butt sat down after i got up, and i said why are you lying about where you were sitting, and he said why would i do that? and i said if i knew, i wouldnt be asking, and he said fine, i was driving by - and i said why didn't you just say you were driving by?!?!?!?! and he said because i didn't want you to think i was the kind of crazy person that would just stop his car to tell a stranger in a park that he, as a pediatrician, could tell that your parents REALLY cared about tummy time!

then he left. angrily. he actually stomped back to his car. i dont know when i started laughing but i didnt stop until i got home. my voice is still all scratchy right now. ive been in a little bit of a writing funk but i had to get this down while i could still remember it so perfectly.

who i am

I love how it doesn't matter what expedition it is.

They all turn into excited kids when they meet penguins.

well every time i've called, the new representative has been like "i'm so sorry, but there's no ticket by that number. i have no record of you ever calling about this. i'll start a ticket for you."

finally, the fifth time i nearly burst into tears of frustration and i said "i don't want you to start a ticket for me, because it will be the sixth ticket created for this same issue. every week, one of your colleagues tells me they'll create a a new ticket for me, and then nothing happens."

they said, "i'm sorry but i have no record of those tickets existing." and i was like i KNOW. but they doooooo what is happening.

finally i got transferred to a supervisor's supervisor.

if you've ever worked in online customer service, you know that when a customer calls with a problem, you create a "ticket" that puts that issue into the system. if you can't resolve it, it goes into a ticket queue, where other people with the ability to resolve it select it, put it into their personal working queue, and resolve it.

well after 30 minutes of searching, this supervisor tells me, dumbfounded, that she's discovered a completely unique queue she's never seen before, where my tickets have been going somehow. a pocket universe queue that no one has access to or can edit or select from, not even her. she has no idea what's happening. she's like "yes, here are all your tickets, and no one can open them or comment on them or resolve them.....this is crazy......" and it's JUST my tickets in there. no one else's. of tens of thousands of customers.

all professionalism fell by the wayside. i told her i've worked with those queues before and also found that totally wild. she was like "what the hell is going on...." and talked me through everything she was seeing and how gobsmacked she was. we were both like "this is one for the books truly"

tells me she's going to have to bring this up above herself because this is a really big error on like, a coding level, that she has no idea how to resolve. tells me she will personally call me back tomorrow to update me.

four days pass with no word.

i call customer service again. random agent. explain the entire situation, including that last bit.

agent says "i'm sorry but i have no record of those tickets existing. i'll have to start a ticket for you. rest assured, it will be resolved."

i said, "no it won't be. it never will be. because they're in the special queue."