The first day of school went great, so I will not bore you with the details. Instead, allow me to tell you what happened on the last day of summer vacation.
It was cold and rainy. I thought a fun activity would be to print out invitations for Jake’s birthday and then have the kids decorate them, which was quite inspired except that the printer was not working. After an hour of online troubleshooting I had to make a decision: just let it go and get on with life or call the technical assistance line. I made the phone call.
Just to interrupt the narrative, it is imperative that you understand – if you do not already know this about me – that I am a crier. I cry for most emotions but especially for frustration and anger. The reader can well imagine how poorly suited I was to working in an open area trade floor, an environment in which I would frequently be sworn at (“This fucking model you made is a piece of shit. It doesn’t fucking update.” “Did you press the update button?” “I shouldn’t have to press a fucking BUTTON. It should just fucking update automatically! FUCK!” Cue crying.) After searching for printer related answers and then being transferred three times, I was very frustrated.
So by the time the final technical support person answered, I was sobbing hysterically. This may seem like an overreaction to the matter at hand and so it was. Perhaps was I a) expressing repressed emotions at the end of school, b) going crazy at last, or c) getting my period? If you answered c), ding ding ding!
I was, at this point, crying so hard I couldn’t speak, but instead was gasping out my printing issues. The technical support person was very soothing. “Ma’am, I will stay on the line if you need a moment to collect yourself. Ma’am, perhaps you would like a drink of water? Ma’am, you just relax now. I am going to take care of everything.” Poor guy. I mean, his job must pretty much suck. He’s a technical support person at a call centre. Probably the premenstrually deranged lunatic was the best call he’d had all day. Probably he deals mostly with irate people demanding to know why their screens were blank, when in fact they hadn’t turned their monitors on, or people screaming about their crappy printers, when in fact their printers weren’t plugged in. At least I was polite, if unintelligible.
My technical support person and I spent one hundred and five minutes on the phone before he came to the conclusion that my printer issue was strange enough to warrant a brand new printer, which actually arrived today, to which I say that is some good customer service. I wonder if crying had anything to do with it. It has never helped me in getting out of speeding tickets, probably because I could win an award for Least Attractive Crier: blotchy, red, and swollen. In any case, I was completely astonished by the result and thanked him many, many times. “You are welcome. Again. All right now, ma’am. Ma’am? Yes, you are welcome. All right, now you have a nice day!”
The rest of the day I felt like I had a hangover, from crying so much. With that stunning denouement to the summer, I was all ready for school today.
Too cool for school. Only after they chose their outfits and I had taken the picture and dropped them at school did I realize that they wore those exact same shirts on the first day of school last year. MOM FAIL.
It’s funny, ’cause it’s true! I’m SO with you. Actually, I think I’ve gotten a little better since I’ve had the kids — I used to cry at weddings, funerals, auto shows and tomato soup cans. And after my little airport fiasco earlier this week (during which I actually remained freakishly calm) I haven’t been able to move my neck for the last four days. It can be very useful though — once a humiliating crying fit in the optomotrist’s got me a seventy-five dollar discount! You have a new printer — I have a good feeling about your next speeding ticket.
Good for that customer service guy! Crying schmying. I think customer service employees would rather hear crying than cursing.
Sometimes to amuse ourselves my husband and I send comically illiterate, borderline crazy letters of complaint to companies so we get free stuff.
Good for you! A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.
Score on the new printer! That is so very cool. I’m a crier too, and I’ve never gotten anything but a headache from it.
Your boys do look too cool for school. Having them wear the same thing on the first day for two years is no biggie. I can guarantee that NO ONE (but you!) remembers what they wore last year!
On her first day of kindergarten, my oldest daughter desperately wanted to wear an unattractive hand-me-down. So she did. Oh well.
i think i want the number of that nice customer service man. i’m going to call him once a month, just a few days before my period, so he can make me feel better. 🙂
your kids? adorable.
I am totally a crier, too. I will say this – it beats being a yeller. No one gets defensive when you’re crying. And they’ll do a lot to make you stop. I once circumnavigated a whole lot of red tape that ScotiaBank was throwing at me by breaking down in tears. And not in a contrived way, it’s just what I do.