2002-04-02 - 3:41 p.m.
Disturbed, disgruntled, and discombobulated

I swear, if I ever see the word "core" ever again, I'm going to puke. At least, unless it refers to a geological sample, or a piece of an apple, or something. Especially if preceded by the words "shocked to the" or "her molten". I'm talking projectile vomiting, here.

Why? Well, I just ran into a fanfic that was a posterchild for the soulless story -- nice plot idea, perfect spelling and grammar, but with absolutely *hideous* miles-away-from-canon characterization and swiss-cheesed clear through with cliches. It hurt to read it. Even just skimming it to see if the end was any better made me wince. I wish I could get at the brain cells that encoded that dreck and scrub them blank again. Ick.

Speaking of ick. My calves and knees are screaming at me. I haven't forgotten how to walk in 3" heels, but my leg muscles have. Ow. I'm going to need to heat up the Almighty Rice Bag tonight and give them a dose or they'll cramp up on me. I love these shoes, but they apparently don't love me back.

Neither does my keyboard. My wrist is flaring up again, and so is the elbow on that arm. Hello! I haven't gotten "writer's elbow" in years! Argh. Such is the price of the Muse.

That reminds me. Something else on my List of Hatreds: Pushy telemarketers. A company selling remanufactured HP ink cartridges called earlier today, and when I proved resistant to the first gentle seller, they transferred me to a guy with a forceful voice and a never-say-no attitude. Being the *cough* polite person that I am, and since I am at work, I was doing my best not to give the guy the verbal finger.

I kept telling him we already had a supplier, we were already doing a test run with a second supplier, we didn't need a third one on board. "Oh, you don't have to remember anything, we'll call *YOU* back in thirty days."

Can't I take down your phone number and call you at a later date? "Well, then you wouldn't be able to get ahold of *me*, and I couldn't give you this deal."

I don't have authority to purchase! "No problem, you see, there's no purchasing to be done. Just a guarantee that you'll give us yoru business if you like the cartridges we send."

I really can't say anything without talking to my supervisor. "Well it's just a trial, surely you don't have to bother your supervisor with anything as insignificant as a trial?"

My supervisor doesn't like remanufactured cartridges. "But these are guaranteed to be better than any remanufactured cartridges you've tried before, and very easy to use."

I finally told the guy. "Look. You're making a very hard sell." (Stern voice, implying that I am not amused). "Surely you can hold for a few seconds while I walk down the hall and get an OK?" And I put him on hold. Fortunately, she was right there and nuked the guy for me. "Sorry, not interested. Goodbye." Phew. Saved me from turning rude.

Then I looked through my notes to see if I had anything written down about the name of the company that had just called me. WTF? They called just a couple of weeks ago, and left a name and number "in case we were interested in the future." Go figure. They just lost any possibility of business from *me* ever again. Bye-bye note, such pretty confetti you make.