National Shitty Bank (Bad Customer Service #3)

     This was our first house together as man and wife.  If you can call it a house.  It was a rental.

     Yes, we were trailer folk, not trash.  Yes, there is a trailer in there amidst all of that foliage somewhere.  Could be an "ISpy", couldn't it?  It did not look like this when we lived there.  It was actually clean but very, very small.  How small was it?  We had to go outside to change our minds.  Ba dump bump bump.  Honestly, a twin bed frame did not fit in our bedroom.  We just had to put the mattress on concrete blocks.  Luckily, we only lived here for about 6 months and then moved on to bigger and better.

     This was a very nice house and fit us well.  We lived here for about 5 years but then got the itch for something a little bigger and a little less mouse friendly.  I'm not talking cute Disney talking mouses either but disgusting poop (he called da shit "poop") happy rodents.  So, I found us the perfect house and we bought it.  What an exciting time in a young family's life.  Not so exciting was making that new house payment.  Reluctantly, I mailed it off anyways.  It was quite a bit more than our first house but we had the money.

       A few weeks later, I skipped to the mailbox to retrieve the mail.  Okay, I didn't skip but doesn't the world need more skipping?  I thumbed through the mail on my way back to the house and was confused by one particular item.  There was my house payment that I had sent but was now returned with "loan not processed" written on the check.  I was confused so I talked to my loan officer from National City and he told me to just hold onto it and mail it with my next one.  He assured me that I was not being penalized.  

     So, it came time for my next house payment and I mailed off 2 of them on time.  Another couple weeks went by and guess what came back?  You guessed it.  It was both house payments with "loan not processed" written on it.  Now, I was losing patience.  How long was this going to go on, 6 months or more?  Then would I be handed a bill for $10,000.  I did not want to have to keep hanging onto this money, month after month.  I was pretty frustrated by this point and my loan officer was less than helpful. 

     National City had commercials all over the t.v. at that time bragging about how they were the number one growing bank in America.  I told my loan officer that all the bragging that their commercials do on their growth is maybe nothing to brag about if they can't handle the new business any better than this.  He actually had the nerve to smart off back by saying that maybe I should have taken my business to a smaller bank then.  

     Oh yeah, it's my fault that their bank keeps sending back my on-time house payment because they can't seem to get my loan processed in 3 MONTHS.  The last straw was when the phone rang one night after 3 months of battles with National Shitty (my wife came up with that one, thanks Andi) and it went like this.

National Shitty Rep-Yes, I am calling for National City about your delinquent account.

Me-Excuse me?

National Shitty Rep-Your house payment is over 60 days past due.

     My head did something like this.  I actually pictured more with the top of my head blowing off and my eyeballs popping clear out of my head but you get the idea.

     I literally turned into Steve Martin from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles in the funniest minute and a half in cinematic history.

Must use link below to see video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zneBZl5BLw

Me-WELL MAYBE IF YOUR F**KING BANK WOULD F**KING TAKE MY F**KING HOUSE PAYMENT AND QUIT SENDING IT F**KING BACK TO ME, IT WOULDN'T BE F**KING DELINQUENT.

National Shitty Rep-Um.

Me-Yeah, I have mailed my payment ON-TIME every month and you guys aren't processing it.  It keeps getting mailed back to me with the words "loan not processed" on it.

National Shitty Rep-Oh.

Me-Yeah, "oh".  So help me God if you mail my payment back to me again and I get another call from you F**Kers calling me delinquent.  This better not be destroying my credit rating.  F**KING HATE NATIONAL CITY!

     So after a few other cuss word laced pleasantries, I hung up with that poor sap who was just doing his job and turned my attention to the real asshole in this equation, my loan officer.  I promptly called him the next day and loudly shared with him the details of the phone call from the night before.  I demanded proof that this was not affecting my credit rating and an assurance that they were going to start keeping my house payments.  

     I was offered no apology, just indifference and more snide comments.  I did actually get a statement from them that showed this was not going on my credit rating and the next month, they actually KEPT all 4 months of my house payments.  Well, National Shitty Bank sold out to PNC Bank and I was quite relieved that I didn't have to deal with those incompetents until the phone rang one day. . . 

PNC Rep-Mr. Case?

Me-Yes.

PNC Rep-I am just calling because we have not received your mortgage payment yet for this month. 

Me-Is it even due yet?

PNC Rep-Well no, but it takes a week to process and we haven't received it.

Me-Well, then why are you calling?

PNC Rep-Because it takes a week to process.

Me-Well, it's already been mailed.  I don't know what to tell you.

PNC Rep-Is there anything we can do to help you to make this payment?

Me-IT'S BEEN MADE.  IT JUST MUST NOT BE THERE YET.

PNC Rep-Okay, but I need to get all of your information.

     Great, now I have a new incompetent bank to deal with.  I literally had to give them all of my information which they already have.  It was literally 20 minutes of my life gone for a payment that was out in la la land.  I let this go without too much anger until the next day. . .RING!!

PNC Rep-Mr. Case?

Me-Yes.

PNC Rep-I am just calling because we have not received your mortgage payment yet for this month. 

Me-You have got to be kidding me.  You guys just called yesterday.

PNC Rep-Is there anything we can do to help you to make this payment?

Me-It's made.  We mailed it Monday AS I SAID YESTERDAY, you just haven't received it yet.

PNC Rep-Okay I will mark it off as "in transit" but I'm going to have to get all of your information.

     So, I had to give all of my information AGAIN.  I truly think they make you go through this 10 minutes of regurgitating all of this information to get you to mail in your payment early to avoid having to go through this EVERY day on a payment that wasn't even late yet.  Now, I have to get Andi working on a derogatory moniker for PNC Bank.  Private Nuisance Caller Bank.  To me,  it's Pay Now Corey Bank.  Anyone got any other ideas? 

I Love The 80's

If you are near my age, then you probably remember the 80's with great affection.  Who can forget how flamboyant we all were?  Remember the fashions?

And the hair?

Everything just seemed so live and flashy then.  I especially loved the theatrics of the musicians back then.  Who could forget "Eddie", the 12 foot Iron Maiden mascot.

Or how about the gigantic "Rosie" balloon from AC/DC's "Whole Lotta Rosie".

I always wondered what happened to these enormous icons once the concert lights fade and the band is done with them.  Does Bruce Dickinson take Eddie home and throw him in the back yard?  Are the Worksop, England Bobbies (that's police to you yanks) sick of getting calls from neighbors saying, "You have to do something about those damn Dickinson's and that giant eyesore!"

Does Angus Young take Rosie home to his flat in the Netherlands and drop her next to the house?

Perhaps he rents it out for kids to play on at parties.   Just try to get your son off of those giant inflatable boobs.  He should just fill her with helium, tie some ropes to her, and sneak her into the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  AC/DC also had those huge "For Those About To Rock" cannons.

I REALLY could use those to wake up my daughter for school.  Anybody got Angus's number? 

One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Trash

     Ah, the Power Wheels Jeep.  I remember when Santa Claus brought it . . . in pieces.  First off, I am tired of that fat bastard getting credit for all of the good presents.  Here Lukah, Santa got you a Jeep you can drive and mommy and I got you a digital photo keychain.  I'm sure her 6 year old brain was thinking "those cheap bastards!".  So I spent half the night assembling and drinking.  Hell, there was a sheet of decals the size of a movie poster.  It took me longer and more beers to put all of those on than to assemble the damn thing.  A few may have come out crooked but I think I was pretty crooked myself towards the end.  It came out all right though and she loved it.  Her and Cal actually sat in it the whole time at Christmas and unwrapped all of their presents from there.

     I was kind of expecting a "Thank you for this summer present that we can play with 5 months from now" (ha, take that Santa) but they were thrilled anyway.  When they finally got to use it in the Spring, they loved to get it going full blast down the driveway and then let off the gas spinning it into a 180.  

     They spent countless hours driving it even way past the point of being too big for it.  In fact, I'm not too sure Mikah wouldn't have driven it to school a few weeks ago when her car was in the shop for a week, just to have her own wheels.   The sad news is that is now not an option as the Power Wheels Jeep died over the winter.  I charged the battery and nothing would happen.  There really was no way for me to tell where the problem was with the battery, charger, or just the wiring so we had to just let it go.  

     Since the youngest kid had actually outgrown it about 4 years ago, I did not want to pump any money into it.  If I could be sure it was just the battery, I might have saved it for the next garage sale to try to get $2 back on my original $250 investment.  I held onto it most of the Summer but finally got tired of it taking up so much room in the garage.  So, this garbage day, I set it out by the trash.  Now for the gripe.  

     When I woke up in the morning, it was gone.  I'm sure it was absconded by one of the p.m. pickers that trolls around in the darkness taking people's old broken lawn chairs and such.  What annoys me is that how do they know that my kids didn't just park it there for the night?  I had no sign on it saying "Take me, I'm free."  Shouldn't they have at least asked then?  Just because something is within 30 feet of my garbage can does not make it fair game for the taking.   I about turned into Stanley Stupid (Watch at least the first minute).

                             

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW8kKTvS53w

     Sometimes I think of all the money I've wasted on garbage bags over the years because I think that if I just placed all of my garbage loose on the sidewalk, it would all be gone by morning.

Insult Letters #4 (Animal Themed-not planned)

If you all have been following my blog, then you know that my sister and I trade insult letters in our office mailboxes.  This has been going on for years but at the rate Annie supplies them, I should be able to catch up to the present in no time.  I guess that's what I can expect from a mentally unarmed foe.

Touche

KNOW, I DUNT WONT TWO GIV ME CHAYNGE FER LITTERASEE

     If any of you shop at Dollar General in Clinton, then you have to be as SICK TO DEATH as I am of being asked to give your change for literacy.

     I have never given my change to literacy and for the thousandth time, I will never give my change to literacy.  I don't care if one of those adorable little Dicken's peasants was standing there with a book and a moth eaten hat to drop change into, I am not giving mine to literacy.

     Bah humbug.  I don't know what "donate for literacy" means and I don't want to know what "donate for literacy" means.  Let them buy their own damn books.  I think I'm going to get a shirt made that I can put on and point to every time I go in there.

     I have had 98 cents coming before and they ask me if I want to donate it.  Now, doesn't that defeat my whole purpose of going to the damn dollar store to begin with? That would totally deplete any savings that I might have incurred by shopping there as opposed to the more hoity-toity Wal-Mart where I am expected to wear shoes and am not asked to fork over any silver coming my way.  All of my coinage by the way goes into the console of my Jeep and then it is cashed in every year at vacation time for our extra spending and souvenir money.  You wouldn't believe the amounts that this has gotten me.  Let's just say "hundreds" every year to not encourage too much any would be thieves that might happen to be perusing my blog.

     Sometimes when I refuse their offer to relieve me of that cumbersome change, I get a look that is supposed to shame me.  Today, I think they took it to the next level.  The cashier said, "And here's your change, 31 cents" and then handed it to me.  I took one step away from the register and looked down at 11 cents in my hand.  I'm not too sure it wasn't a "We'll get that cheap bastard's literacy change one way or another".  

     They were not getting away with this, so I turned around and told her that she said 31 cents but only handed me 11.  Now, I'm good at math, but I am dumbfounded as to how a math problem of this caliber can completely throw an adult.  There were many options to get me the Hell out of that store.  You could hand me 20 more cents or possibly take back 1 of the nickels and hand me a quarter.  The possibilities were endless.  

     So, what happens you say?  She takes back all of my change and just kind of scoops her hand in the drawer and hands me 49 cents for some reason.  Turns out there was another way to get me out of that store.  Give me MORE change than what I had coming back.  Take that literacy!  Little Timmy in the hood ain't readin' shit tonight.  

     Yes, I did keep it.  I wasn't going to stand there all day while she tried to figure out how to make 31 cents.  I wasn't sure if it was a math problem or a money problem but if you can't do 2nd grade math, then maybe you shouldn't be a cashier and if you can't count money, then maybe you shouldn't be a cashier.  

     Don't get me wrong.  I don't mind people helping people but don't make it an EXPECTATION from me.  Also today, believe it or not, I couldn't believe I had the wrong change thing go in my favor AGAIN.  I was buying an $8 sticker for the car and was given back $3 change from my $10.  I would like to think that she was just being nice rather than that she couldn't subtract 8 from 10.  Yes, I kept that too.  I had wasted enough of my day on the money illiterate.  Here's a thought.  Maybe Dollar General should give up on the literacy and set a change bucket out for math instead.  Then I might donate.

Illinois Weather

     Don't be alarmed everyone.   I'm sure like me, you were wondering what this strange, clear liquid was coming down from the Heavens.  Well, I looked it up on dictionary.com and it's apparently. . .

rain

   [reyn]  Show IPA

noun

1.

The wet shit that used to fall from the sky in Illinois in drops more than ¹ / ₅₀  in.(0.5 mm) in diameter. Compare drizzle ( def. 6 ) .

Supposedly, my surroundings should look like this occasionally...

And less like my yard looks when the jolly fat man dishes out the good gifts...

     Don't get me wrong, I have not missed the mowing one bit.  I seriously think I have been spot mowing since mid July.  I fully expect camera crews to show up to start filming Charlotte's Web 2 on my lawn mower. 

     I knew there was at least a sprinkle of rain, though, because the dog was looking to burrow his head under any piece of furniture he could find.  On a more annoying note, he came and whimpered to me to go out as I'm typing this.  I got up to let him out and he just stood there staring at me like I was crazy to think that he would step one foot out there with a potential to get one drip on his fur.  So after a few mutterings of "dickhead", I gave up and sat back down to type.  

     On the walk back to the laptop, I could feel him on my heels.  Sure enough, the second I sat down, there he was whining to go out again.  Evidently, in the 4 seconds it took for me to get back to the couch, he mustered up the courage to risk getting misted on for the sake of not shitting in the house.  What a testament to courage.  

     After some "son of a bitch" name calling (he was not offended; apparently this isn't an insult to a dog), I got back up and let him out.  This bout of bravery reminded me of when our neighbor came in to retrieve a spare house key for my wife and our "watch" dog at the top of the stairs raised his head, gave her a blurry, squinty eyed glance and then laid his head back down.  Evidently, somebody needs to explain the "watch" part to him a little better.  Now,  back to the story.  

     Of course, when he came back in, he had muddy feet.  I haven't seen that all summer, except for one time when I backwashed the pool filter.  Now, he's deaf so he can't hear me yelling at him to stop and wait for me to wipe off his feet with the towel we keep by the door.  He used to just automatically stop and wait on his own (which was actually kind of cute) but it's been so long now, I think he's forgotten.  Don't you just love Illinois weather?  This is an actual screen shot of the Clinton, Il forecast last week.

     100 degrees one day (in SEPTEMBER mind you) and then 2 days later, only 78.  This is the definition of "WTF?".  I'm just gonna put on my winter jacket and shorts and be done with it.

That Weird Feeling

You want to know what gives me the heebie jeebies worse than Fran Drescher's voice.  Okay, nothing gives me worse heebie jeebies than that.  I just have to stop here for a moment because I think it's hilarious that SpellCheck has marked "heebie" as being spelled incorrectly but "jeebies" is okay.  Back to what drives me nuts.  It's when one of my fingernails gets a little jagged and then it snags on my clothing.  Once that happens, I then get a bit of mental illness going because even though it drives me insane, I become obsessed with snagging it then.  The only way to stop myself is to cut that nail. Thank God I keep nail clippers on my key chain.  Don't believe me?

I'm not weird.  I was just a high school wrestler and they checked your fingernails before every match. That way if they needed cut, I had my own pair right there.  It just stayed with me through adulthood.  My daughter Lukah once gave me a disgusted look because I pulled them out at her softball game and cut my son Callahan's nails.  We were outside for God's sake.  You know "outside", right?  Where horses shit freely and people are still actually allowed to smoke.  Yeah, that "outside".  I did notice a few weird looks besides hers, though.    These same people that give me a weird look will then turn around and ask to borrow my clippers 5 minutes later when they encounter their own fingernail snag.  As you might have guessed, the dreaded jaggernail happened to me today so I cut it.  

You probably noticed that little scab on my middle finger.  That is one of those little loose skin areas that you decide to pull instead of just cut with the clippers.  Then you pull, and pull, and pull, and it finally breaks off about the elbow leaving you holding a bloody piece of skin the size of a strip of bacon.  Anyways, there is something I just don't get about cutting just one fingernail.  Why the Hell does it make your whole hand feel so awkward then?  That whole area will just tingle then for days.  How does cutting the tiniest sliver of a dead, non-sensitive body part cause such a bizarre feeling?  You might say, "But Corey, then why don't you just cut all of your fingernails?"  My answer to that is that it's "premature".  It's not time yet in the rotation.  If I do that, then I have to check my toenails, too.  It just turns it into a whole production.  Usually, it wears me down and I do it though.  Not this time.  I'm gonna stand tough. 

Dammit!  I'm so weak.