But because this is my life, none of those things arrived today.
Instead, I spent the better part of my day on the phone with a variety of Sears people, my mother-in-law, my landlord, my husband and God Almighty trying to figure out just where in the hell the appliances were.
It turns out, no one knows. That's the short story. The long story, which I am of course obligated to tell you, is that Sears flipped my bitch switch today, and they all got to hear about it.
It starts with my mother-in-law, who is very sweet and wonderful, but is — through no fault of her own — an interior designer. So she hooks up my landlady with a great deal on brand-spanking new appliances through Sears. So far, so good. Then my landlady, who is technologically handicapped, has me help her place the order for the appliances, dealing with a gal at Sears who I'll call ... Jezebel.
Jezebel places the order and promises to call when the appliances have been delivered to set up a delivery date. My landlady and I both explain that Jezzy should call me, the person who lives in the home, to set up the delivery date.
In the meantime, my landlady also has an electrician come in and rewire the kitchen so that our wires now include a positive, negative, ground and neutral. Which they previously did not.
The electrician pulls the new wires through the house, but leaves them coiled under the kitchen floor, in the basement ceiling, to pull through when the new appliances are delivered, rather than tear out our old appliances to run new plugs, and leave us with nothing. He just asks me to call him when I get a delivery date.
That was three weeks ago. Needless to say, Jezebel never called.
I finally call my landlady, who calls Jezebel only to find she's out of town for the week. Somehow, my landlady gets together with my mother-in-law and they track Jezebel down and she tells us that all of the appliances except the new range hood will be delivered Friday, as in today, and that the delivery/installation dude will call me Wednesday or Thursday night to set up a time, so that I can then call the electrician to come finish pulling the wires.
I'm making this whole scenario sound much simpler than it was. In reality, it involved both my MIL and my LL calling me 15 times a day while I was at work to ask me the SAME EXACT QUESTIONS OVER AND OVER. Not to mention the fact that by the time we worked this out, Wednesday morning, and I called the electrician, he was of course booked solid for today.
And the delivery dude never called.
HE NEVER CALLED.
So I woke up this morning and called Jezebel, whose phone said she was in a meeting until 1. So I called the general Sears delivery people and spoke to a woman in India who COULD NOT LOOK UP MY DELIVERY DATE.
This is the point that I started breaking out in hives and breathing fire.
By 3 p.m., my MIL calls me and says that she's finally got in touch with Jezebel, who is supposed to call me. Of course. Because Jezebel is always supposed to call me.
When she finally calls an hour later, after I've wasted my whole frikking day waiting for people who aren't coming and talking to people to try to schedule an event that isn't happening, here's how our conversation goes:
Jez: I'm just so sorry. I understand the delivery guy never called you, and I just don't know how it happened. I asked for this guy because the other one isn't any good.
Me: Then I'd hate to see him. Listen, you told me he would call me to set up a time and he didn't, and I HAVE to have a time because I have to have an electrician come in to update our kitchen as these things are being installed.
Jez: OK.
Me: So why don't you just get everything together for next Friday. You told me that the last appliance won't be in until next week, so why don't you get everything together in one trip and have them come out NEXT Friday. And have the installer call me EARLY NEXT WEEK so that I can coordinate with the electrician and have everyone out here when they need to be here. Can you do that?
Jez: OK.
I normally don't talk to people like that.
In my head, I think things that are a whole hell of a lot worse than anything I actually say, but my upbringing isn't to be outright rude to people. It's to be sarcastic behind their backs.
But for Miss Jezebel, I made an exception. I was rude. I was a bitch.
Because she is frikking incompetent.
Case in point: Just now, JUST NOW, the installation guy called me.
Dude: Hi. I have an oven to deliver.
Me: Are you kidding?
Dude: Uh. ... Uh. An oven?
Me: NO. No, you do not. You should have an oven, a dishwasher and a stovetop, that was supposed to be delivered ALL TOGETHER earlier today, not beginning at 5:30 one piece at a time.
Dude:
Me: (Picture me rolling my eyes out of my head and onto the floor.)
Dude: This ticket is really confusing. Hold on.
Me: (This is the part where I throw up my hands in exasperation, and my ears pop off and steam shoots out and I start mouthing every swear word I can think of. Even the Italian ones.)
Dude: OK. I see I'm not even supposed to be the installer on this. It's someone else. You'll be hearing from him.
