I went out this evening and bought pre-packaged food to get us through the chaos. Banquet meals. Individual and family size. I am a failure and a fraud. In a time of chaos and upheaval, I buckled under the convenience of frozen chemicals. Unfortunately, there are not enough hours in the day. The fencing and barn stuff is hard work and working within my husband's extreme physical limitation means it takes three to four times as long to get things done. Sometimes longer.
My cell phone decided to shut itself off and not allow itself to be turned back on until after I was at the Verizon store. We have an extended warranty. Guess what it does not cover? The battery or the charger. It covers the phone only. The original warranty covers the battery and charger, but not the extended. But, I could get an upgrade for about the same price as the cost of a charger or a battery and have a new battery and charger included in the upgrade.
The catch: The "upgrade" is basically turning in the old phone for a new one at a reduced price. It is not a true upgrade to the next one in line for the phone that you have. I have a G'zOne Casio. The one that basically you have to run over it with an earth mover to completely and totally destroy. Well, I could "upgrade" to a cheap piece of crap where the first hour in this house and it would be broken beyond all recognition. I like the G'zOne. I really do. It has really withstood farm life. It has put up with more drops, being stepped on, and other trauma that most phones couldn't hope to endure. What did the phone in last night was apparently the charger had corrosion on it. The Verizon people at first said it was the battery. Um, no. If it were the battery, then the batteries would not have worked in my husband's phone. That it was the charger itself. It did something to the phone. Well, while there, the phone allowed itself to finally turn back on and it had only one line. I had it charged up to two lines, removed the order that they tried to put in for a new battery, told them that their "upgrade" policy was a joke and was not a true upgrade (the one they tried to show me didn't even have a camera so I would also lose features) and told them that when this contract expires, they will have lost a customer. My new charger will be here by Friday.
The upgrade to the next in line phone for what I have? Close to $200. I asked how that was considered a reduced rate. And this is an upgrade that I "qualify" for. The only problem with dropping Verizon is I would no longer have the Casio "beat me up" phone.
Laundry is going. Children are (theoretically) in bed. Time to do dishes. Blech. But, we have a dishwasher now. So, I can't complain too much. I am still wondering about the water waste hand washing vs electricity waste dishwashing math.
2 comments:
You're not a failure. There are only so many hours in a day, only so much one person can do. Chemical dinners are temporary and will cease once things get back to normal.
I totally agree with you wrt Verizon. Thank goodness the university gives me a generous phone allowance because otherwise--no phone. The upgrades there are insane.
I'll repeat: You're not a failure. You're a human being coping with a state of constant change. Falling back on a comfort behavior for a temporary fix is simply finding a strategy for coping with the stress of change.
I do the same thing when I'm overhwelmed--I'm all about feeding my family as naturally as possible, planning ahead, having nourishing homemade meals on hand, and so forth and so on . . . but when medical crises or just really really really hard days hit, we eat cheap pizza. Then we get up with fresh perspective and start new in the morning.
I'm sorry about your phone woes.
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