Read The Fine Print

I've never been great at asking for things, sometimes I don't know what to ask for. That is not the case when a company has tried to rip me off and I want a correction.

I've been a T-Mobile customer for as long as I've had a cell phone. Last summer I upgraded my phone, which seemed to be defective. The phone was still under warranty (less than 2 months old) and I called to arrange for a replacement, which had to be mailed to me. The person on the phone said they will charge me $9.95 to ship the phone. I griped. Later I read the details of the warranty which specifically state T-Mobile will not charge for shipping for replacement parts or phones. I called back and was put on 2-6 minute hold at least three times (!!) during the call. The customer service agent tried every angle to weasel out of what the warranty clearly said. Frustrated and insulted, I ended the call. When the bill arrived they added an extra 78-cents to the $9.95 for "tax"!! Later I wrote a dispute letter and included a photocopy of the warranty with the related text hi-lighted. The next bill showed a credit, but annoyingly, only for $9.95; they did not credit the tax.

I know this is a long boring story but the point is I read the fine print, then asked for them to remove the shipping charge and they did. I had to send a letter, but it worked. Most of the time when I phone in to ask for something like this it's handled right there on the phone. Sometimes it pays to ask for what you want. It would be great if the county and state were so cooperative.

Mantra at 2 AM

At this point in my dad's illness, I am pretty much awake 24-hours a day. I have to remember a certain mantra not only at 2:00 am but also 3:00, 4:00, 6:00 am, and any other moment day or night: People with Alzheimer's sometimes have no control over their behavior. Trying to reason with them is futile.

My mom has been living in a care home for nine months now. I think I am still not over the trauma of making that choice (actually, there was no other choice), and though her mood finally seemed to improve in the past 3 months she is still very unhappy there and wants to come home. It's heartbreaking over and over again when I have to leave her there when I visit. At least she's feeling a bit better overall now.

The time will soon arrive for my dad to move there as well, in fact, it kinda already has. But thanks to the BS with Medi-Cal and IHSS, I'm in a conundrum. My dad needs to go into long-term care, but my income and health benefits come from taking care of him at home. Not only will I lose my job, in that situation all of my dad's current income will go to the care home. I do have a plan for all that, and through careful budgeting I am surviving okay on the partial* wages I get through IHSS. However, the fiasco I'm having with IHSS has forced me to more than double the time it will take to reach certain goals. If it worked the way it's supposed to I could go forward with my plan now. Not all is lost, I'll get there it will just take much longer.

*I am paid for about 4 hours out of the 12-20 I am "on the job" each day...I'm not kidding.

These Kind of Thoughts

I was just pondering some nonsense recently.

Shouldn't octopus' legs be called octacles instead of tentacles since there's eight of them? And how do we know they're legs and not arms, anyway?

Would a ten-legged octopus be called a tentopus?

These are the kinds of thoughts you get in the wee hours of the morning with little sleep.