Nothing says it's Monday louder than a much-anticipated, much-needed shipment being totally messed up. Telling a supplier off on the phone is not how I wanted this work day to start. Yesterday I had prepared the donation/display box for the Hulk Smash jelly bracelets and was pumped about their arrival but totally disappointed with the final product they sent -- font was way too small, the hot pink bracelets were a pale pink, and the light green ones were a dark green. Nothing but the spell on the 150 bracelets ordered were right about them. Ended up having to call the company. I fought and got a total refund mind you it was at the cost of then having to search out another company and wait for their shipment. New Hulk Smash jelly bracelets to arrive later this week.
We have heat again [enter my happy dance here]. Apparently it's illegal for a gas truck to pull up to our building, whip out its hose and drag that hose into our building to fill up our two heaters and five large containers... but not if you know the right guy to call, wink, wink. Got our weekly fill-up for the heaters but boy do these heaters -- Big Bertha and Red Donna -- hurt the pocket book.
Add "buy a new car" to our ever-so-long, never ending list of things to designate our money to.
The other day Snickers popped a tire and when he took it to the car shop he thought, "Hey, why not get all tired rotated while I'm here", so up they hoisted the car for the mechanic to look at. "How are you even driving this?!", the mechanic asked. Turns out the steering is all messed up because the axle is bent and the frame has problems, so when most people would be simply steering straight to drive straight, Snickers has to drive a little to the left. Great, just great. "Tell them to just put the tires on and we'll continue driving it as is", I told him, after all who knows just how long we've been driving with a bent-out-of-shape car anyways and we've been doing just fine all this time. Nope, nopers. Telling them that didn't work and now we're out of a car because the price to fix it isn't worth it.
And what's a Monday without some drama, exactly. Today one of our sponsors got into quite a verbal argument with the Corner Godfather after he heard what he had told us the other day. He had told us that the government might be taking over our building, as in buying it. In all fairness he did say it was a rumor he had heard and though I don't really know him, I know him enough to get the strong impression that he likes to stir up trouble. There are four of them, "The Old Boy Crew" we call them, that feed off gossip and they all sit on their little stools on the corners of Old-D (old downtown), outside of our club. They sit there waiting and watching -- they see all and they think they know all. Sometimes they do know all, like when that random car hit one of our member's motorcycles. That particular Old Boy not only wrote down the license plate but also followed the car. And you best believe whenever I go outside to deal with a Pesky Parker, one or two of them are right there watching me, getting on the inside scoop they will discuss and dissect later on on the corner. I don't really mind it, if anything I find it amusing and sometimes I find it reassuring to know that we have a kind of neighborhood watch here. But they're like young trouble makers who haven't quite grown up, old boys stirring up gossip for the sake of keeping life interesting.
Anyways, when I heard the news, I laughed and told him "good luck contacting all billion owners that own each of the 8 floors" but inside I was screaming and freaking out. I had a bit of a freak out in the car yesterday while talking about it with Snickers and then today Snickers relayed my freak out to one of our sponsors. Several phone calls later and one trip to the city government building later and our sponsor was armed with plenty of info to stomp out that rumour and set the Chicken Godfather straight. This particular sponsor thinks perhaps the Chicken Godfather is jealous, Snickers agrees, after all we're the "new blood" here while all other shop owners have been here since before our time, back when this used to be the old downtown and they were thriving shop owners. They took a huge pay cut when downtown moved where as we totally milked the benefits that came with downtown have had moved -- plummeted rental rates and major flexibility with contract rights and privileges. Snickers and I tread lightly with the Old Boys because as sweet as they are to us and as entertaining as they can be, we know we're the new kids on the block and they rule the Old-D here.
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