January 4, 2009
Financial troubles and relationships
Robert lost his job November 26th, 2008. It’s now January 4th, 2009.
How have we been doing since he’s been out of work?? Not great.
Apparently not having money to pay the bills makes him mad at ME. It seems that way sometimes anyway.
It’s not like I’m not stressing over bills too. I’m in the same boat as he is.
I know as well as he does that we don’t have $403 to pay the light bill. This bugs me too. I will be without electricity just like him if it doesn’t get paid. So will our three kids.
With him not working, he nit picks at me about everything. I feel like I’m not doing ANYTHING right, but EVERYTHING wrong!
So when I’m grilling a sandwich and he made a comment about it not cooking… I kind of went off. I’m tired of feeling like I’m worthless and not doing anything right.
Earlier when I was folding laundry, he was at my desk looking for the light bill that we can’t afford. He was griping about the old bills from October being on my desk.
Mind you, had I been at my desk, he would have been complaining about the laundry piling up.
I feel like I can’t win for losing.
I plan on going to try to get assistance for the light bill tomorrow, by the way. So maybe that will release some of his… ‘whatever the problem is that makes him nit pick at me and blow up when I finally crack and say something’… built up anger.
November 17, 2008
Things that make me crazy!
One day week before last as I waited in the line at the boys’ school for an hour or more, I forgot to turn my headlights off. My battery died. A guy came and let me get a boost from him.
So, all last week, my van didn’t want to start. Then, it wouldn’t start. I had to jump it off before I could go anywhere. I couldn’t shut it off from fear it wouldn’t start again.
My husband says “You need to go have the battery checked”. So today I did.
I went to O’Reilly’s Auto Parts. The young guy came out with a little machine thingy, and checked the battery. Well, that machine didn’t work well enough for him, so he went to get another one. I offered numerous times to shut the van OFF so he could check the battery.
“No, this one will check it while it’s running” he says. Ok, so he works here, he MUST know what he’s talking about.
He checks my battery, says “It’s good”. I turned the motor off, and started the van. All seemed well. I shut it off again (I don’t really know why I did this). The young guy was walking back into the store when I tried to start the van to leave. Well guess what?? It wouldn’t start!
So, he came and checked the battery with the van OFF this time. “Your battery is dead”. OMG, you DON’T say!?!?! I already figured this out when it wouldn’t start this time.
Batteries here were $79.99 for the size I needed, but the guy tells me that I’ll get one cheaper at Wal-Mart considering the battery came from Wal-Mart and the warranty on it is pro-rated.
So, off to Wal-Mart I go, not really wanting to go, mind you. But hey, for about $30 cheaper, I could get the right size battery for my van.
I pull up to Tire Lube Express at Wal-Mart. There are 4 people standing in the bay, and only one car in there. These 4 people were doing NOTHING when I pulled up. They gathered around my van as I tell them I need a battery.
They say they don’t have time to do it right now, it will be 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Well, “Test the battery” some woman tells a guy. I say “I JUST had it tested, it’s dead. If I turn the van off, it won’t start again”.
“Well it’ll be 1 1/2 to 2 hours before we can get to it” a guy says again.
So, ok, I’ll go somewhere else, thanks for NOTHING- I was thinking as I left.
On the way back to the town I live in (yes, I drove 30 minutes for NOTHING), I called Wal-Mart and spoke to a manager. I told her how I came 30 minutes to Wal-Mart, was going to buy a battery and groceries but the people were standing there doing nothing and couldn’t take 5 minutes to change my battery so I would just go elsewhere for the battery AND my groceries.
She apologized, but afterall, it wasn’t her fault. I was just upset.
So instead of going back to the MORONS at O’Reilly’s, I went to Advance Auto Parts to see how their pricing and most of all customer service was.
The guy pulled up the battery for my van on his computer as I ranted and raved over the morons at the other two places I had been. Told me my battery was $81, and a smaller one was $76. THEN he says “I can give you this battery (the right sized one) for this price (the price of the smaller one).”
I said “I’ll take it!”
The guy came right outside and put the battery in for me, cleaned the corrosion off the battery cables for me… GREAT customer service Advance!
Wow, I never thought it would take me HOURS to get my battery changed! I was so very upset all through this whole process. I probably wasn’t the nicest person in the world by the time I got to Advance, yet they took care of me! I really do appreciate that!
I guess they could tell I was so mad I could spit and knew that I would spend my money there as long as they took care of me.
I would much rather pay MORE money for BETTER customer service! ANYDAY!!!!
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