PayPal is NOT your pal...

For some reason, I thought I was done fighting with PayPal. Maybe it had to do with the fact that on February 28, 2012, three months after they began punishing me for being a good customer, they suddenly lifted the arbitrary hold they’d placed on my account.

But no. Oh no. Like that borderline relative who uses and manipulates you, then blows up in your face for no reason, they’ve decided to punish me again.

I know I’m the victim, yet somehow, I feel it was my fault. I shouldn’t have provoked them. I shouldn’t have trusted them when they said “your hold has been lifted.” I should have seen through the lies.

I knew better. I knew they would just toy with my emotions and then abandon me to my electronic-payment-less fate. But I went back for more anyway. Stupid stupid stupid.

So this morning, I let my emotions get the best of me when I sat down to write them a letter. By “emotions,” I mean sarcasm. This is what I sent. I look forward to receiving a response and promise to share as soon as I do:

“On November 29, 2011, I was notified that I would be arbitrarily punished for being a valued PayPal customer of over 10 years and would have limits placed on my account, despite a perfect transaction history. The reasoning, I assume, was to punish me into using your service more often. Oddly enough, I was not thrilled with the arrangement and made several attempts to contact/reason with PayPal representatives. When logic failed, I gave up.

Imagine my surprise when on February 28, 2012, I suddenly received an email stating that the ridiculous and unwarranted holds had been lifted! The wheels of justice churn ever so slowly. I thought I was out of the deep end - that after 10+ years and 3 trial months, I had proven myself to be a worthy customer. But alas, I was wrong. I received yet another email today, March 28, 2012, saying my account would be placed back into a holding pattern. I assume as punishment for using your service this month.

These holds are ridiculous, unwarranted and unfair, and I will blog about them and complain loudly and vociferously about PayPal's shoddy business practices until something is done.

I'd say "thank you," but I live in fear of being punished for politeness as well.”

I'm not a Perc junkie

So I just had my wisdom teeth pulled on Friday. If I was just going for fun, elective surgery, I probably would have picked my boobs, but I needed this done so I can get Invisalign to straighten out my little fang tooth before the wedding.

I am absolutely terrified of going under anesthesia. I think part of it is a loss of control – your body responds to the drugs whether you want it to or not – and the other part is the fear of a) not waking up again or b) waking up at the wrong time.

Needless to say, I whimpered and clung to Charming’s hand as long as I could.

Obviously I did, in fact, wake up from it, and I have no memory of waking up during the surgery, so that part seems to have gone fine.

The fun part happened about 20 minutes later on the drive home, when Charming had to swerve off the road and onto a side street so I could vomit up blood. Yum.

They prescribed me three pills: an anti-nausea, an antibiotic and hydrocodone, which had to be taken pretty much in order.

So I spent the first two days (Friday and Saturday) counting down the 4 hours between pills until I could sort of ease the pain again. Even 2 hydrocodones at a time barely seemed to touch the pain.

Sunday was a teeny, tiny miniscule bit better, so after the morning, I cut back to one hydrocodone with the anti-nausea and antibiotic.

If you do the math (2 pills at 1pm, 5pm and 9pm on Friday; 2 pills at 9am, 1pm, 5pm and 9pm Saturday; 2pills at 11am Sunday, and 1 pill at 3pm, 7pm and 11pm) I’m left with only one pill out of the 20 that were prescribed 3 ½ days post-op.

My jaw is still swollen (despite plenty of icing), I still can’t swallow without considerable pain and I feel like someone strapped a lead weight to my jaw and is trying to detach it from my face.

But you know what made me feel so much better about all this pain I’m in? Having the nurse at the surgeon’s office practically accuse me of being a junkie.

I can feel the stitches rubbing against raw gum and I can only eat foods that are as soft and malleable as Mitt Romney’s political stances, but yes, nurse, I’m totally stocking up on the Percs so I can score a couple c-notes on the street, yo.

All drug dealers should try this - a little physical agony, some near intollerable pain... totally the best way to go about scoring the Roxies. Too bad I've already had my appendix removed or that organ would be next on my list to offer up in exchange for the good stuff.  

I'm doing it

New semi-anonymous blog: http://notahandmaid.blogspot.com/

New blog?

So it may perhaps have come to your attention that I’ve been a wee bit political around these parts,* lately.

*The ladyparts, mainly.

So I’m contemplating starting a second blog where I can be a loud-mouth, mostly anonymous (in case future employers are looking – not that this blog always speaks super-highly of me, but it’s difficult to find if you’re just googling my first and last name) full-time Jon Stewart/SNL cast to Santorum’s Dubya Bush.

What do y’all think? Should I separate my libertarian psycho-babble from the mundane happenings of my wedding-centric and projectile vomit-and-rock filled life? 

Mitt Romney plans to abort Planned Parenthood

While doing an interview in Missouri yesterday, Mr. Well-at-least-he’s-not-Santorum decided to prove that yes, in fact, he, too, hates women. Because that’s what all the cool kids Republicans are doing these days.

Mittens said “Planned Parenthood? We’re gonna get rid of that.” Just don’t go to Virginia to do it, Mitt, or they’ll shove a transvaginal wand up your… oh wait, you don’t have ladyparts.

One of the Mittens’ campaign advisors did some quick back-pedaling (they’re really good at that over there, ifyouknowwhatImean) and said what Mittens really meant, since OBVIOUSLY he knew that you can’t just dissolve a private non-profit organization (business supporter, what?), was that he’d defund it federally.

Because that makes a lot more sense, since exactly 0.01% of PP’s budget comes from federal funding. And none of that money goes to fund abortions, because of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from being used for abortions.

Ok, so I guess what Mittens really, actually meant was that he’d stop providing preventive care like cancer screenings to low income men and women.

Was this supposed to be damage control?

Silly Mittens, Planned Parenthood isn’t some cancer-stricken wife you can abandon like Newt Gingrich the second it no longer suits your interests. 

Bad luck rocks

So remember that time when, amidst a crowd of thousands, I got projectile-vomited on?

Yes, well, my fabulous luck and impeccable sense of unfortunate timing has struck again.

This morning, while I was biking to work, someone threw a rock at me and nailed me directly in the wrist bone. Have you ever slammed that sucker against something? It freakin’ hurts.

I didn’t see the little shit who did it, but I know it wasn’t a car (there were no moving vehicles around) and it wasn’t an animal because the rock was too big and was thrown far too hard. If it was an animal, I’m moving because those fuckers are about to go all Planet of the Apes on us.

Poor Charming was working from home today and got a teary, half-hysterical “WAAHHHItmightbebrokenOhmyGODitHURTS!!” phone call not 5 minutes after I left the house. Just when he thought he was rid of me for the day.

Then, of course, I had to change out of my biking clothes and into my work clothes so Charming could drive me to work. The boy knows how to undress a woman, but dress one? Totally different story.

I almost left the house with my skirt on sideways.

My crazy aunt chimed in on Facebook to let me know that my cousin’s windshield got hit by a pebble this morning, too. Quelle coincidence!

I’m just waiting for her to decide that it’s a sign from my dead grandfather. Communicating with each of us through bone- and windshield- bruising projectile objects.  Because love rocks, or something.

Now to figure out how to eat soup with my left hand without smearing it all over my nose… 

An award!

Because she’s the most awesome person to ever take a picture of someone’s fat ass shoved into lycra, Misty over at Misty’s Laws gave me my very first ever, super-shiny blog award.

Charming totally didn’t even believe me about it. He was all like, “What? What for?”

Blogging, jerk-face. Or possibly just Misty trying to stay on my good side so I don’t start whining about her as much as I whine about Santorum. Or maybe because I paid her off. Whatever, IT’S MINE NOW AND IT CAN’T BE TAKEN BACK.

Oh man. Who made it animated because she’s a dork? I did, I did!

Allegedly, this award is given to a blogger who is “beloved” by the blogger who awarded said award. I’m not sure about the quotation marks- hopefully they don’t mean I’m about to get haunted by a ghost baby. Adult ghosts = cool. Baby ghosts, not so much.

And naturally, there are rules. I’m an adult, damnit, I don’t have to follow rules. I can eat two slices of vegan banana bread, sesame crackers and cheese for dinner whenever I want. Mmmm vegan banana bread.

Oh yeah, rules:

1. Link back to the bloggers that awarded you the award. Done!

2. Choose 3 other bloggers to pass the award to . . . who have less than 200 followers.

But now people will know I’m stalking them :( Oh well.

1.   Mackenzie at Got Max. This chick is sassy like whoa, and even though she hasn’t posted in a couple weeks *cough cough choke sputter nudge* she is all that is awesome, and also, I’m afraid of getting on her bad side. Because she might cut you with her sarcasm and snark and sharp, pointy wit. Or, you know, a knife. But really, I love her honesty and her bluntness and the fact that she’s a designer handbag whore, just like me.

2.   Allie at I’m Not Really a Barista.  I knew she was a funny bitch long before Noa did! When I’m not having days-long, state-supported orgies (thanks for the birth control, Rushie!), I’m checking her site every two minutes to see if she’s posted something new. I want this girl to make me a latte, with a big side of ‘Fuck You, Republicans,’ every day. Also, the sex advice. Go see for yourself.

3.   And um… actually, I think I’m like the last person to get this (yeah, thanks for making me the fat kid in softball/dodgeball/kickball/every childhood nightmare of mine) so I can’t think of anyone else who hasn’t already gotten this thing.

But anyway, thank  you again, Misty, for giving me something to occupy an otherwise slow/dull Tuesday (voting, what?), and [insert raspberry noises here], Charming: I told you this was real. 

This makes my heart hurt

During a recent broadcast, political whack-job and prescription-pill junkie Rush Limbaugh called a Georgetown University student a “slut” and a “prostitute” for advocating for health insurance coverage of birth control pills.

Then, because he hadn’t yet fully choked on that foot shoved down his throat (more’s the pity), he added “if we're going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch."

Why didn’t you send us videos, Rushie, from when you were in those lovely government-paid-for treatment centers for your little pill-popping habit? Or how about sending us the photos of your lungs when you’re undergoing insurance-covered chemo for the lung cancer you’ll eventually develop from all those fancy Cuban cigars?

Fucking monster.

Shockingly, some of us take birth control for reasons other than having wild, orgiastic sex 365 days a year. Like for ovarian cysts. Oh wait, you wouldn’t know about that, would ya Rushie, because the Republicans banned the GU student from discussing those at your little boys’ club meeting. So much easier when you just assume all women are over-sexualized whores (unless they’re breeding, of course, because keep on poppin’ them babies out!) without any real value to society.

These misogynistic and condescending attacks against women and our rights have to stop. It’s too late Republicans – I’ve crawled out of the shadows of my stove and discovered that I have a brain and I have value as a human being and I’m not willing to go back to being a second class citizen.

Don’t you guys have anything more important to worry about? Like the economy you broke? Or a moose hunt in Alaska with your mistress or something?

On the upside, at least I’m not whining about Santorum, right? 

Rape is more than just a "bad situation"

I know I keep harping on this guy, but every time I open a news source of any sort, Rick Santorum has said something else that’s even more stupid, ludicrous and offensive than the thought of Snooki raising a child (seriously, is it going to come out of the womb fist-pumping?).

This time? He said that women who become pregnant as a result of rape should “make the best out of a bad situation."

No, Mr. Santorum. Realizing your public restroom stall has no toilet paper is a bad situation. Running into The Situation in a bar is a bad situation. Getting pregnant from an act of violence and hatred, then being forced against your will to live with the result of that fear and hatred growing inside you for 9 months, and then having to care for and support that being for the next 18+ years is the worst sort of villainy, cruelty and tyranny I can imagine.

And the scariest part is – there are people out there who agree with him. People who have never been raped, who have never been faced with the financial and emotional realities of raising a disabled child, who will never have to subject their bodies to the stress and agony of childbearing, but who, for some reason, think they should have some say over other people’s bodies.

And why do they believe this? Because of religion.

Don’t take that the wrong way – I’m not anti-religious at all (I’m Jewish, yo – challah!) – and freedom of religion is one of the greatest things about this country.

But you know what comes with that? Freedom from religion.

Freedom from having the tyrannical and archaic views of others imposed on your body. Freedom from the dictates of the church, if that’s not what you believe. Freedom from the moralistic harping of nut jobs who think God has endowed them personally with some sort of altruistic vision.

And that’s the part that Mr. Santorum – and pretty much every major news source covering this campaign – is missing.

I don’t care if Mr. Santorum doesn’t believe in an “absolute separation of church and state;” my country and my 230+ year old Constitution do. While there are many things about this country that haven’t worked out as planned over the past 200-odd years, this isn’t one of them.

There’s a special place in hell for people like you, Mr. Santorum, and I really hope it involves lots of really horny ex-convicts.