Tag Archives: OCD

If the plant you wish to flee, go to sector 7G

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As if Casa Vomitola has not already been in enough of a state of anomie lately, I got an email from Martha Stewart that was all “HEY LET’S PUT SOME GLITTER ON SOME PUMPKINS AND CALL IT A DAY.” This cannot be up with put, so I decided to resign from this uncomfortable communication once and for all. I am not sure how I got on this list in the first place. It probably had something to do with our wedding years ago, or perhaps it’s someone’s idea of a joke. Periodically, I open the Martha emails to find I can do something new with pork, or hot glue gun silver almond dragées to my baby or a turkey or something, but mostly I’ve been blithely deleting them.

When I clicked “unsubscribe,” I was taken to the following screen dominated with a Mao-like Martha, her smile cleverly applied in post-production. This screen told me to LOG IN TO MY ACCOUNT instead of just having one of the monkeys burn my email address in the database like every other unsubscribe function.

Oh hey, seems I don’t have an account, or at least they can’t seem to send me a password at the email address they regularly spam. Yes, I checked my junk box. So I must CREATE A LOGIN , giving them more information in order to get them to stop talking to me. The more I ignore you, the closer you get, Martha Stewart!

I dutifully filled out an account using plenty of raving in the form fields, and I finally was allowed to tick off “Do not send me anything ever.” But today I see that I am not actually free! Martha wants me to do something else with pumpkins. WHAT? Didn’t we already have this conversation? I am not going to go out with you just because you liked me first! We have standards here. I clicked “unsubscribe” again, only to be taken to this lovely unstyled Vignette error page:

(Note my username)

Apparently my rejection has caused the website to be so depressed that it simply can’t get out of bed. I decided that in the name of usability (theoretically how I earn a living) and all that is holy, I’d send the previously featured screen shots to MSLO customer service to help, but when I clicked on “Contact Us” I found that while I could get plenty of info on paint samples, anyone having an actual issue with the website gets a five or six question FAQ on downloading clip art instead of the means to actually submit a trouble ticket of any sort. That’s not the Martha I know! The Martha I know cares about every little sparrow and pixel. The Martha I know would print off my desperate email with ink she made herself, trim a lovely Scherenschnitte pattern into the margin, and dispatch a hand-raised snow white dove to my house to tell me it is sorry in original song!

But I did find the answer to one of my questions in the FAQ: It takes up to three weeks to be unsubscribed from the mailing list. Because I guess the SQL statement has to go out to the calligrapher.

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In short, I feel overreaction is a mainstay of comedy! Don’t make me explain a joke, people. But srsly, this is wretched usability and a total disconnect from the public face of the brand. Or perhaps I am just taking it out on poor Martha because I have already spent this week dealing with the RMV, investment companies, actual criminals, a rogue play group, a no-sleep recidivist, insurance companies, and more. At least I did not walk five miles past lions or snipers to carry my groceries home, right? And nothing’s on fire. Yet.

Getting to no

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I am still SELF-IMPROVING! No, really. I ate a vegetable. I did not smite anyone, even though I felt like it. And just between you and me and the tubes, there are a lot of people who could use a smiting these days! But that is kind of old school, smiting. These days we are “disappointed with the outcome but mindful of your sincere effort.” It is not the fault of the little creatures that they suck.

When kicking it old school, one usedta might cast one’s cares on to the Lord, but today, one casts one’s cares into a series of folders and calendars. The aim is the same: stop worrying about stupid crap. Maybe regrow a leg if you need one, or at least remember to research leg regrowth on the internet. I would like to grow the capacity for human love some day! I hear it is lovely. The internet tells me that my Asperger’s is acting up. It is October: no wonder. A wretched October day! Rhymes with holy. Er, rhymes with getting things so done that they are dead!

Don’t you love it when I rap crazy at you, internet? I have to go call my mortgage company now.

With optional trunk liner, but since you are a pig, you will need it

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Yesterday saw the Vomitola-Mr. H family inexplicably oafing into a decision, as is our custom. We went out to look at cars since our lease was up in a few weeks, and we came home with something without spiders living in the side mirrors. Our salesperson basically threw himself on the ground and grabbed our ankles and refused to let us leave, and we were swayed by not having to take our filthy old car to get detailed and a lease end inspection. A. Ybab picked all the raisins out of a cookie and pasted them all over the backseat just the day before.

We easily picked out a car, which went something like “This one has wheels. Ooh, grey? Hey, I like grey. The colorblind can enjoy it too.” Then the tedious negotiations started. My father fancies himself a car negotiator, and he will walk in and say “I will pay you no more than $10,000 for a car!” and they will say “OK, you can have this one with windows that don’t even open,” and he will say “Sold.” Or he will walk out in a huff and sulk for days. Living with the insane is delightfully unpredictable. I prefer the Socratic approach.

“Here’s our best offer,” says The Hair.

“Do you feel that I appear mentally challenged, or as some of the less couth among us might say, retarded?”

“Well, it’s a great car, you really like it. I want to put you in the car you love.”

“Actually, I like far cheaper cars too! Do you like Hyundais?”

“OK, what if I could do….THIS [underlines number with flourish]?”

“What if you could fly?”

“Well, how about….THIS?”

“Do you like your life?”

In the meantime, Mr. H sits off to the side and looks disapproving and says things like “I’d really like to sleep on this. We should go.” Then we finally arrived at a number ten squillion dollars lower than the original price and lower than what I was prepared to pay anyway. Of course “the other guy” had to come out and “remember” the special incentive I asked for twenty minutes earlier. We are starving and dehydrated at this point, and A. Ybab has befouled her unmentionables. “Fine, make it all go away,” we wailed.

Then we came home and obsessively used the internet to determine that we could have spent $4 less at a dealership in Tulsa. Blast! Do you like your life?