Weather.com is a useless sack of poo.

In this post: Twisters, rants.

I’ve decided to report today’s activities with an easy-to-follow timeline because there’s so much going on around here I almost don’t know where to start. Thank you.

The Internet was broken.

In this post: I hate AT&T.

Life at Howdygram headquarters began on a sour note this morning for the following reasons: 1) I woke up with heart palpatations; 2) the Internet was broken; and 3) isn’t that enough?

Shopping on Amazon doesn’t require lipstick, wearing a brassiere or leaving the house.

In this post: Holiday food-fest, another AT&T fiasco.

Sam is on his merry way to Costco as I write this post, armed with a list of essential crapola to keep our faces entertained during the four-day Thanksgiving weekend. I specifically refer to:

1. Brownie Brittle*
2. Salt & pepper pistachios
3. An industrial-size slab of lox
4. “Loaded” potato salad (sour cream! cheddar cheese! chives!)*
5. Sushi
6. Jalapeño hummus
7. Frozen Angus burgers
8. Excellent breakfast burritos*
9. Fully-cooked microwave bacon

No Internet connection? Make a meatloaf.

A question. Why are little girls’ toys always about unicorns, nail art, Easy Bake ovens, glitter and princesses? Growing up in the 1950s my kid sister and I had nothing like that. We played with a huge Rig-a-Jig construction set, Tinker Toys, SpiroGraph, modeling clay, hand puppets, tempera paints and gigantic boxes of Venus Paradise colored pencils and Crayola crayons.

We also loved jacks. And cards. And at my cousin Bobby’s house we’d hang out in the basement, building elaborate mansion floor plans on the pingpong table with Uncle Harold’s golf tees.

The most fun I ever had, though, was with my very own Smith Corona manual typewriter — starting at eight years old — so I could launch my career a famous author. Although the famous author thing never materialized, exactly, I’ve been writing continuously, one damn thing or another, since I was old enough to spell. Today, in 2013, you get the Howdygram. (Sorry, people.)

What made me think about this? A cute video I watched last night on Jezebel.com ... a gang of “fierce little girls” lobbying for better, more challenging toys. It’s actually a commercial for GoldieBlox, a construction set to encourage girls into engineering.

GoldieBlox was developed by a Stanford engineering student named Debbie Sterling who raised more than $285,000 through Kickstarter. Hmm. Maybe Bobby and I should start marketing golf tees to future architects.

Here’s an AT&T update, in case you give a crap. They sent a technician this morning to check the fiber optic equipment that’s in a big green utility box thing outside near the curb. He figured out almost immediately that the problem is inside the house, so they’re sending somebody else over here tomorrow between 4 and  8 p.m. because apparently AT&T has different job descriptions for outdoor repair dudes and indoor repair dudes. (And I think they also wear different outfits.) Regardless, I’m still betting it has to be the router sitting here on my desk, because every few minutes the power light turns red and we lose our connections to U-Verse TV, the Internet and our home telephone.

To redirect my frustration I think I’ll make a meatloaf. Thank you for reading this.

Adios, Governor Goodhair. You sucked.

A few weeks ago I decided to love AT&T (see previous post) when I found out that U-Verse lets me program my DVR online. Well, screw that. I hate them again, and here’s why.

We’re having persistent issues with AT&T’s crappy router. Every 60 seconds it starts blinking red, which indicates all of the following: 1) our Internet connection is down; 2) there’s no home phone service (it’s digital); and 3) anything that’s recording on our DVR ends up pixellated, without sound and unwatchable. I’ve been trying to call AT&T for the last hour and a half but every time I’m next in line for a service technician THE PHONE SHUTS OFF AGAIN.

But wait ... there’s more! Wondering why I don’t just use my cell phone? THE BATTERY WON’T HOLD A CHARGE. (Another quality AT&T product, people.) I’ve got my cell charging (again) as I write this post; hopefully within the hour I’ll have enough juice stored up to call and raise hell. Stay tuned for further developments.

AND NOW, FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS. I never did talk to a real person at AT&T, but their sophisticated automated voice mail crapola diagnosed a problem with our equipment and set up an appointment for tomorrow so a technician can come by and fix whatever’s broken. Apparently he won’t need to physically set foot inside Howdygram headquarters, which is fine with me because I never wear a brassiere in July or August. (Or September.)

And as long as I’m accomplishing projects, I’d like to offer updates on the Monday “do” list mentioned in last night’s Howdygram post. First, I verified today that Blue Cross will cover acupuncture treatments provided they’re for chronic pain — as opposed to weird horseshit like curing knuckle hair or beating your craving for chocolate — which is swell news in case I decide to go this route for help with my arthritis and neuropathy issues. As an insulin-dependent diabetic I’m not exactly convinced that I want additional needles in my life, but I’m no big fan of arthritis and neuropathy pain, either. Holy crap.

Second, I was involved in a pleasant online chat a few minutes ago with a Norelco customer service dude named Rafael when all of a sudden I fixed Sam’s busted rechargeable razor all by myself! When the aforementioned service dude asked me to hunt for the serial number (it’s inside the beard trimmer attachment) I figured out the broken top wasn’t actually broken at all. I snapped it right back into place, switched on the razor and shaved off all the hair on my right arm. This was so much fun I’m also considering a couple of toes!

And now, my final thought for the day ...

In case you haven’t heard the news, Rick “Einstein” Perry announced today that he WILL NOT seek another term as governor of Texas. Glorioski, people, this is so damn exciting I might need Mongolian chicken for dinner! I have no idea what he plans to do instead (God forbid if he’s got the White House in his crosshairs again) but I think it’s high time for Governor Goodhair to take his right-wing dumbshittery into the private sector, maybe as a lobbyist for Smith & Wesson or as pastor of a patriotic mega-church. If my knees didn’t hurt I’d consider a couple of celebration cartwheels. Yee-haw!

Thank you for reading this.

Diabetics jump through all kinds of stupid hoops to satisfy a craving.

Sam will be home from work late tonight. Actually, that’s an understatement ... he’s already late. He’s usually home by 10:30 and it’s a few minutes past midnight. While I wait I’m seriously considering a big glass of vanilla Soy Slender soy milk and a plate of Bogus Doughnuts, which technically are a couple of low-carb biscuits with low-carb fruit spread and granulated Splenda sprinkled on top so I can pretend they’re bismarcks. Photos appear below for your possible interest.

Incidentally, please don’t laugh at me. Diabetics jump through all kinds of stupid hoops to satisfy a craving.

There was a thrilling breakthrough today in the O.J. Simpson hearing in Las Vegas, where the judge allowed court officers to unchain one of O.J.’s hands so he could eat mints and drink water. Nothing else appears to be going very well for The Juice, however, so please check in with the Howdygram for additional updates as they become available.

Know what? I just figured out you’re never too old to learn something new. I get a postcard in the mail this afternoon from AT&T inviting me to “expand my experience with U-Verse.com,” an activity that would typically draw an unpleasant response — i.e., WTF, I’d rather inject insulin — except today, for reasons unknown, I decide to read the ad. Or try to, because it’s badly designed, barely legible (20% gray type on a 15% gray background) and almost impossible to read. The news, however, was stunning. After three years as a U-Verse customer I find out today there’s a special U-Verse website that lets me PROGRAM THE DVR FROM MY COMPUTER while I sit in the study writing Howdygram posts!

Holy crap, people, THIS IS ABSOLUTELY HUGE! Without getting up from my desk I just scanned ahead to program movies and TV shows through the middle of next week, cancelled a movie I’d scheduled earlier and erased a couple that I didn’t want any more. Even better, I can search the entire U-Verse channel lineup for program titles, set up and manage series recordings, filter all the listings for HD only and arrange for somebody to make popocorn! (Just kidding about the popcorn.) I’m so damn excited I’ve decided to take back all the nasty crap I’ve written about AT&T during the last couple of years. I love these guys.

Thank you for reading this!

Come on over. We’re folding socks and playing Pirates of the Caribbean.

Huge and exciting news from Howdygram headquarters! First, we just ordered dinner from China City. Second, tomorrow we’ve planned an excursion to the Choctaw Casino in Oklahoma for their half-price buffet lunch — with pea salad and sugar-free pie! —  and a couple of hours at the penny slots where we might win as much as $25. Third, the monster blizzard that buried the Texas panhandle this morning will miss us completely, thank God.

On the downside, Sam’s right eye is still a blurry, useless mess since his retina surgery last week so he started wearing a black patch this morning after a trip to Wal-Mart. The patch makes him look exotic, dangerous and slightly disabled. He’ll see the doctor on Wednesday. In the meantime we’re playing Pirates of the Caribbean. (Arrgh.)

In case you’re curious, my blow-out with AT&T today actually turned out not too bad. I managed to lower our bill from $207 to $133 per month for the U-Verse “300” package (including all the high-definition channels plus HBO) with Internet service and digital home phone. AT&T is always really nice about helping you find a better deal. The problem is, if you don’t scrutinze your monthly statement line-by-line with a magnifying glass and pick up the phone every time you find a discrepancy, they’ll assume you’re the sucker of the century and continue ripping you off for the rest of your life. I don’t know about you, but I hate doing business like that. You can’t trust ANYBODY.

A bunch of deliveries will be waiting for us tomorrow when we get home from the casino! They include a 30-pound crate of assorted DaVinci sugar-free soft drinks syrups from Lollicup, our new 12-cup Cuisinart coffeemaker from Amazon plus a package of 400 cone filters. We love beverages around here. As I write this post I’m slugging down a glass of Coke Zero enhanced with two squirts of DaVinci sugar-free blueberry and doing laundry concurrently so it’s not a total waste of time. Sock-folding starts in 30 minutes if you have nothing else to do. Thank you.

Our Mr. Coffee died. We’re sitting shiva through Wednesday.

By now I’m sure you’ve noticed that I didn’t write any Howdygram posts over the weekend. I have no excuse, really, other than I wasn’t especially motivated and spent all of my time instead sleeping, eating things and taking care of Sam. This partially explains why I’m awake at 5 in the morning. Too damn much sleep.

Before I get wrapped up in other topics I thought I’d include the following photo of the excellent crap I purchased on Saturday. Included here are: 1) a shiny new Cuisinart coffeemaker with a 12-cup thermal carafe; 2) two kinds of extremely low-carb breakfast cereal; 3) EZ-Sweetz liquid sucralose (Splenda); and 4) several quarts of unsweetened almond milk. Items 2, 3 and 4 are from Netrition.com. We ordered item 1 from Amazon.com because our Mr. Coffee died. (We’re sitting shiva through Wednesday.)

Raise your hand if you’ve ever tried Blue Diamond’s unsweetened almond milk. Isn’t this stuff amazing? Almond milk has less than half the calories of cow’s milk, ZERO LACTOSE (very important) and practically no carbohydrates whatsoever. I can finally drink milk again! I’ve been ordering from Netrition but I might send Sam to Wal-Mart today to find out if they carry it at our neighborhood market.

Did any of you bother with the Academy Awards last night? The only reason I watched was to see Barbra Streisand. The rest of the show was thoroughly meaningless unless you’re into a bunch of grossly overpaid narcissists congratulating each other on national TV.

My projects for today will include laundry, defrosting a brick of ground beef, replacing the Febreze electric scented oil refill thingies in four rooms and another battle with the Einsteins in AT&T’s billing department. This time I intend to strong-arm them into giving us their $129 U-Verse, Internet and digital home phone promotional package because they’re currently charging us $207 every month for the exact same services. I think I waste half my life on their stupid website trying to figure out all the ways they’re secretly overcharging us. For instance, why are we paying $46.75 for Internet service when they advertise it for $29.95? And why the hell do they keep charging my cell phone for incoming text messages when the only incoming texts I’ve ever received are spam from AT&T? I hate these people. I mean it.

I’m going back to bed now. Don’t be jealous, okay?

News flash: Einsteins eat at Denny’s and work at AT&T.

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but the Einsteins at AT&T must be borderline criminals or, at the very least, a pack of peabrains who can’t comprehend compound sentences. I’ve been calling once a month since April to find ways to reduce our monthly U-Verse bill, but every single time one of their employees makes an adjustment THE BOTTOM LINE KEEPS GETTING WORSE. For instance, last month I spent the better part of a week horsing around with AT&T (see post) trying to change the billing information on our wireless account (two cell phones) from Sam’s name to mine so we could combine it with our U-Verse statement — which has always been in my name, for reasons that defy logic — to qualify for a stupid discount. Didn’t happen.

And that brings us to today’s fiasco! AT&T emailed our August U-Verse statement this afternoon and (no surprise) the grand total was higher than July. Actually, a LOT higher than July. A tense 45-minute conversation with their Einstein du jour revealed that AT&T: 1) added an expensive unlimited family texting package to our wireless account even though I never asked for it; 2) forgot to credit us for three TV promotional packages; and 3) “accidentally” charged us for a movie package that I canceled two months ago. Eventually I was able to reduce our U-Verse bill from $319 to $219. I can hardly wait for September. Holy crap.

Now for our latest adventure at Denny’s, where we always find lots of handicapped parking spots and cheap meals for old people. After we dropped off Sam’s car at Pep Boys this morning for routine maintenance we drove over to our favorite Denny’s at Beltline and Interstate 80 for Senior Scrambled Eggs. Call it dumb luck, but we were seated directly behind the village Einstein who’s bellowing into a cell phone, whistling for the waitress and kind of smells bad. Bonnie (our waitress) told us he'd been wedged into the same booth drinking free coffee refills for THREE AND A HALF HOURS, driving her crazy and trying to get everybody in the dining room involved in a conversation. Obviously Sam and I weren’t expecting an experience like Tavern on the Green, but a little peace and quiet with our eggs would have been appreciated. The map below indicates: A) Howdygram headquarters in Mesquite; and B) the aforementioned Denny’s.

A portrait of Denny’s Senior Scrambled Eggs appears below. In case you’re interested we always ask for our pancakes on separate plates and I get sugar-free syrup with mine. Please let me know if this is too much information, okay?

Tomorrow Sam and I will commence an official Tex-Mex culinary tour of Dallas. I’ve compiled a list of the top five highest-rated Tex-Mex restaurants in the metro area and we’re figuring on visiting a different establishment every couple of weeks for a late Saturday lunch. These will include:

1. Pepe’s & Mito’s Mexican Cafe (featured on “Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives”) at 2911 Elm Street near Baylor Hospital
2. Amigos at 940 E. Belt Line Road
3. Avila’s at 4714 Maple
4. Mario Sabino’s Mexican and Salvadoran at 5404 Lemmon Avenue near Love Field Airport (they don’t have a website)
5. Rafa’s Cafe at 5617 Lovers Lane

I’m definitely stoked about this. Restaurant reviews will be forthcoming.

A quick report from Club Meds. I’ve discovered an unwelcome side effect from the insulin I’ve been using for the last few months: MEMORY LOSS. I inject the maximum allowable dose (100 units) of Lantus® every night at bedtime and for the last several weeks I’ve noticed that I’m not remembering names, years, people or words and sometimes get halfway into a sentence and lose track of what I’m trying to say. It’s a lot like being stoned except without the munchies.

Thank you for reading this.

Einsteins, liars and scammers: the joy of AT&T.

Holy mother of crap. I don’t know why these deceitful halfwits are still in business! Today’s fiasco was the culmination of a five-day struggle that began on Friday (see previous post) when I called AT&T to inquire about a series of unexplained increases on our monthly statement. While I’m venting my frustration all over Michelle Einstein she casually mentions that if we add our cell phone bill to the rest of our AT&T account (U-Verse, digital phone and Internet) we’d qualify for $5 off per service every month. That’s a $20 discount. I LOVE DISCOUNTS! I’m thinking, GLORIOSKI, who knew? Except I’m told that first I have to change the billing authorization on our cell phone account from Sam’s name to mine (our other AT&T services are in my name, although I honestly have no idea why) so Michelle gives me all the information I need to process the change online so AT&T won’t have to smack us with a $36 service fee for no reason whatsoever. Sam and I wrestle with AT&T’s website all weekend but never manage to get the billing change to go through.

So I call back yesterday and talk to Michelle’s best friend, Allison Einstein. She agrees to waive the $36 charge because we weren’t able to make the change online by ourselves and then asks me to confirm the last four digits of Sam’s social security number, which I give her. She says, “That’s not correct. We have a different number on file for him.” So I say, “Then your records are wrong, because I know Sam’s social security number and the last four digits are blah-blah-blah-blah.” We go back and forth with this horseshit at least three times until she puts me on hold, checks her records — probably stuffed in a cardboard box in the basement of the National Archives judging from the amount of time she left me hanging — and finally figures out that another AT&T Einsein five years ago accidentally transposed the digits. At this point I’m so sick of AT&T’s on-hold messages that I’m ready to amputate my ears. Allison finally returns with exciting news that she fixed the error but can’t process the billing change because Sam has to call personally and give them verbal authorization to “release financial responsibility” to me. Just kill me now! I tell her Sam will call back on Tuesday.

It’s Tuesday at last. Around 10 a.m. Sam and I call AT&T, I repeat the entire story to yet another Einstein named Dana, and Sam gladly provides the verbal authorization they requested to change the billing name on our cell phone account. Dana asks me to hold while she transfers me to another department that will finish the process. I play three rounds of video poker and think I can actually feel my fingernails growing. Dana finally comes back to tell me the lines are really busy so why don’t I call back later and please write down the direct number. I write. Three hours later after Sam leaves for work I call back and talk to Einstein number four, Kayla, who actually manages to finish the procedure and link all of our accounts onto one bill. She tells me it might take up to two months before I see the change and I tell her that’s fine. Then I ask her to confirm the monthly discount that Michelle mentioned on Friday. Here’s a transcript of the conversation that follows.

Kayla:  “Discount? What discount?”
Me:      “On Friday when I called with a question about my U-verse statement I
              was told we’d get a discount for combining our cell phone bill with the rest
              of our AT&T account.” (She puts me on hold.)
Kayla:  “You’re right. I see you qualify for our one-time $5 discount.”
Me:       “A one-time discount? You’re not serious. I was told that it’s $5 off per
              service EVERY MONTH.”
Kayla:  “You were given incorrect information. It’s a one-time $5 discount.”
Me:      “I can’t believe I just wasted five days of my life for FIVE STINKING
             DOLLARS. Trust me, there’s a special corner of hell reserved for AT&T
             and every generation of your evil offspring!”

I might be exaggerating about that last line, but I think you get my drift. I’m so disgusted right now I don’t even want Mongolian chicken. It’s a little frightening.

Making matters even worse is the news that Sheriff Andy Taylor died peacefully today at his home in Mayberry. He is survived by his long-time paramour Helen Crump and three dozen jars of Aunt Bee’s kerosene pickles.

Thank you for reading this!

AT&T, the Einstein communications powerhouse.

I wasn’t planning to write another post at this point in the day but changed my mind a couple of minutes ago when I checked email and found this adorable photo from Aunt Adie, taken yesterday at Venice Beach. Are these guys cute, or what? They even match the landscape!

And then a few minutes ago I get an email from AT&T U-Verse announcing that my monthly bill is now available in video format — what the hell? — and all I have to do is click the link to view it. They say it’s “an additional way to help you understand the billing details of your award winning U-Verse service.”

I click the link and — take your best guess here — it doesn’t work. So I close the browser page and start over. No luck. But the third time’s a charm for AT&T because now their little video swings into action. It plays for five whole seconds and stops dead, then teeny little numbers start lurching slowly from 1 to 100. The counter stops dead twice. When the video finally reloads it plays for another five seconds and stops dead again, more teeny little numbers lurching to 100, and so on. Play. Stop. Die. Lurch. Play. Stop. Die. Lurch. I waste half an hour of my life horsing around with a three-minute video produced by Einstein & Company. I’m definitely feeling inspired now to recommend “award winning U-Verse service” to everybody I know. (This post ought to take care of that.)

Incidentally, the aforementioned “lurching number” is circled in red in the image above. I hate these things. (And even worse, the font is Times Roman.)

Time for a hot shower and dinner. Thanks for stopping by!

Missing Sam.

Hi. It’s 9:45 p.m. and I’ve had just about all the activity a person can stand for one day. I emptied the dishwasher, re-bandaged a toe, ordered in Chinese food, talked to Sam long-distance in California, considered eating a piece of cake and watched an amazing movie called Letter from an Unknown Woman with Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan (see photo). Incidentally, the Einsteins who rate these films for our AT&T U-Verse cable guide gave it 3½ stars — the same as Dinner for Schmucks, which is AT&T’s benchmark for excellence in filmmaking, and Ben-Hur — so you know it must be awfully damn special.

Breaking news ... SAM COMES HOME ON SUNDAY! To say I’ve missed him would be the understatement of the century because it’s awfully dull around here when he’s gone. Not only is Sam the life of the party, he’s cuddly, exceptionally attractive and the Howdygram’s official mascot. (He’ll kill me for that.) First, however, I have a number of projects scheduled for tomorrow (Saturday), such as making a mountain of my world-famous homemade potato salad, ordering a 12-pack of Bounty select-a-size paper towels from Wal-Mart and trying not to destroy any additional toes in the process. Sam’s flight gets in at 5:30 Sunday and I’ll be there to pick him up.

Click here to send Sam a welcome home email. Thank you.

Manischewitz clearance sale, today only.

A quick follow-up to the story in yesterday’s post about my new “virtual terminal” credit card processing system. As it turns out I received the wrong welcome letter loaded with confusing instructions for a ridiculously intense set-up procedure that didn’t apply to me whatsoever. When I couldn’t reach tech support — actually, nobody bothered to answer the damn phone — I emailed my merchant account rep, Evelyn, who sorted it all out for me. Five minutes later my virtual terminal was up and running.

No kidding, this online credit card thing is absolutely brilliant and I only wish I’d known about it a couple of years ago. I already processed my first transaction this morning. I WANT EVERYBODY TO SEND ME MONEY!

The matzo farfel incident. Such excitement! Last week I ordered a 3-pack of gigantic Manischewitz whole grain matzo farfel canisters from Amazon.com, and they sent me half a dozen by mistake. They’re huge. I’ve got SIX POUNDS OF MATZO FARFEL in the pantry ... enough to stuff the entire Israeli army. And this would be incredibly wonderful except for one teeny little problem: I didn’t know until last night that it tastes like corrugated cardboard. (The farfel ... not the Israeli army.)

Therefore, if you or your loved ones are craving the unforgettable taste of cardboard and would like to snag a canister of Manischewitz whole grain matzo farfel cheap, please send me an email and we’ll discuss convenient terms. (I accept Mastercard, Visa and American Express.)

Making changes for a brighter future. This week I’ve been implementing my Happy New Year Austerity Plan. I cancelled my business 800-number service on Tuesday and just called AT&T and told them to disconnect my business landline phone. Total annual savings, about $675. Better yet, AT&T’s customer service rep was so nice she knocked $5 a month off our U-Verse bill for no apparent reason and then threw in a free speed upgrade to our Internet service, which was actually pretty damn fast to begin with. Glorioski, is this amazing or what?

I think I need a snack and a nap because saving money can do that to a person. Thank you for reading this.

Frustration, tea bags and napkin rings.

Yo. I have practically nothing to say at this hour of the morning, but that’s never stopped me before so I decided to write a post anyway.

Sam is already asleep. I feel compelled to sit up for a while because our AT&T U-Verse remote (see right) tried to give me a brain hemhorrage when it REFUSED to let me turn off the cable box and TV. Every time I pressed the power button both units would shut down and then pop right back on again … over and over and over and over. After 15 minutes of this crazy crap I just turned off the TV manually so I wouldn’t have to ram the stupid remote into the garbage disposer.

I’m thinking maybe the batteries are low. (This sounds like a nice Saturday activity for Sam.)

Before I head off to bed I’ve got one final project — a quick grocery list. We’ll be stocking up on essentials this morning for my mother-in-law’s visit — raisin bran, fruit, extra bagels, a box of tea bags and the good potato salad from Tom Thumb. Her flight gets in at 4:05. Sam will meet her at the airport and I’ll stay home to make dinner. Y’all are welcome to come, too, but please send an email to request a reservation so I’ll have enough napkin rings. I’m serving at 6:30 sharp. Thank you for reading this.

Confusion reigns.

I wonder what Einstein at AT&T is responsible for their current rewards program. Last week Sam and I received a couple of Visa debit cards (one for $50, the other for $25) as a thankyou from AT&T after we signed up for their top-of-the-line U-Verse package.

As soon as the cards come in the mail I call AT&T’s rewards hotline to activate them. The word “DEBIT” is printed clearly on the front of each card and a removable sticker tells me that my PIN is the same as the last four digits of my U-Verse account number. So we should be good to go, right? Not on your life.

I give both cards to Sam because he wants to use them to fill our cars with gas. He comes home from the gas station half an hour later and tells me he probably doesn’t know how to use a debit card because it got rejected at the pump. I assure him it’s a no-brainer ... just swipe the card, enter the four-digit PIN and you’re done. A few days later he tries the card at Wal-Mart with the same result. And today (the last straw) the card got rejected at the post office. So I decide I’m through horsing around with this crapola and I’m calling AT&T.

I talk to an AT&T Einstein named Iris and explain that Sam keeps trying to use their miserable debit cards but they’re always getting rejected. She reads the entire rewards program manual OUT LOUD to me and then starts asking questions.

Did I call the correct number to activate the cards? Yes.
Am I positive? Yes.
Do I know my PIN numbers? Yes.
Am I positive? Yes.
Have the cards already expired? I just got them.
Really? Yes.
Is my husband mentally challenged? Not especially.

At this point Iris decides to pass me along to a specialist Einstein in their rewards division who might be able to figure out what’s what. I’m connected to Sandra, who proceeds to explain that — get ready for it — we can’t actually use these debit cards as debit cards even though they say “DEBIT” on the front and come with PIN numbers like real debit cards. These mock debit cards have to be used like CREDIT CARDS, and she’s sorry we were too stupid to figure this out for ourselves. At that point I was angry enough to ram my U-Verse router up her nose except she wasn’t actually in the room with me. I might mail it to her with instructions.

Before I forget, more wild weather could be on the way today. Weather.com says that northeast Texas is on the map for “significant and life-threatening tornadoes,” and a tornado watch has been issued through 10 p.m. tonight. This means I’d better order my Chinese food as soon as possible to avoid the driver getting pelted to smithereens by a hailstorm.

The red star indicates the Howdygram’s location in Mesquite, and if you zoom in you’ll see that I’m the brunette in the blue robe waving on the driveway.

It might be too soon to knock on wood, but so far I’m having NO SIDE EFFECTS from the new pain medication I started taking a few days ago: Amitriptyline Hydrochloride. Even better, I actually think it’s WORKING! If all goes well I’ll be able to double the dose next week. Please excuse me for a minute while I do a happy dance for the pharmacy gods.

Thank you for reading this.

When everything sucks.

To tell you the truth, this has NOT been a very good day. Aside from the fact that neuropathy is flaring up like mad again in my left foot and left hand, I also have had to endure the following assorted crap.

I ordered a spice online and they shipped the wrong one. I fail to understand how MySpiceSage.com screwed this up. I ordered a 4 oz. resealable bag of caraway seeds — and it’s printed correctly on the packing list they enclosed in the box — but they sent whole cloves instead. CLOVES. Who the devil uses cloves?

I think we’re getting ripped off by AT&T. The frustration level is climbing steadily here. First, we signed up online for paperless billing weeks ago but continue to receive mail from them nearly every day either asking us to “go paperless” or promoting various U-Verse deals that cost less than the one we just signed up for. I’m also concerned about the monthly bill that arrived today for our AT&T landline phone. The amount due jumped from $28 to $61 because I asked them to remove a couple of services I didn’t need. According to what I’m seeing on this stupid statement there’s a charge to REQUEST a service change and another charge to actually MAKE the change. No doubt there will also be a charge to ARGUE about the change. And apparently AT&T still adds a surcharge for “touch-tone service,” although I seriously can’t fathom what the alternatives are to a touch-tone phone. Stop by tomorrow around 10 a.m. if you want to watch me get into a screaming match with an AT&T bureaucratic idiot. Bring a coffee cake.

The corn dogs that got away. My Schwan’s delivery driver accidently forgot to include a bag of mini corn dogs with my order yesterday. I didn’t miss them right away because Sam is the one who shoveled everything into the freezer, but today when I wanted mini corn dogs for lunch they were nowhere to be found. I searched through the freezer for half an hour, emptied three shelves, dug through three bins, and finally asked Sam if he remembered seeing them. He said no. So I called Gary, and he showed up tonight at 8:30 to drop them off. I actually held off eating dinner because I still wanted those damn little corn dogs. Know what? THEY’RE ABSOLUTELY LOUSY. I had a can of cream of mushroom soup instead.

As long as we’re discussing Schwan’s I suppose I should review the OTHER lousy product I got from them this week ... Breaded Chicken Breast Patties. From this photo (above, left) you assume it’s a solid slab of chicken that’s perfect for sandwiches, but it just isn’t so. These are just giant chicken nuggets on steroids ... strange, ground-up mystery chicken in a tasteless breading. I tried one and didn’t like it at all. But I’ll try again, next time on two pieces of bread with lots of barbecue sauce and lettuce to obliterate the flavor and texture. As a last resort I can use them as coasters.

There’s a severe thunderstorm rolling in right now so I think I’ll shut down the computers and wait in the window for Sam to get home from work. Shalom, y’all.

Enjoying the finer things in life.

Our new AT&T U-Verse service is offering a lot more than we ever expected. For instance, we can view Woody Allen reruns and one-star Jennifer Lopez movies on 43 different channels, enjoy World Series highlights from the 1980s, middle-school soccer and high school cheerleading competitions from all 50 states, and watch so many consecutive episodes of “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” (see photo) on the Food Network that your arteries implode.

And just when I thought life couldn’t get better, yesterday I discovered The Barbie Channel ... Mattel’s Pepto-Bismol-pink nightmare for pre-teen white girls featuring idiotic crap about shopping, hair bows and unicorns. Sam and I were scared to death.

I’ve discovered the best way EVER to stock up on detergent and fabric softener ... shop at Amazon.com! I just ordered Tide Liquid Clean Breeze Scent with Actilift, four 64-load bottles, for only $39.60, and Ultra Downy Simple Pleasures Lavender Serenity Liquid, four 105-load bottles, for $49.60. These are excellent prices with the added bonus of FREE SHIPPING and NO SALES TAX. Figuring I average about four loads of laundry every week, this will be enough Tide and Downy to last way more than a year and I won’t have to send Sam to the store any more with detailed instructions and product photos.

I’m so excited I could do a happy dance except I’d probably trip over my cane. So I’ll just pile a shelf in the garage with my high-quality laundry supplies and NEVER RUN OUT FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.

One final thought. In the mail today I received a $28.76 check from Baylor Health Care System for an “overpayment.” This would have to be nearly IMPOSSIBLE because Blue Cross covers all of my Baylor expenses except for a co-pay whenever I see my doctor. Since launching any kind of inquiry is probably pointless, I’ll just cash the silly check and order a lot of Mongolian Chicken. Thank you for reading this.

It’s good to have friends in high places.

George and Laura Bush love me. This is amusing, ridiculous and really hard to believe, since I was no Bush fan during his eight years in office and still don’t have any use for him except as a Howdygram sidebar to showcase his unforgettable public speaking skills. During the past year the Bushes have sent me — not Sam, just ME — numerous attractive welcome letters with pictures (Laura’s gaining weight), engraved and signed certificates, way too many fundraising requests, and now, if I remit $50, an opportunity to be “permanently inscribed in the Freedom Registry” at the George W. Bush Presidential Center Museum. As an incentive, they included a virtually worthless plastic membership card (see below) with an artist’s rendering of an imaginary building on the SMU campus in Dallas that hasn’t broken ground. I am, as you might expect, honored, humbled, deeply moved and confused as hell.

So. Did y’all have a nice weekend? We didn’t do much and enjoyed every minute of it. I ordered a West Bend electric can opener from Amazon.com (see right) and baked a loaf of pumpernickel, but my #1 goal — aside from laundry — was to learn how to use the remote with our new AT&T U-Verse DVR.

At this moment in time I’m pleased to report that I’ve already mastered all of the following functions: 1) turning the TV and DVR on and off; 2) recording and erasing movies; 3) setting up series recordings for “Top Chef”, “People’s Court”, “Tabatha’s Salon Takeover” and “Hardcore Pawn”; and 4) adjusting the volume. I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface. Whenever I’m ready to advance to the next level AT&T offers an assortment of condescending on-demand instructional videos.

And now it’s time for a hot shower, dinner and a mountain of unfolded socks! Life is good in Texas. I’ll bet you wish you were here.

How to stay balanced, part one.

When sleep deprivation turns your life upside down there’s only one way to get back on track, and that’s a middle-of-the-night SHOPPING SPREE at any or all of my favorite websites: MyFonts.com, Wal-Mart.com and Amazon.com. Shopping is good for your soul, balances your brain and it’s not even necessary to spend a lot of money.

So ... here are the fruits of last night’s credit card extravaganza. I bought a bunch of cute new cheapo fonts, a set of six flameless LED pillar candles from Wal-Mart.com and a rustic mantle clock from Amazon.com for the family room because our new AT&T DVR doesn’t show you what time it is and eventually this will drive me nuts.

And now for something truly ironic. Last night when Sam got home from work we started surfing through the 470 high-definition premium channels we get with our new AT&T U-Verse service, and the only program worth watching was an NFL bloopers rerun from 1995. I briefly considered blowing my brains out until I noticed that HBO was showing Gattaca at midnight. I like Gattaca.

Thank you for reading this.

Well-connected and wired to the max.

Seriously, change doesn’t come easy for me. The older I get, the more I worry. For the last few days I was in a state of clammy panic about our AT&T U-Verse installation today. All kinds of scary baloney kept whizzing through my head, like will AT&T have to drill holes in our house, do they know what to do with our Bose home theatre and can I find a private class somewhere on how to use the new remote. Fortunately, the entire installation experience was totally painless and took less than two hours, ending with one-on-one remote control instruction with Josh the Friendly Technician. I even have a hard-copy channel guide that’s the size of Webster’s unabridged dictionary ... 470 CHANNELS. Holy crap.

In case you’re interested, I have some HUGE PLANS for the weekend. They include: 1) driving to The Container Store in Dallas to pick up some desk organizers I ordered online; 2) lunch with Sam at El Nogalito even though I’m not 100% convinced I have a taste for enchiladas with Cheez Whiz; and 3) enough laundry to sink the U.S.S. Enterprise. Number three is mostly due to the enormous pile of new monogrammed towels that arrived yesterday plus a lot of sheets, two weeks’ worth of socks and a ton of underwear. I’m feeling thoroughly overwhelmed due to continuing symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome. (Try folding socks one-handed and you’ll get my drift.)

As if we needed more bad news, I just saw a headline that President Obama has OK’d military action to stop Charlie Sheen’s evil twin, megalomaniac Moammar Gaddafi. This scares me. Gaddafi has already made it pretty clear that he’ll fight to the death to hang onto whatever he’s got in Libya, strangely like Sheen with his “violent torpedo of truth” and “fire-breathing fists.”

God help us.

Time to throw in another load of laundry while I’m on a roll here. Thank you for stopping by. I mean it.