This has truly been a strange week. One for the books. So strange in fact, I thought I'd jot it down diary style, so that next year, when I re-read it, maybe it'll be funny by then. Besides, nobody reads these pages. Right?.......

Got frustrated with Ebay again. Had reached the point that yet again, I was pouring in eight hours a day, and the fun was draining out of it.  So last weekend, when I got a very unpleasant email from a lady who hadn't even bought anything, complaining about something, I responded by firing off an equally unpleasant firecracker telling her where she got off.

By next morning,  I had decided that when I sink to the level of tit-for-tat emails, it's time to give it up. Sent her an apologetic email, thanking her for making me reach the decision to close the Ebay store. She was just the push over the edge I needed.

Stuff is strewn everywhere in The Shrine, as I try to inventory and reorganize to get this website in order.  The room was in brilliant shape after the shelf that holds my packing supplies collapsed on my head a couple of weeks ago. There were boxes and cardboard scraps and bubble wrap and mailers and rolls of tape and peanuts and poster tubes all over the place. That was a enforced clean up. So how can it be so disorganized again, already, so soon?

So anyway, this week in "real" life...the one outside Ebay and LOTR collecting...

 Monday I  had a rare and  noisy argument with a customer over the definition of insurable interest.  Told him to take his business elsewhere. I would rather not have his business, than have him sue me down the road because he'd claim he didn't "understand". Asked him if he understood the definition of CYA, because that's just what I was doing. Well, naturally then we got into an argument over the definition of CYA. We went at it hammer and tongs for about an hour and a half, but I swear, as he left, he turned around and winked at me. I think he just wanted the excitement of stirring me up. It worked. Sheesh!!!!!

That was followed up by a visit from a homeless fellow. Now he and I both knew he was just looking for a place to sit and cool off for a bit. It's been a hellishly hot summer in Atlanta this year. So we both played the game. He got a "quote" for his 2007 Mustang GT500 and I pretended to cut up very important strips of paper, so I would at least have a weapon in my hands, because he was acting puh-rettty strange.  When oh when will I learn not to give out cups of ice water and Little Debbies? Sometimes I think we must have one of those old hobo kittycat marks, like right .....under.....my office window.

Now don't get me wrong. My last homeless guy was a real gentleman. He would knock on the door every few days, peep in, and say "just checking to make sure you're OK, Ma'am!", bow, and leave. Everyone else used to joke about my guardian angel, but he would never take anything I offered him. Strangely, I felt like that about him, and now I miss him. I often wonder what happened to him. He was a sweetie, and had a very gentle manner about him.

My office sits on an expressway ramp, and is the only building for several blocks in either direction, since the ramp is on two sides, the MARTA station and Fort McPherson taking up the remaining sides. So we get a lot of odd visitors- people lost and needing directions, people wanting to know if we are the Moose Lodge (?!!!), the occasional robber, and for some reason, we are really attractive to Altzheimers patients.

There's the time my coworker and I tried to help an elderly gentleman find his way home. We put him in her car, and drove around for hours, hoping he'd recognize something. Somehow she managed to get her car stuck on a railroad track, between the crossing bars, on possibly the highest crime street in Atlanta. This fellow, who had no idea who he was, or where he was, had enough sense to look at her, and say "Pardon me, Ma'am.  Isn't  that a train acomin'?"  I couldn't control myself. By this time, I was doubled over in the back seat laughing so hard, that if the train had hit us, I would have been anesthetized  from laughter anyway. Thankfully, it was a rail yard, and the train curved off at the last moment.

So she swore "never again".

Sure enough, months later, in wanders another elderly gentleman. No idea who he is, but he has a checkbook on him. As she's looking acrost the office at me, mouthing "Don't do it! Don't do it!",  I nevertheless conceive and act upon the brilliant idea of taking him to his bank, to see if the clerks can look up his next of kin on his account, and call someone to come and get this well dressed and clean man. Someone, somewhere obviously cares for him, right?  I mouth back to her, "How could you? This could be my dad some day!"   She rolls her eyes, and shakes her head, knowing that yes, this will be one of my less intelligent moments.

So Pops and I get in the van, drive to the bank, where I futilely try to explain to the teller and the security guard that I'm trying to help the man, not drain his account. I don't know whether to be flattered or mad that they take me as some kind of a vamp. This is probably because the notorious Stewart Avenue is only a few streets over, but really! Do I look like a streetwalker?

In the meantime, while we are arguing this out, he turns around to walk over and look at something in the lobby, and promptly passes out, soundly clonking his head on a big antique pier table they have there.  So the bank has to call 911, and I'm standing there, with the security guard glowering at me, prepared to jump me if I make a break for it.

The man is lying limp on the floor, I'm wringing my hands trying to explain why I don't know him, the paramedics are working on him, when he regains conciousness long enough to cock one eye open at the medic, who says, "Jesus! Do you have anyone we can call?."  The one eye closes in deep thought for a moment, reopens, and the man says, "It's not necessary, young man. I'm talking to Jesus right now." and closes his eye again.

The last I saw of him was, they were hauling him off on the gurney, and then I hightailed it out of there before someone accused me of having rolled him or something.

There've been other adventures (my personal favorites being the "let me out, let me out" man, and also the day Donnell had the biggest ass I'd ever seen in my life), but I'm supposed to be writing about this week.

Hmmmmmmm. Adventures in customer service...... That one was just nutty and annoying and wasted two hours being so, no story there....then there was the man whose license was suspended in two states and wanted to argue about it..loudly and incessantly........I had two hairweave vixens get into a royal argument in the front office, over one's bad cell phone manners. Personally, I was rooting for two-toned Pekinese Hairdo Lady over Flourescent Red Braids because she was right. FRB did have bad manners, but I figured it was not very politic for me to put in my two cents, and besides PHL was making her point quite colorfully and vigorously. It wasn't til they got ready to leave, still fighting, that I discovered they were mother and daughter. Wow. just.....Wow.

By now, I was checking the calendar to see if I'd missed the full moon. Odd, it's not for another couple of weeks.

And the absolute frosting to my week (remember, it's only Thursday....so in the immortal paraphrased words of local heroine, Scarlett...tomorra is still anutha day.........damn....) was when the shop called.

My teenage daughter's car broke down yesterday, conveniently (and as I later learned, suspiciously) near a gas station, so we had them take it on in to give us an estimate. Fuel pump.

Well, today the mechanic calls, very puzzled, and says, "The tank is full of diesel fuel. Would you know why? It'll be at least a thousand to fix it."

After I picked myself up off the floor, I immediately knew what happened. We are trying to teach the kiddo how to handle her money. She is on a tight budget. On the first of the month, she gets enough money to pay for the five tanks of gas it takes to get her to and from school. She also gets enough money for lunch. If it doesn't last her til the end of the month, that's just tough.

Well, apparently she pulled up to the pump, noticed egad!!!!!  the diesel was a few cents less than the gas, and thus had the bright (!!!!!!) idea of filling her up. With diesel.

I believe I hear rain pattering upon the roof. Thank heaven!!!!! We have had only three short rainfalls in two months. Every last drop is much welcomed. I've always heard cops say people get a little nutty when it's too hot in the city. Maybe the rain is just the ticket to end this madness!