Our friend got a new dog, a 7 month old Border Collie named Apache. He brought her over to meet the humans on Sunday night. Willow decided to come check her out too. We did not let her meet Indy or London yet as we didn’t think she was ready for that crew.
She is very sweet.
She peed on our floor… but, really, who doesn’t?
Photo amused me, so here it is.
By 10 AM there was no new tracking information from Targus in my email box, nor by access my order on their website. DHL still had it marked with an expected delivery date in the past. I called and waited on hold again to speak to somebody with an even stronger accent than the first day.
He put me on hold for a long long time. Then he came back and told me a replacement had been shipped by UPS. I ask him for the tracking number. He gives it to me. This proves very painful due to the strong accent. B?V?C?T?D? I am not sure, and “?, as in ” doesn’t work very well when I can’t understand the word either. We finally arrive at a number that he tells me is correct when I read it back to him and THEN he tells me, “When I look at UPS for tracking, it shows nothing. It was sent UPS.” Just for kicks I try too, but the number provides no information.
I ask for clarification that it shipped yesterday and is supposed to arrive today and he says that is the case.
It just showed up, by UPS. Definitely not next morning delivery, but I will take it.
We really didn’t get very close on the tracking number.
Hopefully the part will work.
Last week on Wednesday the 14th I ordered something at around 10 AM. I upgraded the shipping to next morning shipping. The place I was ordering from is 60 miles away from my house. Even shipping ground should have gotten it here overnight with no problem, but they also claimed that any order before 2 PM would ship same day if you paid for the upgrade, whereas ground orders would go out within 2 business days. I wanted to have it by Friday so it was worth it to me to pay the extra, because if they happened to take the full 2 business days to ship, I’d have to wait through the weekend.
On the 15th in the afternoon I got an email that said it had shipped on the 14th and provided me with a tracking number. Now obviously if the order shipped by next morning delivery on the 14th, as it should have, I would already have it by the time this confirmation email was sent on the 15th. I did not have it. I was annoyed but not yet completely pissed off. I just needed the item by the 16th. I clicked on the link to the tracking information that was sent in the shipping email. It took me to the FedEx website where I got this message.
Not found
No information for the following shipments has been received by our system yet. Please try again later or contact Customer Service.
There was also a link in the email to contact customer care if I had any questions. I tried filling out the form there, but it refused to submit properly. I tried to call, but they were already closed for the day. I tried looking up my order on their website. It claimed to have shipped on the 14th and also linked me to the same tracking information with the same result.
The 16th arrived and my package still did not. I had a very busy day. I tried once to reach them by phone but the hold time proved beyond my ability to wait through from home and my call was dropped by cell. Their customer service was closed by the time I made it home again and had a chance to breathe and think and make another phone call. I checked the tracking info again and got the same result. I tried submitting the web form a few more times. They were closed all weekend.
I called this morning, and waited on hold until I was able to speak to somebody. I gave my order number and explained that I did not have my package and FedEx claimed to not have my package either and that I was not exactly pleased with the situation.
The man explained to me that the tracking number was for DHL, not FedEx.
“Umm, you do see that the email I was sent and the account information on your website both say FedEx?”
“Yes, I think that is just a programming error, but the package was sent by DHL, so let me look that up for you…”
(In the meantime I look it up on DHL myself.
Tracking summary
Current Status Processed at DHL Location.
Est. Delivery Date: 3/15/2007Tracking history
Status
3/14/2007 10:25 pm Processed at DHL Location. Riverside, CA
3/14/2007 6:54 pm Departing origin. Fullerton, CA
3/14/2007 4:18 pm Picked Up by DHL. Shipper’s Door)
“…Okay, it tells me that DHL still has the package, so let me give you the tracking number and the contact number and you can call DHL and see what the problem is. Once you have your package, call us back and we will credit you back the difference for the upgraded shipping.”
*deep breath*
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand. Why do you want ME to contact DHL?”
“It shows me that they have your package still. There might be some problem with your address, so you should call them.”
“I bought this from you. I paid you for it. It is your job to get make sure I get it. I did not buy it from DHL.”
“Yes, but DHL has your package and there might be a problem with your address.”
“Well I am looking at my confirmation email from you and you have my address correct in that email. I provided you with the correct address. If DHL has something wrong about my address, it is between you and DHL. Why don’t YOU contact DHL and find out what is going on?”
“DHL has your package.”
“Yes, but I bought this from you. This is your problem. I don’t understand why I should be expected to do work to solve this. Why should I be on hold with DHL, you are the ones who pay DHL. I paid you. Why should I wait on hold again to talk to you later in order to get a refund?”
“I can escalate this to customer concerns and they will email you back.”
“When will that happen?”
“Within 24 to 48 hours.”
*really deep breath*
“On the 14th I paid for next morning shipping because I needed the item last week. I don’t understand why I now have to wait 24 to 48 hours for you to contact me back and tell me what you are going to do about it.”
“That is just an outside estimate.”
“When are you going to contact DHL?”
“I will escalate it to customer concerns and they will contact DHL.”
“When will they do that?”
“Within 20 minutes.”
“Then why will I not hear back from them for 48 hours?”
“That is an outside estimate, in case DHL needs to get back to them. DHL may take time to look up the information. If they have lost the package then we will need to ship you a new one. That will go out tomorrow, so it will be 48 hours.”
“If somebody is going to contact DHL within 20 minutes, why can’t they contact me then to give me a status report?”
“DHL might have to get back to them.”
“Can I speak right now to the person who needs to contact DHL?”
“I need to send the report first to escalate it, but they will get to it as soon as possible.”
“Within 24 to 48 hours?”
“That is an outside estimate.”
“You are less than 2 hours away from my house.”
“Yes, I see that from the address you provided.”
“But it might take 48 hours for you to get back to me about how I will get a package that I ordered for next morning delivery, last week?”
“They will get to it as soon as they can.”
“Why don’t you just ship out a replacement order today, so I can have it tomorrow. You and DHL can figure out what to do about the other package?”
“Yes, we will do that.”
“So I can expect my order to be here tomorrow morning? Whether it is a second shipment, or the original, I will have my order tomorrow morning?”
“Yes.”
“And, you’ll be refunding me the difference on shipping?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I will look for that on my credit card.
“Is there anything else I can help you with today.”
“No, I really don’t think so.”
Along with my general joy over the order, I also have to wonder… What is with DHL? They have in their system that it has an expected delivery of the 15th, it is past the 15th and that is it, just no further updates? I am not convinced that I would necessarily call that package tracking. If they got something with an incorrect address, shouldn’t there be some sort of procedure for getting the correct address from the shipper? They did pick it up from the shipper’s location, so they know where THAT is. They could just go take it back.
I am tired. My 3.5 hours of sleep did not give me enough energy to deal with this. I wonder if I will get my part tomorrow. Somehow I rather doubt it.
Oh yeah, for the curious, I ordered from Targus
.
Targus Group International, Inc. pioneered the notebook carrying case category, partnering with corporations, retailers, and OEMs to provide the best possible protection for notebook PCs. Targus continues to define and shape the market for mobile computing cases and accessories. As the leading global supplier of portable solutions, Targus has offices on every continent and distributes in over 145 countries.
Impressive.
The Dogs – The dogs have recently crossed that line from little bad behaviors on occasion to being willfully defiant of long standing rules. This is my fault. I know how to raise dogs and live with them. You have to be consistent, and you have to nip the little things in the bud and not let them grow into big things. You have to make time to deal with it. It is your responsibility to help them be the companions that you want them to be. By “you”, I mean ME. These are my dogs. They are my responsibility. The husband is a cat person. That is not to say that he does not love the dogs, however they would not live in this house if not for me. I am the one who wanted to get dogs. Also, I am the one who works from home and spends the most time with them. I am not unaware. I knew that they were developing little bad behaviors. I knew. I had it on my list to put in the time to work on it. I just never got around to it. Every single time they would do something wrong, take too long to come when called, every time, a million times a day, when things were not quite as they should be… I knew that they needed some time and attention to just nudge things back into place. However I never managed to make the time. Now, they are NOT completely unruly terrors, but they have crossed over the line where I can really tolerate it, and who is to blame? Yeah, that would be me.
The Printer – A couple of years back HP decided change their practices. It used to be that their ink cartridges and print heads were one piece. Every time you replaced an ink cartridge, you replaced the print heads. They decided to make them separate parts. The ink cartridges stayed the exact same price (which is already too damned expensive) but the print heads are atrociously expensive, and now that they are not regularly replaced they are a weak point and quite prone to clogging.
The last time I bought a printer, I did not know this. I had always had good luck with HP, so I bought HP again. However I found out soon enough about the problem. When my ink gets low, I tend to just keep running things until the pages are totally unacceptable. What is unacceptable of course varies depending on what it is I need to be printing out. Also once it becomes unacceptable, I don’t usually replace the cartridge until the next time I need to print. I let the cartridge stay there. Now with the new print head situation, that is very bad. You let it dry out and it clogs up. Actually just not using all the colors on the printer regularly enough will cause clogs.
I found all this out the hard way last year. I had to do research to find a way to fix the print head problem because if I was going to spend the money to replace the damn things, I was just buying a new printer. I researched, found the various codes I needed to clear things out. Got instructions on how to physically clean things. Had to go through many steps for more in depth cleanings in order to finally get it working again.
A few weeks back the printer was very low on color ink and I made a mental note to change the cartridges, and then failed to do so. There is a definite downside to making mental notes if you are losing your mind. I did not change the cartridges until I needed to print something and couldn’t. Once I changed them, I could not print because the print heads were bad. Yes, I had let it go on too long and had fucked things up. Also, I apparently lost the piece of my mind where I noted where I had saved off the information I researched last year so now I need to do the research again in order to get the printer working. Of course there was no way I could get that done prior to printing out the thing I needed right that minute.
It is still blinking angrily at me because I still have not dealt with it.
My To Do List – With each passing day it gets longer. I never make any progress. If I finish something on it, ten new things have appeared in the meantime. I am so damn tired. How can anyone be this tired? It is totally fucking ridiculous. I can work my ass off and accomplish nothing because I can’t think straight, or sideways or at all. Also, I am easily distracted by the internet, but of course I work on my damn computer. The number of things on MTDL that I don’t even gain anything from doing is mind boggling. I should take a class in how to say “No, I really don’t have the time.” I’ll put that on the list.
Me – See above and add a few hundred thousand other reasons.
The Dogs
The Printer
My To Do List
Me
I resent the last one the most.
We went out to dinner the other night, and I ordered roasted chicken with steamed vegetables, and to start, a wedge salad (wedge of iceberg, with crumbled bleu cheese, bacon, and tomatoes) with the dressing on the side. The waiter repeated back the fact the dressing was supposed to be on the side. He also named the wrong type of dressing. I told him the correct type and reiterated “on the side”. He named the correct type and parroted back “on the side”.
I freely admit it. I am high maintenance. At a really amazing restaurant with an excellent chef, I will eat whatever the hell they want to serve me, but at a marginal restaurant with marginal food I need to make some adjustments so that it becomes tolerable. Dressing on the side is one of those adjustments. I am picky about dressing and I think most of them are, at the very least, not worth the calories and the sodium that I would far rather wolf down in some other fashion, and a good many of them are downright disgusting.
Most interesting salads (like those with real bacon on them, which is a great way to consume calories and sodium) have enough stuff going on that they taste good without any dressing. Boring salads are fine with pepper and some lemon on them. Some places have good dressing and then I pour it on.
The kid ordered a kids meal, which comes with a drink, but the menu did not specify what the drink options were. She asked the waiter if she could get a hot tea with her kids meal. I wouldn’t have been shocked if he had said no, but at the same time the hot tea is the same price as the sodas which I know they offer, and cheaper than the lemonade which I also know they offer with the kid’s meal. He said that would be fine.
We waited and waited. Our salads arrived. Mine had dressing on it. It was drowning in the stuff. We told the waiter that I had ordered it with the dressing on the side. He stood there looking at me blankly. I repeated myself and he looked at the salad. I explained that I don’t like very much dressing, so I get it on the side so that I can control the amount. He kept staring at me. We had to detail out that I wanted a new salad, with the dressing on the side. He agreed and wandered off.
Thirty seconds later our dinners arrived. By our, I mean not the kid’s, because surely we wouldn’t all want to be served at the same time. Also, we of course don’t want our salads to arrive early enough to actually consume them prior to our meal arriving.
I sat and waited for my salad. It arrived, with the dressing on the side. It was a much smaller wedge than before, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that it was missing the bleu cheese crumbles. I didn’t ask for no bleu cheese crumbles. Those help to make it taste good. I requested that they bring me the cheese. I tasted the dressing. It was some of the most disgusting dressing I have sampled in quite a while. I pushed it far aside so it couldn’t infect my salad through osmosis.
The kid’s food finally arrived.
The bleu cheese crumbles showed up and I ate my salad, and then my meal.
When the bill came, they have charged us for her hot tea. I point out to the waiter that the drink was to be included with her meal. He looks at me blankly and then asks “Do you want a drink now?”
“Umm, no, she had the tea with her meal, but you charged for it.”
“Oh, the tea.”
“Yes, she asked if she could get that with her kids meal…”
“Do you want me to take it off the bill?”
“That would be great. Thank you very much.”
Cheerfully, “You’re welcome!”
I smiled.
I am subscribed to various groups that I don’t enjoy being subscribed to, but do need the occasional bits of useful information that happen to get posted. Recently a “discussion” about manners has broken out on one. I decided to torture myself and read it. I do not always treat myself very well.
This is a large group which meets in person regularly. I very rarely attend. The flurry of messages started because somebody posted a complaint about the general behavior of many of the children at a recent lunch. Behavior such as yelling, sitting on top of tables, making huge messes with no attempt at cleaning, and purposefully spilling water were listed. I was not there. I do not know what happened THIS time. I do know that part of the reason that I rarely attend such things is because I am anti-social, and part of the reason is because the behavior of many of the members and their children is totally unpleasant for me to be around. This leaves me inclined to believe the original poster’s overall impression of the level of manners on display. Other aspects of the original complaint did rub me the wrong way, not that anybody argued with her on those points.
The responses started.
Boys will be boys. Kids enjoying being kids. I am blessed by a special needs child who is loving and full of energy. Every child is different and not all are calm and quiet as apparently you are lucky enough to have. We work so hard and it is nice to spend time talking to adult friends and that distracts us from watching the kids, but we all know what that is like and should be understanding. We all have bad days sometimes so we should be supportive when the kids are having bad days. Well I know, having four kids, I can’t always keep an eye on all of them at once. If you think a child is behaving in an inappropriate or unsafe manner you should say something, we should all look out for each other. Sorry if I am not as perfect of a mother as you. Yes they are a bit excited and enthusiastic but they are overall so much better behaved than other kids I see.
On and on and fucking on.
The whole thing irritates the shit out of me. I can’t attend events which should be interesting and educational because they let their kids be so fucking noisy and distracting that it drowns out the point of being there. I can’t set foot in a restaurant during certain times. I am rarely able to stand taking my daughter to those kid oriented places. We order books online rather than making use of the library because that is cheaper than paying the attorney fees when I finally snap from the noise and rudeness and running around, not to mention the scribbled on books in the library.
(more…)
I like to change the words to songs. Here are a couple of examples.
O Festivus, O Festivus
A celebration for the rest of us
O Festivus, O Festivus
For all the worst and best in us
You need no tinsel to distract
The ornaments, just leave them packed
O Festivus, O Festivus
And saving money is a plus
We gather ’round a simple pole
Lack of excess tis our goal
O Festivus, O Festivus
Aluminum, it does not rust
We list the ways we’ve been let down
Said with a smile or with a frown
O Festivus, O Festivus
No need for smalltalk to discuss
Challenged to the feats of strength
No need to show any restraint
O Festivus, O Festivus
Continued ’til there’s tears and fuss
O Festivus, O Festivus
Some pleasure doth thou bring us
O Festivus, O Festivus
Enjoyment for the rest of us
I don’t have a thyroid. When I was born, I had one, but in 2002 some guy surgically removed it because:
It was the size of a grapefruit.
I couldn’t breathe.
And oh, I had cancer.
In about 2.5 more years if it doesn’t reoccur I can answer “no” on the cancer question for medical insurance. For right now, I can’t get medical insurance unless it is through an employer group policy.
I have had very very VERY bad luck with doctors ever since I moved to California. That is a whole other completely traumatic story that I won’t bother going into at this time, but it has to do with the dark times. Things went very wrong soon after moving here, and a large part of it was directly caused by the doctors I was dealing with. I developed a serious distrust and dislike for doctors and I still try to avoid them. The only one I found the entire time I have lived in California that I actually liked, moved out of the state. It is made all the more unfortunate because, with this whole thyroid thing, I am now forced to see a doctor minimum once a year, or I can’t get the meds I need to stay alive. I should see them more often, but that is easier said than done.
By 2001, which was a few years post dark time, we never saw doctors unless we were concerned a part might fall off or that we might die. Neither of those concerns happened often, so we mainly just didn’t go.
In 1999 we had been forced to switch to a new insurance provider when the company downsized and limited benefits. The new insurance provider assigned us to a primary care physician. We never went. Then one day in 2001 we were getting out of the car and my daughter shut the door on her finger. The door CLOSED. I had to reopen it to free her. Her finger did not look good. This was one of those times where I was concerned that a part might fall off. I called the family practitioner we were assigned to, the one who had been getting monthly payments from the insurance company for each of us. I wanted to get her an appointment. They refused to see her, because they “Don’t see patients her age.” I called to yell at the insurance company and they randomly switched us to another doctor (effective the following month).
In the fall of 2001 I was feeling generally rundown and having lots of mini-illnesses. I just was not normal. Then I came down with a horrible respiratory infection, along with a really bad sore throat and all of my glands swelled up. I was puffy. I was horribly stiff. I felt like I couldn’t breathe or swallow. Eventually the swelling from my lymph nodes went away. At which point it became extremely noticeable that my thyroid (which had been enlarged for many years and I’d been through many discussions with doctors about it) had gotten much more enlarged. It was ridiculously large. It was not something one needed to feel, it was visible. There was an alien lump growing in my neck. The alien that didn’t want to let me breathe was starting to seem like an “I might die” situation, so I went to see this random doctor that our insurance provider had selected. She was condescending. She wanted to put me on antibiotics even though she could not name a part that she felt there was a bacterial infection of (I was already done with the respiratory thing, I just had the strangling alien). She drew blood to run some tests. She was sure she knew what it was though. “It is obvious.” She told me. She sent me on my way and told me they would contact me with the test results, and get things fixed.
They didn’t.
I called multiple times and finally, more than a month later, somebody called me back to tell me that the reason they never called was because the test results were all normal, and I was fine. I told them that I was not fine, and they needed to refer me to a specialist. They repeated that they had performed the blood tests and it showed everything was normal. I was fine. I had nothing to worry about. I continued to contradict them and kept explaining that I was obviously NOT FINE. They eventually got me off the phone by saying that they would submit the request for a specialist for insurance approval.
In the meantime the end of the year was approaching and we had elected to switch insurance during the last open enrollment period because I was suspecting that this would go poorly. The first doctor never did get back to me, but in January, with the new insurance rules, I self-referred to a specialist. I went in with all my notes and papers because there had been suspicious things about my thyroid for over a decade, but there were always other medical things that were more pressing to deal with, so doctors would put it off to look at more closely later. I told him my story, and he kept shaking his head and asking me to clarify things about the most recent doctor. He couldn’t believe that she had tried to run tests themselves instead of referring me to a specialist immediately. My thyroid at this point was so enlarged that it was interfering significantly with my breathing and swallowing. It was physically uncomfortable. Shirts had to be loose, necklaces were not an option. My neck felt claustrophobic and I walked around always feeling like I was right on the verge of a complete panic attack.
He sent me in for an ultrasound, which was inconclusive. We discussed my options and eventually decided that I should just have it removed, that going in to do a biopsy first did not make sense. Sure we might find out it was cancer, but we could find out after it was removed too. It wasn’t going to get any smaller, and I was having trouble breathing.
He referred me to a surgeon. I called to make an appointment and they wouldn’t see me for TWO MONTHS for the consultation. I tried to explain how bad I was feeling but they told me it was the first available appointment. I asked repeatedly to be called if there were cancellations and I called the specialist back to ask them to nudge the surgeons office. Two months passed with me feeling worse each day. On the day before my scheduled consultation, the surgeon’s office called to tell me that they had to cancel. They did not know when the doctor would be available to see me again, so they suggested I find a different surgeon. They didn’t even apologize.
I called the specialist back and he gave me another surgeon’s name, but that surgeon wasn’t on my insurance. My specialist did not know of another surgeon that he felt he could personally recommend. I was on my own for finding a surgeon. Don’t forget I am ill, having panic attacks because I cannot breathe properly, and I have a serious distrust of doctors. Life was fun.
Honestly, I got horribly depressed and did nothing for a while. In the meantime we were out for Chinese food and I got a fortune cookie that said “Any arrangements you make are likely to be your final.” I felt horrible. I wasn’t getting enough sleep, because I was never comfortable. I wasn’t getting my work done. I was miserable and felt hopeless.
Finally when support wasn’t working, my husband and my mother moved on to harassment and bribes. I eventually managed to find three surgeons who specialized in the kind of surgery I needed and were covered by my insurance. One I ruled out because he was in his 70s, and while it was impressive that he was still operating, I decided that I didn’t want him to operate on me. Of the other two, one was actually willing to see me within 2 weeks. We went for a consultation and didn’t hate him, so we scheduled the surgery. He looked like Stanley Tucci. More like a Murder One Stanley Tucci than A Midsummer Night’s Dream Stanley Tucci, which is too bad, because Puck, The Surgeon would have been a lot more entertaining.
The surgery went well enough. Being in the hospital is horrible, but there are definitely worse hospitals to be stuck in than Cedars. Stanley Tucci removed my gigantic thyroid. My pathology report was the single most disgusting thing I have ever read. The results of which were that they found cancer. The malignancy was encapsulated in other disgustingly described abnormal tissue. It had not spread.
After a lot of discussion we decided against doing radiation treatment. We are able to monitor the growth of any new thyroid tissue (which might indicate a return of the cancer) through blood tests. I have to take (right now 3) pills everyday to make up for the missing thyroid. However it doesn’t just stay the same forever. Over time my levels change and I have go have blood tests and change my meds. Symptoms when things are going wrong one way or another, include depression, memory loss, hair loss (head and eyebrows), inability to handle stress, inability to focus, exhaustion, heart palpitations, being too cold, being too hot, having insomnia, having high blood pressure, having elevated cholesterol, getting muscle cramps. Of course all of these symptoms can be from other things too. It gets aggravating.
When it comes down to it, I had cancer. It is something I think about often, even though I don’t talk about it that much. My body was making new cells to replace old cells, like it usually does, and as happens now and then, it created a mistake. Then instead of realizing it and getting rid of it, my body just decided it would make more. The cells nearby harbored it and kept it safe. I didn’t catch a disease from somebody. I didn’t have an accident. My body just decided to play a very nasty, very personal, joke on ME. “If you have to get cancer, thyroid cancer is the best kind to get.” You have no idea how many people, especially doctors, have said that to me. Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on. That doesn’t make me feel any better. I get it. I’m lucky. It could be worse. Things usually can be.
The thing is, I know now that my body can make cancer, and that isn’t something I seem to be able to just forget about. What if next time the cells that mutiny aren’t in “one of the best places to get cancer”? I’m not talking about science, or statistics. I am talking about how I feel.
In August of 2005 I started having a lot of unpleasant symptoms. I felt horrible. I was tired, depressed and having seriously horrific leg cramps in one leg. It was bad. The muscles would cramp and lock up so my foot and leg were deformed and it wouldn’t let go and I’d be screaming in pain. In a pretty short stretch of time I developed a very large mass in my thigh. I called my thyroid guy, because he was the only doctor I had spoken to in years, and he told me I really needed to have it looked at, sooner rather than later. I was afraid he was going to say that.
He set me up with a guy in his building and that guy spent about 2 minutes with me before telling me he thought I should have it removed. Soon. A couple days soon.
So, I did. It was big. Five inches diameter. Yuck. Turned out to be benign. I still have some numbness from the pressure it was putting on a nerve. I also have, yet another, fancy scar.
So yeah, the fact I had cancer, it sticks with me. It runs through my brain every now and then.
And don’t think that the idea I might have passed some foul little ticking time bomb on to my daughter hasn’t crossed my mind. Yeah, that thought runs through my brain too.
Main Entry: canïcer
Pronunciation: ‘kan(t)-s&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin (genitive Cancri), literally, crab; akin to Greek karkinos crab, cancer
1 capitalized a : a northern zodiacal constellation between Gemini and Leo b (1) : the 4th sign of the zodiac in astrology — see ZODIAC table (2) : one born under the sign of Cancer
2 [Latin, crab, cancer] a : a malignant tumor of potentially unlimited growth that expands locally by invasion and systemically by metastasis b : an abnormal bodily state marked by such tumors
3 : something evil or malignant that spreads destructively
4 a : an enlarged tumorlike plant growth (as that of crown gall) b : a plant disease marked by such growths
– canïcerïous /’kan(t)s-r&s, ‘kan(t)-s&-/ adjective
– canïcerïousïly adverb
One would not be incorrect to describe me as easily annoyed. The other day when discussing something that annoys me, I claimed that it was “1 of 3,584,394,031 things that irritated me”. As I consider the size of that number, I wonder if it is actually possible, given the finite (but unknown) number of total minutes in my life, whether that many things could actually annoy me before I drop.
Alright, so with a fair amount of rounding thrown in for a variety of reasons, lets see what I can work out. I am going to base my calculation for the number of days during which I could experience potential annoyances at about 12,500, so far. I’ve rounded down because I figure that when I was very, very young, I was not annoyed nearly as often as I am now. I could be wrong in that assumption. Really, one of my very earliest solid memories (where I am certain it is MY memory and not my memory based on a story I’ve heard from relatives over and over), is, actually, of being annoyed. I was annoyed by how it felt to walk in footy pajamas and a diaper. I know that I was three, or less, years old at the time, because of the house I was in.
I sleep on average 6 hours a night, which according to my complicated calculations, means I spend 18 hours a day awake. I believe I am annoyed more often while awake than I am while asleep, dreams aside. I am annoyed more often when I am out in public than when I am sitting by myself. However, at home I am more likely to read the news (or worse yet, randomly surf) than while I am out, and that invariable annoys me quite a lot. Therefore I do not think I need to make adjustments based on the number of days I stay at home versus going out. This gives me about 225,000 waking hours up to this point.
I think a conservative estimate would have me annoyed by something, on average, twice per hour. This obviously does not include the times I am full on pissed off, much less the times I am furious. We are talking, annoyed, irritated, peeved, vexed- the minors. This estimate would be much higher if I hadn’t spent so many hours of my life reading fiction for pleasure. Once immersed in a book, I can tune out a great many things. At twice per hour, that takes us to approximately 450,000 annoyances. Now these would all be unique occurrences, however they would not have to be unique reasons. If it annoys me today, there is a good chance the exact same thing will annoy me tomorrow. If it happens often enough, it may graduate to infuriating me.
Typically my feeling of annoyance lasts somewhere between a half second and forever, but I think it most often lasts around 2 minutes. This would mean I’ve spent around 15000 hours of my life annoyed, or more than a year and a half. However that did not take into account PMS, which I figure increases the number of times I am annoyed by around 2.5 times during the offending period (pun implied but not intended), or another 375 hours, bringing me to 15375 hour, or more than 1.75 years.
Is this a lot? I have no idea, not having another personality (that I am aware of) by which to judge things. No, I do not experience black outs or time loss, thank you very much. However, I am now wondering if you reading this is annoying me. It probably is.
