The Embarrassment of Not Being A Sports Fan!

I know, I know it's been a long time....suck it up. Here's something for ya:

Okay, gang listen up here is one of my blonde moments. It was early on in my life so the number would be down in the hundreds or so. But when I was newly married and around 19 years old I lived near  KCI Airport and worked at the Hilton Airport Plaza Inn as their phone operator. Now you might think 'no big deal to answer the telephone' but not so. There was a big electronic machine there, no wires, too new for that, just buttons to push. It had 36 lines into the hotel. And believe me the night Jerry Litton was killed I saw everyone of those little buttons light up. The board looked like a Christmas Tree. However being the first night working alone after training I failed to see the beauty in that. My thoughts were something like, "Oh Shit Fire and Holy Hell!' So you kind of get an idea about how harried an operator can get. You learn to answer talk fast and push a lot of buttons to connect people and keep going. You also deal with the customers within the hotel. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.


Now you go in about 15 minutes before your shift starts and stay over about that long so you overlap with the previous or next operator so she can get you up to speed on what's going on, etc. Well as you can imagine your wall and board is covered in sticky notes of things to remember. There was a big carousel of little cards in alphabetical order of everyone who was staying at the hotel. Customers calling down ask all kinds of questions and you help them out as best you can etc. or put them in touch with the right people who can.


Me not being a sports person and never having been, I don't keep 'important' information in my head like names of football teams or baseball teams or which is which for that matter. One evening we had two teams as guests in our hotel. One a football team and one baseball. Now I don't remember exactly who they were, but I'm thinking they were the baseball team from St. Louis, Mo and the football team was from California. I'm sure I'm wrong but I'm going to use these two teams to tell the story.

It was a busy, oh so busy, night as you can imagine with these important people that were staying there. Not that I looked at it that way, it was just another night the hotel was full. Meaning my ass was going to be jumping all night long. After many long hours and dealing with people 'after hours' when the bars shut down, I'm beginning to become a little frazzled. One gentleman calls down and says, 'During the big game tomorrow can you tell me who is playing?' Simple question right? Wrong....I'm searching through notes on my board I see Oakland Raiders and St. Louis Cardinals. So I say, 'Yes sir the Oakland Raiders will be playing the St. Louis Cardinals but I don't have the game schedule.' There was a long silence and then amusement in his voice as he valiantly kept from laughing while he said, 'Well now that will be an interesting game!' And I, wanting to be as interesting and nice as possible, in a boring voice (because I could care less about sports) said, 'Oh why is that?' And he says, 'Because honey, one is football and one is baseball!' I was speechless as I stumbled around and finally started laughing and said, 'Is it obvious I'm not into sports?' I was just reading the notes on who the guests are tonight so I just assumed....' He was so amused he came down to the front desk and asked the desk clerk to please get me from the back he'd like to meet me. I think my face was ten different shades of red when I walked out to talk to him.


When I repeated the story to the family the next day they got the biggest laugh out of it and continued, to my chagrin, to tell it for years to come. So I guess it pays to know a little bit about everything, including sports. I know more than I did at 19 but honestly I could still make that mistake today. Only today I'd be saying, "Oh hell I have no idea.' The man was extremely nice, he was a rep for the makers of very expensive sunglasses and he asked for my address and said he wanted very much to send me a pair of some very nice sunglasses for a very special lady. And he made good on his promise too. One day in the mail I received a box with the sunglasses and a tag on them telling me they had ray ban in them, how much UV protection and a lot of other things, plus a very nice note telling me I made his day. By looking at them I could tell they were quite pricey. I wore them for years until they fell apart but they were always the reminder of the blunder I had made, but had turned out pretty good in the end. He ended up making me feel a lot better and I ended up meeting an interesting person.

I guess sometimes it pays to be sports challenged....

It's My Party & I'll Cry If I Want Too...

Actually it's my birthday so here's my story.  I finally got my new Samsung Omnia II today via FedEx. It was supposed to come Saturday and didn't so I was really bummed out about that. No scratch that, I was DEVASTATED. I kept calling my husband from work and asking, 'Did it come yet?' Fifteen minutes later...'Did it come yet?' and so on until I drove him nuts and he told me in no uncertain terms that it WAS NOT COMING TODAY! It must be a popular phone because they can't keep them in stock. See the coolest thing about this phone's touch screen is it doesn't have to feel heat. Hence, acrylic nails will work it! Cool huh??? Since I usually wear them, well this is a big PLUS! The little peck and hunt features on the older phones don't work for us oldies but goodies. The young kids might fly through them but we have to have short answers to texts because it might take us ten minutes to get out four words! Oh to be young again!  No wait...I'd have to think about that...

I had bought it on Thursday because I'd been saving to get a new phone and my contract was up. This time I decided, rather than get something cheaper (free) I'd spend money and get what the hell I wanted for a change. It's okay, call me selfish. (Hey, I'd been saving!) So I was elated and sick at the same time when I paid for it. But figured once I got my hot little hands on it I'd feel so much better. Not only is it all touch screen, etc. it has a bigger screen to see pictures and a camera that's nearly as good at the digital one I own, which also happens to be a Samsung I got for Christmas in 2007 and it's 7 pixels, the phone is 5. Plus, it's got the neat chip in it (extra $ of course) that you can download your pictures on your computer. The others on my Motorola Razor are just lost and when I figured I could never really use them I quit using the camera for the most part.

Okay, so some girls at work and I were going out Saturday to celebrate our birthdays which are all in March. But one fell down the stairs and cracked a rib. Okay, no dancing or partying for awhile. We'll wait. I woke up today to hear the FedEx guy here with my phone! Yeah! It was cool but never got beyond the welcome screen. Oh well, no problem. Later I'd run it into the Verizon office, have them take care of it. In the meantime my son and husband came home bearing wondering gifts. JEWELRY!  What more could I ask for?? (And yes guys, they sparkle!) The only thing left was to get that phone activated so I could play with it all evening since it's probably going to take  me a month to figure out how it all works. I was supposed to work today but my manager, another birthday girl, offered to work her shift and mine so I decided I'd take her up on it. More time to play with the phone, run my ailing computer into the shop etc. The computer didn't get to go but I did. Computer dude: Bizzzzzzyyyyy

I glided into Verizon with a cardboard box full of a phone and all the accessories saying, 'Help me!'  Only to find out that my phone is a dud. It doesn't work. Geez, for me, what are the odds? Extremely good! Murphy's law is practically my life. Sad but true. They're overnighting a phone to me, which means it will be here not over night, but on Wednesday. It was after 3:00 p.m. by the time I got in there.

Remember Tonto I, night owl, must sleep in morning.

If only it weren't so I'd probably have my phone tomorrow. Oh. My. God!  How friggin' disappointing. So the birthday wasn't a total washout I did get jewelry which always makes me happy. But no high tech wonder phone. Now, hopefully it will be here Wednesday in time for me to run it back in there in hopes they'll help me get it up and running at least. If not and it doesn't come till Thursday, it will be next week, I'm sure before I can get in there to get it activated. Oh you can do it yourself, but remember I am Murphy's Law in the flesh. Hence: Doing it myself will NOT work for me. Go ahead, bet on it, you'll win.

So that's about it. I've read all the books I can get my hands on about Vampires and whatnot (romance or otherwise) and I am out of all night reading material. You can only stay on Facebook (I'm addicted) so long before there's nothing else left to say. It's practically impossible for me to sleep at night, that's like daytime to me. Too bad I can't clean house then, that's when I'm most likely to feel like doing it. Don't think anybody would appreciate hearing the vacuumn running, etc. Maybe I'll treat myself to a candlelit bath, with oils, and some music until I'm a shriveled prune as I can't exactly make that last all night either. Well, I'm sure I'll think of something.

On a different note. This is the month Flashforward and V are coming back. I'm not a big fan of V but I watch it. Once you saw the original in the 80's the remake isn't really any different when you know what's going to happen. Now Flashforward, that gets your imagination going. I can't wait for Warehouse 13 and Fringe to come back too. Those shows at just too cool for words to describe.

Well I'm off, who knows when I'll be back. I waste so much time on Facebook I don't update this too often.

Everybody take care..

Donna Says:  "Remember some days life just bites you in the ass!"