Me and Martha

Last weekend, we finally purchased our final piece of necessary furniture for the new apartment. I was happy inside, but also a little sad because it meant I could no longer hold off on the decorating process. As I've mentioned before, being creative and making things look good is definitely not a forte of mine. I have been trying to be upbeat and positive about the situation and even thought of a few things I thought would spruce our place up.

I like coupons and pretty dutifully go through all the ads each week. I was excited when I came across a Customer Appreciation Sale at one of the local craft stores featuring 60% off home decor, 50% one item and an additional 30% of your total purchase; they were even giving away gift certificates to the first 50 people through the doors. I'll admit, my find made a little tiny bit of excitement creep into me, and this morning, I jumped out of bed, hurriedly dressed and headed out the door.

I was excited because I made it to the store even earlier than I had planned, but quickly began to doubt my plan when I saw the number of cars in the parking lot. It was 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday, who would of thought so many people would be at a craft store?! I couldn't believe it when I walked to the end of the 80-100 people line and took my place about 1/2 mile away from the doors. I tried to stay optimistic and upbeat by telling myself that the people were just big families (it was only 1 per household), but deep-down inside, I knew I had lost my chance at the gift card.

Thirty minutes later, the line made its way into the store. I grabbed a cart and started shopping. I definitely felt WAY out of my element among the women running around filling their carts with items and assembling wreaths and centerpieces as they went and did my best to imagine/pretend I knew what ribbon would go well with this fake grass and fruit topped off with that colored candle all the while kicking myself for not dragging along one of my more "cutsey" inclined acquaintances that early morning.

After 45 minutes of wandering, I felt pretty good about my purchases. I excitedly loaded up the car and headed home to make my living the next show room of Martha Stewart's magazine. Much to my dismay, I had underestimated my shelf height and NOTHING would fit! Talk about dashing all my hopes. Sadly, Operation Martha was definitely a bust. My poor house...

Who??

So my office has an information and referral call center that when you dial a certain 3-digit phone number (no, it's not 911, I don't work at the jail), it connects you with one of our "specialists" who can then tell you where you can get help with human services meaning things like paying your utility bill, how to get a ride to the doctors when you're too old to drive yourself or where to go if your kid has a drug problem. Well, the other day my coworker received a phone call that went like this.

CoWorker: "Thanks for calling UW *11, how can I help you?"
Caller: "Yes, I need the number for O'Reilly."
CW: "O'Reilly? I'm sorry I'm not sure what you're looking for. Is that a name of an organization?"
C: "You know, O'Reilly. I want to call O'Reilly"
CW: "Is O'Reilly a person?"
C: "Haven't you ever heard of the show? I want to call into the Bill O'Reilly show!"

Needless to say, although we have a pretty high rate of keeping our "customers" happy, this was one number we were unable to refer.