I firmly believe that any company is only as good as its customer service. Everyone has a horror story of making a purchase, only to be left wondering if, indeed, the company ever existed.
Case in point: I once paid a hospital an exorbitant amount of money to deliver a baby to me. I had to do all the work (34 hours of HARD LABOR, I might add) only to be presented with a red-faced, wrinkly, big headed baby that came with no instruction manual and apparently, no return policy. Terrible customer service.
But recently, I found TUK Shoes to be outstanding in the field of customer service. That same big headed baby (now a handsome and relatively normal sized teenager) bought a pair of TUK shoes. Unfortunately, within a month the D ring holding one of the shoelaces broke, leaving the shoes wearable but un-tieable. Yeah, I know that's not a real word but bear with me here.
So I called the TUK 800-number since I no longer had the receipt and spoke to a very helpful gal named Tristyn, who referred me to Steve Rodriguez, TUK's marketing director. Steve asked me to send the shoes back to him, which I did on Saturday. I received an email from Steve this afternoon, Tuesday, letting me know he had shipped a new pair of shoes out to me via UPS today with his apologies and regards. TODAY!
THAT is customer service as it should be. I thank Steve and would highly recommend
TUK Shoes to anyone.
~Donna
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Half a Gram of Protein Equals 2 Wings and 6 Legs
Okay, so I know protein is good for you. But in some forms, I just have to pass. On Survivor, the contestants get stranded only to crunch giant cockroaches with glee while assuring each other they need the protein. On Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern the guy travels to Asia to eat deep-fried beetles out of baskets propped up on calf brains. I generally watch those episodes with a kid in front of me so I can hide my eyes behind them while they yell out, "EW! GROSS! Mom, didja see that? The EYEBALL on that grasshopper popped out when he bit it!"
So I was not pleased this morning to go out to the barn and, while filling up the twins' water bucket, hear, "bjjjjzzzzzt" and realize I had sucked up a bug. Not landed in my mouth or even swallowed it, I had INHALED it. It was stuck in my lung and I was hacking and gasping and trying to yell, "EW! GROSS! Didja see that?" but there was no one out there.....except the twins.
As I jumped around the barn trying to expell something the Survivor folks would have fought each other over, I realized the twins were watching me and bleating. Reno said, "Good heavens, woman! Will you be okay?" (only he said it in French because he is multi-lingual) and Victor bleated out, "Today is Tuesday!" (which it's not even close, it's Saturday but I already told you, he isn't so bright) and at that point I fell over from coughing so hard. Or maybe it was the beginning of Ebola or encephalitis or something.
Either way, when I opened my eyes, the goats were standing over me, chewing their cuds and snickering. Reno claimed he had performed CPR on me and was I planning on billing insurance or paying by credit card? As I pondered that, Victor leaned over and brayed, "It's TUESDAY!"
So I've had my protein today, but tonight....one of those kids has to go feed the goats.
~Donna
So I was not pleased this morning to go out to the barn and, while filling up the twins' water bucket, hear, "bjjjjzzzzzt" and realize I had sucked up a bug. Not landed in my mouth or even swallowed it, I had INHALED it. It was stuck in my lung and I was hacking and gasping and trying to yell, "EW! GROSS! Didja see that?" but there was no one out there.....except the twins.
As I jumped around the barn trying to expell something the Survivor folks would have fought each other over, I realized the twins were watching me and bleating. Reno said, "Good heavens, woman! Will you be okay?" (only he said it in French because he is multi-lingual) and Victor bleated out, "Today is Tuesday!" (which it's not even close, it's Saturday but I already told you, he isn't so bright) and at that point I fell over from coughing so hard. Or maybe it was the beginning of Ebola or encephalitis or something.
Either way, when I opened my eyes, the goats were standing over me, chewing their cuds and snickering. Reno claimed he had performed CPR on me and was I planning on billing insurance or paying by credit card? As I pondered that, Victor leaned over and brayed, "It's TUESDAY!"
So I've had my protein today, but tonight....one of those kids has to go feed the goats.
~Donna
Friday, March 9, 2007
Dear Donna...
Dear Donna,
Seriously, don't those goats smell bad?
Bethany
Oregon
Dear Bethany,
It's an aquired smell, but they don't seem to mind.
Sincerely,
Donna
*Got a question you want answered here? Email me at passtheaspirin@gmail.com and I'll stick it in.
Seriously, don't those goats smell bad?
Bethany
Oregon
Dear Bethany,
It's an aquired smell, but they don't seem to mind.
Sincerely,
Donna
*Got a question you want answered here? Email me at passtheaspirin@gmail.com and I'll stick it in.
Cinderella and the Carriage That Should Have Remained a Pumpkin
I met her when she was only two and a half years old; I married her daddy when she was almost four. She is now eighteen, and one of the loveliest young women I know. She is also my favorite child, but don't tell my other two. They each think they're my favorite, and depending on the day and who has used peanut butter to shape the cat's fur into a Mohawk, they are right.
She and I share many things: the same taste in music, a fierce love for the man who helped bring her into this world, and a strange sense of humor. I call her Cinderella; she calls me Stepmonster. She's been known to go to the mall wearing giant bunny slippers and then pretends not to speak English when I turn to talk to her. I have a picture of her somewhere wearing a plastic bag on her head with her eyes rolled back, flashing a hand sign that's supposed to signal "Wal-Mart". On our family cruise this summer she looked over the edge of the ship, turned to me and said, "Did you see that? I think I saw your luggage float by."
Recently she and I got into a conversation with her father about status symbols. She brought up the latest chrome rims, the ones that keeping spinning after the car has come to a stop. You see them mostly on rigs like Escalades and other SUV's, brightly painted metallic giants accompanied by a thumpin' sound system. We debated the usefulness of these and how it appears that it's no longer a big deal to see them. Many expensive vehicles have them; they have become almost commonplace.
A short time later, she and I went to the grocery store (because she was my favorite that day, you know). As I pulled into a parking space, she started choking and sputtering. I automatically reached over and whacked her on the back, and she gasped, "No! LOOK AT THAT!" We got out of the car and stood staring at the vehicle two spaces down. It had the spinning rims. It was lowered. It was beige. It was a Ford Escort. I am telling the absolute truth. We stood there like a couple of idiots with our mouths hanging open until I finally nudged her because I was afraid we'd get hauled away.
As we walked past it, we completely lost control of ourselves. What started out as a giggle escalated into full- blown hysterics. We clutched each other and howled. She kept repeating, "It was an ESCORT! AN ESCORT!" I finally got semi-control over myself and clamped a hand over her mouth once we were in the store. I was afraid we'd run into whoever owned that tricked-out ride…the Escort with rolling rims. I honestly didn't want to know who drove such a car, although I offered to leave my stepdaughter's cell phone number on the windshield, which sobered her up in a hurry.
So we've added another inside joke. No one else truly gets the Stepmonster thing, nor do they do much beside stare blankly at us when we start going through the entire dialog of "Pretty In Pink". They don't understand the shopping mall jokes, or the way we gang up on her younger brother and sister by saying quite seriously, "Yes, you WERE found in a Taco Bell dumpster as an infant. Now go clean your room."
So whenever we see those rims on any car, we poke each other, yell "ESCORT!" and crack up. It may be a small thing, but it's all ours.
~Donna
Are you a stepfamily? Leave me a comment and tell me your story.
She and I share many things: the same taste in music, a fierce love for the man who helped bring her into this world, and a strange sense of humor. I call her Cinderella; she calls me Stepmonster. She's been known to go to the mall wearing giant bunny slippers and then pretends not to speak English when I turn to talk to her. I have a picture of her somewhere wearing a plastic bag on her head with her eyes rolled back, flashing a hand sign that's supposed to signal "Wal-Mart". On our family cruise this summer she looked over the edge of the ship, turned to me and said, "Did you see that? I think I saw your luggage float by."
Recently she and I got into a conversation with her father about status symbols. She brought up the latest chrome rims, the ones that keeping spinning after the car has come to a stop. You see them mostly on rigs like Escalades and other SUV's, brightly painted metallic giants accompanied by a thumpin' sound system. We debated the usefulness of these and how it appears that it's no longer a big deal to see them. Many expensive vehicles have them; they have become almost commonplace.
A short time later, she and I went to the grocery store (because she was my favorite that day, you know). As I pulled into a parking space, she started choking and sputtering. I automatically reached over and whacked her on the back, and she gasped, "No! LOOK AT THAT!" We got out of the car and stood staring at the vehicle two spaces down. It had the spinning rims. It was lowered. It was beige. It was a Ford Escort. I am telling the absolute truth. We stood there like a couple of idiots with our mouths hanging open until I finally nudged her because I was afraid we'd get hauled away.
As we walked past it, we completely lost control of ourselves. What started out as a giggle escalated into full- blown hysterics. We clutched each other and howled. She kept repeating, "It was an ESCORT! AN ESCORT!" I finally got semi-control over myself and clamped a hand over her mouth once we were in the store. I was afraid we'd run into whoever owned that tricked-out ride…the Escort with rolling rims. I honestly didn't want to know who drove such a car, although I offered to leave my stepdaughter's cell phone number on the windshield, which sobered her up in a hurry.
So we've added another inside joke. No one else truly gets the Stepmonster thing, nor do they do much beside stare blankly at us when we start going through the entire dialog of "Pretty In Pink". They don't understand the shopping mall jokes, or the way we gang up on her younger brother and sister by saying quite seriously, "Yes, you WERE found in a Taco Bell dumpster as an infant. Now go clean your room."
So whenever we see those rims on any car, we poke each other, yell "ESCORT!" and crack up. It may be a small thing, but it's all ours.
~Donna
Are you a stepfamily? Leave me a comment and tell me your story.
Of Rats and Daughters
Sometimes I feel like Charlie Brown must when Snoopy pretends to fly his doghouse around as a fighter pilot. I can totally relate to him when he smacks himself on the forehead and wails, "Good grief! Why can't I have a normal dog?"
I not only don't have a normal dog, I don't have a normal cat, or for that matter, any pets that actually act like they are supposed to. They find us and move in when we aren't looking. I've had them ring the doorbell and stroll in between my feet when I open the door. They've smuggled themselves in by hiding in Christmas trees. Once I found one using a screwdriver to pry open a window. He had built a ladder up to it and taped a cardboard sign up that read, "Suckers Here. You Don't Even Have To Work For Food."
Somewhere around the time my daughter was three years old, she and I were poking through a pet store when she found a cage full of tiny baby rats. She exclaimed, "OOOOOOOH Momma, look! Look how cuuuuuuuute! They are beeyooteeful!" I leaned down and peered in and did not see whatever she was looking at. All I saw was a teeming mass of bubonic plague with sharp teeth and beady little eyes. The sign said, "Baby Feeder Rats. " Feeder rats? What is that, you feed bad children to them? A pesky neighbor perhaps? As I thought about the possibilities, a teenage employee shuffled by and my daughter lit up, grabbed at his shirt and said, "Oh, mister! Your mousies are beyooteeful!"
He looked right at my girl and said, "Yeah, you can feed them to your snake. You got a snake?" and my daughter began screaming. Loudly. If you know my precious offspring, you know that the horror film industry already has their eye on her. I watched the boy run to the back room and heard the door lock. Then I turned around to find my three-year-old with her entire body draped across the cage sobbing. She was also praying.
"Dear God (hic), don't let these here mousies be (sniff) eaten. Amen."
Forget the mousies, I wanted to see the boy get eaten by the rats. I pried her off the cage and reached in as she begged me to let her hold one. I scooped one up and realized it must not be related to its plague- carrying brothers because it sat up like a squirrel in my palm, latched onto my thumb and began licking it. My daughter stopped crying long enough to sniffle, "Momma, he LIKES you!" I sighed. Sometimes they don't even need a screwdriver to get into our household.
So Daisy the rat came home. Daisy the rat was the darling of the family. Daisy the rat ate Cheetos while sitting on our shoulders. But like all of the pets that belong to us, we soon realized that Daisy had something wrong with her. It could have been something small, like only having three legs, or requiring a special diet, or being afraid of the dark and needing my husband to install an itty-bitty nightlight in her cage. But no. Turns out Daisy the rat had EPILEPSY. She would have seizures in her cage and bang against the sides and I would have to pull everything out until it was done. Then we'd give her a grape and she'd lick somebody's thumb until she fell back asleep.
One night I heard her banging around so I turned on the hall light and crept in there, hoping I wouldn't wake up my daughter. Poor Daisy was hitting the food dish so I reached in to move it and got too close. She bit me. I automatically yanked my hand out but unfortunately Daisy's teeth were still attached to my finger and she came out too. She went flying across the room and landed on my daughter's bed, who was still sleeping soundly. I was sputtering, "OW OW OW" and Daisy came out of the seizure and wobbled back across the floor towards me. She headed for my feet. I started hopping back and forth trying to avoid her. I hopped; she came closer. I feinted left; she zoomed in. I finally started screaming for my husband, who came in and saw me bouncing around with blood streaming from my hand and Daisy wobbling and circling my bare feet. He turned on the light and said, "Oh geez. Are you okay?" I started to answer him when I realized he was talking to THE RAT. She made a beeline for him. He picked her up, she licked his thumb, he put her back in her cage and my daughter never woke up.
I, on the other hand, was not current on tetanus, so I went to the doctor. Imagine having to explain that you were bitten by a rat. They were horrified. I said, "Oh no. It was my daughter's pet rat."
They all stared at me, and I realized that they were wondering what kind of mother would allow a child to own a rat that bites. So I said, "Oh wait, let me explain. The rat has epilepsy."
At this point the staff began whispering to each other and edging toward the phone. I gave up and shut my mouth, got my shot, and immediately changed medical offices.
Daisy the Cheeto- loving, thumb licking, flying rat lived with us (and was loved by us) for over two years, until she finally succumbed to a respiratory illness she had also carried since birth.
Not bad for snake food.
~Donna
I not only don't have a normal dog, I don't have a normal cat, or for that matter, any pets that actually act like they are supposed to. They find us and move in when we aren't looking. I've had them ring the doorbell and stroll in between my feet when I open the door. They've smuggled themselves in by hiding in Christmas trees. Once I found one using a screwdriver to pry open a window. He had built a ladder up to it and taped a cardboard sign up that read, "Suckers Here. You Don't Even Have To Work For Food."
Somewhere around the time my daughter was three years old, she and I were poking through a pet store when she found a cage full of tiny baby rats. She exclaimed, "OOOOOOOH Momma, look! Look how cuuuuuuuute! They are beeyooteeful!" I leaned down and peered in and did not see whatever she was looking at. All I saw was a teeming mass of bubonic plague with sharp teeth and beady little eyes. The sign said, "Baby Feeder Rats. " Feeder rats? What is that, you feed bad children to them? A pesky neighbor perhaps? As I thought about the possibilities, a teenage employee shuffled by and my daughter lit up, grabbed at his shirt and said, "Oh, mister! Your mousies are beyooteeful!"
He looked right at my girl and said, "Yeah, you can feed them to your snake. You got a snake?" and my daughter began screaming. Loudly. If you know my precious offspring, you know that the horror film industry already has their eye on her. I watched the boy run to the back room and heard the door lock. Then I turned around to find my three-year-old with her entire body draped across the cage sobbing. She was also praying.
"Dear God (hic), don't let these here mousies be (sniff) eaten. Amen."
Forget the mousies, I wanted to see the boy get eaten by the rats. I pried her off the cage and reached in as she begged me to let her hold one. I scooped one up and realized it must not be related to its plague- carrying brothers because it sat up like a squirrel in my palm, latched onto my thumb and began licking it. My daughter stopped crying long enough to sniffle, "Momma, he LIKES you!" I sighed. Sometimes they don't even need a screwdriver to get into our household.
So Daisy the rat came home. Daisy the rat was the darling of the family. Daisy the rat ate Cheetos while sitting on our shoulders. But like all of the pets that belong to us, we soon realized that Daisy had something wrong with her. It could have been something small, like only having three legs, or requiring a special diet, or being afraid of the dark and needing my husband to install an itty-bitty nightlight in her cage. But no. Turns out Daisy the rat had EPILEPSY. She would have seizures in her cage and bang against the sides and I would have to pull everything out until it was done. Then we'd give her a grape and she'd lick somebody's thumb until she fell back asleep.
One night I heard her banging around so I turned on the hall light and crept in there, hoping I wouldn't wake up my daughter. Poor Daisy was hitting the food dish so I reached in to move it and got too close. She bit me. I automatically yanked my hand out but unfortunately Daisy's teeth were still attached to my finger and she came out too. She went flying across the room and landed on my daughter's bed, who was still sleeping soundly. I was sputtering, "OW OW OW" and Daisy came out of the seizure and wobbled back across the floor towards me. She headed for my feet. I started hopping back and forth trying to avoid her. I hopped; she came closer. I feinted left; she zoomed in. I finally started screaming for my husband, who came in and saw me bouncing around with blood streaming from my hand and Daisy wobbling and circling my bare feet. He turned on the light and said, "Oh geez. Are you okay?" I started to answer him when I realized he was talking to THE RAT. She made a beeline for him. He picked her up, she licked his thumb, he put her back in her cage and my daughter never woke up.
I, on the other hand, was not current on tetanus, so I went to the doctor. Imagine having to explain that you were bitten by a rat. They were horrified. I said, "Oh no. It was my daughter's pet rat."
They all stared at me, and I realized that they were wondering what kind of mother would allow a child to own a rat that bites. So I said, "Oh wait, let me explain. The rat has epilepsy."
At this point the staff began whispering to each other and edging toward the phone. I gave up and shut my mouth, got my shot, and immediately changed medical offices.
Daisy the Cheeto- loving, thumb licking, flying rat lived with us (and was loved by us) for over two years, until she finally succumbed to a respiratory illness she had also carried since birth.
Not bad for snake food.
~Donna
I Have Twins!
Twin kids, yep. Goats, that is.
The twins arrived on a spring day last year. Black and white and adorable, they rode home chewing their cud in the back of my husband's canopied pickup truck.
Why goats, you may ask? Well...why not? They add a little flavor and a lot of odor to the rest of the zoo. Reno is the brighter of the two, Victor is sweet but quite blank. Reno comes when you call him and Victor stares at the sky like he was Chicken Little, waiting for hay to magically fall into his little goatie mouth.
Ever wondered about pygmy goats? Here's some recommended reading.
Pygmy Goats
Children and Pets and Remodeling, Oh My!
Greetings and welcome to Pass the Aspirin!
Life is a journey....and sometimes you find yourself packing for many. Join me as I travel through the week juggling schedules, backpacks, litter boxes, prescriptions, tools, alfalfa and the ever-present bottle of aspirin.
You may laugh, cry, sympathize or suddenly feel ill.....but I bet at some point you'll say to yourself, "Oh my....I've done that too!"
Can't wait to hear from you!
~Donna
Life is a journey....and sometimes you find yourself packing for many. Join me as I travel through the week juggling schedules, backpacks, litter boxes, prescriptions, tools, alfalfa and the ever-present bottle of aspirin.
You may laugh, cry, sympathize or suddenly feel ill.....but I bet at some point you'll say to yourself, "Oh my....I've done that too!"
Can't wait to hear from you!
~Donna
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