I guess I should start off by saying that Home Depot called the other day to say that I won’t be charged the $100 fee and not only that, but I can keep the dumpster without any extra fees, as normally they charge $10 a day if you need it any longer then 7 days.

Friday night I actually had a date! With a real person. His name is Craig and he is a 30 year old architect from Lockport. We have been emailing each other back and forth on Yahoo personals and chatted for over an hour Wednesday night. I arrived at his house right at 8 in the pm. He is probably about 6 feet, thin and with blond hair. Oh, and he is adorable! He has stunningly beautiful eyes with these wonderful lips. As for his personality, he seems a bit more reserved than me, but very social. Ok, when I say a bit more reserved than me, I only mean that because as we know, I’m pretty much about as obnoxious as they come. Anywho, we went to dinner at a Chinese place called the Pagoda House. The food was good, but because I had such a large lunch, I didn’t eat a whole heck of a lot. I wanted to do something after dinner, but unfortunately, I did not bring enough money with me so we just went back to his house and hung out. Last night, I saw him again, this time we went to a semi fancy restaurant in Orland Park. We got there kind of late, in fact, it was about 9:30. We were not planning on going to this place and therefore, I had on a Simpsons t-shirt and jeans and he had on jeans as well. At first, we couldn’t get anybody to seat us. After a few minutes, I made contact with a busboy who seated us. The food was good, in fact, this cream of spinach soup was pretty damn good. Once again, I didn’t bring enough money and since I don’t have an ATM card, I couldn’t get anymore. So we went back to his house again and hung out.

Before going out with Craig, I went to see Superbad with Dave, Don and Dayna and Don’s aunt. Although Superbad wasn’t super bad, it also wasn’t super good. It was just kinda super………..meh. I did laugh at some scenes and a couple of the guys that were in the movie were hot, but honestly, I could take or leave this movie. There, now you have my 27 second review, provided you read that in 27 seconds.

Today we helped Toby remove shingles from the garage. Ok, help might be the right word. Because John and I are both afraid of heights, neither one of us actually got on the roof of the garage. Instead, John stood on a ladder and removed the shingles while I picked up the shingles that were thrown from the roof and put them in the dumpster. Its amazing how many damn shingles there were and how each one of the shingles have what seems to be a million and one of those annoying little shiney things. If I never have to deal with that again, I will die a happy man.

I watched that new show on HBO “Tell Me You Love Me” and was surprised that not only did they show cock, and not only did they show an erect cock, but they also showed a money shot, if you can believe that. I have to say, its about damn time.

Shit, I’ve got to go. Later people.

Well, much like the Sears saga from last year, the garage story drags on. This morning I got up and went outside to get the paper when I noticed a truck start to pull in my driveway. It was the dumpster people, they THOUGHT they were going to be taking the dumpster. See, when I ordered it, they said I get it for a week  once they drop it off. They dropped this dumpster off on Thursday, August 30 and today was not yet a week. I told the driver he couldn’t take it because not only was it only 6 days but I still needed it. I was planning on calling today to extend it a few more days. He put me on the phone with his boss who told me to call Home Depot (I ordered it from Home Depot, however they contract it out to another company) and tell them I still need it. So, I went instead and ate breakfast. After eating a few bowls of Coco Puffs, I could hear that the truck was still on my driveway. Doesn’t matter, though, because I’ve got to shower and get my ass to work. After I got out of the shower, I saw that he was still here. I also had a message from Home Depot saying that if I have the driver leave without taking the dumpster I would be charged a $100 fee. I quickly got dressed and headed out the door, right about the same time that the truck was leaving WITHOUT the dumpster. I called Home Depot on my way to work (don’t worry people, although I hate people that drive and talk, I have a Blue Tooth wireless headset and do not drive and talk very often) and waited on hold for a few minutes. Finally somebody picked up and told me that I needed to be transferred. I think that something was wrong with their phones because I got put right back into the same queue with the exact same options. So, I pressed the button I needed and once again, same situation and was transferred to the same line where I had to press the same damn fucking cocksucking button. Yes, I was pissed. I finally get somebody again and insist that they don’t transfer me because the transfer was not working. I explained my story and the  lady said that I got the dumpster on Wednesday, Aug 29. I corrected her and said it never came and therefore, I should not be charged the bullshit $100 fee. She told me she was not in the department I needed and would have somebody call me back. Flash forward to my lunch when I called at 1:15. I got somebody right away and was told again that they did not drop it off on the 29th. He said that he saw in the notes that they arrived at 12:40am on Aug 30 and woke me up. They must be in the eastern time zone because he arrived an hour earlier (and for the record, they did not wake me) with the wrong dumpster. You can refer to my post from last week for more of that story. Nevertheless, I told them I need it until next Tuesday, the 11th but I do not want to be charged that damn $100 fee. He said he could not authorize that and would have a supervisor call me back. Of course, this didn’t happen, so I called them back tonight and was told that they would email a supervisor and I should get a call back. Here we are though and I’m still waiting.

I swear, its like I doomed to have shit customer service experiences. I think its because I work customer service and have high expectations and therefore the customer service Gods have cursed me. Either that, or I just have rotten luck.

Well, I got a call from Toby today, he seemed much more…………customer service friendly today. In fact, we even went to Lowe’s to pick up plywood for the garage. The whole way, though, he tried talking me into not rebuilding this garage but instead raising the concrete. I stuck to my guns though and told him that even though I know I’m probably making a mistake (and probably an expensive one) I’m going to continue. I still need to replace my shingles on my house within the next year and there is no way I can do that, replace the garage and raise the concrete. Owning a house is too much damn money when it comes to repairs and upkeep.

I hope the Cubs can turn things around again and soon, I want them to still be in first place when we go to St Louis next week. This will be my first Cubs-Cards game in St Louis and I want it to be a game with a lot on the line. Oh, and they need to turn it around also because I would HATE to be disappointed again by this damn team.

Saturday night I went to Navy Pier with Danel and her friend from work, Tina. Along the way we stopped off at Mario’s lemonade stand in Chicago for some good ass strawberry lemonade. Was it strawberry? I really can’t remember, I should have written about it by now. After that was Navy Pier where we watched fireworks and I ate a chocolate crumb pretzel from this gourmet pretzel place. It was good shit, chocolate on the inside of the pretzel and then chocolate sprinkled on the outside.

Last night was a card game at this Ken, who is a co-worker of  Don. Ken also has a brother named Dan who is good friends with Jt. When I arrived Dave was outside smoking and for some reason, he felt the need to open the door and shout “ladies and gentlemen, Mike Consalvo.” At the end of the night, I told him he had to give me an exit and he did the same thing. In between, I lost $50 playing and finished in 7th place out of 14 people.

Today was the baseball game followed by a bbq at my house. I don’t feel like going into more detail so that’s all you are going to get.

I have to say, I’m frustrated with the whole garage situation. Toby, who is a friend of a friend, has been contracted to replace the shingles and siding. Well, after tearing off the siding, he told me that the dry wall that is on the garage has so much damage that it needs to be replaced. Because my driveway floods near the garage, he feels that I should tear down the garage and fix my concrete before I put up another garage. Long story short, I went back and forth trying to make up my mind as to what I want to do, but in the end, I am not taking his advice. Instead, I’m going to fix it and attempt to find ways to alleviate the flooding, which he insists won’t work. For some reason, probably because I’m not taking his advice, he is starting to become difficult to work with. For starters, he has not been out here to work on the damn thing since Thursday, in fact that is the only day he has worked. I need plywood to replace the dry wall and I called him today to ask him if he was going to work tomorrow. His reply was “what for?” I told him he could tear off the shingles and he told me he did not want to start that until he finishes the siding. Ok, that sounds reasonable, except that tomorrow is the only day this week that he can work, as he will be contracting at McCormick Place the rest of the week. Meanwhile, I can only have this dumpster until Thursday before they start charging me $10 a day to keep it. Also, the siding is off the garage on 3 sides and the sofitt is entirely off the garage, meaning that if it rains, my garage is totally going to be fucked. I’ve also got the code enforcement officer breathing down my neck, he was just here the other day and my neighbor said he was taking pictures of the garage. I’m starting to regret using Toby, I mean, I want him to finish it, but honestly, I’m thinking about replacing him, even though I haven’t paid him anything yet. I’m so fucking stressed right now about this whole situation.

It has been an eventful couple of days which I will try to briefly summarize. As you may or may not know, I’m replacing the shingles and siding on my garage. So a dumpster was needed for obvious reasons. I went with Home Depot dumpster rentals because, well, it was the cheapest by far. I was given a small window of 7am-7pm for them to show up on Wednesday. I got home from work about 6:45 in the pm and there was no dumpster. Oh sure, some people might consider my garage a dumpster, but I mean and actual real dumpster. So, I called and asked where the hell were they. The lady that answered said she had no idea but would have somebody call me. I told her that they could call me at any time because I had a contractor coming out the next morning to start work on the garage. Much to my surprise, 11:30 at night, the guy shows up with the dumpster. Because I am a night owl, I was not yet in bed, but I was plenty pissed. As you might imagine, when the drop a dumpster off they do it with a truck that is as loud as a semi. I walked out of the house and said “what are you doing” to which he replied “I’m delivering your dumpster.” I said “You are 4 1/2 hours late! And, its 11:30 at night!”. I was fucking pissed. To make matters even worse, it was the wrong dumpster and much bigger than I had ordered, therefore, it did not fit in my backyard. So, I told him that I needed a smaller dumpster and I needed it by the morning. Long story short, they delivered the dumpster the next morning and Toby got started on removing the siding.

My garage was in far worse shape than I have ever imagined. Toby said there was major weather damage from repeated floods (my backyard floods near my garage when it rains). Also, the garage seemed to be infested with bees, and not just any bees, very large bees. He actually referred to them as “prehistoric bees.” Because of all of this, he thinks that it is beyond just replacing the siding and shingles. I agreed with him but now am faced with a tough and very expensive decision on what to do with the garage. I’ve got several options, the best of which is tearing it down, raising my concrete which is causing the flooding and building a new garage. This is going to cost a LOT of money. On the other hand, I don’t want to spend all this money to replace the garage only to have the new garage be flood damaged once again.

With all of this on my mind, I was looking forward to going to Clem’s. About 9:15, I went out to my car to get something. While out there, I saw a white car slow down in front of the house. I thought that it might be my very big loser cousin (those of you that are long time readers might remember him, he was the guy that was prank calling me). I pretended not to see him and walked into the house as he pulled into the driveway. I knew it was him then. He had some girl with him who shouted something out the window. I just closed the door and went about my business, hoping he would go away. After a couple of minutes, though, he was still there and I was going to be leaving soon, so I knew I had to confront him. Just as I opened the door, he started to pull away. Unfortunately, he saw me open the door, so he stopped in front of the house. I knew I had to go out there. Now keep in mind, this is my late 40s/early 50s year old loser, crazy, alcoholic cousin. He is one of only 2 people in the world that I hate and outside of his prank calls, I have not had any contact with him in several years. So, I walked right up to the car and this is the conversation that followed.

Me (in a VERY stern voice): “What are you doing here?”
Fuckhead: “I wanted to make sure your house was ok.”
Me: “Its fine”

At this point, I turned around and walked away, ignoring him, in spite of the fact that I was so pissed off, I was nearly shaking with rage. Of course, him being a complete and total loser, he had to say something. Actually, it was more yelling instead of talking.

Fuckhead: “DON’T GET SO COCKY”

I kept walking back towards the house, not scared in the least, but instead pissed off and fighting every urge in my body to turn around and either flip him off or say something. But, I know him too well, he was baiting me. He wanted me to take the bait so that he can go to the cops. But, I refused to take it. I just kept walking into the house.

Fuckhead: “I’LL HAVE MY GIRLFRIEND KICK YOUR ASS. THAT’S RIGHT, NOT ME, BUT MY GIRLFRIEND, I WILL HAVE HER KICK YOUR ASS!!!”

I again just kept walking back to the house, not acknowledging him at all. The funny part is that his girlfriend was so strung out and drunk that she probably couldn’t even stand, led alone fight. She was in such an intoxicated state that she probably couldn’t even hit herself.

As I went into the house, he kept yelling, but I don’t know what he was saying. After a minute or so, he drove off. Now he is a total loose cannon and although a complete pussy, he is capable of doing many cowardly things, like slash tires. In fact, the last time he was prank calling and the cops called to tell me it was him, the cop on the phone said to me “you know he is nuts, right?”. See, all of Romeoville’s cops know him, he is that big of a loser. Anywho, so I decided to call the cops, not only do I want to build a case against him, but I also want to piss him off and send a message that I don’t play his games and I never want to hear from him again. I’ve got a trespass order which I’m going to fill out so that the next time he comes on my property, he will be arrested. When the cop showed up (he was a cute cop too!), he said he knew exactly who my cousin was.

This fucker is such a drain on society that he should be locked away or deported to somewhere in the middle east. Sure, he was born here, but one can still make a strong case for kicking him out of the country. He might be the biggest reason why I’m a supporter of gun control. Now I don’t know if he owns any guns, but the world is a safer place if he doesn’t have a gun.

Fuck, I’m tired, I need to get to bed.