Ironic and Bitchy. All in one phone call. (things that make my friends irate)

So a good friend of mine religiously reads my blog (yay!) and often gets a kick out of the rants I post. The other day she emailed me this situation she encountered and it was too good not to share...

Here is her email to me:

Have you ever dealt with anyone at Houston Woman Magazine? I called them to see if I could get a bid in to print their magazine. I'll run through the conversation:

Me: Hi I'm So and So with So and So Printing, I was just calling to see if you guys....

Lady: Whoa. Let me just stop you right there. We are NOT guys. We are women.

Me: Ummm ok? Well, being a woman myself, I was just using the term loosely in a general sense of the word.

Lady: Are you trying to sell something?

Me: Yes, I was just seeing if you guys do your own printing in-house for the magazine or if you outsource for printing services.

Lady: We are a PUBLISHING company, of course we dont do our own printing (....which that statement confused me). You CLEARLY did not do your homework. Do you even have your magazine in front of you? Have you ever even read our magazine? Do you even know what we're about? Do your homework next time before you start calling people.

Me: As a matter of fact I did look up what "Houston Woman Magazine" is about I have your web page pulled up as we are speaking.

Lady: Can you even accomodate our magazine? Do you have those capabilities?

Me: We have printed several magazines in the past, so I'm pretty positive (being facetious) we can accomodate your magazine.

Lady: You're PRETTY positive, or you're POSITIVE. Call me when you've done your homework and you're positive.

I'm not even sure what that means...Do your homework? I'm asking a simple question of "do you print the magazine yourself". That's not exactly something people put on their website.

After that converstaion I proceeded to look up their mission statement to which it said this:

Our Mission

Houston Woman Magazine is a bi-monthly publication serving the professional women of Houston. Since March 2004, the publication has dedicated its efforts to informing, inspiring and connecting successful women.

Houston Woman Magazine spotlights women making a difference in the Houston community and provides a vehicle for the exchange of ideas and opinions. It serves as a soapbox for the voices of those wishing to discuss the interesting and important issues of the day.

What poor representation of a magazine that prides themselves on strong women out doing good in the community. You would have been outraged....as I was. Anyways, just thought I'd share as I know this is the kind of thing you'd probably post on your blog :)

To my friend - thanks for sharing. You are right - this is ridiculous.

To my readers - if you're looking for a Houston-based printing company (to print your magazine or other needs), I know of a great one. Leave me a note and I'll send you the info :)

.jl.

my bikinis will accompany me to Maui now. no thanks to Continental.

Dear Continental (or United, or whatever we’re now supposed to call you),

I just wanted to thank you for trying to make ME do YOUR job this morning. While I understand you may not fully get the notion that being self-employed is not the same as unemployed, I do not appreciate you making me do your job. If I wanted to work for Continental (i.e. do the job your employees are paid to do), I would happily apply at continental.com.

Furthermore, when you charge a customer an outrageous rate of $1200 for a flight, you should be prepared to do the work. And great your customer with a smile. Those are the bare minimum expectations I have when flying. Along with arriving safely, of course.

Since you’ve started in this over-charging brigade for everything under the sun (not limited to checked bags), people have been carrying over-sized bags on-board requiring you to make incessant announcements pleading with customers to check their bags as the aircraft will more than likely run out of overhead space. I fell for said plea and thought I was doing your airline along with the other passengers a favor.

But here’s where you screwed up – in your haste to throw a baggage claim ticket onto my suitcase (chock full of bikinis and other vacation'esque paraphernalia mind you), you failed to ask WHERE MY FINAL DESTINATION WAS and haphazardly assumed it was Phoenix.

Lucky for you (and obviously more-so me), I glanced at the PHX final destination ticket you so frantically wrote on my bag and rectified the situation MYSELF. I am traveling with an iPhone, iPad, and iBook and am not wearing any form of underwear under this beach-ready sundress. Can you imagine had I arrived to Maui under such circumstances due to the lackadaisical actions of one of your employees?!

So here is my plea to you Continental/United/Whatever You Are: if you’re going to charge me astronomical prices for service, please provide this service. Please provide it in a friendly and safe manner and please at least pretend like you give a damn to have my belongings accompany me on vacation. Please do everything in your power not to screw up my vacation. Unless of course you want to refund my money and I will get behind your desk to check my own baggage for future flights? Is this a deal? K, thanks.

PS - if you're wondering why a busy gal such as myself has time to write blog posts of this nature, it may be because I have a 4 hour layover in Phoenix and you denied me getting on the next flight to Maui. Which is leaving AS WE SPEAK. So thanks.

Signed your One Pass Member 4EVA,

Jayme Lamm

what you once wanted.

Yes, at one time, I wanted an effing Teddy Ruxpin. It should show you how much I wanted one and was in love with the poor specimen by the fact I had to Google how to spell it. And I was way off. But none the less, the story must go on, so continue reading. Please.

This week I am in Chesapeake, visiting friends and family. This is my hometown. It's where I grew up and where I will always call home. I was with a friend and her husband at Big Woody's. It's a bar, and pretty much the only place people go out in Chesapeake. I was drinking my nice cold Coors Light when I noticed a guy in the corner of my eye. He was pretty tired and haggard looking but I couldn't shake the feeling I knew this guy.

I won't name the guy (to save me from my own embarrassment, and on the off fact he is reading this and thinks I want him to contact me because that is so not the case), but he's a guy when I was in high school that I was totally enamored with. Of course he was a little bit older (i.e. probably 5 years) and way too bad boy for a Greenbrier Christian Academy high school junior like myself, but he had my attention. I wanted him. In a bad way.

Anyways, I was almost too embarrassed to admit to my friends that I thought the guy at the bar was this same guy. The one I used to sloppily make out with and secretly wish I could marry. Now if you had seen this guy (and I couldn't dare my little soul take a picture because that would be just plain rude), you'd understand the issue here. He was tired. And haggard. He was way bald. He was either missing a few teeth or had a gap the size of a World Cup soccer net. Either way it wasn't pretty. He wasn't pretty. I wondered if this could be the same guy that I wanted so badly to be with in high school.

Luckily, after a few beers I was able to coax a local police officer (off-duty of course) to casually and non-nonchalantly introduce himself to said guy and see if he was one in the same. After a few chugs of beer and some laughing, lo and behold, it was not the same guy.

Phew. Sigh. Of. Relief.

But that led me to this amazing discovery. What you once wanted - even the things (or boys) that you closed your eyes and prayed for - may not be the same things you want now. No way in HELL would I date this 20 year senior haggard chain-smoking look-a-like guy (again, the picture would explain and make me seem less vain and materialistic), but at the time, he was, at one time, the apple of my eye. The caramel coated apple of my eye. Kind of like when I wanted that stupid Teddy Ruxpin or MC Hammer pants. (I wanted MC Hammer pants so badly my mom signed me up for Kids-Can-Sew and I had to make my own cool-kids pants.) Or a Jordan Knight sleeping bag to take to my neighbor's slumber parties. Those things were to die for back then, but now? I had not a care in the world to have them.

Funny how things change, right? And at the same time I'm making this scary "please don't be him" epiphany, my friend (recently divorced and now happily remarried to someone else) asked the same thing about the guy she was once head over heels in love with. He too was like the Purple Ford Ranger with the "PRPLE HAZE" license plate I had begged for. Thank goodness my parents didn't give me everything I wanted.

.jl.

#TravelNeeds Twitter Contest

HERE ARE THE RULES TO ENTER:
Tell us the one thing you can’t travel without, and be entered to win a FREE 3-night stay at The Signature at MGM Grand in Las Vegas, courtesy of PC Housing, a San Diego corporate housing company with short-term rentals available nationwide. ENTER NOW through Friday Aug 12th for your chance to win!Tell us the one thing you can’t travel without, and be entered to win a FREE 3-night stay at The Signature at MGM Grand in Las Vegas, courtesy of PC Housing, a San Diego corporate housing company with short-term rentals available nationwide. ENTER NOW through Friday Aug 12th for your chance to win!

HERE IS MY ENTRY:
Since I've started doing a lot more travel writing here recently, a friend of mine emailed me this contest with @PCHousing - super easy to enter, but no flippin idea what my chances are at winning. You just have to answer a simple question below and tweet it, so here goes...

Q - what's the 1 item you just can't travel without?

A- there are quite a few actually. No matter if I travel for business or in the freeing months of winter, I always travel with running shoes and my bikini. Those are usually expensive items that I'm extremely particular about, so buying them while on vacation would be tough. I also can't travel without my allergy medicine (this year they have been killer), my iPhone (which I use as my camera and to tweet my whereabouts), and FSU spiral notebook. You never know where you feel moved or inspired to write, so rather than have a bunch of little post-it notes everywhere, all my potential writing material and notes are inside the Seminole notebook.

Here's to hoping I win 3 days/nights in Vegas - maybe I could turn it into another fun article/story. Cross your fingers please!

.jl.

Things That Make Me Irate - Episode 2

Admittedly, there is a load of crap that comes along with Facebook that truly irritates me, but it's simply the nature of the beast of this thing they call social media. But there is one thing that people do on FB that actually gets me hot and bothered and causes me to "get irate" as my friends call it.

You know those overzealous Facebook-liker's? The kind that like every single status possible.

My grandmother just died and I'm so sad. [You like this.]

I just found out my boyfriend was cheating on me and that bastard gave me herpes. [You like this.]

I just got laid off after 20 years of hardwork and I can't pay my bills or put food on the table for my six kids. [You like this.]

I mean are these brainiacs actually reading the posts or are they in an Olympic-style competition to see how many statuses they can infiltrate in one day?

I recently posted this sad (but true) status: No fireworks. In the sky or my love life.

It was a holiday weekend so I wanted to ward off anything that would potentially make me irate so I posted this caveat as part of the status: (and hey, overzealous FB "likers", this is one of those statuses it's inappropriate to "like". got it?)

But really Facebook friends, what is likable about "no fireworks in my love life" or the fact that someone just got herpes or they lost their grandmother (notably, not due to herpes)? I must know the answer to your rapid-fire liking of every damn status update. Anyone care to wager in on this?

.jl.