janradder

Stopping off at the library today before heading home, I watched a perfectly able-bodied woman with no handicapped tags on her car take the library's lone handicapped spot. She looked around with an angry look on her face to see if anyone noticed, and then marched her able-bodied self into the building. Éiden and I followed after with our books to return, and inside the library I approached her, asking if she had handicapped tags.

"No!" she snapped hostilely.

"Well my wife is handicapped," I said, "and when you park in the--"

"I don't care," she spit out and pushed past me.

I stepped back around in front of her and went on.

"I was saying that my wife is handicapped, and when you park in handicapped parking without tags you're taking a spot away from people like her."

"So what? I'm handicapped!" she lied, as she shoved me aside.

That's when the security guard stepped in. Oh, not to tell her to get her car out of the handicapped spot, but to lecture me about how I shouldn't talk to people about things like that, that I put my hands on the woman (which I didn't), that the woman had to shove me because I got up in her face, that I shouldn't have approached her because she's a woman, and that I "have a problem" because my wife was currently there and didn't need the handicapped spot. When I pointed out how while he was busy lecturing me, the woman parked illegally was busy parking illegally without any repurcussions.

"That's because I have to deal with you," he answered.

Afterwards I talked to one of the librarians on duty (who didn't think I'd done anything wrong in approaching the woman) and she gave me the phone number of the head librarian, telling me he's the one in charge of the security guards.

It's over an hour since the incident and I still feel shaken up and angry. And I know that next time I go to the library, I'm going to feel uncomfortable and nervous, especially when I see that security guard again. I'd like to think that something good might come out of this, like maybe the woman who parked illegally will think twice about it next time because she doesn't want to risk another confrontation, but I really think thats just wishful thinking.

Why is it the only time I ever see the local news in our neighborhood is when there's been a crime committed, yet whenever we have the May Day Parade or the Powderhorn Art Fair or Fourth of July fireworks they're suspiciously absent?

And seriously pissed off.

Almost a week and a half ago, I called my son's doctor to get a refill for his Adderall prescription. Because it is a controlled substance, I have to bring the actual hard-copy of the prescription to the pharmacy, so I've been waiting for it to arrive in the mail. By this past Friday, a full week after I'd originally called in the request, I still hadn't gotten the prescription, so I called the woman in charge of refills again, explaining I only had three days left of meds for my son. She called back that afternoon and said she'd mailed it out on Wednesday.

It is now Monday afternoon, and I still don't have the prescription because the woman, in all likelihood, it was never mailed out at all. I have now put in two calls to her, once on Saturday so she'd hear the message first thing this morning, and again this morning. She has not called back so I've placed an angry call with the doctor's nurse explaining my situation.

This is not the first time something like this has happened with the medication refills that originate out of this woman's office, though it is the first time it's happened with the Adderall. In fact, every time but one that our pharmacy has faxed in a refill request, it has gone unanswered as my son's med supply steadily dwindles, and they've had to fax two or three times more (in addition to my own phone calls) to get the woman to actually do the job she's paid for.

I am seriously fucking pissed off today. Éiden is home from school with a high fever and because of this woman's laziness, I now have to cart him out in the cold rain, drive to the University, find parking, pick up the damn refill that should have been here last week, head out to Target pharmacy, wait twenty minutes to an hour for them to refill it and be back home by 3:30 so I can get Arie when the bus drops him off at home and take him to his 4:00 appointment. And, right now, it's 12:50. This is absolute, fucking bullshit.

ETA: I just got off the phone with the woman's supervisor who not only apologized for all of this, but said that either she or someone else would be waiting for me at the front door so that I don't have to find parking and traipse my sick son through the rain, for which I am immensely grateful.

Sadly, it was not at all true, my asswipe neighbor's canoe is still very much in his possession, having been kindly been placed into his garage by one of the residents in the condo which was formerly his four-plex.  I know this because he was over in the yard next door, skulking about and then finally pulled the canoe out to show to someone interested in buying it.

Steve has owned the building next to us since about a month before we bought our house ten years ago.  Over the ensuing years he has, among other things, wandered vaguely through our yard in the guise of projects on his own residence, allowed his dog to roam unhindered into our lawn where he would frequently take large gooey craps which Steve would conveniently not notice (both of these were put to a stop about three years into our residence here when we put up fences for the sole purpose of keeping Steve out), planted raspberries on our property after we had expressly asked him not to and then become offended when we dug them up and gave them back, filled a hole around a stump I was in the process of digging out with the left over concrete from his driveway, instructed workers cover our back fence with over a foot of dirt and old broken up concrete when he had yet another driveway put in (and yes, his plan was to leave the debris there permanently because, as he told me, he thought I'd like it there), and finally physically assaulted me when I returned said debris to his new driveway after a week had gone by and it was still in my yard.  Since then I do not talk to Steve.  I do not look at Steve.  I do not even acknowledge that Steve is there.  Even when he has tried to talk to me, sometimes even yelling.  That does not mean that Steve is not there, however, and it doesn't mean that he is not watching me.

Two years ago he decided to turn his four-plex into condos and sell the units off one by one.  At this point, three are sold and the one which he still owns, is rented out to a very nice couple.  All the people who live there, in fact, are very nice.  Steve, though, is not, and even though he does not live there, he is often found skulking about the property, darting through the breezeway between our houses, creepily moving here and there under the guise of doing who the hell really knows (I guess it's yard work but it's never anything that needs to be done since the people who live there take care of the yard themselves).

I am so tired of feeling watched in my yard.  Uncomfortable to be outside with my children.  I have no idea why he keeps returning to this place but I just hope the day comes soon (it's at least a year away, and maybe longer) that he finally gets around to selling that last unit and is out of our lives forever.  Every timehaddayr sees him she thinks to herself (and maybe I'm paraphrasing it, if so, I'm sorry), "May you go never to return."  It's a great sentiment, regarding Steve.  I just wish he'd hurry up and do it, already.