No Gold Star For Me...Oops!

Sometimes you can find yourself walking away from a difficult situation and feel really good about it. You dealt with whatever life was throwing your way in a very mature fashion. You deserve a gold star, a pat-on-the-back, your name in lights! Most likely you thought through what you were going to say before you said it. Or, you learned your lesson from a previous incident and this time came out on top.

Maybe your toddler screamed in your face and instead of screaming back you held your cool, walked way, and then came back and dealt with it calmly. Maybe your husband left his shoes in the middle of the floor for the thousandth time and instead of nagging him again--knowing that it would only go in one ear and out the other--you gracefully put them away. Maybe a complete idiot cut you off on the highway and you kept your middle finger out of play. Again, all situations that award you a pat-on-the-back!

I have come to realize that I am a very reactionary person.
A) I don't like to be told what to do.
B) I typically have an opinion and it doesn't always come out nicely.
C) I can be a lot little dramatic.
D) There are stupid people out there.

To achieve the above mentioned reward, I have to work harder than most. If I am dealing with my husband I typically fail, and once a month I have a guaranteed 100% fail rate.

Let me explain with a recent example.

If you have read my blog for any length of time, you might know of my deep hatred for the mail. I can't stand it. And, for some reason I am the one dubbed to sort through it. It's a terrible arrangement, one that might actually be detrimental to my health! I'm not exactly sure how it's worked out this way, but my first guess is he just likes to irritate me and he enjoys seeing my eyes roll to the back of my head. It actually causes a little bit of sharp pain to shoot up the back of my neck...like I said, the stress caused by anger could be slowly killing me. "Erik, seriously you're killing your wife, SORT THE FRICKIN MAIL! Oh, and I love you."

Okay, back to the reason why I don't deserve a gold star.

So the other day, there it was...the stack of mail. Rather than let is sit there and pile up over days, I decided to go through it. I carefully sorted, because I have been known to throw away important bills, documents, money, etc... because I despise this position I've been forced into and it evokes an, "I don't care" attitude to exude out of me. I came across an envelope from T-mobile. It looked like a bill so I opened it. It wasn't a bill. It was a card carefully folded in a conspicuous fashion with a Visa symbol on it. I immediately started to flip out.

Why? You might ask.

Well, I was tricked. I thought I was opening up a bill and instead I was being told that I needed another credit card. "T-mobile is offering credit cards and telling me I need one?"(see point A above)

"A cellphone company offering credit cards? That's completely ridiculous!" (see point B above)

I pull the scissors out of my desk drawer and start mutilating the poor card. (see point C)

Erik is watching me do this, not surprised at all by what he is seeing and he calmly says, "did you read the information that the card was attached too?"

"No, I didn't read anything. I don't need to. We don't need another credit card!" He calmly picks up the paper the card came on, and reads the line... right next to that strip of attachement jelly, "Tips for using your T-Mobile Value Visa Prepaid Card."

"Linsey, I think that's our rebate for the cellphone purchase we made last month."

Oops. (see D above)

I then spent the next forty-five minutes of my morning trying to talk to a human at T-Mobile rebates...one does not exist.

We will be using our "T-Mobile Value Visa Prepaid Card" to order something online!

I think I completely rest my case for passing along my mail duties!