Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Part 3 of the Amazing Pie Saga. Part 1 and Part 2.

I ended up resolving the issue with FedEx myself. A very pilot woman helped reconcile the error when we discovered that what should be 'Apt. I' was input as 'Apt. 1.' My buddy in Kansas must have made a mistake and if I want to send my kids to college someday, perhaps I ought to not work so hard to correct it.

Thankfully, FedEx and I have this discussion after the Saturday deliveries have been made. The pie gets there Monday and it looks like a giraffe ate a bad egg-salad sandwich. That's fine, having the ability to eat the pie is secondary to the novelty of receiving one in the mail.


Stay away from the pie. Bad. Bad pie! Mess you up!
But Over-the-Hill Farms doesn't know that pie quality is irrelevant. I did not receive the freshly baked chocolate cream pie I ordered, and my pie-confirmation explicitly has an I on it. When I call to tell them this, I'm told by a man I've now become way too close to, that he put the information in himself and it said 1. Telling me he put it in himself is unnecessarily verbose, you're the only one that works there, we've established this. When I email the confirmation back to the company, Hoss (that's what I call him) contends that it looks like a lower-case L. What the friggin' hell man? What does it looking like an L have anything to do with it being an I or a 1? Maybe if you accidentally sent it to Apt. Decapitated-Stick-Man-With-No-Limbs then I'd be a little more interested in your thought process. You thought 1, a simple mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. It was an I, an I as in "Intense" or "you're a shItty company." Just admit you're wrong and let's move on.

Then he said what we've all been waiting for, "What do you want me to do, refund your money? Then I'm out seventy bucks!" SEVENTY BUCKS! You charge seventy damn dollars for these pies! What the hell is wrong with you? No wonder I'm the only online pie order you ever had, I'm a sucker. Seventy! Did I accidentally click the "include Honus Wagner baseball card" option? I could have flown to this chicks town, bought a truckload of chocolate cream, and had it helicopter dropped into her living room for that much. All of this excludes the logic that if you don't refund my money, then I'm out seventy bucks and I'm not the one that made the mistake.

Out of contempt he eventually agrees to give me my money back. Queue heavenly music... and all is well: my friend gets a pie sent to her doorstep, I get to keep my money, and the man in Kansas never even had to pull up his overalls.

FIN

  Monday, October 16, 2006

I imagine every two or three months the producers of America's Funniest Videos have a little pow-wow about how the show is stale and it needs some spice. Then some grizzled old TV exec shuts everyone up and demands they show a montage of people getting hit with balls.

And suddenly AFV is fresh and hilarious again.

In a recent tournament I played the best softball of my life. I made a diving catch, I gun downed two runners at the plate, and every ball seemed to bounce perfectly into my glove. The best part: with a 3-1 pitch I purposely swung at would be ball four to avoid the man-walk, and on the next pitch I launched it over the centerfielder's head.

But who cares? That was all after they moved me to left field. I started the day as the pitcher. "We need a pitcher and wear these stupid Hawaiian shirt uniforms," our skipper says. After walking six people, I use the first inning stretch to take some practices tosses. One pitch in I decide the shirt is the problem, and while I'm taking it off my battery mate's return throw nails me in the junk.

It was perfect. He couldn't have hit me any harder and more square if he was six inches away with a laser sight and he was throwing with his kicking foot. I wanted to hurl, but all I kept thinking about was how awesome this would be if I had witnessed this from a third perspective. I kept telling him it was alright to laugh, but I guess the sucker apologized and was all sympathetic because of my tears.

  Thursday, October 05, 2006

I missed a Thursday of work about four months ago, then Friday was a holiday. When Monday came around: aliens, gigantism, rescuing a bus of school-children, does it even matter; I didn't go into work that fucking day either.

I typically shave every other day and almost never on the weekends. So by the time I went back to work on Tuesday it had been a full week since I last cleaned myself up and I figured I just go with it.

By now its pretty gangrey and its more annoying then anything. It itches when I sleep and I need a freaking Sherpa just to eat. So I bought some clippers and will be trimming it down, but I wanted to post a pic for posterity's sake.


Haha, suckers. Those are really my pubes!

  Tuesday, October 03, 2006

The following is Part 2 of the Great Pie Adventure. For Part 1 click that link.

It was easy enough finding a company that sells pie online. I went with Underhill Farms. They seemed all full of home-cookingy goodness. The chocolate cream pie I wanted was twenty bucks, a little pricey but I was set on purchasing a pie for a woman across the country. The online form was peculiarly specific: Mother's maiden name? In case another Rory Sant happens to want this pie? Identity theft must be a real problem in the heartland. I could throw in my social security number or blood type if need be. My previous three addresses just in case I roomed with my imposter in two of my former residences. Here's a description of my permanent scars for the ever pervasive risk of clones.

After clicking the submit button you get the good news. Cost does not include delivery, and their shipping methods are complete overkill: "We overnight express ship our pies via genetically engineered carrier pigeon, packed in Peruvian dry ice and secured with diamond encrusted packing peanuts, all sealed up in our patented transparent aluminum pie casing. You're going to pay through the nards!" This was a little while ago so that may not be exactly what it said. The 'nards' part was in there for sure though.

A few days later I get a call from Kansas. Who the spork do I know from Kansas? It's a dude from this company (we'd later become good friends) telling me my package is undeliverable and it needs picked up at the FedEx office. If I wanted her to pick up the pie herself I'd have sent her a check for $6 and told her to go to Kroger. This is unacceptable. I didn't spend $20 plus my inheritance to not have it sitting at her door.

So the next day I have to discreetly solicit the address a second time while downplaying that I might actually be sending her something. I then call back this farm company. By the time this is resolved I will have called night/day, weekday/weekend. Each time it's the same guy. Interesting.

My beef was that I'm not the one doing business with FedEx, so why would I be the one resolving the issue with them. Over the three subsequent conversations I have with Underworld Farms, American Gothic on the phone there tries to wipe his hands clean of the situation, hangs up on me, and becomes annoyed when I ask for some info to confirm that it indeed is my online pie order we're discussing. This prompts me to believe that I may be the first person to ever e-pie with this company.

SCENE: It's dusk at old farmhouse in Kansas where a long extension cord runs out of a screendoor, through a wheatfield and into the barn where Old McDonald has set up his desk between the pigs and the horses. He's admiring the purty green pictures on his new Macintosh SE when he shouts, "Howdy! This computanangle's trying to order a pie." He is of course yelling this to himself since as far as I can tell he's the only one working there. With one hand he milks cows, with the other he answers phones. I don't want to know how he makes the pies.

For more imagery please visit www.onemanpiecompany.com.

TO BE CONCLUDED...