The Opposite of Love Letters

Stress + fasting = chocolate chip cookies as far as I am concerned. (And by that I mean there may be a large Ziploc bag of them hanging out on my kitchen counter and another one in my bag at work.) But it also equals grumpiness. Herein, a list of grievances from the past week:

 

Dear UPS,

 

I spent four hours waiting in my apartment for you to show up and pick up my packages, and you did not show until 20 minutes before Tisha B'Av, almost an hour and a half late, when I could not conceivably deal with sending packages. And every single person I spoke to that works for you told me something totally different about costs and about pick-up times and about where the driver was so that I still have no idea what I will actually be charged or when my packages will really show up there. And then your only offer to my complaint was that I can send my packages three-day shipping so that they get there on time—and by that you mean I can pay to upgrade my shipping to get there the day it was supposed to get there if you hadn't messed up. Next time I move cross-country, I am going with FedEx.

 

Dear Starbucks,

 

I bought a photo travel mug from you. I bought it from you because I have fabulous one a friend made me that I use every day and has, thus, gotten grungy, but it is a great mug and even when it ends up upside down in my bag, it doesn't leak. Now, I understood from the disclaimer that came inside said new mug that you could not promise me such stunning results again. That was OK. I could understand that. What I cannot understand is that the mug leaks when I drink from it, which makes it rather, um, unusable as a mug unless I want to redecorate my entire wardrobe with coffee stains down the front, which I do not. So, I went back to my local neighborhood Starbucks to get my money back, which hardly seems an unreasonable request, and they informed me they can't do anything for me unless I have a receipt. Except I don't have a receipt because I expected to use the mug; I did not think it would be defective. So, now I am stuck with a leaky mug. It's a good thing I am moving someplace with a better (all kosher!) alternative anyway.  

 

Dear dentist I went to once and decided never to go to again after you said you wanted to pull out and replace all the fillings in my mouth,

 

I had one appointment with you in February of 2008. So, why would you wait until July 2009 to bill me, I wondered when I received said bill. Also, I wondered why I was receiving a bill at all since my insurance (back then, in the days when I had insurance) was supposed to completely cover the appointment. The bill said that the insurance had sent the money to me. Was that true? Did I neglect to send said money? It was plausible, I supposed. I decided to check my bank statements just to make sure the insurance company had indeed sent me a check. It seemed so. I had deposited a check for that amount in the beginning of March. I was all set to write a check to you and apologize profusely for not forwarding on when I saw a check paid from my account for the same amount a few days later. To you. Thanks so much for not keeping good records.