"I change by not changing at all..."

-Pearl Jam, "Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town"

"Teenaged Low-Paid Worker at a Mall Store Front"

So. Went to Verizon to fix my phone. They told me I have to take it up with the insurance company or get charged $300 for a new phone. If I was any of the women in my immediate family, this is when words would have been exchanged, because hey, I pay YOU guys for insurance and my indignation defies the reality of corporate rules and outsourcing, and you personally, teenaged low-paid worker at a mall store front have denied me what I want RIGHT NOW and if I express my anger enough, maybe you'll get your slightly better paid supervisor to tell me that she or he, also, has no power over corporate policy and if she or he DOES do the thing I think she or he's supposed to do, she or he might actually lose her or his piddly livelihood or something over a thing that I already agreed to in small print on a contract I didn't bother to read before I signed it.

And then -- and this is the best part -- I'd call myself later to relay the events of this incident in exacting detail while I was trying to watch "Beware the Batman" or something else pretty stupid, while forcing myself the whole time to pretend that I thought that I was in the right and handled this situation exactly as I should have because, hey, I might be a college educated adult in the year 2014, but why should I have to accept the realities of how the world actually works and while me constantly bitching about it to me hasn't seemed to change anything, maybe this time it will... and I need to understand that women sometimes need to be heard and not talked to because I'm not supposed to try to solve the problem, I'm just supposed to listen and if I ever want to have a woman in my life I need to learn that lesson, but the whole time I'm thinking, this is exactly why I don't have a woman in my life, because you've led me to believe this is the shit I would have to deal with and I only have a vague idea of what sex is like, so I steadfastly refuse to believe it's worth it....

 What did I do, today, at the Verizon in Newport Mall? I just took note of the fact that if I'd done this three months ago when this first happened and the phone was still under warranty, I probably wouldn't have to deal with this new wrinkle, but hey! I've been paying for insurance this whole time for THIS VERY THING, so I'm not the idiot the women in my immediate family think I am for paying the extra 7 dollars every month. Then I said "Thank you" to the teenaged low-paid worker at a mall store front and went and bought a whopper.

NEXT: Alcohol