How to annoy me

First, walk around the office with the loudest shuffle imaginable, almost as if you are a gorilla who was accidentally let loose from the zoo to wander among computers and normal human beings. Second, take every opportunity while scuffling around the hallways to clear your throat. Use high tones and low tones, many times together or just one at a time here and there, but never use this opportunity to clear your throat hard enough OR ACTUALLY COUGH so that you don't have to do it again in 30 seconds. Just keep making the wimpy noise at irregular intervals. Third, listen to your iPod at 8am and SING ALONG TO IT AT WORK. Everyone knows you have a terrible voice, so why not let everyone hear it? It's not like you'd ever shut your office door to protect the innocent from your screeching.

We've all grown accustomed to respecting each other's personal space, right? Why isn't audio space included? Why do people think it's okay to whistle, hum, or sing along to the music in their head while surrounded by other people?

Blockbuster

Yesterday I looked at my credit card bill and saw four mysterious charges from Blockbuster on it. Two debits about a week apart, then two credits on a later day. All told, it says I owe Blockbuster $11.64.

Today I got a friendly postcard from Blockbuster reminding me to return a disc of 24 that I rented, along with The Ringer (didn't rent this) and some movie called Grandma's Boy (never rented this one either) on the same day. So I called my local Blockbuster and explained that I had only rented one movie when I came in that day, and was there some mixup to explain why I had been charged for not returning these movies that I didn't rent? I eventually talked with the manager who told me that never would one of his star employees have messed up and done something like accidentally left my account open while someone else was renting movies. So then, I asked, what should we do to resolve this? I rented the movie with a free coupon, so unfortunately I don't have a credit card receipt for it. He said that the only thing he could do was look through "the tapes" early next week and see if he could verify that I, in fact, rented only one DVD. I'm assuming this is their security video, but I'm not really sure. Anyway, since they're a "very busy store," he couldn't be bothered to check right now. Apparently I forgot how much of a madhouse Blockbuster is at 7pm on a Wednesday night.

This is really frustrating. I realize that it's only 11 dollars, but I did not rent those other movies, and I'm not interested in paying Blockbuster because someone else didn't return their DVDs on time. But I don't really have much leverage here. I can see that from their point of view, the computer says that I rented these movies and returned them late, so they assume that I'm lying to get out of paying the fees. I should have kept my receipt, I guess, but who keeps a receipt for a movie they got with a free coupon over three weeks ago?

I didn't like the fact that I had to give Blockbuster my credit card information to open the account, but I can appreciate that it's the only way they have to charge delinquent customers. But if they can't keep their stuff straight, then I'm not interesting in keeping an account with them.

The one where you stop reading because all I talk about is my eyes

I know, I know... skip it if you don't want to hear about the latest episode of Days of My Eyes. We're going on four months now. That's what I told my doctor, and to my dismay, he didn't sound very concerned.

Anyway. The last time I wore contacts was two weeks ago, and up until Monday, my eyes weren't clear enough to wear contacts again, but they weren't so bad that I scared small children when I walked down the street. But they weren't really getting any better, and they started to get worse on Sunday. I started to scare small children on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday I woke up to discover that there were no longer any white areas in the "white part" of my eye - it looked like they had been bathed in red paint. I called my ophthalmologist's office and made an appointment for that afternoon, and when I finally got in to see the doctor, he gave me blah, blah talk about allergy flareups, nothing serious.

Believe me, I am the first one to be grateful that this is not a serious medical problem, but I don't think my eye doctor understands that this is still a huge deal for me. For one thing, he wears glasses, not contacts. I don't think anyone who hasn't worn contacts is aware of just how much contacts are a lifestyle, not just a convenient way of correcting your vision. And I'm sure that I'm not the first person to come into his office with this sort of problem, but it doesn't help when he brushes off my concerns about it, especially since I don't see other people on the street whose eyes look like mine. He seems to be interested in only treating the symptoms, not the root cause.

Bad beside manner aside, he wrote me a prescription for some weak corticosteroid eye drops, which I've been taking for a couple days now. Yes, contrary to everything that I learned in 9th grade health class, I'm taking steroids. And let me tell you, they work like magic. Their purpose is simply to inhibit the body's processes that cause inflammation though, so I'm not exactly cured, but hopefully the drops will jump-start my eyeballs. I'm supposed to use the drops for two months, so maybe by the end of that time, my eyes will have remembered that their purpose in life is to work for ME, not the other way around.