Somehow I feel like "Alice's Restaurant" should be playing in the Background

Well, Well, Well, Well, Hell,

So.... I received a check for the 10% they want to give me. It was for back months from Jan of 2017. It was minimal. In the meantime the Doctor from the VA called me today to ask about my prescriptions. I am pretty sure he already had that info but I gave it to him again. He may be a little clueless as to how his organization works. When I told him I had already been sent their final decision and that it was just the minimum amount he stated he didn't know that. DUH!!!

On top of that I had to deal with the Social Security folks as well. I got the forms I needed to sign up for Part B from a phone call with the SSA in New Mexico. I downloaded the forms, filled them out as instructed, including getting a signature from Vicki's work proving I had coverage for the last two years. I explained to the lady that had I not had coverage I would have been dead. I don't think she got the joke.

Anyway, the paperwork needed to be rushed so I decided to take it to the SSA office out in Mesa. This was the office I signed up for Social Security at 2 years ago. This was my first mistake. The office moved to a bigger and much less friendly location. Instead of a comfortable waiting area and open desks behind a short wall, the new building features an armed guard,(who we shall refer to as Colonel Clink throughout the rest of this post) in spite of the fact that he was a late 20s to mid 30s hispanic mail in full regalia including bullet proof vest, pepper spray and glock sidearm.

This guy really got on my nerves. You weren't allowed to even bring in a bottle of water to the waiting area. Oh, let me tell you about that. Instead of any kind of decent chairs they have a few rows of all metal chairs, noted for their discomfort and really hard on the  backside and back. I felt sorry for some of the folks older and more debilitated than me. 

The whole place felt like a prison waiting room and the atmosphere seemed hostile to me and I let them know it. They were not amused. The guard came over to me and I told him that I had nothing to say to him and I didn't want to hear anything from him either. That went over like a lead  balloon. In the end I told him if there was any problem it was with him and not me. Yea, I made a lot of friends there.

After almost two hours I was called to one of the windows that are placed around two walls of the small holding area. I expressed my concerns to the lady at the window and my disappointment at their customer service and lack of hospitality. She apologized and then a little later told me she did not want to hear any further negative comments from me. What a sweetheart. She did get my paper work going and help me with a logon issue with their website. It was obvious that she was good at her job, but like the guard needed  some help with desk side manner.

The good news is that I did not get kicked out or arrested. The bad news is that for whatever reason the social security office now thinks it needs an armed guard and a less than hospitable attitude. And just for the record, No one likes being given petty bullshit orders and treated like cattle. So I am happy I said something.

These folks need to understand that they work for us, we don't work for them. Our tax dollars pay their wages and benefits. They don't pay our Social Security. We paid for years into the system and are just trying to get some of our money back.. No one should have to put up with their petty crap.  I will not be returning  to that place for any reason. I don't have the time or patience to do that again. 

While all this is going on I have had to switch computers. My HP finally bit it. It can take up to four hours to fix it's software glitches to just to get it to boot up. I don't have time for that either. After seeing a news article about a shop in Tempe that rebuilds Mac computers I went on line and found the Apple Exchange. They had a refurbished MacBook Pro, 15 inch with the Retina Display. That's what I am using for the first time on this post.

The laptop was three times the price  of the new HP we bought at Best Buy a couple of years ago. I think it's going to be worth it. It is lightening fast in comparison to the now defunct HP. It will take me some time to get used to it as it seems most everything is deliberately backwards from the windows environment. I hope I still have enough geek in me to learn how to use all of this machine's capabilities. 

Oh and we went and looked at an RV after all this other stuff. That didn't work out as we planned. The son of the owner balked at letting us drive the unit and have it checked out by a mechanic. It got a little sideways and we left without buying the RV. I guess this just wasn't the one of us.

This was the longest day I have spent out and about in months and at the end of the day I was exhausted. It started at 6 AM when we left for Vicki's work and ended a little after 6 PM when we got home. I did enjoy the early driving (the 300 owns the freeways) but by the time we were driving from far north Phx to Sun Lakes I was beat.

All in all a somewhat productive day for an old geezer in chemo.

I hope your days go a little better than mine.

Hang in there,

RT