Plaidophile

So, my dentist's office called just now to ask if I could move tomorrow's teeth cleaning earlier in the day by a couple hours. I said I'd rather not, so could I move it to a different day instead? The response: "That would count as a broken appointment and we'd have to charge you a $50 fee," since it's less than 48 hours away from the appointment.

So I guess it's okay for them to want to change an appointment in a way which doesn't work for me, but for me to offer an alternative which works better for everyone counts against me? Is that how it's supposed to work?

So, earlier today, I got a phonecall from a New Jersey area code. I answered, they said something in a language I didn't understand, and I said, "You have the wrong number," and hung up. They called back, and I didn't answer. They left a message. Obviously it isn't intended for me, but I'm curious if anyone can figure out what they're saying if only because I want to know the sort of lengthy message that someone just leaves for a phone number which is obviously not the person who they are trying to reach.

I used to have a pretty good ear for languages, but I can't really tell what this is. My gut says it's either Hebrew or Farsi but I'm probably way off.

Hopefully this doesn't turn into the Somalian thing all over again (although since this call originated from the US I can at least expect it to not happen in the wee hours of the night).

So I'm thinking about getting a car again. Even though I'm pretty sure it's not worthwhile.

I ordered a bunch of music gear. It came in two shipments, both shipped on the same day, and both actually made it to San Francisco on the same day. The same name was on both of them. The same street address was on both of them. Presumably either the same company name or the same floor number were on both of them. AND YET, UPS knew what to do with one package (that arrived this morning) but the other one (which was as far as I can tell in the same truck with the same driver) was rejected because of an "incorrect suite number."

My office doesn't have a suite number, just a street address and "4th floor." Usually, shippers can figure this out. But every now and then, UPS, in its infinite wisdom, decides they need a suite number to continue. And so my stuff gets delayed.

Unfortunately, a lot of merchants don't seem to realize that both company name AND floor number are necessary for packages to get to me, but in this case UPS should have been able to figure it out anyway, simply because there was another package for me in the same batch of packages which actually made it to me.

And of course, whenever I call UPS under situations like this, they claim that they need to hear from the shipper, not from the recipient, because nothing makes things go faster than extra, unnecessary layers of bureaucracy and buck-passing.