Money Laundering

I had a bit of an interesting experience at a local business today. While washing my clothes at Hillside Laundry in Oswego, NY I had the misfortune of suffering a power outage. As it turned out there were thousands of other people in the surrounding area who also lost power due to a motor vehicle accident. At the present time I don't have any further details on the condition of those involved in the accident. However, I'm certain that anyone that is curious about the collision you could always check Facebook for more information. After all, that's where I look for all of my newsworthy info because that site is always 100% accurate.


I have personally been involved with customer service for nearly half of my life. I am the first to admit that at times when I've been challenged by an unhappy customer, I might not always respond with the kindest of tongues. In my own defense though, when I deal with a dissatisfied patron, the majority of the time there is alcohol involved on their part, as I am a bartender at Greene's Ale House. Since I am the one who is ALWAYS completely sober behind the bar when I'm working, I do not subscribe to the business "rule of thumb" that states the customer is always right.


But I digress. I am very aware that human error or natural disasters are often responsible for power outages. By no means am I holding the owner of Hillside responsible for her place of business going dark. I did however wait several minutes for the power to return before reaching out to the phone number displayed in the front window. When I phoned, I briefly stated what the situation was and asked for a response in a timely manner. After waiting for a period of time with no answer I decided trying another avenue. There was also a business email address posted so I left a short note which I simply titled HELP in the subject box. I wasn't exactly expecting a response to the email but I figured that it might send a notification to the owner's cell phone which may prompt a reply.


After being without power and having no reply from the business, I reluctantly made an attempt to open the washer door. I was concerned that water would flood the floor, if I could even get the door to unlock. Very much to my surprise the lock did indeed disable itself when the power went out. Fortunately the water had already drained so I didn't make a bad situation worse by creating a huge mess. I did however end up with an extremely heavy clothes basket of incredibly saturated garb. Luckily for me I remain in my prime to this day so I was able to carry the extra weight. And between you and I, I don't even work out. I don't have to. What can I say? Some of us are just gifted with an incredible physique.


As I exited the parking lot I rapidly became engulfed in a sea of traffic. I quickly came upon several service vehicles and diligent City of Oswego employees who were trying their best to restore order. Although I was a bit peeved that approximately a half hour had passed without a response from Hillside, I had to make that choice to travel across town to an alternate washboard. At that time, I was still considerate of the fact that Hillside hadn't caused the outage. My only choice was to wait to speak with management in order to request a refund to recover my money. As I resumed washing my belongings at Colonial Laundromat I finally received a phone call back from Hillside. And as you can imagine the conversation did not go well.


For the sake of this post we will call the responder "Stephanie".


"This is Stephanie from Hillside. I got your message. Has the power come back on yet?"


I told her I didn't think it had yet. I explained that since nobody had responded to me in a timely fashion that I was left with no other choice but to leave her place of business. I kindly asked how I could be given a refund. She told me I could not be refunded because I already opened the machine. She told me I should have waited for power to be restored and that the washer would have completed its cycle. Since I had opened the door I had gave up my right to a refund. I told her I understood that her business was in no way responsible for the interruption of service but I believed I was entitled to a much more prompt response to my call of concern. Believe it or not, at this point I still remained rather calm, but my blood was definitely starting to near a boiling point.


Stephanie next told me that she lives an hour away and couldn't have been of anymore help at the point when I decided to leave.


"I have no on site employees there" was what I was told.


She continued to tell me that I should have left my clothing unattended if I didn't have time to wait for the machine to resume operation. I was also told that she runs a clean and safe establishment. I expressed that this was not acceptable and that I was not comfortable leaving my clothes there.
She said that it was my choice to leave and that it was policy that I could not receive a refund. At this point I may have begun to have a slight bit of an attitude with Miss Stephanie.


"If you run such a safe business environment, why are the walls plastered with disclaimers stating that Hillside Laundry is not responsible for any lost or stolen items?"


As I expected, all I could hear on the other end of the phone was the sound of crickets. She knew she was wrong but again reiterated that my clothing SHOULD have been safe. When I again pointed out that her disclaimers must have been placed prominently in view for a reason she actually agreed with me. I again asked for a refund and was told I had no recourse.


I understand that running a small business is an extremely difficult task to take on oneself. I admit that I may have over looked their policy on power outage protocol. I did search their web site from top to bottom looking for their power outage policy. I'm sure none of you will be surprised to learn that I found no such policy. My beef is that when the power is on the door to the machine would never have opened. If I chose to leave under different circumstances I would never have requested a refund. I just think "Lil Stephie Poo" has a great deal to learn about customer service. And if any of you who read this are in agreement with her I encourage you to call me out and explain to me how I am in the wrong with regard to this specific situation as it arose. Believe you me, this has nothing to do with the money that I am out. It is purely based on principle.


I think it is very safe to say that I will no longer be patronizing the Hillside Laundry establishment. That is entirely my right to make that choice. Next time you need to reach me on laundry day I can probably be found on the banks of the Oswego River beating my laundry on a rock.

BLONDIE

Embarrassingly, its been nearly 9 months since I have posted anything on this site. Many of you have asked in passing, if I've been writing lately. I've always managed to come up with one lame excuse after another as to why I've been neglecting my readers. It would be easy for me to say that sometimes life happens, that I just haven't had the time. That would be complete bullshit, of course. I used to make plenty of time in the past to compose a bunch of senseless, witty, remarks for your entertainment purposes, didn't I?

I've been nothing short of lazy, as well as uninspired lately, for some reason. I gave up on something that I had once shown a passion for. Writing. Although I've always looked forward to your comments and reactions to the absurd stories and tales that I have spun here, on Boozer's Blog, I was never doing it for any praise. Don't get me wrong, it has always felt great when I get positive responses from my posts. But in my heart, it has always been, and I hope, will continue being about an artistic release.

I've actually outlined and drafted countless pieces since last year, but none of them ever came to fruition. As I've said in the past, it's been easy for me to get out of writing shape. I have no delusions of being some budding author, I just truly enjoy sharing my opinions and sarcasm with you. But it certainly takes much more practice and dedication than I have been able to show in the recent past. I hope that changes tonight.

So what's been going on in Boozer's life since my last post, late in the Spring of 2011? Many things of course. I officiated my 1st, and possibly my last wedding as an ordained minister. It was one of the single most memorable moments of my life, as I'm sure it was for the bride and groom too. It was also quite possibly the single most terrifying moment of my life. Don't get me wrong, marrying Justin and Sheena Hall was something I am very proud to have said I have done. But conquering a life long fear of public speaking is probably not something you should do by marrying your friends in front of 175 people. I was absolutely crapping my pants through the entire ceremony. I was littered with more compliments for my duty following the service than I would have ever imagined, from friends and strangers alike. But if I was a match stick I would have been better served being dropped in a fire place.

Let's see, what else? Oh, yeah. I became a wanna be "tour rat" for a Celtic Rock band called Enter the Haggis, who I'm actually listening to now as I write. They're an Irish band from Toronto who are currently making quite a name for themselves both locally, as well as globally. As many of you know, I am a member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians here in Oswego, NY. Its a charitable Irish organization that I joined 2 years ago. It was at the AOH that I met the members of this band, and have since had the pleasure of seeing a number of times since their performance in Oswego. I look very forward to their return to our club this Fall for our annual half way to St Patty's Day party. And I encourage all of you in the area reading this to come out and join in that celebration. OK, enough of the shameless plugs and free advertising for that event this September. Tim Kirwan put me up to that.

What else? I've also continued on with my dream of pursuing my class A skydiving license. I did a few more jumps last Summer, obviously successfully. In a few short weeks I will be traveling to New Hampshire. I am going to a wind tunnel to practice air maneuvers with my teachers, as well as my fellow students. Who knows what my future holds with regards to me attaining my license. It's going to be a long, tough, road. As much as I annoy many of you in person with my conversations about jumping, it's obviously something I love. I might never make it through the whole program, but I can always live with that failure, as long as I try.

There. I think that's enough of a recap into the last 9 months of my life. I guess that was more for the readers whom I don't see or talk to on a regular basis. Many of you might be asking, "Why today? Why is he all of a sudden writing again today?" Well you're about to find out.

I've been know to bend the truth on this blog in the past. If for no other reason, sometimes the truth can be boring. However, what I'm about to share with you actually happened to me at work today at Greene's Ale House, and I've got witnesses.

What started out as a typical day of work, if there is such a thing as typical in the bar business, got very interesting right before I turned the lights on for business. I peered out into the parking lot to witness what seemed to be a very confused driver. She undoubtedly was an out of towner in my opinion, or at least not a regular patron at Greene's. She and her passenger kept circling the parking lot like sharks in the water. The two of them kept gazing through the windows, looking for some sign of life that the bar was open. I would have thought that the empty parking lot, as well as the absence of any lights on would have been the social cue that they were looking for, that perhaps the establishment wasn't open for business. Not so much.

When they finally decided on about their fifth parking spot to dock their ship, this mother-daughter duo began to approach the bar, somewhat reluctantly. They of course entered and I politely shuffled them over to a booth, telling them it would be a few minutes until we were serving. As it turned out, I could have gone back to their table next week and they likely would have still been confused with the art of dining out. And I'm not even exaggerating when I say the drama that would ensue shortly there after was still even beyond my belief at this point.

I eventually turned on that charm of mine and enthusiastically meandered over to their table. Luckily there were no other patrons, as it took them nearly four minutes to order 10 garlic-parmesan wings, an iced tea, and a glass of water with no ice. I could tell already that my retirement just moved up by at least on shift with the cash I was sure to rake in off this fare.

I barely made it back to the bar when the mother came up and asked me if there was a pharmacy in the area. I directed her down the street to Kinney's Drug Store. She left shortly there after and things started to make some sort of sense, or so I thought. They must have just come from the doctor's office and her teen-aged daughter was certainly under the weather.

Not to long after the mom left, I brought the wings to their table. The girl seemed a bit sluggish, as she didn't even touch the food. A minute later she asked for directions to the rest room, and she went in that direction in a real hurry. All of a sudden things started to fall into place. Teenage girl gets knocked up. Mom takes her to the "box doctor". Little Miss Prego gets one whiff of the wings and has to go toss her cookies. Am I right or what? As it turned out I couldn't have been further off.

The mom returned, as if by cue and began desperately searching for her daughter. I sent her in the direction of the hopper and thought nothing more of it at that point. The next thing I heard was the mother yelling "Excuse me, excuse me!!" from around the corner. As I walked toward the end of the bar the mother piled the daughter into a stool at the bar and said "She's fainting!" Being the caring individual that you all know I am, I offered assistance immediately, suggesting that I could call for paramedics. Not only did the mother say no, she went on to tell me that her daughter was suffering from PMS!!!

Are you fucking kidding me!! This little princess is carrying on like she's on her death bed and her mother is telling me her little girl is suffering from her period!! I can't even begin to describe the look on my face. I again sarcastically asked if she needed an ambulance. The mother stood there rubbing her "unconscious" daughter's neck and said no, this happens to her every month! It was about then that the little drama queen managed to make it back to her feet and stumble back to their table under the assistance of Mommy Dearest. Of course, they stopped half way to the table to "rest" against the wall. Give me a fucking break.

Shortly after the Tampax Queen was piled back into their booth, with her feet elevated at her mother's request, real patrons began to be seated at the bar. Of course they began to inquire about the theater department that the dining room had become. And in an elevated voice I made it loud and clear that the Queen of the Junior Prom was on the rag.

With my patience tested at that point I offered a to go container for the wings and brought them their bill. The mother paid by credit card, and I swear to you I am not making this up. For legal reasons I cannot reveal her last name, but her first name was BLONDIE!!! I shit you not, that was the name on her credit card.

I figured that they would be on their way at that point. However, the mom informed me that they had more time to kill because they would be headed out to the campus at Oswego State for her daughter's college visit. At this point I was virtually fed up with the whole situation and I had a decent crowd forming at the bar for lunch. Just when I thought it was over, the mother frantically came to the bar and instructed me that the "patient" needed two slices of bread.

What in the hell is bread going to do to help this situation? I became convinced that I had been cast in a terrible after school movie special about the risks of teen pregnancy. But I thought, fuck it, I'll play along, and I forked over a couple of slices of rye bread.

About twenty minutes later, probably just before it was time for their appointment on campus, the little princess made a remarkable recovery and sat up. She took a couple of swigs off of her water, with no ice cubes by the way, and managed to walk right out to the car with her mother. At that point I put my faith in the drama department at Oswego State that they would recognize this little bitch was no Molly Ringwald, and they will deny her admittance to the university.

I have truly seen some pretty strange things happen at Greene's Ale House in the decade and a half that I've been employed there. Never in a million years could I have expected to witness that today. If anything good came out of this experience I'd have to say that it inspired me to write again. I'm sure this isn't even close to my best work, but I couldn't resist sharing that act of shenanigans.