Aybars (screen name)

I have spent the past 18 months trying to obtain unclaimed funds from the OK State Treasury - funds that are part of an Estate. 18 months of emails, calls and snail mail. 18 months of confusion and frustration. 18 months of wondering what properties (of the 20 or so in question) that did and did not belong to this specific Estate, 18 months of wondering how much money remained unclaimed. Finally, today, I had my answer. 34 cents!

Now I wonder how much was spent on salaries, postage, envelopes, letterhead…

——-

Dear OK Treasury,

Was it worth the investment?

——-

And these unclaimed funds are to be divided three ways. Let the fight ensue over who should get the 12th cent. Though I think I should get the 12th cent as compensation for my time and efforts.

Years ago my work spouse had this habbit of leaving her mobile phone lying about when she’d leave her desk - almost without fail it would ring. And ring. And ring. And ring… One day our boss suggested we / I write a standard operating procedures manual and corresponding checklist - I did, see below - and this document has been passed around more times than the head cheerleader at a football afterparty. Always taken with humor. Until today…

From: B
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 10:04 AM
To: L, M
Subject: R.e., the LOD checklist

I was asked to apologize [to Timex] and I did and I let her know that in the past we pass this amongst our close personal friends and that it won’t happen again. She nodded.

From: L
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 10:12 AM
To: B, M
Subject: RE: R.e., the LOD checklist

I can’t believe Mxxxxxx even took that to Cxxxx.  These people are out of control. 

From:  B
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 10:14 AM
To: L, M
Subject: RE: R.e., the LOD checklist

Timex did (or she pushed it). Campbell [aka Mxxxxxx] thought it was funny and also proof that Timex lacks a sense of humor.

From: B
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 10:16 AM
To: L, M
Subject: RE: R.e., the LOD checklist

Also, I was told that she finds the noises we make (sniffles, coughs, etc) bother her but she never complains…. Well, that was a complaint, was it not?!

From: B
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 10:20 AM
To: L, M
Subject: RE: R.e., the LOD checlist

Sniffles, coughs, etc… I should have included TYPING. Yes, the volume / quantity of OUR TYPING is a problem.

From: M
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 10:23 AM
To: B, L
Subject: RE: R.e., the LOD checklist

Yeah, I can see how productivity would offend her…

From:  B
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 10:27 AM
To: L, M
Subject: RE: R.e., the LOD checklist

And… Cheddar was called into the conference room and was asked why she never reported having received this? Her reply: no reason, it was a joke. So Cxxxx and / or Campbell are LOOKING for reasons to vanquish me. OK…

Good to know.

When Lxxxx was asked, she laughed… While Timex was standing there.

From: L
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 10:30 AM
To: B, M
Subject: RE: R.e., the LOD checklist

Wow.  They have the hurt feelings checklist in M&S but you don’t hear them crying and complaining.  Just sad!  

Do you know how many times I’ve received that document?

It seems a certain airline’s personnel in OKC do things a bit differently. While an inbound flight waited for the baggage to be unloaded the individual responsible for that task was found in the break room.

Agt 1 (Good airline): Why are you not out working the flight?
Agt 2 (Not so good airline): I’m on lunch.
Agt 1: Seriously?
Agt 2: I’m on lunch.
Agt 1: Shouldn’t you be scheduling your lunches around the flights, not the other way around?
Agt 2: Why don’t you go work the flight…

Whilst I waited - “whilst”, what a funny word - at the Oklahoma City (OKC) airport this afternoon, I was regaled with the following story:

OKC airport -

Pax: That woman. Really. She’s not appropriately dressed. Can’t you remove her from the plane?
Agt 1: No, ma’am, we cannot…

Connecting airport -

Agt 2 (Calling OKC): We have an elderly woman here wearing a pink string bikini and a wrap made of netting. We understand you allowed her board in this outfit. Is that correct?
Agt 1 (At OKC): That’s correct.
Agt 2: This is not acceptable attire. We cannot board her; the other passengers are complaining. Why did you allow her on the plane?
Agt 1: Can you show me where we have a dress code for paying passengers? If so, then I made a mistake. If not…
Agt 2: No. Shoes are mandatory but other than that our dress code only covers employees.
Agt 1: And that’s why we boarded her.

West Palm Beach Airport -

Agt 3 (Calling the connecting airport): We have a woman here…why did you allow her to board.
Agt 2 (At connecting airport): Call OKC…
Agt 3 (Calling OKC): We have woman here… Another passenger took one look at her and promptly threw up. Whose cost center is going to cover the clean up?

Today’s Holiday Tip

While preparing a package of presents for the niece and nephew, don’t leave for the post office before making sure that a recently purchased box of condoms didn’t fall into the box. This is important.

Guest says:
I gave my niece a box of condoms for her 16 birthday, and instructed her on the proper method of installing them on her boyfriend.

Strepsi replies:
You rolled a condom onto your niece’s boyfriend??? Hot.

My friend Brad, who I’ve not seen in several months (as he is prone to moments of disappearance) posted to his FB account. As Brad thinks right of center while I go left I felt this specific post called out for some gentle teasing… Then Brad’s friend, Greg, involved himself, followed by Brad’s wife, Michelle. 

Whereas in the past I would sit idly by while people exposed their stupidity like a flasher with a small penis, I now find myself purposefully engaged in a FB fight of my own - pointing at Greg’s penis, laughing…


Brad: OK Occupy people. You were entertaining in an annoying little brother kind of way when you were banging on your drums and smoking pot and singing songs outside of areas downtown, but when you disrupt normal, everyday working people at the ports you have just become idiot lawbreakers. In your moronic attempt at trying to hurt your mythical 1%, you have hurt regular people trying to make a living.

ME: Dearest, Bradley:

While you sit comfortably at your PC (or Mac) wold you please let me know what you are dong - pro bono and with altruism - to create a positive change in the world ourside your circle of family and friends and work environment? Like it or not, these folks are doing something in the face of adversity; it’s a revolution of sorts, while most Americans sit comfortably on the sidelines and take for granted… everything and everyone. One day the Occupiers may prove to be on the right-side of history.

Now onto more important things… You don’t call, you don’t write, you don’t check FB very often (I assume). I’m just not feeling loved anymore. It’s like you dumped me all those years ago for a girl. Michelle. OY!

Greg: he WORKS !

Me: Greg needs a remedial reading course, though he should probably start with “Fun With Phonics” - the pictures might beneifit him. That way he can learn that when something says “Dearest Bradley” it is not directed at “Not-so-Dearest Greg”.

He could also use a dictionary - or do I need to resort to using single syllable words and / or a game of Pictionary? - so he can learn that “please let me know what you are dong - pro bono and with altruism - to create a positive change in the world outside your circle of family and friends and work environment?” means without concern for the self and without pay and that “he WORKS !” is not an appropriate reply to that question. A question that was, I reiterate, NOT asked of Greg.

What I really want to know is this: Is Greg the type of person who read “For a good time call…” on the bathroom walls. And then did? To argue?

For the past few months I have been handicapped, albeit temporarily. My walking is greatly limited due to a continuation of breaks and fractures in the same foot, the cause of which remains a mystery.

Anyhow, a few days ago I placed an online order with WalMart.com to have store delivery (Westview location, Houston) for a printer and some photo paper. Yesterday I received a text that part of the order had arrived.

Without knowing what part of the order had arrived I went into the store and asked the woman at the service desk to call the Site-to-Store desk (located in the back of the store) and find out which part of my order had arrived. If it was the printer I would like help getting that, if the paper I would return when the printer had arrived.

Instead of calling (as I had asked) she offered me the electric cart. I found this ‘gesture’ embarrassing (and hoped it was not intentionally so). Only after she realized that the cart was non-functioning did she place a call. To a manager.

Upon his arrival the manager also suggested the electric cart only to be told it wasn’t working. He then told me that they lacked the staffing to assist me. That was it, end of discussion. I left.

Once at home, I emailed the corporate office to cancel the order. I can’t bring myself to even consider shopping WM again.

Arpad Miklos (screen name)
September 11, 1967

1944.03.xx —- WWII. My grandfather’s B-17 was shot down over Germany, he was the only crewman killed, the only crewman married.

My grandfather, a bombardier, was shot in the chest by an oncoming German fighter plane. The navigator’s report states he was projected through the Plexiglas nose of the plane as it crashed into a river bank.

My grandmother was two months pregnant with my father.

2010.12.xx —- My grandmother died.

The last few years of Granny’s life, I commuted almost every weekend from south TX to central OK. It was of utmost importance that I ensure her remaining time was a joyous life lived in her own home.

It was only in the last year or so that she began to speak of my grandfather and then only in passing.

2011.01.xx —- While going to through papers I came across a love letter from my grandfather to my grandmother. The only letter between them I have yet to find.

Written the day before he died, his efforts to reassure my grandmother of his safety, to paint a promising picture, was evident. He knew what lay ahead… He also knew she was pregnant, referring to their unborn child as “Junior”.

I wish my father had cared for me the way his father cared for him – and he was yet to be born. My father was an absentee father and that’s being generous.

2011.11.xx —- I flew to Germany to see where the plane went down, where my grandfather was buried and where he was re-interred. I was looking for answers.

I began by meeting with the local archivists who provided me with newspaper clipping and a local contact, a witness, and a local historian whose specialty is crashes.

The witness took me to the crash site and gave me a copy of a sketch he made for the Luftwaffe.

Nearly 70 years after the fact it would be a mistake to think there are still signs of a crash. There aren’t. The river bank is just a clean, pretty area, perfect for jogging, picnics and the like.

Later, I made my way to the local village cemetery where my grandfather was buried as an Unknown.

Marklohe, the village, is very quaint, almost fairytale-like. It is spotlessly clean, with manicured lawns and cobblestone streets and far enough from yet close enough to a big city to make village life blissful. I imagine he would have approved of this location.

That night, for dinner, I met the historian, odd and very proud of his work and himself. He has written extensively on crashes in the general area and is currently working on a book about this crash. As German is his native tongue, I asked him to clarify: is he writing on crashes for that day – as he said, the sky looked as though it was carpeted with aircraft; is he writing on crashes of B-17s; did I misunderstand? He is in fact writing on that very crash, that very crew. He asked for my assistance.

I immediately sent a text to my great-uncle, my grandfather’s brother – we had only met a few months before - telling him of this surreal moment. Had Granny lived, I think she would have been deeply touched.

—-

The following days I continued on to Belgium, the Ardennes American Cemetery And Memorial, a lovely, peaceful place. Respectful. Unknown KIAs (killed in action) were delivered there for identification. We still bury our soldiers there. My grandfather was interred there before being brought home.

—-

I wish I could have know him.

Andrew Okun
June 25, 1952 - August 17, 1992

Thunderstorms in both Oklahoma City and Houston dealyed the 1.30 departure until 5.00, the 3.00 and 4.30 until 6.00, and the 5.30 was simply cancelled. Whilst we waited…

Pax: Is this seat in first class?
Agt: No, ma’am, this is coach.
Pax: I’m not in first! How can that be?!
Agt: Your travel agent reissued your bulk ticket with seating in coach.
Pax: This always happens when I fly your airline. 

—-

Pax: I’m on the flight that was cancelled.
Agt: You’ve been rebooked on the 4.30.
Pax: No, I’m on the cancelled flight.

—-

Agt: We were paging you [hours ago]. We released your seat. 
Pax: I left [the airport]. I called the elite desk 25 minutes before the flight. You have my cell, why didn’t you call me?

—-

After waiting - impatiently, I must add - three hours for her flight…

Pax: Yes, I just got off that plane over there. I heard that my connecting flight was going to leave without me - dubious at best as the agent did not have this information - so I decided not to go. The agent over there told me you would not pull my luggage off that flight.
Agt: Yes ma’am. That’s correct.
Pax: But I packed my medication in my luggage, I need it. A case of desperation leading to false claims-
Agt: I’m sorry to hear that ma’am but your bags have been checked to Fort Lauderdale. I can contact them to have your bags returned when they arrive.
Pax: As the plane pulled away from the jetway. But…

—-

And then there was the flight attendant (in training) who sat in an area reserved for handicapped passengers. When I pointed this out to her - I’m still in the boot and my mother is near deaf - she replied, “I’m sorry, I didn’t see that [blue and white sticker that covered the entire back of my chair.]”

I’d place money on her being long gone in an emergency.

I spent the morning…mourning. My wife’s father’s funeral was today. And by “wife” I mean work-spouse; and people who don’t know, don’t know and we don’t care and I digress.

Of all the funerals I’ve attended this one surely counts as the most interesting.

On the left sat my ‘father-in-law’s’ immediate family; my wife, her husband and their daughter in the front pew. A sister of the deceased sat next to them in the aisle, her chapeua a giant liquorice-colored Dots candy dipped in Swarovski crystals. The large family attired in old-school Sunday dress to Kentucky Derby finery to…Friday night dance club. 

On the right sat my wife’s immediate family, stylish and subdued.

The service could have been somber had my wife’s toddler not been crowd surfing, being passed overhead from pew to pew; the deceased family stood clapping, praising the the Lord…  And Reverend Joseph, aged 76, tore it up and burned it down. When he removed his jacket it was clear he was only warming up; the other younger pastors stood to catch him. For the better part of an hour with a voice like Alberta Hunter and moves like James Brown he delivered a sermon that exploded with religious fervor.

At one point, the younger pastors escorted Reverend Joseph away from the pulpit and out the side door - as he continued writhing about, preaching.

—-

While the procession to the cemetery was organizing all I could say to my wife was, “I love you. Call me when you want or need to.”

I wish I believed in an afterlife. Ceratinly, I want to spend eternity with select family, friends, people I’ve never met and all my pets (though I don’t think the fish would care one way or the other) but I don’t believe I will. I don’t think any of us will. Ashes to ashes…

So for me to say “He’s in a better place, out of pain, blah, blah blah…” would be fraud. I hope she understands.