Sometimes it's worth asking...

Despite growing up hearing "there are no stupid questions", I can't help but disagree. I mean, for example, at Thanksgiving this year I asked my husband's aunt where she grew up. She looked at me in complete consternation--and with good reason, considering that her brother, my father-in-law, lives basically down the street from us, and not far from where they both grew up. Worst of all, I had been mulling over the question for a good fifteen minutes or more before asking it. So perhaps if you're NOT pregnant there are no stupid questions, but that one was definitely stupid.

This afternoon, however, I decided to risk sounding stupid. My goals: to acquire 4x8 envelopes to address baby announcement photo cards ahead of time, and to get a late charge removed from a utility bill.

The envelopes
So, into MotoPhoto I went this afternoon. What I really wanted to ask was whether they would "advance" me a hundred envelopes. What I asked instead was whether it was possible to preorder the baby announcements. They followed up with a gem of a stupid question: "Do you have the picture of the baby with you?" I looked down at my 10-month belly and smiled. I didn't have to explain further. [In fairness, it could be that they worried I had had the baby and still looked pregnant, and didn't want to insult me....] They showed me the options for the baby announcements; there was one I liked in the 4x8 size; and they then volunteered to simply give me the envelopes! Great customer service--I was astonished, and delighted, and will obviously be using services of theirs that normally I avoid because of price.

The late charge
The late charge was NOT my fault. No seriously--this time, it really wasn't. Sometimes they are (there was a bad month or two during my first trimester when I missed a couple payments by a few days, but nothing dramatic), but not in this case. When we moved from our apartment, our water bill had to be discontinued by the building itself, rather than by the individual tenant. Predictably, the building failed to notify the water company either of our moving out or of our new address, and in December, I received a bill, forwarded from the apartment address, that included water usage two weeks after we had vacated the apartment. I called the utility, and was told to speak to the building. I called the building, and they said they would take care of it. Christmas came and went, the due date for the bill came and went, and still I had not received my updated bill. I had a note to follow-up on this today, but last Friday received the updated bill--forwarded from my old address, grumble--including a $6.00 late fee. Okay, so $6.00 is not the end of the world, but it seemed so unjust. Though I believed it to be a fruitless exercise (whoever heard of a utility forgiving a late fee?) I went ahead and called the company. I'd planned 20 minutes for the call--holding time, argument 1, holding time waiting to be transferred to a supervisor, argument 2, etc. Instead my call was picked up by a person (imagine my shock!) to whom I pleasantly explained that, since the late fee was incurred because I was waiting for an updated bill, I felt I shouldn't be charged the fee. There was much typing and a period of silence, and then, "Okay, I've removed the late fee. Your new bill is for...." It was almost a let-down of adrenaline--I was so prepared to argue my point!

So maybe this is all really a story of a day full of good customer service. Regardless, the lesson learned: it doesn't hurt to ask the question!

Have a sense of humor!

I think we take things too personally these days, assuming that anything someone says that touches on something we feel strongly about is meant to be antagonistic, when really: life is too short and full of things that really ARE serious not to try to see the humor in things that really are funny (or at least worthy of a "chuckle")!

I have two examples from this past week. One will potentially offend Redskins fans; the other, Bush fans. No offense is meant; rather, I happen to find both these things genuinely amusing, team loyalties and politics aside. And as I enter my 10th month of pregnancy today, really, people--cut me some slack!

For the Redskins Fans:
This particular gem was brought to my attention by my husband, Jesse, a rabid Redskins fan who, even so, laughed as he read it to me. From the Zeitgeist column in yesterday's Washington Post: #6

Sports. British footballer David Beckham is coming to America, after signing a five-year $250 million contract to run Home Depot. Ha! We joke. He's getting all that money to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy, a team nobody has heard of in Los Angeles, or anywhere else in the galaxy. Beckham's brand of football is different from "American football," because players can't catch the ball or tackle their opponents. In America, that's known as "Redskins football."

After the season the Redskins have had, surely even fans can summon at least a wry grin....

For the Administration Fans:
You've probably heard about this one by now. In Senate testimony last week, Condoleeza Rice clarified that the additional 21,000+ troops we'll be sending to Iraq does not represent an escalation of troops, but rather an augmentation. Now, keeping in mind that, with a master's in linguistics, I have the utmost of respect for minor semantic variations, I feel obliged to point out that dictionary.com defines these terms as follows:

• escalate: to increase in intensity, magnitude, etc.
• augment: to make larger; enlarge in size, number, strength, or extent; increase

Both words are also listed as synonyms of each other and "increase". Still, there is clearly a difference. And yet, it's hard to keep from chuckling, at least a little, at the idea of defending this difference.

Back to waiting for this baby to come....