Miracles and Meltdowns.

I have been going back to the gym with the attitude, "Let's agree to forgive and forget, Gold's Gym. I will do so if you help me get in shape for the Cancer Marathon in April. Which is bigger than us both and is a cause we can agree to team up for, right?"

WRONG. I get the kids ready and drive to their favorite Gold's location in Orem to be a cool Mom. Today for some reason is the day Gold's Orem decides I can't workout. They tell me the gym access pass is expired but I do have another year of daycare. So I'm back to square one...again. For those of you that have no idea what this is about, I will catch you up quickly. Last year Brett gave me a one year free pass! I had the gym employee sign me up for my year. I told him I would need a year daycare to go with and that I was happy to pay for that. He filled out two contracts, one Gym pass one Daycare pass. I look at the dates on the Gym pass and it's correct, for one year. I sign both. Later I am told that I have TWO years Daycare. I say, "No way! I asked for and signed a contract for one year."

NOPE! The guy put a two year date on the daycare. Why? Not sure. To get me to pay money for no reason for a service I can't utilize I guess. Or in other words to totally screw me.

So I go through the ringer. I go to corporate offices where they laugh me out the door with the attitude, "We don't care what you were told you were getting, the date is right there and there is your signature, so, *bird finger raised* there is the door." Everyone at Corporate offices I talk to gives me this same attitude. I also call Paramount Acceptance (that owns my contract) over and over to talk to a supervisor. I leave messages. One calls me back TWO WEEKS later and says, "This is Joanne *sigh* call me back at *rambles off number* click." Like she's pissed to get MY voicemail after I got hers half a dozen times. I talk to her, I talk to her supervisor. I talk to everyone. Nada. I give up. I quit going to the gym even though I have months left on both passes. Because I am pissed and angry every time I see Gold's. I decide to pay for it in full to sell on Craig's List. I find out, when I call to pay in full, that I have an account that shows two years of gym and daycare!! I ask multiple times if he is sure! Yep. He says he's 99% sure. HUZZAH! Oh glorious day someone must have helped me! Someone that I left a message with took pity on me and did the right thing and gave me the extra year as a consolation for all of the crap I've been through! I go back to Gold's with a forgiving heart after a very busy few months of work. I am going to get in shape and single handedly raise a billion dollars to fight cancer. All is well!

NOPE! Access Denied.

The blonde Gym Manager that wouldn't let me in was such a condescending human being. She said things out of half closed eyes like, "Well it seems simple to me but you obviously have gotten confused somewhere." I had to keep telling her I was NOT confused. That wasn't the problem. I seem to find CS people that think that explaining how things go down somehow equals customer service. Like, "If I just get you to understand how it all happened you will go away." It doesn't. I am not confused. I was there for how it went down and I can read your computer screen as well as you can. And when customers get upset, the goal of a Manager should not be to go out of their way to try and be "smarter" than the customer. It's not a contest.

She had me talk to a cool guy named Keola who was very calm and listened. He would look into doing the right thing and get back to me. So I am waiting.

Onto a couple new updates elsewhere...

1. I read CJane's update on her blog about people's comments. She has so many to deal with I guess it's her equivalent of customer relations, really. I would not ever imagine that she had to weed out rude comments. Guess what, she does. She put a few in her post. People called her selfish and self centered. Which I find HILARIOUS after everything her family has sacrificed in order to help out Nie. I mean, really. Some people are nuts. NUTS! Projection as a human condition should be taught in school along with Math and Science. Anis Nin says you see the world not as it is, but as you are. BINGO.

2. My producer friend called. (The one that took lots of pictures of our house for the info-mercial?) They liked our house. So they came by with a few more decision makers and did a Tech Scout. They liked our house. Then corporate guys flew in and they did another Tech Scout. They liked our house. So its official now, we just got word the week of Christmas. They will shoot in our house!! We supply the ugly before, they supply the lovely after. The extent of which has not been determined but the kitchen gets a whole overhaul for certain. The aesthetic decisions being made by me and their Art Director together. So we have a creative meeting to schedule and the rest of my January will be spent happily wheeling and dealing with the SUPER cool guys from Multi Master! I feel like they are my little mini-Extreme Home Make-Over team. I am SO grateful. It's a Christmas Miracle!!

I'm praying for another one from Gold's. That they will be calling me back with a free year of Gym access or give me my money back!! Why not, right? I'm pretty sure anything can happen after the Multi-Master Miracle.