Ten Dollar Mistake

Let me give you a scenario.

You're at a restaurant. It's one of those places that gives you a complimentary bread basket. (So you're not in Europe.) The bread, lucky for you, isn't some sort of plain roll, but maybe some focaccia or a garlic bread. It comes with some herbs on the side in olive oil or some herb butter. The server comes over later and sees that your bread basket is empty. The server asks if you would like another bread basket. You loved the bread so you say, "Of course!" The server says they'll be back with some more bread soon. More bread arrives shortly thereafter.

In this scenario, would you expect to pay for the second bread basket?

No, of course not. I can only think of 3 scenarios when you would: (1) if the menu stated that more bread was extra, (2) if the bread basket is on the menu as an appetizer or a side, or (3) if the server mentioned that, FYI, there will be a cost for another bread basket. If the server offers more bread and doesn't say there's a charge, why would you think there would be one?

Replace "complimentary bread basket" with plate of za'atar-dusted baked pita and the olive oil or butter with labne, and that's exactly what happened at dinner tonight.

We got the bill and saw a $10 charge for pita bread that we had no idea wasn't free. If we knew, we would never have agreed to the extra za'atar pita. We always eat too much bread, leaving not enough room for the entree. So if we knew there was a charge, we probably wouldn't have gotten more, and we definitely wouldn't have gotten two more.

We asked the server why we were never told we would be charged for the extra za'atar pita. Nowhere on the menu did it say there was a charge for more, there was no za'atar pita appetizer on the menu, and she had never once told us we would have to pay for extra plates of pita. Her response? That was why she asked us if we wanted plain or za'atar pita.

Well, yes, you did ask us that. But how are we supposed to infer from that question, which appeared to be a clarification since we had just finished a plate of regular pita (see, we had more than enough bread), that this meant that the za'atar one was an extra charge? So we mentioned again, that she had not said there would be a charge. Her answer? "Well, I asked you if you wanted plain or za'atar. I can't tell you there's a charge."

Excuse me? You can't tell us there's a charge? Why not?

I was completely dumbfounded. I get that some people get all up in arms about hearing prices for specials and think it's uncouth for a server to talk about exact prices. (I'm not one of those people, but I've heard that argument enough times.) But this is different. If someone orders a special and you haven't given the price, they know they're paying for it, just not the exact amount. If we are offered bread, which was given to us without charge the first time, how could we be expected to know that we'd have to pay for more? Saying you "can't" tell us there's a charge makes it sound like you knew you were duping us and knew that we weren't aware of the charge. Sounds shady!

It's unfortunate because we had a really good experience at dinner otherwise. The entrees took forever to come (which seems to be a frequent issue there), but that was okay since we were relaxing and talking (and had eaten so much darn pita). The food was very good, even if some portions were on the smaller side. It was a great experience until we got the bill and that ridiculous response. A bit of a turn-off, really.

The owner tried to make it better by offering us some free dessert. That was nice of him, but we were so full from dinner (and all that pita that we had to pay for). We just wanted our $10 credited back to us.

When we were in Greece, it took us some time to realize that they charged for bread, but that's how they do things in Greece. You pay for bread, you pay for water. Different cultures, different social norms. But in Manhattan, I've never been somewhere where bread wasn't free, and if you offer us more, it should be free too. If there's a cost, say so. Let us make that choice.

Do you think we're totally off base here or do you think our annoyance is reasonable?

Sleep Issues

Ever since M and I started our move I've had major issues sleeping. Maybe it was moving until at or past midnight every day which wired me up and kept me awake late, but even when I stopped moving things at 10pm I couldn't sleep. It's persisted even after we finished moving everything up. I've tried shutting down earlier and trying to sleep, but it really just isn't working. It's started affecting me more and more the less I sleep. Aside from the fatigue and lack of focus, I've started getting migraines again. I hadn't had one since last summer when we were visiting my parents. I hate that I can't sleep, and I hate what the lack of sleep is doing to me physically. Even now it's 1:30am, and I'm sitting here writing this. Just another night in a seemingly endless cycle.

El Correo

Those ads with the Post Office begging and pleading that we send more mail? Perhaps people would send more mail if they didn't have to deal with your bureaucracy and your blatant attempt to force people to pay you for services that used to be free.

Case in point: changing your address.

It used to be that those cards to change your address were everywhere at the post office. Easily accessible, easily filled out, dropped in the mail, forwarding done. Now it's hard to find the cards. We went to the main post office and first they told us you could only do it online. But changing your address online means paying them $1! When we noted that, they "found" a few cards for us to fill out and we thought we were done.

Not so fast.

Apparently, despite my not very sloppy handwriting, they interpreted an S to be an 8. Really, are there a lot of apartment buildings with more than 80 floors in Manhattan? Do you use your brain?

I called them today and mentioned their mistake. Their only solution? Cancel the previous request and put in a new one. And if you do it over the phone or online, that'll be $1, please.

Are you kidding me?

You messed up my mail forwarding and you want me to pay you? If I had paid you the first time, you would make me pay you twice? For your own incompetence? (And by "your", I don't mean the nice lady on the phone, I mean the USPS in general.)

Neither of us has received any forwarded mail. I know it takes some time but now we're out of that window period and we should be getting forwarded mail, not mail at the old address and people telling us their mail got returned. There are still so many other places where I need to change my address as a general matter (so much to do, so overwhelmed!) that this hassle is really something I was hoping we would not have to deal with. Now we're at the point where the forwarding may not start until after we no longer have access to our old mailbox. Fantastic.

Off to the Post Office over lunch (exactly how I wanted to spend lunchtime) to see if I can find another one of those stupid cards and to see if this time they realize that I don't live on the 83rd floor. If they mess it up again, I'm not sure what to do.

Pile of Crap

Here's a quick update on our move from my perspective. After dealing with some cleanliness issues for our "ready to move-in" apartment, we finally started moving some stuff up on April 2nd. It was slow going at first as we didn't want to clutter the apartment before getting our new bed delivered and also our cable/internet/phone installed on the 7th. Once that was finally done we went into cleaning/moving overdrive.

So far we've managed to get our TVs, M's dresser, our coffee table, one of our bookshelves, our couch, my computer desk and computer, and our nightstands moved up. We also moved up a smaller bookshelf that used to be in our closet. I managed to move almost all of our kitchen supplies/gear up as well. The worst part about this move is that no matter how much we move up and organize, there seems to be an endless pile of crap still in our old apartment. I don't understand how the two of us could have put together such a monumental pile of serious crap in our lives. Frankly, it's a bit disgusting. Hopefully we can get rid of enough stuff during this move that any subsequent moves will be much easier.

Malaise

I'm not quite sure what my problem has been recently. Ever since getting sick on vacation I've been rundown and exhausted regardless of how much actual sleep I've gotten. I can't get up in the morning no matter what I try. I also seem to just not be able to get/stay healthy. After recovering from my various ailments that required antibiotics, I still have no energy and I'm still sneezing and stuffed up. It's almost as if I got better for a day or two and then picked up another cold that won't go away. I understand that the weather changes can cause this, but at some point you'd think my body would figure out what to do.

Before you ask, I take daily vitamins and also vitamin C supplements. I also drink tons of water daily, less so on the weekends. I know I need to exercise more, and I know I need to eat better, but come on body, work with me a little. Maybe if I took a full week or two off and did absolutely nothing but rest I would start to feel better, but who has the time for that?

ABC is Unavailable

Our trusty DVR came up with a new excuse today. It's almost like it is begging us to turn it in for a new (or more likely, refurbished) one at this point.

We flipped on the DVR after getting back from dinner and found that it claimed to be actively recording Survivor and Modern Family. That is impossible. Survivor is on at 8 for an hour and Modern Family is on at 9. They do not overlap time slots at all. We guessed that neither had actually taped and the DVR was just being an idiot.

Sure enough, it was, as we tried to play both and ended up with black screens for the entire time. Time to reboot the box. Again. This morning, on demand was completely unavailable, so I guess the box was due for yet another reboot.

Before rebooting we decided to check the recording log since Suburgatory was supposed to record at 8:30 but wasn't on the recorded list. Here is where our DVR showed us that it really can continue to surprise us.

Suburgatory apparently was, according to the log, "not recorded because the channel was not available."

Are you kidding me? ABC was unavailable? In what TV universe is ABC unavailable, Time Warner Cable? If ABC was unavailable, then I guess none of the channels were available! (Which the black screen would seem to confirm.) So we lost out on tonight's Survivor, Suburgatory and Modern Family, and due to box errors yesterday, also didn't get Glee.

Hopefully we can swap our box tomorrow before the DVR comes up with another brilliant excuse. Unavailable. Seriously.

UPS Fail

Very short post, but I had to write something about this. Today I received a box from Amazon delivered by UPS. Being Prime members, M and I order from Amazon here and there to take advantage of the free 2-day shipping. Most of the time we don't run into any issues. Maybe it's a day later than it's supposed to be, but whatever.

However, today I received this:

WTF?!
It looks like someone stepped on the box at some point during the delivery process. I mean, really, WTF. Thankfully I was just getting a pair of flip flops, but can you imagine if this was something easily breakable? Terrible...

A Shaky Start

Note: This post was written in Amsterdam to post later. It's a little long... but we have a lot to say about this!

We had been looking forward to our vacation in the Netherlands and Belgium for weeks. Probably more like months, but our wedding reception planning limited our ability to actually research the trip for some time. We couldn’t wait to get to Europe, experience the cities, soak up the history and soul of the towns and the neighborhoods, and try all the different foods.

We were scheduled to leave on a Friday night. Things didn’t quite go how we expected.

First, we stressed over Hurricane Earl and whether or not he would cancel or delay our flight. The storm was scheduled to be right by us right around the time we were leaving. Excellent. We followed the weather forecasts ever since Earl started heading up toward the East Coast and fretted over its impact. Luckily at the last minute, things took a turn and he ended up further offshore than we expected. Potential crisis averted.

Source
Second, things were crazy busy at work for M the few weeks leading up to the trip. She didn’t sleep much the week before the trip (and the night before, that “sleep” was a nap at 8 am, figuring this could be like a Spanish siesta and help get adjusted to the time difference). It was so busy that she didn’t start packing until an hour before we were scheduled to leave for the airport. Not the best planning there.

Third, the MTA almost made us miss our flight. It was a frustrating, miserable few hours. It only takes an hour to get from our apartment to JFK. You hop on the E, take it to Jamaica, hop on the Air Train and you’re done. You don’t hit traffic, the train whizzes along and you’re at the airport an hour later. Sometimes there are delays and it takes a little longer. Sometimes there are diversions and you end up traveling locally in Queens instead of express (which the E usually is) but those are usually planned in advance and you can adjust accordingly.

So we were late and frustrated, and then we ended up waiting in the station for an E train for almost half an hour. Unbelievable! We were well within the rush hour peak traveling period and there were no trains. At least 2 A trains and 2 C trains passed through and then finally the E came chugging in. We were relieved but hadn’t been extremely upset because, although late, we would still make it in time for our flight even if it took an hour.

An hour later and we were in Queens near the border between Woodside and Jackson Heights.

WHAT THE HELL MTA?!

We had been moving really slowly. It was the slowest moving E train we had ever been on. We could walk faster than the train. We were doing great in Manhattan. The lag time started picking up when we hit Queens. We dragged along like we were meandering on the subway tracks. We stopped. Every time we’d get a “thank you for your patience” or “there is a train directly ahead of us” or some other increasingly annoying message. After some time, how much can you believe? How can there be a train in front of us if we’re stopping all the darn time for long stretches? Something wasn’t adding up.

With only 5 stops remaining before we were free the conductor announced that because of an incident we were going on the local tracks. Not only did we go on the local tracks but we then proceeded to spend about 5 minutes stopped in each station, more time stopped between them... It was incredibly frustrating and we were sure we would miss our flight, increasingly so with every stop.

We finally pulled into the 65th Street station. Another train, I think an F, whizzed by. (Confused ... weren’t they supposed to be local and we the express?) Then we stopped. For a while. The conductor got on the intercom (and we could actually understand what he was saying) and said that there was a sick passenger on the train in front of us and we were going to be at this station until the situation was resolved.

You. Must. Be. Kidding.

Source. We didn't take these train lines to the airport but it's kind of accurate for how we felt about the MTA on our way there.
It started to get a little frantic on the train. It was crowded. Lots of people were standing and packed into the subway cars. Plenty of people with luggage on the way to their airport griping about missed flights. M wondered, as she fought her within-crowds claustrophobia, if the MTA could write an excuse letter to get us onto the flight since we were delayed for their problem, since they write those letters if people are late for work. Doubtful. We felt bad for the sick passenger but we were completely stuck with no options and that sucked!

What were we going to do? We were already cutting it close because we left so much later than planned, the train had gone ten times slower than usual and now we were stuck for an indefinite amount of time in a part of Queens that really isn’t known for having cab traffic.

We got off the train. It was better than sitting through it and not knowing whether or not our waiting and not seeking another option was costing us the seats on our flight. It was like an episode of Amazing Race: stay with option 1 and hope it works out because you’ve already invested so much time or cut your losses, try option 2 and hope it comes through.

First thought was maybe we try the LIRR if we can’t get a cab. After a panicked call to M’s parents, they suggested one of the car service places that advertises all over TV and that you usually have to call in advance. We tried but they weren’t coming up with anyone in the area. It was looking more and more likely than we would miss the flight.

Then a little white taxi came up to the corner. We must have looked like panicked wrecks on the corner with luggage. He offered his services. We took him up on it. The nice man in the little white car quickly got onto the highway and got us to the airport. We checked in our bag. We watched it go through security. We even had enough time to eat a heated BBQ chicken baguette sandwich before getting on the flight (which had been moved up 15 minutes without any notice). I think we got to the airport before we would have if we had stayed on the train and it had left right after we got off (which it didn’t). We are so thankful to the nice man in the white car. I don't remember his name and doubt he is reading this, but THANK YOU. He saved our trip. We gave him a good tip. He deserved it.

Our last minute meal at the airport once we finally made it
So after a shaky start where the trip looked in doubt… we made it. Next time: the awesomeness of KLM.