Journal SarahAnnAlien's Journal: DM Rename, Pkg from Hell
I'm thinking about renaming the Doomsday Machine; I'm just a little too paranoid that some relatively clueless person will Get The Wrong Idea and not understand that It's just a name! So now I have to think of a new name. The two names I've come up with so far are "Galvanic Instrument of Democracy" and "Freedom Zapper". I'm open to other suggestions.
The currently-named Doomsday Machine is a black box, about eight inches long and six inches wide. It has two large analog meters on it (am I really an analog girl at heart? Hmm...), two bright red knobs, one big red button, one green light, and various jacks along the bottom edge.
What does it do? It's an alien thing. It offers the promise of a better life, if I can endure long enough! (Long story). It's also a bit retro, as it utilizes 130 year old technology! It certainly won't hurt anybody... except me, unfortunately.
Actually, Doomsday Machine is almost the exact opposite of a good name for it. Doomsday already occurred, an event which I had sort of expected, and to a certain extent planned for, so I wasn't all that surprised when it happened, and the results were significantly less doom-like than they might have been. Still, it was pretty scary, and as a result of my personal Doomsday, the particular problem I needed to solve didn't get completely solved. Building the current machine is an attempt to avoid the occurrence of "Doomsday Part II".
Hmm, maybe "Freedom Zapper" isn't such a bad name after all. I will end up essentially chained to the machine for many hours, so it will sort of zap my freedom! But if I succeed, it will help give me a lifetime of freedom!
In other news, The Package-From-Hell continues to torment me. A week ago I called the Franz Kafka Ground Freight Service (FKGFS) and told them not to bother pretending to deliver my package. They responded with three postcards asking for additional information, followed by an early morning phone call, which, thankfully, went to the office voicemail, and so, unlike the previous call, I wasn't dragged out of bed to groggily debate the relative merits of various shipping addresses.
The nice lady from FKGFS called again about 10:30am. I knew it was her. I almost didn't answer. But, silly goose that I am, I picked it up. She asked if I was Some Other Person, to which I replied, "uh, more or less...", which pretty much set the tone for the conversation. She very happily explained that she just needed a tiny bit of additional information, namely, a different shipping address, after which my three-week-late package would be delivered promptly and cheerfully.
I politely explained to her that she was too late, I don't need the package anymore, and told her to do whatever she wanted with it. I was *very* proud of myself for not making some colorful suggestions about exactly *what* she could do with it. I also found it a great time-saver to simply not explain that since she couldn't deliver the package to my mailbox, my home, or my office, and since I couldn't reasonably be expected to take a day off work to try to find the delivery office on the bus, that we had pretty well exhausted the solution-space of this particular problem.
With any luck, this will be the last episode of package-from-hell. Yeah, right! My next task is to ensure that, in the event the package is returned to the sender, that they don't dare try sending it to me again!
Oh, and I got a phone call at home last night from someone who apparently wanted me to vote for someone or other. Fortunately I let the machine answer that one; I think I might have hurt the poor woman's feelings if she'd been able to hear me burst out laughing!