The past 24 hours have been a little hectic... I cleaned house, did laundry, said goodbye to our most adorable Mr Henry, packed my things and got ready to make my way back to London. I realised that my 6am flight meant that I needed to be at the airport by 4am which sort of cut into our last evening together for a while. Because of the time of the flight Nick decided to look into estate sales in the area and see if there was anything worth checking out...
I spy with my little eye... A little Kipp Stewart?
What with the prices that these sets have been known to sell for we agreed that it was well worth him making it a speedy drop of at the airport so that he could get to the sale very early.
Well whilst I sat in the departure lounge of STL watching that frightening American lightening little did I know that poor Nick had been beaten to the stump by ten minutes... He left as I could only imagine like a sad puppy with its tail between its legs.
Fortunately we found out later that the sale had been somewhat of a dud...The set was selling for $600 which would have been well above the amount we were willing to pay and it only had 2 of those good looking chairs attached. Hopefully that made things a little less sour anyway.
Traveling:
Some flight seem longer than others don't they? The distance doesnt even need to change just the company you are with! Somehow this time I managed to draw the short straw by becoming strapped next to not one, or two, but THREE screaming babies all the way across the Atlantic. Now I love children, but parents seriously please.... I realise that you put a lot of effort into making up that inflight kiddy friendly Mary Poppin's bag of marvelous distractions but was the echo mega phone really necessary? Between being hit by balls and other flying objects I managed to catch a wink only to be woken by baby pulling apart an entire roll of cello tape... It got stuck to EVERYTHING!
Oh my was I glad to land....
London is never this empty. I swiftly caught my bag from the baggage claim without having to climb over anyone and was on my way...
And lastly... Charter:
Charter... The nations fastest internet. Customer guarantee that they are committed to make your experience outstanding... It's outstanding alright. For months now the internet connection at the new house has been poor to awful. Since moving in and signing our souls over to Charter we have plainly given up on the idea of video chat. This is somewhat of a shame when you only get to see your loved one once every three months and you are paying out a ridiculous sum of money each month to get the top speeds. Regular Skype calls are ultimately frustrating when every 120 seconds the call cuts out and then takes its sweet time to reconnect before doing the exact same thing again. You have just about enough time to get a "Hi, How was your day? What have you been up to?" out as the person begins to reply "well... today... [[CONNECTION LOST]]"
Wait for it...
I'm learning a lot about American phone/internet and tv companies lately. I have to say... I am unimpressed with the customer service provided when it is usually such a positive feature of American business. Firstly, I learnt that they often run a monopoly, where only one company is allowed to operate in an area so that there is no competition. This is an awful thing, because without competition there is no reason to provide anything thats of any worth... In England TV/phone and internet companies are extremely competitive, we have some fantastic rates and deals on these services because they have to fight to provide something that people want to use! If a company runs a service poorly they risk loosing customers... American companies don't have this to worry about so they can basically do a bad job, give you any old schmoo over the phone and palm you of for another day!
Charter, if you happen to be reading this, just know that I hate you and if you were running as a communications business in England I would drop kick you faster than you could give me a stupid $5 compensation voucher.
