Good Thing I Don't Embarrass Easily (except that I do)

Sometimes you just need to calm down, take a deep breath, and brush it off. The rest of the time you need to man up, take a shot, and blog about it. It’s barely 8:30 in the morning and I’ve managed to thoroughly embarrass myself. Twice. I can’t take that shot (this isn’t Mad Men, I don’t have a bottle of scotch at my desk), so I decided to brush it off. And blog about it.

I’m on the bus this morning with my suitcase, since I’m headed to Philly after work (a half day at work, holla!) My bus stop is near the end of the route, so I decide to just stand up near the driver until we pull into the station. A block after I get on, someone pulls the bell and the driver veers over to stop. I feel the bus jerking and go to grab the pole. Somehow the pole is not there. I grab at air and feel myself falling. Ohshitohshitohshit.

It happens in slow motion; one minute I’m standing up, the next I’m on the dirty bus floor, suitcase toppled over next to me. The kid who had requested the stop was waiting in front of the doors and looked down at me in disgust. The driver gave a half-hearted “you okay?” I get up and brush the dirt off my leg. Luckily, we were at the station and it was time to get off. Oh, wait – no we weren’t. I stand in front of the bus full of people who had seen my fall for the remainder of the ride doing what any normal person would do: pretend to text someone to look busy, w/out actually texting anyone b/c my pride was still too hurt to tell anyone about it.

So I’m at work, bus debacle behind me (some of the dirt from the floor of the bus still w/ me) and ready for my luck to turn around. Yesterday I purchased a Google offer for these fake gorge diamond earring studs. I was imagining how great they would look on my lobes when it occurred to me that I didn’t provide my address for the earrings to be shipped to. I called up the Google helpline with my inquiry and was told that I had purchased a coupon code for the earrings, and I had to go to the merchants’ website and order them from there, where I would be able to input my shipping address.

I find my confirmation email, follow the directions, and type in my coupon code. An error message pops up saying the coupon code is not valid. Hmm. I try again and then call back the helpline. I get the same operator who says that this deal just went live today and that the merchant is out of California and it’s not even 6am over there and they probably just haven’t activated it yet. He was really nice about it, so I didn’t ask him why Google, a normally competent company, didn’t have their shit together (or why he didn’t tell me this the first time I called). I tried the coupon code randomly throughout the day yesterday, and the error message kept popping up.

I get into work today and try it again. STILL not working. I call the helpline again, ready to give them a piece of my mind. The same guy I spoke to yesterday answers my call. What are the chances? (apparently very good; how many people do they need answering calls at 8:30EST?) I go into my abbreviated problem, since this guy is pretty well-versed in it, and he gives the same old “it’s probably just not activated yet, we’ll notify the merchant blahblahblah.” I get off the phone in a huff. I’m considering just putting in a request for a refund when I go over the fine print of the deal. A little line at the end catches my eye: “Offer may take up to 72 hours to activate.” Whomp whomp.