Comments (39)

1. 1. My boyfriend works out of the country for 9 months out of the year; he was waiting for his flight to Chile, to go to Antarctica, and the flight was delayed until the next day. So, he went to the mall and bought a Sony portable dvd player from Radio Shack. Because he only had a carry-on, he had to take it out of the packaging to fit it in his bag. On the flight the next day, the dvd player quit working. He mailed it home to me, and asked me to return it.
   I call Sony - after transfered me around for 45 minutes, they hang up on me. I call again; a repeat of the last call. I call again and immedietly ask for the highest ranking person there at the moment. Suprisingly, I get him. He then tells me, because I dont have the original packaging, the warranty that my boyfriend bought is invalid. I hang up in anger. So, I try radio shack. They are much more understanding, and would gladly exchange if I bring it into the store. So the next day, I bring it in to the local radio shack, where they inform me that since I dont have the packaging they cannot except it. That is the point where I said, fine. I immedietly asked to buy the exact same dvd player, which they sell me. I then take it out of the packaging, put the other one in, and tell them that I have this broken dvd player and would like a refund. After laughing hysterically, they give it to me.

   posted by Sarah on 3-28-2008 at 9:56 am

2. book I’m most anticipating…

   “A Memory Of Light” sadly, its posthumously by my favorite author Robert Jordan. Its the final book in the Wheel Of Time series… there have been 11 books prior, all one story, an incredible read. He died last year before he could finish it, but he left detailed notes on how it was to end, and his wife hired a new writer to help finish it. Should be out in 09.

   Can’t wait!

   posted by Timmah! on 3-28-2008 at 10:01 am

3. 1) Pretty much any experience with student loan companies. But my husband’s is the most infuriating. We were just out of school and his student loans were INSANE. He hadn’t yet managed to find a “real” job and was still working as a manager at Barnes and Noble. This was NOT for lack of trying, believe me. He was my boyfriend at the time, so we didn’t have a shared bank account or anything. He literally could not afford to pay his student loans. Student loans + rent + bills = a negative balance at the end of the month, nevermind gas and food and all of that good stuff. So he called the student loan company to see if he could get reduced payments until he landed a “proper” job and the dude was SUCH a tool. First, he was told that perhaps he should start looking for a REAL job. Thanks, dude, don’t you think he would LIKE to be making more money? And then he was told that since he had the luxury of a landline phone AND a cell phone, he could clearly afford to pay student loans. Wow. All of this from the company who promises to work with people. Paul ended up launching the phone across the room and breaking it. We combined bank accounts. It all worked out. He now has a ‘Real’ job.

   2) Ridiculously embarrassing, but I can’t wait for the next book in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. I realize this makes me a 13-year-old girl. I don’t care.

   3) The Mustard Museum in Mt. Horeb, Wis. Strange and AWESOME.
   4) Uh. The only thing that comes to mind is whiskey shots with no chaser (or twitching) but I realize that’s probably not very impressive to most people.
   5) I was more of a student-council-band-yearbook-newspaper kind of a girl. I guess I did cheerleading but the stuff we did could hardly be counted as sport. (I know cheerleading is very athletic at some schools, but not mine – at least, not at the time.)

   Oh, and I used to work at Target so I have a worst customer abuse story too. I couldn’t repair a watch because the gentleman hadn’t gotten it at Target. Target can’t insure watches if they were bought elsewhere, so if we break the watch while fixing it, we can’t replace it - Target just eats the cost. I was super polite and said I was sorry and explained the situation to him, and after I got done, the “gentleman” said to me, “You’re just f*@#%ing lazy.” and left.

   posted by stacy on 3-28-2008 at 10:12 am

4. Word on “A Memory of Light”, Timmah! I started reading Wheel of Time in 1992. As it progressed, I was worried that Mr. Jordan’s story would come to an end before The Wheel of Time story did. Sadly, that came to be true. But I look forward to the end, and hope it will be a fitting conclusion to his masterwork.

   posted by Mike on 3-28-2008 at 10:13 am

5. 1. I usually let my husband deal with the phone vultures; he doesn’t feel guilty for swearing at them as I do. But the most terrible case of snobbery I’ve seen lately was when I took my daughter to the mall, found a great parking spot close to the door, only to realize a large sign in front of me declared this spot reserved for customers of the local Lexus dealership; all others will be towed. I considered parking there anyway, but realized the type of person who would know about and use this spot was the type of person to get on their cell phone and bitch if they saw my raggedy old Subaru in their special parking place. I caved.
   2. Tamora Pierce. Lovely books that I can share with my teenage daughters.
   3. Da Yooper’s Tourist Trap, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. (U.P.>>Yooper)Besides an enormous rifle and chainsaw displayed outside, there’s a map with funny descriptions of various Michigan towns, lots of varied junk with amusing labels, taxidermy galore, and a gift shop where you can buy all of Da Yooper’s albums. (”Second Week of Deer Camp” anyone?)
   4) I do a credible impression of a pirhana; scares and delights children of all ages.
   5) In my rural area of Michigan, even teachers got spring fever. As soon as the snow melted, about May, we’d be hustled outside to ignore our books for some intensely competitive softball. I remember getting a horrific nosebleed on our way to the ball field one year, and my English teacher telling me to tip my head back and use my sleeve, it’d be fine by my turn at bat. It wasn’t.

   posted by faburobin on 3-28-2008 at 10:24 am

6. 1) This is not mine but a friends; this summer she had lots of traveling to do and the cheapest way was via NorthWest. The short story is: “In last three weeks I have flown 14 separate Northwest flights. Of those, 4 have been significantly delayed, 2 have been in place of cancelled flights. I tried to get on earlier flights 7 separate times only to be told they were overbooked, so I was frequently stuck in an airport for three to six hours waiting for a flight with a seat.” Click on my name if you want the rest of the story.

   3)I’ve not been to it yet but they have a Kimchi museum here in Seoul. You can taste various kinds and even make some. If you don’t know what kimchi (kimchee) is google it. It’s basically the national food of Korea.

   posted by Joanna on 3-28-2008 at 10:27 am

7. 1) What was your most harrowing customer service experience?

   A couple of years ago at a local grocery store, I was paying by debit card. Used to the U-Check lines which automatically import the order total to the card swipe machine, I thought nothing of tapping OK and moving on.

   Only to realize that the clerk had added an extra zero, bumping my total from $12.20 to $122.00. When I justifiably freaked out (the $110 dollar bump would cause several check to bounce that night), the “Shift Leader” came over to reverse the charge. In so doing, she actually applied an ADDITIONAL $122.00 charge to my account.

   When I start complaining to the assistant manager, she started off with the tried and true customer service method of telling me it was my fault for not checking the intial amount. While I conceded her point on the first charge I emphatically refuted it on the “shift leader’s” error.

   As a resuly of the “emphatically” in that last sentence, the store manager had two rather large stock boys with him when he came up to deal with me.

   Luckily, I was still (just barely at 11 o’clock at night) rational enough to go into professional mode. I ended up with the $232 in excess charges in cash for me to deposit the next morning along with a letter from the manager accepting responsibility for any overdraft charges I may incur.

   So while the manager was able to make it right, the shift leader and assistant manager have earned my eternal ire.

   posted by EMStoveken on 3-28-2008 at 10:32 am

8. 2) Which author’s next book are you most eagerly anticipating?

   Haven’t heard word from either but it has been too long since seeing a new Tom Robbins novel or a new work of FICTION from Mark Leyner.

   3) A few months ago, InternAllison had a great post about oddly specific museums. What’s the strangest museum you’ve ever visited?

   The kind of underwhelming PEZ Museum in Easton, PA is strange in that it-really-just-looks-like-one-dude’s-personal-collection way.

   4) What’s your most impressive obscure talent?

   My wife says I am an exceptionally cunning linguist.

   5) Weirdest Childhood sports memory?

   A couple weeks ago, he opposing coach in my son’s indoor soccer game spent the entire game on the field running alongside his players and shouting instructions to them as well as to the players on my son’s team.

   posted by EMStoveken on 3-28-2008 at 11:00 am

9. 1) I am in Customer Service (Box Office Rep for a Shakespeare Theatre in VA) while I’m finishing my graduate degree, and, while I sympathize (nee, empathize), with many tales of Customer Service woe. I think that the other side of the story is just as valid, sometimes. I have been screamed at, threatened, accused, and berated for doing my job.

   No refunds means no refunds, everyone. It says so on the material, and we make very few exceptions (accidents, deaths, hospitalizations). In cases of downright rudeness, the customer is in the right, but there are times when the confusion on the part of the representative is genuine, when getting you what you want could cost them their job, and when they honestly have no ability/permission to help you with a particular problem.

   Remember, the person on the other side of the phone is just that, another person, probably making minimum wage, trying to make ends meet, and dealing with rude customer service people (esp. student loan reps) of their own. There’s no excuse for rudeness, but don’t automatically assume that they don’t want to help you.

   Thank you.

   2) The second part of the Six Sacred Stones by Matthew Reilly. Totally silly, but I LOVE IT!

   3) It was the Swansea, Wales town museum. It was like everyone had just cleaned out their attics and put everything on display. A true Wunderkammen.

   4) I can hum and whistle at the same time.

   5) The time I was trying to get out of the pool after swimming butterfly in an I.M. and got stuck under the backstroke start poles of the diving block. Totally embarrassing.

   posted by Christina on 3-28-2008 at 11:10 am

10. Okay, so I work for a particular car company, as several of my family members do/did. Here is my Customer Dissatisfaction story…

    About 13 years ago (I was about 20 then), I wanted to get a new car. I qualified for a highly unusual deal which would allow me to get a $15k vehicle for about $150 per month. This price, believe it or not, included full coverage insurance (which included free loaners in case of accident, free oil changes and other special perks). Plus, there were additional options to purchase the car at a bargain price after 2 years. Normally, the car payment alone would have been at least $150, plus insurance for an under 25 driver with a bad driving record would have been unafforable.

    So, I went a dealership my dad recommended to get info on a new car. The dealership was about a 40-45 minute drive away (with about 10 of them closer than that particular one). After spending about 2 hours down there, half of the time wasted b/c I was apparently just a stupid kid w/no mony, I left as I needed to get the paperwork in order to purchase the vehicle. In the meantime though, I decided I wanted more info on a different car. The salesman told me he wouldn’t/couldn’t give out any pricing info over the phone and that I would have to come down for that. Incredulous, I told him I wasn’t going for another 1.5 hour round trip to simply get a price. Anyway, his boss gets on the phone to reiterate their stance on providing pricing over the phone, then begins to try to “talk me into” financing the vehicle through them, rather than this special deal I had. After listening to him posture for a bit, I explained my deal and he says, “Well either you’re lying, someones lying to you, or you just don’t know what you’re talking about.”

    I hung up the phone and proceeded to visit 3 more dealerships before I found a salesman that treated me with respect and didn’t look at me as if I had “Sucker” pasted on my forehad. I ended up buying 3 vehicles (priced $15k, $25k, and $30k) in 4 years from the same salesman under this deal, plus my siblings also bought vehicles from him too (not under that deal though). Not a bad commission for him in the end.

    What really gets me though is that this is the company that I work for (then and now). Unfortunately, we have only so much control over dealers and their actions. But, I must say, our dealers have improved since then, slowly but surely.

    posted by Bruno on 3-28-2008 at 11:13 am

11. 1. OK, here goes…..took my car to a car wash for the obvious, a car wash, here is the saga….I asked the greeting attendant of they could get a stain out of my dashboard (long story, but the stain was melted chapstick and my car is a Saturn, whose claim to fame at that the cars are plastic), he said sure, no problem, then proceeded to send my car through the wash. As the car came out, I went outside to see what they had done to the stain. It looked like they had rubbed a brillo pad on the dash and tore up the spot where the stain was. The girl that was wiping my car automatically told me that she did not do it, but that it still needed to go through detail, to fix the spot….I let it go through detail and all the guy did was spray armour all on the spot and told me he couldn’t do anything….at this point, I became a pissed off cartoon character, with steam coming from my ears….the manager came over, asked what had happened, I showed him the spot…he had the original greeter come over and look at it…and here is the best part….he looked at it, turned to me and said….”What do you want me to do about it?”…hum….luckily, the manager recognized that I was about to lose it and asked me to come to the office and fill out an incident report. To make the story shorter, it took 2 months and a trip to my lawyers office for me to get them to pay for the repair of the area they messed up. Rediculous….I tell this story to everyone that listens and advise them NEVER to go to that car wash.

    posted by Michelle on 3-28-2008 at 11:18 am

12. I don’t really have anything groundbreaking for any of these, but Jason, I think this line was the highlight of your story:

    “Since these statements have a pliable relationship with reality, people are pissed.”

    Lovely.

    posted by kate on 3-28-2008 at 11:18 am

13. This probably isn’t the most rude experience I’ve had, but the fact that it happened just a couple of days ago means it’s still fresh in my mind and on my nerves.
    My boyfriend and I were going through the drive through of a very popular fast food restaurant this past weekend. We both ordered the same combos with Cokes to drink. Nothing hard to understand about that, right? When we got up to the second window, the guy hands me a drink and says “Here’s your Dr. Pepper.” I politely tell him we ordered two Cokes. He doesn’t even pause in what he’s doing and says “Well that’s what the guy that took your order told me, so deal with it.” He tries to hand me the drink again. I couldn’t help but raise my voice this time, and I promptly told him I didn’t order a Dr. Pepper, I ordered Coke, and that’s what he was going to serve me. With a dramatic sigh and flourish of eye-rolling, he turned his back and (supposedly) fixed us new drinks.
    Now, while this little scene may not sound like a big deal, I am notoriously impatient with fast-food workers, so by the end of this altercation I was shaking with anger. Instead of getting to enjoy my food right away, I parked the car and went inside to complain to the manager. While she seemed genuinely apologetic, the jerk at the drive- through stood listening to my complaints, making various comments in Spanish all the way through. I haven’t decided if I’m going to return to that particular restaurant, but I’m going to be extra careful around that guy if I do.
    Oh yeah, and the second drinks he gave us turned out to be DIET Cokes.

    posted by bas on 3-28-2008 at 11:24 am

14. 1.I went to a pottery barn to specifically look and a piece of furniture they had on their website. The first store we visited didn’t have a floor sample avaliable to for us to see, so we asked if the other store in the area would have one. Instead of a polite “I don’t think so but I’ll call and check” I got a “our store is bigger and better than the other one, the idea that they might have something we don’t is stupid” Okay, I guess I got set straight. So I left the store, to immediately try the other one, it couldn’t hurt right? Of course they had what I wanted to see. Guess who got the comission??

    2. Do I have to pick just one? I have so many on my amazon wish list I’m not sure which way to turn.

    3. I once saw the museum of lost keys, closed due to the key being lost. Needless to say we didn’t visit but it was a great photo…where did I put that?

    4. I can say the alphabet backwards faster than I can say it forwards.

    5. In high school (not exactly child hood) I ran track and for some reason they decided for girls the sports bra was part of the uniform and had to be the same color for the entire team. I remember having to stand there while an offical walked by asking to see everyone’s bra. Umm creepy much??

    posted by Sabrina on 3-28-2008 at 11:26 am

15. I was trying to get an Earthlink high speed internet account once. I call, order, everything goes through just fine. The setup kit arrives, and I put everything together. Doesn’t work.

    I call and they tell me they need someone to do something with the line in the area (not my house), which they’ll do tomorrow.

    They give me confirmation that they worked on the line, and it will work. It doesn’t.

    I call and customer support takes me through all sorts of steps like “Turn off your modem.” “That didn’t work? Try it again?” After an hour phone call, the person realizes he can’t do anything. He said he’ll send me a new modem and that will work.

    It doesn’t.

    I call back and tell them what happened. They tell me to “Turn off the modem.” I tell them I’ve done that several times and it doesn’t work. They didn’t outright say “Humor me and do it,” but I think it was implied. I turn it off and on. It doesn’t work.

    This has been another hour conversation. The guy realizes he can’t do anything, sends me to the next level. We try a couple things, but I hadn’t expected the call to be this long, and when I’m at the next level, I explain I need to go to work, can I get a direct line so I can immediately go to the next level when I’m done working. They can’t do that, but “just call and tell them you need to go to the next level, and they’ll boot you up right away.”

    I call and tell them that. They refuse to boot me up. They want me to try turning off and on the modem. I explain I’ve done that like 25 times now and never has it worked. They want me to just try it. I say “Send me to the next level.” They say “No.” Realizing they’re going to be annoying about it, I humor him and run all of the tests that haven’t worked in the past and get the same results.

    Finally at the end the guy realizes he can’t do anything for me and sends me to the next level.

    At the next level, I give them my address, the person puts it in her computer and literally 15 seconds later says “Oh. You actually can’t get service in your area.”

    I ask why the original salesperson didn’t tell me this, why the multitude of tech support people hadn’t told me this, and why did it only take her 15 seconds to find out. She had no response and could only offer “I’ll send you a box so you can send the modem back to us.”

    posted by Kevin on 3-28-2008 at 11:36 am

16. 2. I can narrow it down to three, in no particular order:
    –The previously mentioned “Memory of Light”
    –George R. R. Martin’s final installment of the Song of Ice & Fire series, “A Dance With Dragons”
    –Whatever Terry Pratchett chooses to publish next. Anything is fine. I’ve heard people say Stephen King could publish his laundry list & people would buy it; I’d buy PTerry’s, because I’m sure it would be hilarious.

    posted by Denise on 3-28-2008 at 12:03 pm

17. I tried out an Alltel phone for a few days to check reception at my house. It wasn’t good, so I returned it under their one week or so policy. Nothing lost except maybe the activation fee. Cut to 3 months later and I received a bill for the past 3 months of service.

    I call the billing department and they tell me that the first thing to do is cancel my subscription which wasn’t done properly- sent to customer service- they can’t find my account because it doesn’t exist- back to billing- Customer service won’t even tell me my phone number due to privacy issues I guess- Long story short, I got bounced back and forth for about an hour with no help and they tell me to go to the store where I bought it.
    There the manager claims that he’ll take care of it and call me in a day or so.

    A week later I call back and he tells me the same thing. This goes on for another 2 weeks. Note that he never called me back- The final time I called him his voicemail says he’s out of town for a week! Then the store moves and I go to the new location where a woman tries to tell me that maybe I wasn’t clear about canceling the phone. Apparently she thinks it makes sense to have cell phone service for a phone you don’t have. Returning a phone and saying “cancel my account” isn’t very clear I guess. I yell and finally get the district manager’s number. I call him and he says he’ll take care of it. A few days later there’s still $4 left on my account. Rinse and repeat and finally after 4 weeks of trying, I have a $0.00 balance. Part of what I owed was actually the connection fee which I was supposed to pay but after driving all over the state and calling for weeks, I refused to pay anything.

    This isn’t that bad except that it was obviously their fault and if someone had just sucked it up and fixed it, nothing was lost.

    Also with Cingular (now AT&T). Bought a phone, had number that wasn’t local. Spent several days fixing that until finally one woman fixed it in about 5 minutes–Why is there always one person in customer service that knows how to do everything and always someone who claims that everything is your fault and you’re stupid?

    Moved across country, change my number again. They don’t tell me that my billing changes, so I just pay the new one. I call when I get a second late bill and this woman actually thought I knew that Cingular has regions and moving between them changes your billing. These aren’t published but she thought I was stupid for not knowing this. She said I changed my number so I have a new account. Well, I had already changed my number before without doing any of this mess. I spent an hour arguing with this woman about this and ultimately I paid two bills for one month but dropped the late fee. Cingular also had mysterious charges appear that they claimed were from the previous owner of the number and they couldn’t fix that…

    Needless to say, I hate cell phone companies now, but they still get a check from me every month for around $50 so I guess ultimately the joke’s on me.

    posted by Michael on 3-28-2008 at 12:05 pm

18. 1.) Oddly enough, the worst customer service I get is from my own company. I run the copy center as an outside contractor for a printer company… And my company is the worst I think I’ve ever had to deal with… Maybe it’s just because I deal with them on a daily basis, but if I were an actual customer, I’d probably take my business elsewhere.

    2.) Chuck Palahniuk

    3.) The Mütter Museum of Pathology and Disease in Philadelphia. I hear that The National Museum of Funeral History in Houston is pretty cool…

    4.) Way too much knowledge of obscure music / records…

    5.) “Pistol Pete” Maravich used to teach basketball camp at my school…

    posted by Stuart on 3-28-2008 at 12:20 pm

19. 1. Bank of America
    2. Augusten Burroughs
    3. Niagara Falls Museum
    4. I can make dolphin sqeaks (which horrify my family)
    5. I’m ambidextrous and my dad tried to force me to pick one… “left or right, but you can’t use both”. Golfing, baseball, softball etc. Plus, my face is a basketball magnet.

    posted by Sarah on 3-28-2008 at 1:14 pm

20. 1) I had my car repaired at one of the Ford dealerships in Gainesville, FL. In the process of repairing the problem (a warranty issue) they allowed my car to be broken into and my stereo stolen. When I noted my displeasure to the dealership, they replied “thats what insurance is for.” Gee, thanks.

    3) I can’t remember the name, but I went to a museum of infectious diseases when I was in Vienna. I’ve also been to the ossuary in Hallstat, but I don’t know if that qualifies as a museum.

    5) Damn Jason, are you really still bitter about some overzealous, wannabe referee from 3rd grade?

    posted by Florida on 3-28-2008 at 1:19 pm

21. 1) I’m going to change this up a little bit as this weekend is my last weekend working as a cashier at a Big Blue Box here in Portland, Oregon (we wear attractive yellow polo shirts, if that helps identify the company). My worst customer service experience has to be the customer who was in the Credit/Debit lane as I was coming up to relieve a brand-spanking new coworker. See, the customer wanted to pay cash for her $14.95 purchase and didn’t understand why, when the big sign says “This Lane Credit/Debit Only”, she couldn’t pay cash. Fortunately for her, I had cash and promptly began reringing her purchase. I do ten-key at 18,000kph, which ain’t slow by any means. She handed me her twenty and started to storm off in a huff. I called after her, “Ma’am, your change!” She stomped back, spit in my face, grabbed the change out of my hand and cut my palm open with her fake nails, yelled “You idiot!” and literally ran out of the store.

    3) The National Yo-Yo Museum in Chico, California (not CHINO, which is 500 miles south and nowhere near as pretty). It’s in the back of a store that sells nifty toys and stuff. I stumbled upon it looking for a birthday gift for my mother when I was going to California State University, Chico. I was very, very happy to see the World’s Largest Yo-Yo there, because when I was a child it had been displayed in a back alley on Pier 39 in San Francisco, kind of forgotten and exposed to the elements. Now it’s indoors with other great examples of the yo-yo.

    posted by Mary Sue on 3-28-2008 at 1:24 pm

22. 1. My worst experiences are always with my health insurance companies. The most recent was a few weeks ago, when I tried to fill a mail-order maintenance prescription. (One of my medications is considered a controlled substance, so I can’t get refills. The only way to not have to go back to the doctor once a month is to fill three-month prescriptions by mail.) In my state, the only way to ensure that you get brand-name medications is to have your doctor write “medically necessary” on the bottom of your prescription. If that’s left blank, you should automatically get generic, which is what I want (it’s way cheaper), so I specifically had my doctor leave it blank. Anyway, long story short, after first denying that I was covered and then confusing my current account with one I had in high school, my insurance company sent me a lovely letter refusing to fill my prescription because the brand-name medication is not covered. This is after I called them TWICE and told them to note on my account that I wanted GENERIC ONLY. Sigh. Okay, done ranting.

    2. David Mitchell

    3. Northlandz in Flemington, NJ. A creepy model-train museum with a creepy dude who plays the organ for visitors.

    4. I have never lost a belching contest. Ever.

    5. All I can think of at the moment is “The Rope” (capitalized to show my reverence) in elementary school. The Rope was literally just a huge rope hanging from the gym ceiling that we had to climb and be timed on. Though it was awesome at the time, I now question the wisdom of letting eight-year-olds climb to the top of a regulation-height gymnasium ceiling with nothing but a tiny mat far below.

    posted by lala on 3-28-2008 at 1:44 pm

23. 1. When I moved to Illinois, I wanted to show my native pride by having a shirt made that said “OKIE” in the colors of the Oklahoma flag (yes, I am a complete dork). I went to a store that does custom lettering (think college Greek letter shirts) and picked out everything with joy. When I got my shirt, the “O” was noticeably smaller than the rest of the letters. I called the store, and the owner CONFIRMED that she made the O smaller ON PURPOSE. I asked her to either fix the O, make a new shirt, or refund my money ($80). She flatly refused, so I reversed the charge on my credit card. It is so unreal that she would admit wrongdoing, but deny responsibility for it.

    2. Do you think Flannery O’Connor can write from the grave?

    3. Camera Obscura in Edinburgh, Scotland. Each floor has (had? it’s been 20 years) a different camera theme. The two I remember most are the holography floor and the homemade camera/pinhole photography floor. The camera obscura is at the top and has provided panoramic views of Edinburgh for over 150 years - very cool!

    Although not a museum, I’d like to give a nod to the store Tender Buttons in Chicago. All they sell is buttons, and I have spent hours admiring their artifacts.

    4. The talent that gets the most reaction is tying cherry stems in knots with my tongue. I can also write legibly with both hands and right foot.

    5. When my son was four, we endured a t-ball coach (other team) one game who yelled at his own preschoolers the whole game, and took unbelievable delight when one of our boys slid toward home only to be tagged before he reached the plate. With the boy still lying on the ground, the coach leaned down, pumped his fist in the air, and yelled “YEAHHH!” right in his four-year-old face. The ump decided to count the run because of the coach’s behavior.

    posted by elizabutt on 3-28-2008 at 2:15 pm

24. 1) Involved Northwest Airlines this Christmas, and is still too long and painful to talk about.

    Mary Sue: Daaaaamn….

    2) Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

    5) Most traumatic: I was the catcher on my softball team in Elementary school. The batter got a hit while someone was on third. The pitcher caught the ball and threw it to me to get the out at the base. The ball hit the tip of my glove and….disappeared. I was still in the squatting position, turning around and around looking for it, and it was just…gone. The runner on third scored and I still couldn’t find the ball. I was freaking out because the runner was about to get a standing home run, when I realized that everyone in the bleachers was pointing, laughing, and gesturing at me…before I finally realized that the ball had disappeared under my butt and I had been squatting on it the whole time, like a giant egg. Everybody scored, we lost, and my dad had tears in his eyes from laughing so hard on the way home.

    posted by Jen on 3-28-2008 at 2:39 pm

25. 1. I’ve got one for you guys. I have a bum leg and was limping to the security line. Since I possibly have OCD, I got there four hours early, so there was no line. The security lady asks me if I need a wheelchair, I say no (cause I have my pride and am annoyed they won’t let me wheel them myself — and I’ve missed flights because the guy who was supposed to push it didn’t show), and so she accuses me of faking it. I’m so annoyed, I can’t say anything back. When I get to the end, I finally cave and ask for a wheelchair, which they said that they’re all out.

    Another time, similar annoyance factor, I was in an airport standing in line at security. They asked me to take off my shoes, so I ask for a chair (since I can’t bend down.) They say they can’t, so I sit on the table before the xray machine. They get annoyed and pulled me to the back to do a search. The security official touches my leg, I scream from pain, and she only gets more annoyed; until they found my painkillers in my bag, and saw the scar. They apologized, at least. Those incidents still get me annoyed. Though, I do cave all the time now and get a wheelchair — but now I talk them into letting my boyfriend push me. He loves to push me while running, then let go. I whizz down the terminal at 20MPH, and fun is had by all.

    posted by Nicole on 3-28-2008 at 3:22 pm

26. 5. My best sport memory.

    In fifth grade I was the last picked player for any team game there was. In the spring baseball became the game of choice and as always I was the last to be picked. The reason… I could not hit the ball with a bat the size of a school bus. I always played because “everyone played” and this time was my greatest moment in sports. I closed my eyes, figuring I would miss, and swung. I connected and when I opened my eyes I see the outfielders running further afield. Everyone is yelling…RUN! So I took off and made it all the way around the bases before the ball was retrieved and thrown toward second base. The coach later said it was the further hit ball that he had ever seen at the school.

    I was never picked last again.

    posted by Owen on 3-28-2008 at 3:41 pm

27. 1) i didn’t think i had a cust. service nightmare until i think back on my UPS disaster a few months ago:

    i had purchased three Giant Microbes (cute, giant plush microbes) from a toystore selling them on Amazon. they sent them to me via UPS, addressed to my home, which is an apartment building with a secured entrance. obviously, the delivery guy couldn’t get into the building to knock on my door and have me sign for my microbes, so i just figured i’d go to the nearby UPS facility outside of town and pick them up myself. (i had done this before with no hangups) when i get there i am told that they have been redirected to an old address many, many miles away. (even though packages are supposed to be held in the facilities for 5 days before being redirected or returned to sender.) after getting a tracking number to watch the move online, i see that instead of re-redirecting the box back my current address, they do nothing and return the box to the seller. i manage to get ahold of the toy store and explain to them what happened, and they were kind enough to resend the box to my work address, where i could sign for it.

    what made it so irritating is the fact that i had driven out to the facility twice, was told someone would call me with information, and that the package would be returned back to the facility. none of that happened.

    the giant red blood cell is really cute though.

    2)i don’t know if Chuck Klosterman is planning another book, but i have read all four of his books in a month, so i’d have to say him.

    posted by the creature on 3-28-2008 at 3:53 pm

28. 2. “Small Favor” by Jim Butcher. It’s the next book in the Dresden Files series, and I’m totally hooked!

    I love the fact that so many people who have responded listed a sci-fi/fantasy author for number 2! I’m in good company! =)

    posted by clever moniker on 3-28-2008 at 4:18 pm

29. My wonderful story from a few weeks ago dealing with Bank of America. I received a message saying that there was suspicious activity on my card and that it had been blocked. So I checked online and sure enough, there was a $500 ATM withdrawl. So I immediately called their customer service line where they cancelled my card and issued a new one. Then I was transferred to another department where a wonderful representative began a 9 minute conversation about the whereabout of my card. Let me preface this part with the fact that I am a former employee of Bank of America so I feel like I know a little about keeping my things secure, so this conversation included asking if I knew where my card was, if I had my card, if anyone had access to my card or my pin number, if I knew who did this (and if I did I would have smashed them into goo before calling) and if I was sure that no one had my card (it was in my hand)and if I was sure I didn’t make this withdrawl (I’m a college kid who is a little smarter than withdrawing more money than is currently in the account). We had this conversation one more time, just for fun. Then she proceeds to tell me that they are unable to credit me the $500 or continue the claim. I’d have to contact my local authorities and file a police report in order for them to be able to continue ( I was really glad that those 20 minutes of my life were taken up in that manner). Well here we are 7 weeks later and I finally get a letter from BofA stating that my account will be credited my $500 plus any associated ATM fees, then I get a letter from the Police stating that my case is closed because they are unable to figure out who did it. So from all this I realized two things 1. Bank of America really does think that I am as dumb as they are and 2. The police can track down kidnappers, rapists and murders but they can’t find thieves who are caught on surveillance tapes on ATMS.

    posted by Tuuzik on 3-28-2008 at 4:52 pm

30. EMStoveken,
    #5 about the opposing team’s coach running alongside the kids and shouting instructions to both teams had me grinning :D

    posted by septer on 3-28-2008 at 6:19 pm

31. I just want to say congratulations on your upcoming parenthood!

    posted by Miss Cellania on 3-28-2008 at 11:12 pm

32. Ha Ha Mary Sue I work there too! Unfortunately cashiers do get “crapped on” too often.
    I only have an answer to #2: Augusten Burroughs ALL THE WAY! He is a genius!

    posted by Sandy C on 3-28-2008 at 11:20 pm

33. 1) Oh, boy do I have a customer service story. I got a Compaq Presario laptop last year for my birthday, complete with an early Home edition of Vista. Everything was find and dandy until about 4 months later when it would suddenly decide to stay off when I pushed the power button. On top of that, it began to eat up RAM like there was no tomorrow, so I called tech support. After a rousing game of phone tag, the rather nice techie pretty much told me to take the battery out and leave it out for a few minutes so the memory could clear. That helped…once, and I ended up turning it over to a friend of mine that knew as much about computers as the guys who invented it, and he installed and old version of XP to solve the RAM issue. Unfortunately, he didn’t know that Vista didn’t have all of the drivers that XP needed and I essentialy had a power-eating paperweight for a while. Meantime, I was calling Tech Support more than I should and getting more useless info until one guy pretty much said to send the thing in to get it fixed. There seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel, but it turns out the server at HQ was down and it took another week and yet another call to realize that they needed to send us a BOX for that. Most of the guys I talked to were pretty nice to me and fairly helpful, but they pretty much had no idea how to help me out though that didn’t stop them from suggesting useless tricks. By now, I was pretty much loathing Vista’s existence(I still kinda do) though my laptop finally came back as good as new…ish. Now I’m just hoping that by posting this I don’t doom myself to another year of that again.

    4) The most impressive thing I think I can do is that I can bend my fingers backward in an arch. I’ve seen some others that can do it too, but people seem the most freaked out when I do it. I can also play a game of computer solitaire really really fast, but that’s just do to a quickly bored mind and a slow modem lol.

    posted by heather on 3-29-2008 at 12:13 am

34. 1. A few years ago, my younger sister (who had never flown before) and I were flying out of Denver airport. I had recently been pierced, let’s just say below the ears and above the belly button, and was worried about setting off the metal detector. My sister went through before me, and sure enough, i set off the detector. I told the female security officer of my piercing, and she oh-so politely told me to wait in the plexiglass cage designed for evil pierced lawbreakers like me. I did as I was told, and started to tell my sister to wait for me,and the officer YELLED “YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO TALK TO PEOPLE!!!” At this point, i went into my cage, and waited, and waited, and waited, for what seemed like forever (it was probably only 10 minutes or so, but when people are staring at you wondering why you are in the box, it seems like longer). She came in, used the wand thingy on me and it was the rivets in my jeans making it go off. It doesn’t seem like that big a deal now, but it was the summer of 2002,and I was scared to be flying anyway, without the added stress of an angry security officer yelling at me. I’m just glad they didn’t make me remove my piercings, like that poor girl in the news!

    2. I can’t seem to pick

    3. I lived in Oklahoma as a child, and remember a place in OKC called the Omniplex or something like that. Not exactly a museum, btu it had a really cool science center for kids.

    4. I can pick things up with my toes. I’m also very good at accents. I once had a British guy ask me what part of England I was from.

    5. I have been hit in the face with just about every type of ball you find in a high school gym. I was playing volleyball with my family once, the ball hit me in the head, and they kept the ball in play… man, I hate playing sports.

    posted by Dana on 3-29-2008 at 3:36 am

35. 3. The Cockroach Hall of Fame Museum in Plano, Tx - Yeah. It has dead roaches dressed as celebrities. Elvis, Liberaci, Marilyn Monroe… it was a completely unnecessary afternoon in my life.

    posted by Nikki on 3-29-2008 at 1:43 pm

36. 1. My worst customer service in recent memory came from my dentist’s office last summer. I made an appointment a month in advance. The day before, they had to cancel it…no big deal, we rescheduled it for the next month. When the rescheduled appointment date came, they (no surprise) had to cancel it again. I’m a teacher and it’s early August by this time, so I didn’t have room to reschedule. As I was calling to complain, the receptionist realizes that the particular dentist I was going to see wasn’t even covered under my insurance. Surely this should have been figured out two months earlier when I made the original appointment? I ended up finding a new dentist.

    2. If Elizabeth Kostova (The Historian) ever comes out with another book, I’ll buy it within 24 hours, but I’m not holding my breath.

    3. The strangest museum I’ve ever been to was the Medieval Torture Museum in Rothenberg, Germany 5 years ago…very cool and disturbing!

    4. My most impressive obscure talent…I don’t think I have one, though in high school I was very competent with a MIG wire welder…I was an artist and that was my medium. But I wouldn’t put money on being able to use one properly now.

    5. My most vivid youth sports memory was when I was playing recreational soccer when I was about 11-13 years old. I had this crazy fear of getting called on a handball, so as an opponent was lining up on the sidelines to kick the ball in, I made sure that my hands were securely clasped behind my back. I was probably only 15 feet from the kick and ended up catching the ball with my nose, which started bleeding a bit. I tried to tough it out and keep playing, even as my coach on the nearby sidelines asked if I needed to come out. A few minutes later, as tears welled up in my eyes, I caved. I still have very fond memories of playing and managed to limit the nosebleeds in the following years.

    posted by C on 3-30-2008 at 8:15 pm

37. 3. I’ve never visited it, but Chicago’s International Museum of Surgical Science kind of terrifies me.

    4. I work for a publisher and can recite ISBNs/part numbers for a frighteningly large number of our products at any moment.

    posted by Rachel on 3-31-2008 at 3:38 pm

38. I have been researching customer service problems and have found that this service is going downhill. It seems as though some companies don’t understand that they are skimping on the one thing they should be focusing on. I have had lots of bad customer service. Only a few places was it so bad that I would not return. I took a customer service survey that helps you gauge how well you understand customer service. I hate to admit I missed a lot but it helped me to see some points I could work on. You can try it at: mshare.net

    posted by Carrie T on 7-21-2008 at 3:08 pm

39. i’ve had the bad ones are ones that unfortunately I really remember. Customer service these days has really gone on a downfall and something needs to be done to change that. I have just recently come across a website called Mindshare. com where the main focus is on customer service. It’s really worth checking out! It’s not too much to ask to be treated with respect and good service.

    posted by stephanie eyre on 7-30-2008 at 11:59 am

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