UP UPS, UP AT&T, UP GENETICS

[feng_shui_house]

On the tenth UPS said they would pick up the modem I refused to accept. On the 11th, 12th, and 13th, they kept jerking me around telling me the guy had until 7pm every day. I got totally insane. My voice hurts from shouting on the phone and shouting at my brother, because the whole modem business was connected with his wanting/not wanting DSL.

I wound up calling the corporate headquarters in Atlanta customer relations number- after 10 minutes on hold at long-distance rates I gave up.

After screeching at each other, Ken put back the tools he had offered to allow me to use when I do the brickwork on the stove base (which I hope will be tomorrow) and told me not to touch any of his tools (I hadn't intended to until he insisted, I was going to do it the hard way with improvised stuff) and took the modem back to UPS, where they 'gave him a rash of shit' about how he couldn't return it without a label. This is the OPPOSITE of what UPS told me policy is on 'refused delivery', where a package returned with the original label incurs no charge, but if you put a return label on it, they charge you for it. Then he went back to seedy hotel with piss-poor internet in a huff.

Then UPS called me and the girl said the guy had picked up the package at 4:30 today. I called him a liar because I brought the package in at 6! Then the driver got on the line and very badly finally managed to explain that there had been *2 IDENTICAL* packages!! Ken's second 'spite work' order of DSL, which I had CANCELED the next day and been assured wouldn't get me billed, had been sent out anyway, arriving, with Ehouse's typical extraordinary bad luck, on the same day that the lazy s*** UPS man finally picked up the first one! Actually, I don't think it's luck so much as laziness- the driver knew he had a delivery for this address and deliberately waited to pick up until he was going to make the delivery.

He tried to claim he hadn't done anything wrong- I told him he was supposed to pick up the package on the 11th, and been told again on the 12th, so he was two days late at the least, and he could apologize for *that*. Instead he just went on defending himself. I would never have mixed up the two packages if he'd picked up the first one on time.

And if AT&T hadn't screwed up, there wouldn't have been a SECOND package.

And if I wasn't an Asperger's syndrome, I wouldn't have reacted in exactly the way that Ken, with his own opposite mental differences from the norm (I never did see a name for the clinical syndrome that matches his behavior patterns & way of looking at the world- but it's 180 degrees different from mine, even when he's perfectly straight, which he was today). So I called him at the hotel on his cell, which I had forgot was going to be an expense to *him* (eek, 45cents a minute & I don't know how long we talked). We screamed at UPS and AT&T and then tried to understand each other. We never will, but I would like to think that at least when we're not in the MIDDLE of an argument that we will understand it's not malice that makes it so hard for us to get along. The drugs made it *impossible*, but even with him perfectly straight, he and I are fire and gasoline. We can't safely be close.

He has had some recent experience with Ariz. son who is multiply messed up (I know not PC, but when you are not functional in any meaningful way, you're messed up) with Asperger's being the *least* of his problems. Having finally read a few internet sites about it, I was able to give Ken a small amount of insight into the fact that we *don't* feel things the same way as non-Asperger's, and it's not us being petty and deliberately provoking. He probably didn't grasp all of the concept, but when I told him that Ariz. son's overreaction to him playfully 'punching' the kid (he's about 19, not a baby) after the kid seemed to him to be going along with the game, that it's not something we can help. Touching without warning gives *me* a panic reaction. I learned in a stern school not to show it beyond freezing up when someone unexpectedly hugs me, but I can't control all my reactions, such as the fury I feel when someone breaks a promise. When Ken says 'I promise I won't lock the door on you' to him that means something conditional. I don't even know what the conditions are. To me, when he got annoyed and locked the door, it was a betrayal and totally infuriating and I wasn't able to keep from shouting. (mmmm... Avonic only he shoots instead of shouts?)

I do not have the control over my voice that people expect- If I'm very happy and excited I can be shouting, and NOT KNOW IT, which has got me in trouble sooo many times. The same goes for when I'm angry, but at least people expect you to shout when you're angry.

I think most of the people in my immediate family have atypical brain chemistry/reactions. I'm fairly sure my father was an Asperger (he had many of the classic traits, including learning to read when he was 4) and my mother was either a psychopath or a sociopath- not sure which- anyway, someone who has no emotional empathy for others (if your mother stands on your broken toe, and laughs because you are in such agony that you cannot speak, and when you recover and tell her what happened and how badly it hurt, she laughs *again* and says 'Oh, you would have laughed too, your face was so funny'... umm... well, I've never forgot that) and an overpowering need to control and give orders.

Ken is dyslexic and I'm fairly sure he has the opposite of Asperger's -whatever name they give it- people who physically *NEED* stimulation and excitement (they often become addicts.) We not only aren't on the same page, we're not even the same media.

Ok, enough ranting. Time to lock up the house & get something to eat.