Evil Evelyn vs. Lily the Destroyer

I've delayed writing this epic battle because if either Evil Evelyn or Lily the Destroyer turned up missing, I didn't want there to be any incriminating evidence linking me to their dissappearance. I'm over it now so I feel safe sharing the tale.

By day, I work in an office that never deals with the general public. Almost never. We deal with first responders, public safety, and law enforcement, mostly. So when Evil Evelyn called I felt certain this would be another civilian inquiring about amateur radio parts and I would have to tell her I was sorry but that isn't the business we are in. Was I ever wrong?! Apparently Evelyn knew precisely what business we were in as evident by the way she asked "Am I talking Greek here? Do you install antennas or not?" A couple of weeks later, I came back from lunch only to be greated by a seriously pissed of install manager and Evelyn. Great. Evelyn was to be charged for an hour of shop labor and a part that was installed on her truck. A part that she insisted we install, against our advise, to plug a leak, which we were certain we told her, would continue to leak. Antenna mounts don't plug leaks. Plugs plug leaks. Body shops plug leaks. Never the less, she insisted the work be done so we obliged but now she was unhappy. She was told it would only be $55. "Well, yes that's correct. It is $55 for the labor rate but you were also told that we'd have to charge you for the part. With tax that brings your total to $87.67", I said.

EE: "Do you take checks?"
Me: "No Ma'am. We accept cash and major credit cards. Do you have a Visa or Mastercard debit card?"
EE: In a pissy tone, "Yes, I have a debit card."

Now normally, when I run my customers' credit cards there's no tax involved so I ran the card the way I normally would. Realizing my mistake, I quickly refunded the card and ran it again for the correct amount. I apologized and explained what I had done. "Well, that's just great. I have no money now!", she says. She goes on to tell me that she has been moving all day, she has to finish moving her stuff and she already owes her apartment manager $5 but now, because of me, she has no money for gas so that she can finish moving. Now look, I'm not a heartless person and even though up to this point she has been incredibley rude to me, I still feel bad for her, but what can I do? She insists that she needs to call her bank. Sure, I tell her, I'd be more than happy to speak with them if she would like. It's during this next part that I start not to feel quite so bad for Evelyn. She was just a rude to the people at her own bank! After she bitches the people at her bank out for the fact that the refund will not post faster, she continues to bitch me out. She demands to talk to a manager. I calmly tried to explain that there was no manager here. I even motioned around the office as if to say "Lady, do you see anyone else here?" "Well where is he?", she asks. Uh, he's not here. "Well why do I have to talk to you, you're just the secretary?!" she says. At this point an engineer comes out of his office and poses as a manager. He calmly tries to explain that we've done what we can do. I calmly walked back to the install shop and exclaimed "Spanky! Evelyn will not leave! She wants to know if she was supposed to get some kind of cable.", so he comes up to talk with her. Did I mention, the Fed Ex driver came in and now she is telling him her sob story about how I took all her money?! God love Spanky because he ended the entire thing. He told her that she was charged the correct amount and if anything she had already gotten an antenna for free (he told me later, he gave it to her to get her the hell out). And as for her predicament "It's a hard knock life.", and that was that. She signed the credit card slips and stormed out. I could feel my face on fire. Whatever. I'm going to pick out a new desk so we can clean out the baby's room and a new washer and drier after work, so nah na--na boo bo!

I have made it no secret that I think the people who lived in my house before me were disgusting. I've since made it my mission to scrub every remnant of them out of my life. The last thing that needed to be done was the carpets, so as soon as we had a little extra cheese laying around I scheduled to have them professionally cleaned. As soon as I returned home, I litterally wanted to roll around on my semi damp but very fresh looking and smelling carpet. We promptly installed a dog door to avoid any accidents in the house. Much of my motivation to get this done is in preparation for the baby, as was my desire to get a new washer and drier. So despite Evil Evelyn's best attempts to shit on my parade, it was still going to be a good day. But after arriving at the store, I got a text from Mumbles, 'I threw up'. Terrific. I try and hurry home... in the rain....in traffic. I arrive to find Mumbles standing at the top of the stairs and....puke. Everywhere. Horrified, I looked at Taylor, expecting her to be positively green. Instead she was pointing to Lily, who was puking. Oh, what fresh hell is this?! I quarantine Lily in the kitchen, a proceedure I've become accustom to doing because the damn dog eats everything. Socks, underwear, shoes, paper, speaker wire, a wooden Christmas tree ornament, a tampon, nothing is safe in the house with Lily the Destroyer. Pissed, I walk back to my room to change my clothes so I can commence the clean up. She's puked on the bed, a new pillow, the last remain clean pair of the the three pairs of maternity pants I own. Fantastic. Then I discover what it is that she is puking up. She ate an entire bar of Costa Rican dark chocolate and half a bag of truffles. Holy shit, that dog won't make it through the night, I thought, but I was too pissed off to feel bad for her. Micha tried to figure out what to do with her while I tried to clean cocoa puke out of what were my nice clean, beige carpets. I yelled at everyone. I left the chocolate on the night stand, my bad, but Micha left the door open and Mumbles let her out of her kennel without keeping an eye on her. I told Micha I didn't want her any more. We can't have a dog that doesn't know better than to eat everything in whole damn house, especially once the baby comes. Of course, then he got upset and started blaming Mumbles, which only served to piss me off even more. "A dog is supposed to bring us enjoyment," I said. "All she does is tear shit up and make us fight!" And that was it. I lost it. I went to the bedroom and started bawling. It's not that I don't love the stupid dog but she's cost us more money in the last year than the entire 5 years I've owned Bruiser, all of his vetting and neutering included. She ruined the carpet and the padding in our old apartment and we had to pay to replace it and was on her way to doing the same in the new house. She's ruined numerous pairs of shoes, of course, always the most expensive ones. She barks incesantly. She terrorizes the cat. She ate all the leaves off of my pepper plant and she digs in the strawberries to eat the worms. She's basically the worst dog ever and that's even with obedience training.

So in the epic battle between Evil Evelyn and Lily the Destroyer for who could ruin Sparkie's day, Lily came out the victor. Evelyn hadn't brought me to tears, although she did call the following week and pissed me off so bad I broke out in hives. I refunded her money but only after telling her that if I did so, she was not ever, EVER to contact us again because I would not tolerate her being so rude to myself and my staff. Lily survived her near death experience and now has resorted to eating cat shit out of the liter box. I did find one of my sandals that she'd apparently thought about chewing on but decided that it was cheap and not worth the effort. Even the pepper plant whose leaves she ate nearly every one of has come back and is beginning to bloom. After some ginger ale and a good nights rest, Mumbles was fine. Micha and I are very much enjoying the brand spanking new washer and drier in my gleaming house with carpets that are mostly clean.

Lily the Destroyer