This is not a post about toys for your pet kitten. It is a story about entertaining your man.
When I was a little kid my mom used to give me a mess of tangled string and ask me to un knot it. I've talked about this before. It was a very creative way of keeping me busy while she was attending to my 2 elderly grandfathers. I LOVED it ! I could sit for hours working on those knots.
Now that I find myself living with The Man who has absolutely NO interests outside of hunting and fishing, which he can no longer do, I am at a loss to find ways to keep him preoccupied so I can have some space. His TV watching is limited to Fox News, the Weather Channel and hunting and fishing shows. He is a clone of my husband with the exception of the hunting and fishing. There is the occasional foray into the show "Cops", (just like husband) but TV is pretty much all the excitement there is in his pitiful life. In the evenings there is the local news and Wheel of Fortune but other than that his life is really quite dull. And when a man's life is dull you know his focus is going to be on the woman in his life. Lucky us !! There are days when I feel like the amoeba on a slide being studied under a microscope. The Man sits at the kitchen table and watches EVERY MOVE I MAKE . I have suggested that he participate in the cooking process but he usually declines. It is apparently a lot more fun to just sit and watch and critique. Lucky ME !!!
Each evening I walk out to the mailbox which is pitifully empty on most days with the exception of our daily newspaper. The Excanaba Press keeps The Mans attention for all of 3 minutes and then he is back to watching me and the TV. I have several different places to escape to but I feel bad for the poor guy just sitting at that kitchen table day in and day out.
UNTIL . . . In stepped the U.S. Government !! Halleluia and Hip Hip Hooray !! Leave it to the good old U s of A to provide me with hours and hours of freedom. Now for those of you who think our government is just wonderful and doing a great job let me tell you about their latest brain child for the veterans.
The Man is a vet. Served in Viet Nam while in the Marines and then joined the Army 2 years after his discharge from the Marines so that he could fly helicopters for 17 years while serving in Germany and all over the US. He has put his time in and is now able to "reap" the benefits. Sadly the Veterans Administration is one of the least efficient branches of our government. It periodically undergoes "major" changes which usually result in it working even worse than it was. But The Man takes full advantage of their medical and dental programs. Dental works great because the have a dentist in both the West Palm and Iron Mountain VA hospitals. It's when we get into the pulmonary and cardiology departments that we have nothing but trouble. There is so much red tape and lack of organization that we have been forced to go into the private sector to get decent medical treatment. But that is all water under the bridge.
The "Ball of String" that the VA has thrown to the man comes in the form of a computer program. Now if you know a man over the age of 75 you will understand when I say the computer is akin to . . . well, it's about as complicated to The Man as a ball of string full of knots would be. I guarantee you if I gave The Man a ball of string full of knots and asked him to untangle it he would hand it right back or throw it out. Patience is NOT part of this mans nature, (although he does put up with me) And so when the VA told The Man they would no longer accept his travel vouchers on paper but that he now needed to put ALL his information into the computer and send it to them on line I thought The Man was going to explode. This issue was the cause of 2 weeks worth of huffing and puffing and complaining. He made several phone calls to different departments, we visited the "Travel" office in the VA at lest 4 times and still the answer was the same, "Put it in the computer!" (Remember the definition of insanity . . . Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome . . . ? ). It was down right embarrassing going into that travel office with The Man. .He would be asking the exact same questions that he asked 2 days ago and the poor kid who worked there gave the same answers that he gave 2 days ago. The kid kept looking at me like, "Lady . . . what is wrong with this guy?" and I kept avoiding eye contact with either of them.
So now The Man has had to suck it up and use the computer. BUT . . . does The Man own a computer? NO !!!! Of course not. He has a tablet !! Not an iPad, an At&T Tablet. This stupid thing is a pain in the arse as far as I am concerned but then I am used to my computer. The first time we decided to use the VA website I called it up on my computer. WE finally figured it out, (I furred it out! The Man hung hovered all the while making STUPID suggestions.) Once I got the hang of it things went smoothly. EXCEPT . . . This is the US Government we are dealing with so it takes about 15 minutes EVERY time you log in just to get to your account. You have to go through step after step to make sure it is really you who wants to access this information. Why anyone would ever want to know how many times The Man went to have his teeth cleaned is beyond me but we MUST be secure !!! Once you get to your page or Dashboard as the VA likes to call it, you enter the information but there was no immediate satisfaction. "Under Manual Survey" was the message that appeared EVERY ten minutes that The Man had me checking it. Finally he got so frustrated we had to return to the VA travel office to see the young man AGAIN !! Only to be told that they are very very backlogged so we needed to be patient. HA HA HA !!!! (I did not laugh out loud)
Upon returning home, one hour drive later, The Man asked me to go onto the website and check again. And this is where I realized I HAD A BALL OF STRING! I suggested that The Man call up this website on HIS tablet so he could check it when ever he needed, (wanted), to see what was going on. I got him started and I walked away.
That was 2 weeks ago. Now ever time I am feeling claustrophobic I say, "Hey D, Have you checked your travel claims recently?" And BINGO !! I'v got at least 2 hours to myself !!
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