Challenges

I often explain it away as, I am an only child. That might be part of it...a small minuscule part. I am also hard headed, having not fallen far from the tree that was my mother. I think my desire to win battles started with her. It was be strong or be ground to dust under her heel as she trod over you. Whatever the reason, I will not let go of a fight once I have sunk in my teeth, especially if I feel wronged.

Recently, I have had three challenges that fall into this category. Incidents that left me feeling like I was being taken advantage of, treated like an idiot, blatantly ignored and or lied to. This, as usual, was not setting well. Today, I think the last of the three was settled. Promises were made, just waiting for the action. Promises made by the owner of a company after I logically disputed my way through his underlings. They could not argue or belittle me into believing what they wanted...I just would not see it their way. Going to the top seems to be the way to success. This can sometimes be very difficult, as the top is often shielded by layers upon layers of people that interfere with attempts to contact them. After all, the President of a company can't be bothered by a peon like me. Though sometimes, with enough persistence, you get lucky. I did once, after many phone calls, emails and the such, something of mine ended up on what I would guess was a pretty big desk in Detroit. After that, things happened fast. To this day, I get a reaction every time they look up my name at a Ford dealer.

Other times, it's not so hard to get to the top. I recently dropped the Mayor a nice email asking why I had a gigantic whole in front of my house that I couldn't get the powers that be to address. First, this was not a pothole. When I say gigantic, it eventually took two dump trucks worth of gravel to fill in. It had been slowly expanding over the course of ten, or so, months. My pleas had gotten crude, temporary, fixes...they threw plywood over it and put up barriers. One polite email to the Mayors office and, wham bam, I got hardhat crews bending over backwards to get that hole filled in. I sent a nice thank you to the Mayor's office as well. And it should be easy to contact our elected officials, they should not be high and mighty ensconced in towers unreachable to the average Joe...or Josephine. But I will admit that the response was better than I expected.

So I have managed to tackle, one by one, these challenges to my mental well being. So for now, I am pleased and unencumbered by annoyances. I am sure it won't last long. But for now I will just relax and bask in my victory.