I was tagged quite a while ago by Ji-in, tasked to detail my five weirdest habits. Initially, I had a difficult time pinpointing them despite assurances from Hubby (who often lovingly calls me “OCD”) and friends who like to poke fun at my eccentric tendencies. However, when I sat down to think about it, I really do have some strange habits and phobias. So, leave me a comment and tell me about yours. If you blog it, be sure to leave me a comment and let me know!

#1 - Food should not be allowed to touch. Dishes are carefully prepared with certain herbs and spices, concocted to taste a certain way when served. When sauces or dressings from other foods are allowed to intermingle with it, its destiny to become all that it was meant to be is thwarted. Therefore, I zealously preserve its intended flavor by carefully segregating my food, using multiple plates/bowls when given a choice or building makeshift partitions with starches such as rice or mashed potatoes when attending a buffet. After all, starches are neutral and are the only type of food that I deem acceptable to associate with other fare.

#2 - I am a germophobe. Being stuck in an airplane, bus, train, elevator, or small room with someone who is hacking up a lung is extremely unnerving to me. Having someone double-dip their eggroll into my hot sauce will cause me to immediately forsake it. I carry antibacterial hand sanitizer in my purse.

#3 - I indiscriminately toss anything that is past its expiration date. This is especially true of dairy products. I have a phobia about eating anything spoiled and will throw anything away that looks questionable or is past its “best before” date. When shopping, I will choose a similar product over another simply because one has a date stamped on it and the other didn’t.

#4 - How rude! I sniff my food. Before eating something unfamiliar or questionable, I’ll sniff it. If I’m in public, I try to be discreet about it. I also do a sniff check of dairy products (cheese, cottage cheese, cream cheese, etc.) before eating it. See #3.

#5 - I must fall asleep lying on my back. I simply cannot fall asleep unless I am lying flat on my back. Throughout the night, I may move around or awaken to find myself sleeping on my side, but in order to get back to sleep I must assume the proper position: flat on my back.

Your turn! Tell me about your weirdest habits.

I was surprised to see that my negative review on Amazon.com caught the attention of the Keurig Kustomer Service. The Director of Customer Service, even. I received a courteous e-mail of inquiry the day after I posted the review, thus launching an e-mail dialogue.

The Director was eager to learn more about the problem. She offered me an upgrade to the Special Edition B60 and some free K-cups for my trouble. While the offer for a better model certainly was appealing, I declined. Our Best Buy Replacement Plan enabled us to handle exchanges at the local store should the unit break down within two years. Heaven forbid we get the “new and improved” B60, have it break down and it cost me money to ship it back to the company. I did, however, happily accept the offer for free coffee.

I am genuinely pleased by the effort that Keurig is putting forth to compensate us for our time and trouble. I am confident that this story will have a happy ending. Of course, in appreciation, I will gladly edit my review on Amazon.com and epinions.com to reflect their actions to resolve my issues.

Ahh… ya gotta love the Internet.

Life was much simpler then.

Recently, I prayed, “Lord, let your will be done in this situation, for you know all things and can see the beginning from the end. You know if this situation will be good for me or not. If it is too much for me to handle — or if you have better things planned for me — then let the answer be ‘no’.” Continue Reading »

So, the mission for today was to obtain a replacement for the defective koffeemaker. This makes replacement #4 since December 11. Seeing a disturbing trend in the unreliability of this model, we purchased the 2-Year Replacement Plan at Best Buy when we picked up unit #3, only three weeks ago.

The customer service agent was very professional and handled our exchange efficiently. We left with a new Keurig and a satisfied feeling that we can have our gourmet coffee and tea from the convenience of our home again — at least until it breaks down again.

We’re thinking that we should just pencil in a trip to Best Buy and lunch at Bravo every 2-3 weeks since that’s been the consistent track record of this machine:

Keurig Ultra B50
#1 - 12/11/2005 (Original purchase date)
#2 - 12/22/2005 (11 days)
#3 - 01/08/2006 (20 days)
#4 - 01/28/2006 (20 days)

Let’s hope there won’t be a #5 anytime soon.

I can’t believe it.

The Keurig B50 Coffeemaker that we bought ourselves for Christmas broke. Again. This is the third one that has failed in a little over a month. It seems that the unit goes into self-destruct mode after 2-3 weeks of use. We’re becoming well-acquainted with the return and exchange policy at Best Buy as a result of this piece of shoddy workmanship.

I was so annoyed about this most recent episode that I actually wrote three negative reviews for the Keurig B50. I even registered on epinions.com just so that I could proclaim my displeasure with the product in hopes of deterring others from making the same mistake.

Before you start shouting “user error!” see that others are having similar problems and shared them on this review.

It’s frustrating, to say the least. We’re thinking about asking Best Buy to give us store credit instead of an exchange so we can get a different brand. The only problem is that we still have about $50 worth of K-cups which are proprietary and cannot be used in any other type of single-cup coffeemaker. I suppose we could donate them to our friends R&R who are the happy owners of a Keurig, which oddly enough, has not broken down on them once.

I guess we just have a propensity for picking lemons. Too bad the Keurig doesn’t make lemonade.

Monday, January 16, approximately 9:30 am
A lazy holiday morning, I allowed myself to sleep in. Around 9:30 am, I dragged myself out of bed and went to the kitchen to have breakfast. I checked the fridge and found that Hubby had eaten the last of the cereal, so I went to the pantry and grabbed a new box.

As I poured myself a bowl of cereal, I noticed something curious: the cereal in my bowl did not contain any dried fruit. The cereal was supposed to include blueberries and strawberries, but all I saw were flakes. Thinking that perhaps the fruit had settled to the bottom of the bag, I extracted the bag from the box and found that it was absolutely devoid of any color except for a smattering of black sediment on the bottom of the bag, which I deduced to be blueberry particles of some sort.

I harrumphed to myself, annoyed that they had gypped me out of a good box of cereal. Continue Reading »

This probably isn’t one of the most flattering photos you’ll see of me, but this is one of the images that the doctor shared with Hubby and I at my post-operation appointment this afternoon. Taken by laparoscope, the pictures revealed quite a bit of scar tissue and endometriotic implants. Perhaps worst of all, my tubes appeared to have adhered themselves to the adjacent tissues and weren’t “floppy and mobile” which made our chances for a natural conception much less likely.

She stated the next steps systematically: make an appointment with an infertility specialist, start monthly DepoLupron shots to treat the endometriosis, and see what happens with the in vitro fertilization process.

Perhaps the most troubling was what the DepoLupron does. It temporarily puts me into menopause mode. Hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings. Oy, watch out, Hubby!

Some good news: The biopsy on the polyps came back negative, so at least that’s something to be thankful for.

As for our pursuit of parenthood, it looks like we have a long road ahead of us.