Yes, yes, it's still Knatolee's World

I got bored, sitting here waiting for the oil dude to inspect our friggin' oil tank (which is four years old and JUST FINE, but this is what oil companies make you do when you sign up with their company for the purpose of throwing lots of money at them for home-heating oil; and hey ULTRAMAR, you SUCK, you're fired!!), so I redesigned my header. Maybe one day I will actually put some real time and effort into redesigning my blog. It's not as if I'm, oh, a graphic designer or something! Oh wait, I AM a graphic designer. Never mind!

And Naomi is obsessed with eating the earbuds on my iPod, which is currently recharging next to my keyboard tray. She keeps trying to cram her head into the tray... earwax is her secret love, what can I say? Any trace of it, and she's there. There's no alarm clock like a kitten reaming out your ear with her tongue. Eeeeeyuw! But it's better than being kissed by a dog who just ate her own poo. EEEEYUW!

Remind me again why we have pets?

As for the oil... we are supposed to get automatic oil delivery so our tank doesn't empty. Last Wednesday, we realized the gauge was on EMPTY, so we call our oil company, Ultramar. They wouldn't send someone Wednesday, but said maybe Thursday, definitely Friday. Meanwhile, we were afraid with every shower that we'd run out of hot water. We let the dishes pile up. Friday came, no oil. Gordon called them and the office had closed early!! We made it through the weekend, still had hot water, still had a tank that said empty. Called Ultramar. "Oh, the driver ran out of oil on Friday. He'll be there next Wednesday."

Uh, our tank is empty, it's your fault, and we are on pins and needles waiting for the last drops to drain from the system and leave us with no hot water, and you say NEXT WEDNESDAY?

At this point, Gordon had called Ultramar six times and gotten no where. So yesterday we called a local oil company, signed up with them, fired Ultramar, and are supposed to be getting oil today, although oil-tank inspection dude is currently an hour late and I'm not impressed.

The funny thing is, some sales guy from Ultramar called last night and this morning, leaving messages asking us to call and explain why we cancelled our contract with them. (Because you don't give a sh*t, that's why!) I'd like to know why we had to close our account to get them to pay attention to us. I'm only glad it's not January and we're only relying on oil for hot water.

Of course, Ultramar is the same company that sent someone to do a regular cleaning on our furnace last year, and ended up breaking the furnace. It took three more visits and a pretty damn cold house before they sent in a service technician with some experience with wood/oil furnaces, and he fixed the problem (that the previous techs had created) in the space of five minutes.

Customer service is dead in this country. Ooops, I think that all turned into a rant. I just want someone to fill my damn oil tank!!

ADDENDUM: Oh wait, we're going back to Ultramar. The new oil company is even more idiotic! For starters, some guy was supposed to be here at 2pm to inspect the oil tank. 4 pm, still no dude. Gordon called the office. "Oh, he's running late. I was going to call. Oh and by the way, no oil delivery for you today or tomorrow." Even though they promised us yesterday that we'd have oil by tomorrow at latest. So back to the lesser of three evils (the third oil company choice around here is an evil local empire we refuse to deal with.) The sales rep had to grovel, but he PROMISED us oil tomorrow. If it doesn't come, I have no clue what we'll do next. Switch to an electric hot water tank?

Done ranting for this week! Who knew it was so difficult to buy 900 litres of oil?