Being sick makes me extra grumpy.

Yes, I have another cold (flu?); hubby's been battling it for a while now, and kiddo woke up coughing last night (plus a fever this morning). Hubby was desperate enough to try Buckley's cough medication -- he described its taste as "homeless urine filtered through sofa cushions from the Salvation Army" [they know it tastes bad -- I mean the stuff lists pine needle oil as an ingredient! -- the site includes all the ads admitting as much]. I have vowed that when I start coughing, I will take some too [=shudder=].

I finally dragged myself downstairs about 10:30 and there were 3 pieces of mail with my name on. The first piece was from the provincial arm of my union, urging me to vote for the party they have endorsed. I turfed the bumf and shredded the envelope.

Next was a letter from a store card. Last month, I paid off the store card in question (yay!) then found it had been overpaid (boo!) but they offered to send me a refund when they closed the account (yay!). I got the refund last week and expected that the mail I received today would be the "We're sorry to lose you as a customer..." letter for my records. Nope, it was a statement saying my account was at zero. I phoned them and, when I keyed in my number, the autobot did say my account had been closed. However, I still requested a letter for my records.

Finally, for the umpteenth time in the past 6 months I got another "offer" ("Congratulations! You've been selected to receive ....") from the Royal Bank. Since I'm already crabby and I'm stuck at home anyway, I found the "We value your privacy..." statement on the back, along with a 1-800 number. The automated menu offered voice or touchtone menu choices, I chose touchtone but there was no touch-zero-to-speak-to-a-human option so I punched in 123456789# and it said "That is not a valid card number. Please hold for the next available operator." After a few minutes I was assured that I had been taken off the mailing list but that anything currently at the printers would still get through (standard 4-6 weeks crap). But I feel better.