The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for. ~ Maureen Dowd

Soooooo....say your paying for something aaaaaaand you don't get your moneys worth. You're promised things that don't come through. You're told it's all taken care of and nothing ever changes.

What do you do?

Let's say....you're renting a tennis court so you can play for an hour every week. Other folks use the court. You don't own it...you just rent the space once a week.

And it all starts out just fine.

Then one day when you get there, for your hour, there is another pair on there playing. They want to finish their set. So they eat into your time.

You complain to the manager of the facility. He apologizes and says he will let the boss know and this won't happen again.

OK....so what...who cares.

Then you notice the lines on the court are peeling and flaking up and you can't tell if the ball is in or out.

You complain to the manager of the facility. He apologizes and says he will let the boss know and this won't happen again.

But now you're really starting to wonder if the money that you are paying each week to be there is worth it.

Now you show up and the net is coming loose and fraying, the lines still aren't fixed and the couple before you seem to take more and more of your time.

This time, when you talk to the manager, you play a lil good cop/bad cop and try to drive the point home that you're not happy.

He apologizes and says he will let the boss know and this won't happen again.

When is enough enough and how do you get someone to care? (other than yourself, of course) Every where I look we are being taken advantage of: at the pump, in government, as a woman, in my paycheck, at my radio station.

Where do you go when your complaints fall on deaf ears? Do you go to another tennis facility and hope to get better treatment there? What are the odds they will be better? Especially in a world where customer service is dead and the client is ALWAYS wrong!

Some days...I just don't want to get out of bed in the morning. I have no more energy to fight the good fight. I use to write letters to companies that needed a good talkin' too. Now when I write, they can't be bothered to even send a form letter!

And the pang in my heart tells me that "If you don't complain, who will". All the while my head is screaming, "They just don't fuckin' care about people anymore."

My head is winning.

“Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.” ~ Dr. Seuss

When you move in with someone, there is the "mesh". Your stuff and their stuff has to cohabitate.

Understandable.

As time goes on, you BOTH get stuff together. Your taste changes. You evolve and hopefully improve. And then the day comes when that one item, that you have overlooked for years cuz it's just part of the environment, is an eyesore.

My overstuffed, plaid chair had reached that point.

It took up a HUGE space in the office of our house. It was comfy, don't get me wrong. It was one of the new items of furniture I bought when I moved from my folks and went out on my own. It looked fantastic in my cute lil apartment in Culver City, CA. We watched TV together. I ate my breakfast in it, every morning, while watching the Today Show. It's hugeness drew in stacks of party goers, who would cram into it, when I would have the friends over for a BBQ. I took a few naps in that chair as well. It's over-stuffed, wonderfulness, a catcher's mitt of snuggly comfort.

When it traveled the United States and ended up here in NY, it was a main part of our apartment living room. Then we moved to the house. Yes, it still held a spot in the living room. Then we decided our 1930's colonial needed a more sophisticated look. The plaid chair wasn't part of that.

Up to the office it went. And to good use! It was my video game chair. It was the "What chat doin' on the computer?" chair. It was still beloved.

Then.....things started to happen to it. Like a neighborhood that suddenly doesn't seem as nice. Like a bad element that moves in next door and the property value goes down.

The cats took it over!

My, once best friend, was now a cat napping place. Which kept you from just flopping down in it. There was always a cat in it OR enough fur in it to DIY a cat clone.

Then we started hearing it...the late night scratchings. Like the flesh being flogged from the back of a tortured soul. "RIIIIIIIIPPP! TUG TUG RIIIIIIIPPP!"

Morning would find the fabric split and the stuffing popping out like bleeding wounds. The chair injuries would drive me into a rage against the cats. But it never mattered. They didn't care. It would begin again the next night. On occasion...right in front of my very eyes. With a look on the cats face like, "What are you going to do about it?"

They were right...I was helpless to come to the aid of my old friend. Didn't matter what I sprayed on it, or covered in tin foil, or surrounded it with nip infused scratching pads with "as seen on TV" guarantees.

If that wasn't bad enough....the ultimate shame came when the hairballs flew. Nasty lil gifts of brownish hell. The liquid, long soaked into the cushion, leaving the matted stomach substance, high and dry and stuck to the fabric weave. Marks that will never quite come out. Like bruises on the fabric.

Ol' plaid had reached the end. No amount of cleaner, or trying to repair the torn fabric would ever fix it. And in the darkness the cats waited. Waited for me to fix up ol' plaid, so they could, once again, torture it.

So with a heft and a push and a roll down the front yard to the curb, I walked away. Leaving my friend outside, on the sidewalk, leaned up on telephone pole.

17 years together. My longest relationship, to date.

We left for dinner and, upon our return, low and behold, ol' plaid was GONE! A new home? A new family? A new life? Who knows where adventure will take that chair. It was good to know that it would live on, in some form.

Goodbye ol friend. May you find a house, free of cats.