A Thank You to the Blue Cab Company for Helping Me Stay Fit and Save Money

I would like to congratulate the Blue Cab company of Oak Park for helping me to stay in shape AND save money.  I could not have found the strength of will to be committed to exercise and saving car fare without your remarkably crappy service, rude telephone operators, horrid, lying dispatchers, and awful drivers.  You give me motivation to buy a car and the threat of having to use your cabs keeps me driven to practice driving, even though other people's erratic behavior on the road terrifies me.

As a supporter of family owned businesses, I have used Blue Cab's service for nearly a year.  Within that time, I've been subjected to the most unreliable, unpleasant, and ultimately unprofessional service I've ever experienced from a cab service in my life.   I would like to heartily thank the Blue Cab company for living up to their two star rating on Yelp and giving me the opportunity to experience truly life changing events.

I would like to thank the drivers who texted or surfed the web on their phones whilst driving, tried to engage in inappropriate conversations with me about my personal life, or purposely overcharged and took unnecessary detours for a ten minute ride from the train station to my job.  You taught me the value of not tipping for service.

I would like to thank the telephone operators who gave me false wait times and then acted as though I was unreasonable for inquiring about updates to the cab's arrival times.  Your apathetic and sarcastic attitudes made me grateful for all the times I've had great customer service from other cab companies and for the strength of character that my parents instilled in me to always view the work that I do, not matter how bad things are, as a source of pride, rather than something unpleasant that makes me speak and behave in a manner that was off-putting to others. 

My privileged experience of trying to file complaints about your drivers and the subsequent run around you gave me taught me that I should always have a backup plan and take any opportunity to avoid climbing into your cabs because no one truly cares if I'm paying money to be treated like dog crap except for me.  This has broadened my worldview and solidified the idea that especially if I am paying for a service, I should only expect good treatment if the other party has a long history of treating others well.  I should always formulate my ideas and views of people and companies based on their track record and 'giving people a chance' is really me giving them a chance to screw up like they always do.

I would also love to thank the dispatcher/supervisor (Isn't that a conflict of interest?) who called me after I reported my cab was a no-show and proceeded to berate me, claiming that I was unreasonable and rude for using a different option instead of waiting for someone who lied about showing up.  I would also like to thank you for claiming I was "a damn liar" and how you "always give great customer service" and how you "absolutely did not hang up or yell" at me when I was trying to explain my situation to her after calling to report the no-show cab. 

I loved having you talk down to me, be rude to me, and having the privelage of hearing you and your coworkers abetting each other in the background.  It was a phenomenal experience to have you come to the conclusion that the best way to punish me for complaining, for expecting decent service, and expecting that a family owned business could be professional was to tell me, with no small amount of smugness in your voice that since I had a problem with the service, you'd just have the cabs stop picking me up.  I hope your friendship with your coworkers is as deep and boundless as your levels of pettiness and I sincerely hope it lasts longer than your company will with all the wonderful, polite, and prompt cab service competition that's suddenly moving into the Oak Park area. 

Thank you, ever so much Blue Cab.  Best wishes

Sincerely, the Snarktopus

Foot Therapy: Baby Foot Peel

People have been telling me about baby foot peels forever.  Initially, something about it made me feel like it was a frivolous and unnecessary purchase.  I could soak and scrape my feet for free at home.  Well, I learned quickly that a baby foot peel is an entirely different beast, preferable for people who don't want to spend two hours soaking and scraping their feet.

I used the  Kocostar brand sold on Memebox (Not Urban Outfitters.  It's a dollar cheaper on Memebox if you buy the two pack!) 

First of all, the only work you have to do is your regular foot care routine.  You wash your feet, slip on the baby foot peel socks and chill for 1.5 hours, then take them off, rinse, and go about your day.  These instructions are universal for all baby foot peels.  ALL OF THEM.

Courtesy of Ebay: Forgive the poor grammar.  Language barriers

For the first 3 days, your feet are normal.  There's not even the slightest sign that something's going to happen.  By the fourth day, though, your feet begin to peel.  Soon, all the dead skin, thick calluses and even snagging cuticles peel right off.  And by the seventh day, you have soft, smooth, callus free feet.  Usually.

Drawbacks: 

The things I had issues with were the unpredictable start day of the peeling and the wait time for it to finish.  The package says it should start within 4 days, but sometimes it starts earlier.  It causes problems when your feet just bust out with flaking skin on a day you decided to wear sandals.  Having your feet look like they're covered in nasty mummy skin for about a week can be quite shocking... and send an attentive S/O into a panic.  Like mine.  The poor dear thought my shoes were causing an allergic reaction. 
Also, though the package says it should be complete within a week, I've had a foot peel treatment continue for nearly 10 days.  However, I suppose it's important to note that if you have really thick calluses (like me) or thick foot skin (like me again), the product won't work the same for you and you won't get feet that are actually baby soft.  You may have to leave the treatment on your feet for an extra thirty minutes to get any effect at all.  You may even have to use the treatment 2 or 3 times before your skin is the desired smoothness.

Benefits:

I still love it.  It's much less effort to keep my feet smooth and my calluses don't build up as fast.  I don't risk cutting a callus off wrong and hurting myself.  I don't spend an hour each week scrubbing, scraping and buffing my feet to get them to feel smoother.  My shoes FIT better.  One application of the foot peel treatment every 6 weeks keeps my feet as smooth and supple as 6-12 hours of scraping over the same time period.  I cannot complain.  I would totally recommend this product to anyone who has thick calluses and cracked heels.