Assuming Almost Made an Ass out of Me

I almost made a colossal fuckup of a mistake today.  Had I done it, I would have cheerfully slit my throat.   Here’s the deal.  As you know, I have been working on a massive book project for my mother.  The publisher is in England, and they requested two hard copies and two disk copies by December 31st.  I assumed (there’s that word) that I could have FedEx Online (merged with Kinko’s) print it and ship it to London.  Should be easy for them, amirite?

So, I was working my boobs off (already lost all my ass) to finish up the manuscript to the publisher’s specs.  They wanted two hard copies and two disk copies.  With the disk copies, they wanted the book broken down into chapters and each chapter saved as a different file.  Then, they wanted the word count for each chapter.  Plus, they wanted the pagination to be correct.  Apparently, email is not good enough for our British counterparts.

Anyway, the real problem is that my mother and I did not have a clear contract as to what work I would actually do.  It started with pure rewriting and copy editing.  I am used to that as I have written most of her papers and edited them as well.  Let me clarify, she writes them, but in the beginning, I had to do lots of rewriting.   Her writing has gotten better as she’s done it more, and my copy editing skills have vastly improved over the last fifteen years.

Anyway, then as is often the case, she had to do the layout as well–which meant I had to do the layout.  My mom is like me in that if she doesn’t have an immediate aptitude for something, she refuses to learn it.  In her case, it’s computers.  She can do the very basic stuff, but she still sometimes uses the space bar rather than tab, if you know what I mean.  So, the layout fell to me.  Fine.  I’ve done that before as well.  I don’t like it, but I can do it.

The deal was I would edited the almost three-hundred page book, lay it out properly, and then send it to her to send in to the publisher.  That WAS the deal.  But, then she emailed my brother and me saying she didn’t understand what the publisher wanted in terms of the disk copies.  To be fair, legalese is not easy to understand for anyone, and English is not her first language.  It’s her third, actually, behind Taiwanese and Chinese.  So, we agreed that my brother would do the disk copies.  Then, my mother wore me down until I agreed to send the hard copies from here.

See, she talks about how she’s not sure she can do this or that or the other thing.  She could figure it out, but in the end, she exudes such an aura of feminine helplessness, it’s easier just to say,  “All right!  I’ll do it!  Just stop acting like that.”  And yes, I know that I let her bamboozle me.

To top it off, my brother made me snap today.  Poor guy.  He is someone with whom I feel fairly comfortable letting loose my frustration.  In addition, I don’t mind saying no to him.  He wanted me to do the disks, and, ah, no.  Anyway, I had to unlock my phone in order to use it in Taiwan.  I called my bro to get the number because I don’t know what it is.  He said, “You haven’t done that yet?  It might take them up to a week?”  As you all know, I am not at my sweet best this week, so I snapped, “Then I won’t use it for a week!”

Here’s the thing:  This is how my family operates.  He could have simply said, “It may take a week to activate.”  But no.  He had to say in a snippy tone, “You haven’t done that yet?”  No, I haven’t fucking done it yet.  I know I’m a fucking idiot with my procrastination, but you may STFU now.  He and his wife do it to each other all the time (snipe), and I hate being around that.  Well, she does it to everyone in general.  I have to recognize that I do it myself, and I don’t like it when I do it, either.

Anyway, I finally got the whole thing done.  I made several mistakes that I had to fix, but I got it done.  I went online to print and send it and–found out that FedEx Office online doesn’t do international print and ship.

This is the point where I was ready to slit my throat.  My brain melted down, and I nearly lost it.  All that work, and it looked like it was going down the drain.  I consulted my bro (we can actually talk civilly to each other after yelling), and after several phone calls, I hit upon the right recourse.  My local FedEx Office guy was very helpful.  He told me that they could print it and send it, and I would just have to go in and sign all the paper work.  He was so helpful and polite, and he even called me back to say he was going to get the job finished tonight, so I could go in any time tomorrow to have it sent off.  He said there would be no problem getting it there by December 31st.  I was telling Kel that if the guy didn’t sound as if he were twelve, I would have thanked him in a very effusive manner.

So.  We are now getting snow.  Lots and lots of snow.  We are supposed to get twenty inches this weekend.  Which means my venture to the print shop tomorrow will be interesting.  It also means that maybe, just maybe…but no.  I dare not hope for that.

Do you want to know what the kicker is?  The publisher has the right to refusal.  That’s right.  It may not even get published after all the hard work we’ve done.

Anyway, the thing I have learned from this is that if I work with my mother again in the future, we are going to have a very clear contract as to what I will and won’t do so I don’t have to deal with this bullshit again.*

*That’s assuming that I have the ovaries to stand up to her helpless female act.  The jury is out on that one.