Teeth, missed delivery and kids with guns

In the world of ‘you couldn’t make it up’, I have had yet another ‘you couldn’t make it up’ moment.  As you regular readers are aware, I have been trying to get a reliable dentist sorted out and went for an assessment at another practice at the beginning of this month.  To recap, the dentist did the examination then announced he was leaving the practice.  I was subsequently allocated another dentist and booked an appointment for September.  Today I had a call from the practice, the transcript of which follows...............

Me:	“Hello.”
Receptionist	“Hi, is that Miss Davies?  This is ****** Dental Practice.  You have an appointment with Mrs ****** on 16th September.”
Me	“Yes, that is right.”
Receptionist	“Well she won’t be here that day so I need to re-book you.”
Me	“Oh, okay, but that date is the earliest I can do as I am a childminder and the school holidays have started now.  Can you also confirm that I won’t be charged for the visit as the dentist I saw previously knew he was leaving so I should never have been allocated to him?”
Receptionist	“Ummmmm, well I am not sure about that so I would need to check with the manager. Right, I have an appointment on 11th August at twenty past ten.”
Me	“I already told you that I can’t get there until September.  The appointment I had, had been for the day before I go away for two weeks.”
Receptionist	“Oh yes, sorry, you did tell me.  How about first thing on Thursday 22nd September.”
Me	“No..........that is when I am away.  I can’t come until the first Friday in October.”
Receptionist	“Oh I see, well I will need to go and speak to the dentist to try and book you in earlier and I will check about the charge for you.”
Me	“I have already told you more than once that I cannot come any earlier.”
Receptionist	“Right, yes, ummm, okay. Well I will come back to you later then, bye.”

At this point I was starting to question my own sanity.  Why is it so hard to get an appointment in the first place and also to get anyone with a degree of sensibility on the ‘phone?

More fun and games involving the Royal Mail this week.  I missed a delivery by three minutes and contacted the sorting office to ask them to get the driver to pop back as he could only have been a street or two away.  I was rudely informed that they no longer telephone the drivers in the van and that I would have to collect it myself from the sorting office.  I explained that this would involve walking there (no parking facilities) with six children (two in a buggy) and it wasn’t very helpful really.  The jobsworth said “Yeah, well, I guess you will have to” and hung up................ 

Most of the delivery people have the sense to either knock at the neighbours to leave a parcel or put it in the recycling box and pop a note through the door.  Sadly, no such though process is part of the Royal Mail’s remit.  Once again, I will be writing to complain, although my hopes of a reply let alone rectification of the matter are low. 

Meanwhile, I am trawling through Amazon.com to purchase a personality and have it delivered to the rude man at the sorting office (complete with picture instructions as he is clearly incapable of stringing a coherent sentence together so I presume reading has bypassed him too).

What is it about people these days encouraging their children to run amok with nerf guns, firing their bullets at people and passing cars?  I currently have a problem with about a dozen primary school kids gathering on my shared drive (with the horrid child from next door), then moving to the traffic island outside and firing the guns.  They also run in and out of the bushes and trees and fire bullet after bullet.  Some of these weapons are huge and the kids look menacing.  In the society we live in, what on earth makes it acceptable to encourage kids to play with guns?  This only glamorises gun crime and makes it look like fun.  Most of the kids bothering me and the other neighbours do not even live in this street.  Two in fact travel nearly quarter or a mile to get here.  Where are the responsible parents?  How do they know their children are safe when they cannot see them?  The child next door moves back home to the USA next week so hopefully the problem will resolve itself.  If not, they will be chased off my drive pretty sharpish.