Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Mercury Retrograde Fuckery: No Matter How Hard You Try...

--"War. War never changes."--Fallout 4

Merc retrograde started yesterday, boys and girls, and there's a very important point I want to make: Even when you try, sometimes you just can't avoid the fuckery. It is as true for Merc retrograde as it is in life.

Anything involving messaging is Mercury-ruled. While we don't send much snail mail anymore, the Postal service and other delivery services are Mercury-ruled as well.

Your intrepid astrologer-blogger-psychic here had a problem. When I went on my glorious cruise in September, they had an amazing gym that I managed to use a few times. It's the kind of experience to make you feel good about all the time you spend at the amazing all you can eat buffets. But I digress. #sorrynotsorry

So I go into the gym with my trusty iPod--my 80GB black iPod classic. And in my mind it is a classic. I've had an iPod for 11 years and I remember how excited I was to get my first one. 


Anyway, this gym is state of the art; the machines are amazing and each one is equipped with several iPod docks. So I'm thinking "It will play and get a charge, too, which is awesome!" I shove it in there and it doesn't seem to work.

Even though I tried a number of times on a number of different elliptical trainers, I can't the iPod to work. For those of you playing at home, one of the mottos for Scorpio is "I penetrate", and I really did try.

Please note: If you're wondering if I'm deliberately trying for sexual innuendo, the answer is, "Not really, but it seems to work, so I'm going with it." I suggest you do the same. Or stop reading. Your call. #kthanksbai

There is a point to all this, and it's not (all) deliberate titillation. All this attempted penetration damaged the sensitive equipment under the hood of my iPod. When I brought the iPod home, it had a harder time getting a charge and I had to fiddle with it some. Eventually, it wouldn't sync or charge. This was in mid-December.

So off to the Apple Store I go with my sleek black iPod classic. The Genius listens to me, then turns it over and shines his handy-dandy light into the charging port. My attempts at physical satisfaction in the gym on the cruise ship had damaged a number of the pins, thereby causing my device's dysfunction. 

Of course, since it is a "legacy" iPod--his words, not mine, although he mollified me somewhat by saying he himself preferred the iPod classics--I could call Apple Care to see if they could fix it or go to a third-party company, since the device was WAY out of warranty.

I did my research and found a company in PA that fixes these devices, and got a special to boot. I filled out the paperwork, printed it to include in my package, headed to the post office self-service kiosk--going to the window is so passé--and off it went. This was on December 30.

Why is the date significant? Because I deliberately sent it before Mercury went retrograde to avoid any fuckery. And if I had avoided it and had my iPod back in my hands, I wouldn't have written this blog at all, right? If you answered YES to this question, you would be correct.

I sent the device via Priority Mail--supposedly the vast majority of the packages arrive at the destination in two days. When I checked my receipt it said it would arrive at the company on January 2. I thought that was pretty good. Not counting the holiday that would be two days.

Mercury, unfortunately, had other ideas. It still hasn't arrived at the company, and it's January 5. When I checked in online a few days ago, it said that the "Package delivery would be delayed"--thank you, Captain Obvious.

Following the scanner trail of the package shows Mercury's hand as well. It appears that once it was received at my local post office, it was sent to another post office near me, and then sent to PA to a post office near the destination. No problems there. 


Then for some unknown reason, the package was to Capitol Heights, MD, and then returned to the PA post office a day or so later. Not sure what happened, but I have my suspicions. I think someone read my return address as the destination address and had it sent back to me, and Capitol Heights would have been the way to do that. Capitol Heights probably noticed that the destination ZIP wasn't VA, but PA, and sent it back there.

As of this writing, the package is at the second PA post office, finally the one in the town where the company is. So I have some hope that my device will soon be in the hands of someone who can fix it. Perhaps I'm being too optimistic, but being pessimistic won't help, either. #aboutfuckingtime

Mercury wanted to make sure I got the message, so I received not one, not two, but THREE different email messages when it departed the first PA post office. On the picture, you will only see the one at 10:20pm, but I received one at around 5:00pm and the other one after 9:00pm. The timestamps of those scans were overwritten by the one at 10:20, but trust me when I say that seeing the same message several times didn't make me particularly happy, since with each successive one I was like "WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK. Did it LEAVE or didn't it??"

In the immortal word(s) of Homer Simpson, "D'OH!"

I'll keep you apprised but it appears Merc retro has already begun in earnest.

NOTE: According to the USPS, my iPod arrived in the early afternoon of January 6 at its destination. I paid for priority mail for the return trip...hopefully I'll have it back by January 15. Should I pull out tarot cards to find out?

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