Boycotts and blizzards

I hereby call for a boycott of Esso Imperial Oil. Despite my "automatic delivery" home-heating plan, for the 3rd time, we ran out of oil last night. No big deal, right? After all, it was only -15 degrees celcius outside (I'm not sure what that is in fahrenheit, but it's f*@king cold!). After visiting the scary but no-longer flooded basement (after all, if it was still flooded, it would be a personal ice-rink) to ensure it was lack of oil and not the furnace, I proceeded to the next logical step: call the oil company's emergency no-heat line. The first time I called, at 10 pm, I was on hold for several minutes before BEING DISCONNECTED! The second time I called, I did get through to someone after a few minutes who gave the (erroneous) impression that she was on top of the situation, and was dispatching a technician right away. With no indication of any technician on the horizon, and increasing fears that the taps would freeze yet again (oh yeah, not to mention the fac that by this point I was FREEZING!), at 11:15 I called back, to hear that dreaded message, "We are currently experiencing a higher than usual call-volume. You're estimated wait-time is 30 minutes." Great. After waiting more than 30 minutes, and watching the thermometer drop from 7 down to 6 degrees, eventually I got through, only to get the same telephone operator. She assures me she has called the technician, and that she will call again, and that she will even give me the number to call myself. But as she's talking it becomes apparent that she hasn't actually talked to anyone, only left a message on someone's voicemail. I knew that was a bad, bad sign. The number she gave me yielded a recorded message saying that hours of operation are 8-5, and spouts out 2 cell numbers and an 888 toll-free number. I left messages on both cells, and called the 888 number only to be told by yet another recording that this number was not available in my area. What?! Just after midnight I realized no one was coming. I crawled into bed with Naomi, she always has hot feet.

And this morning, when I called promptly at 8am, I learned from a new operator that the woman I talked to the night before CALLED THE WRONG NUMBER! She never talked to the technician because she didn't call the 24-hour number! By the time they did find a man with an oil truck, it took another 2 hours for him to get here, by which time the ambient air around my sofa had dropped to -2 degrees (that's about 31 fahrenheit, or f*@king cold).

I am changing oil companies Monday morning.

And the blizzard they predicted started an hour ago. Bet the power goes out just as the house starts to get warm.