Happy 70th birthday to Linda Ronstadt. I wonder how much her Parkinson’s is affecting her these days.

Woke up to the tune of landscaping but no more than a missed call from New York after yesterday’s crazy calls from Leslie’s mother. No more online threats or harassment either.

OMG, if you can’t handle a bad review here and there, which any business would get from time to time, then why the hell bother to go into business in the first place? I’m so fucking sick of those that can’t handle the truth if it’s not what they want to hear!

I filled out a form that was on their Facebook page, and because the review was partly negative and they didn’t like what I had to say about my experience with them in my blog, they started threatening me with court, slander, and getting a cease and desist order to take back the rats because I’m “hurting” them. In the 2-question survey, I said “yes” to the rats being healthy and “no” to them being as sociable as expected.

Anyway, the mother is absolutely crazy. She left two LONG messages rambling on and on about the same things over and over again, one in which she spoke longer than the time allotted. She said to have Tom call her back and give the rats back to her because she didn’t wish to meet with me and she was sure he had “no problem” with them. Oh, and she was at the piggy station.

She claimed I was ruining their business, they’ve got years of great reviews, etc. Well, if that’s the case and I’m the only bad review, then how can ONE bad review “ruin” their business?

I also got an email from Leslie who said not to bother replying, as I’m to go through her mother from now on.

Both of them demanded our address and threatened to have the cops get it if I didn’t provide it, but of course neither of us called them back or replied to their bullshit email. As I learned 16 years ago, if you don’t succumb to threats (and possible court calls), then they can’t burn you. So unless the pigs kick our door down over a review and ultimately end up making us very rich because of it, I’m not going to play legal games with these overly sensitive emotional wimps who can’t handle a negative review.

In the one view that I can see that they made of my blog yesterday afternoon, my tracker pointed out their exact location. Good to know in case I need to do to them what I should’ve done to a few people in Arizona, though confronting them face-to-face is the last thing I want. That’d only be as a last resort if I were backed into a corner or something. But unless she was just bluffing about going to the pigs, the pigs actually did the right thing by informing her that I broke absolutely no laws and they weren’t going to waste time taking back a few rats over a bad review. Besides, Google and Facebook can back up the fact that I didn’t do anything illegal.

She went on and on about how I was stirring up her PTSD and that she would have to be medicated along with Leslie… how dare I say anything about an autistic child… she’s got papers from Kaiser to prove she’s autistic… it’s a crime to state an autistic child’s name, state and business, etc. Lastly, don’t get scared but someone will be by to serve me for slander.

Number 1, Slander is spoken defamation of character. When it’s in written form it is called libel.

Number 2, I only use the rattery’s initials, though there’s no law that says I couldn’t have just spelled it out as I simply gave my opinion on them and didn’t threaten to blow them up. There are many blogs for just that purpose; to review businesses.

Number 3, I never mentioned the state in conjunction with anything I said in my review.

Number 4, I only used Leslie’s first name while THEY have Leslie’s name and state right on their site.

Number 5, If Leslie is a minor (though I was under the impression she was a young adult) then the business can’t be hers. She’s got a hyphen between two last names. Wouldn’t that make her married?

Number 6, If what I said was illegal, then every negative review on sites like Yelp would be also.

Number 7, My review/blog does not “endanger” them in any way as Leslie claimed in her email, and I didn’t “do a lot of assuming” about them. I only wrote what I experienced firsthand.

Number 8, What do Leslie being autistic and the mother (I don’t even know her first name), have to do with my review? That’s irrelevant and has absolutely nothing to do with anything I’ve said. My review was about the rats I bought from them. Not their personal lives. I have nothing against autism or any other disability and hate it when people abuse or insult the disabled. I also hate when people use their abilities as a crutch or an excuse. Just like I hate it when blacks use the race card in their favor when race was never the issue, these people are obviously using Leslie’s autism and Mommy Dearest’s war vet status as a weapon against my honest and very legal review.

Leslie signed off with, please take it down (what I said in my blog), give us the rats back, and let’s forget we ever met so you can continue blogging about your hatred of things on Facebook. She also threatens to get their lawyer involved if it’s not down by the end of the day.

LOL, I don’t blog on Facebook, though I do sometimes enclose stuff in notes for Tammy. She’s the only one I’ll share this entry with. Don’t want to give them any negative attention they may crave. You know, as in “Don’t Feed the Trolls?” If there’s any more harassment on their part, then yes, this may go public. They’re never going to get these rats back, but I did at least give them the satisfaction of deleting past blogs, even though I don’t owe them shit. Again, it’s not illegal. It’s just not what they want to hear. But I deleted them if only to stop the fucking emails and phone calls. They don’t have more than a few days to call us, though. As I said, we’re getting new numbers with the new phones so we can have the proper area code.

I’m surprised they only viewed my blog once. I’m guessing they disabled cookies? Other than that one local view, no one in my state has been in that I know of.

Meanwhile, if you feel you have to medicate yourself because someone gave your business a negative but legal and honest review, that’s not my problem. So serve, serve and serve away because I’m not going to court. I wouldn’t answer to some bully on the streets who demanded I do this or go there, and these people are no exception. I doubt I’ll hear from them again, but let’s hope not for their sake.

I could kick myself for letting their fucking phone calls get me anxious enough to call Tom. After what happened in Arizona, well, it’s to be expected just like medication will always make me anxious. But yeah, my heart raced and my hands shook much in the way the medication made me do. But this was different. It’s just a lot less scary when an external force is causing it, but once I calmed down enough to realize I had absolutely nothing to fear from these assholes, I was fine.

Still have traces of throat irritation and I just don’t know what to make of it at this point. Did the statins cause permanent damage to my throat, or was the doctor not kidding when she said she thought it was anxiety?

I also had that strange sensation in the left side of my neck just now while sitting here reading what I wrote. It’s like a pulsing or “moving” sensation. It was like what I woke up with a week or so ago. I don’t usually get that sitting upright while in a calm mood, but Tom’s probably right about it just being my ear draining.

Chatted with Lori on Facebook for the first time in a while. I’ve got her crazy cousin blocked, though. I deleted Lori for a while because she can be a bit of a pest at times, but if loneliness is her worst crime, so be it. She can pester me every now and then.

In last night’s dreams, I was in some airport wandering around by myself and trying to figure out where the gate was that I was supposed to board. It seemed no one would help me and that I did a lot of walking. I told myself I would at least have a long flight in which to get off my feet, just as soon as I could figure out what gate to go to. I passed Christine along the way but wasn’t sure she recognized me.

Then I was in a room with 3 lights. I could only get one of them to work. Then two other women were in the room and one tried to convince the other to have the carpet cleaned. I said, “That would be better than having the other lights fixed because I play on the floor with my rats all the time.”