Why do businesses offer FREE consultations in order to find out anything about them? They waste their money on pages full of fluffy…these are the organizations I belong to, this is stuff I do, here is a picture of me smiling-aren’t I pretty and pretending to look friendly, this is how I fit in with everybody else…but in order to find out the meat of what makes or breaks a business-specifically price, businesses get skeevish. Why? I have no idea. When a company doesn’t want to share their rates with me I am left to question what they are hiding. Are you ashamed of your rates? Do you have something so important to convey to me that it is impossible to do it through words and pictures on the net or in your materials? Let’s get to the bottom line, if you aren’t secure enough in your prices that you can’t openly distribute them to your clientele, maybe your pricing isn’t up to par.

Here’s the raw deal… if I have to go through an exchange of a dozen emails before I can even get to a notion of a price with you and you still refuse to tell me what it’s going to cost without meeting in person we have a situation. You are putting a strain on our relationship as client and business and wasting my time. If I have to call you are wasting my minutes and if I have to get in the car, take out a loan to pay for gas ($12 roundtrip) to get across town to your “free” consultation, lose three hours of valuable work time I could be making money ($150), we’re no longer looking at a free consultation. I don’t give a fuck about your personality, if I don’t like you after the first appointment I won’t be back, I don’t need an introductory consultation…what do you have to consult me on…how you are different from other dentists? Can’t be that different. How to sit in the chair and say ahh? Been there, done that. Give me your price, give me your benefits, I’ll figure out the ROI between you and your competitors and make my decision from there. Chances are if you are dealing with something as vital as my smile or the life of my unborn child I’m not going to just choose you b/c you are the cheapest. If I won’t even take the lowest bid on a printer for my business cards why would I do it on dentists and midwives? This is the age of technology, lay it out on the line or atleast give me a range. When have prices become trade secrets, what are you protecting? This kind of queer sinister behavior doesn’t make sense, if you can’t trust me to know what you charge for an appointment/hour/whatever, why would I trust you with your head between my legs poking around at my baby-to-be? We know what’s going to happen at a dental cleaning, spit, say ah, x-rays, you’re done, just give me a price. It’s like companies who put “negotiable” for their salary but list in detail responsibilites, education and experience requirements. If you know what you want and how much you want to pay…list it. Why would I trust you with my livelyhood and my family’s financial well being (not to mention my sanity) if you can’t be honest up-front, even a range is good… minimum experienc/requirements: $25,000, maximum experience/requirements: $45,000. How much more honest would the business be if we stopped being shady.

What the hell am I doing here still? I should have left ages ago. Its cold, silent wind blows through the trees and lands in my head with a loud thud. This is expectation. I expected myself to change the world, have the perfect family life, be strong enough to take it all on and whined up on top. So here I am at the bottom, I left a good paying job, a fabulous house and the sun for this shit. And for what? So he could pursue his sailing dreams…go after the ideal job then FUCK IT ALL UP and get fired for talking on the phone to his fucking pothead friends while he should have been working. I’m trying to think of where else I haven’t looked for change yet. I’m still a few dollars short and the baby needs milk. She’s freaking out at me, cabin fevered by this small apartment we moved into. She wants outside but there’s no place to play. I have clients calling me about photographs they want me to fix a certain way but don’t want to pay me for the work, I have others who want me to save their business but don’t want to change their current ways…and to do it for cheap. I spent a quarter tank of gas to dropping off a cd since my internet is fucked up. I’ve been screamed at all day by the baby and while I’m here eating leftovers a few days too old to be eating, he’s having blackend catfish and dirty rice at a four star. He, who won’t official marry me and shoved cake in another girls face at our psuedo-wedding. I don’t know if change is even worth it anymore…should I pack up and move back north? Go somewhere noone knows me and disappear? The baby dumped orange kool-aid on the carpet, the top of the highchair and all over herself. I could clean it up but it won’t matter. She’s like her father, everything else will become a mess so why bother anymore.

So here we are in Houston, and I hate it. We got rid of our beautiful house for some 800 sq. ft. apartment POS where the neighbors are perpetually doing construction upstairs. I can’t find a day care center under $200 a week and Solaris has decided to be pure fucking evil. David’s always at work and when he is home he is watching TV or leaving garbage everywhere. AND I am perpetually pissed off b/c apparently the new baby is just like me and two me’s equals perpetual anger. Oh yes, plus I have to take devil child on an airplane on Wednesday. This ought to be fun. I wouldn’t mind it so much and would actually be excited to go to this stupid thing if a.) i fit into my damn dress and b.) it wasn’t the SAME fucking dress as I had as my wedding dress, just in blue. It’s quite rude and I am sure if I picked the same wedding dress as the bride for my wedding she’d be ALOT less civil than I am. FUCK WEDDINGS. FUCK kids.