I have Verizon Fios auto pay. My most recent bill arrived and it was 80 dollars more than usual. Apparently, the contract had expired without them notifying me it was about to expire.
Then came a chain of phone calls, each more interesting than the next because each person told me something different.
I was told, you know, it's right on your bill when the contract expires. To which I responded, I have auto-pay. To which he responded, but you can click the link to get to your bill. To which I responded, I have auto-pay so I don't have to click a link to get to my bill.
What I'm saying here is that they should send a separate email that says, Hey your contract is about to expire--call us now to renew!
Instead, they send you a bill that's 80 bucks more than what you've been paying and expect you to pay it.
Eddie spoke to the first guy who said we have a plan that no one else has. We knew that. We knew eventually we'd have to pay more. Someone messed up our order and gave us a plan that didn't exist about four years ago. However, two years ago, we called to renew the service, and they still offered us incentives. It went up, but not $80. So this guy told us we'd have to pay over $200. No, we didn't want to do that. So then he offered something else, adding HBO and Showtime in but taking out other movie channels that we don't watch. It was still pricey. He told us we could email him directly to take the quote he'd sent.
I sent back a negotiation and asked him or a supervisor to call me back.
Then I called. I got someone different. I told him about the plan the previous guy explained to us. This new guy said the first guy probably wasn't looking at our region because Showtime and HBO come with the our TV bundle and are not extra. Then he gave us options and other prices, offering a $35 incentive (as opposed to our previous $65 discount that no one else in the world had). Okay, that seemed doable, but we needed to do some math.
We'd been looking at HBO Now and Showtime online to see the price difference if we ordered those channels separately, only for the months we'd use them. The cost would have worked out if we opted for a smaller channel package, but then I'd lose some channels I actually watch while keeping channels I've never watched in six years.
I want to be able to pick and choose my channels instead of having bundles and packages. That has to be coming soon, right? Otherwise, no one will have cable and everyone will stream through Netflix and apps.
Anyway, I asked this guy to call me back on Monday if we could keep the price he emailed me. He said that was completely doable.
He didn't call me on Monday, so I called on Tuesday.
The first guy I spoke to said that I hadn't had a contract since 2014 and he couldn't do better than a $25 discount. I told him it didn't make sense because we'd called in 2014 once our contract was up and renewed it. How else were we receiving service in the past two years. He understood my question and didn't have an answer for it. He couldn't really do anything, so he transferred me to customer service. He was a really nice guy, laughing and joking, but he had no authority to do what needed to be done.
The second guy listened to my dilemma. He told me that he couldn't replicate what the guy a few days ago had done. He said that sometimes the offers that are emailed expire. So I said, Then when I asked if the deal would be good on Monday, the other guy should have said No. This guy was like, I can't say one way or the other about that.
I asked for a supervisor. He said that he really didn't have the authority in the system and no one would be able to give me what the offer was because the programming didn't work that way. The choice was gone from the system. I asked for a supervisor. He told me he would transfer me but the software wouldn't allow anyone to do what I was told I could do. I asked for a supervisor, explaining that this exact thing happened two years ago--someone offered us something that didn't exist, put it in writing, and then they had to honor it and someone worked with the system to do it. He put me on hold.
He checked in with me several times because the hold time was really long. He asked if I wanted to hang up and they'd call me. I was like, I'm staying on the line, thanks.
Then I got a supervisor. She went into the system. She saw that someone was supposed to follow up (she suggested the guy might be out sick because the follow up was noted as missed). She found the emails that were sent. She was like, Yes I can do this for you.
She added on a sports package that we'd pay for in addition to the original quote, but then she gave me a five dollar discount for a year that she found in the system. She had me on hold for a long time because she had to figure out how to put it in the computer properly. I gave her two phone numbers. She gave me her name and what office she was in and said she was the only supervisor there with that name, so I could track her down through Customer Service if needed. We hung up.
Five minutes later (bringing this process to well over an hour), she called back, emailed me the deal, stayed on the phone as I clicked through the process, and then we happily ended our phone call.
The cable companies work in the same way all big for-profit companies and financial government organizations do. They make the process tedious, confusing, and frustrating. They send you in circles. They tell you all different things, most of which are wrong. They send you things in writing and then say, nope, that was a mistake. They offer you the world and then you wind up paying for the world and Pluto. They want you to get tired and then in the end accept the raw deal.
But they don't realize that I've got all day to talk on the phone. I'll talk and talk and talk. I'll passively-aggressively ask over and over for the same thing until I get what I want. I'll play the game. I'll jump through the hoops. I mean, come on. I got tenure AND sabbatical. This is totally my bag.
However, maybe if they would make it simpler, they'd have a much better outcome. Happier customers who keep coming back and paying for quality service.
And if that doesn't happen, I have thirty days to switch to Optimum.
Showing posts with label Home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Home. Show all posts
Friday, September 2, 2016
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Hey, Home Depot! Yeah, It's Me Again.
An open letter to Home Depot as sent through their Contact Us email system on their website after they haven't responded to a previous email sent the same way and also didn't respond to a different email address I was told to use after still not sending me the right replacement part and I've had a half-put-together media console/fireplace in my living room for about a month.
Hi, this is the second time I'm emailing through this site. I never received an answer with my first email, nor did I received an answer when I emailed TeamSocial@homedepot.com as directed by your Twitter account. I have been having problems with my order (W473238940) from March 26 for Home Decorators Rinehart 59 inch Media Console with a fireplace in Medium Brown (Model WSFP59ECHD-1). The product had two broken pieces when it arrived. The bottom piece was cracked, but only superficially on the back, so we dealt with it. The other piece, H, is cracked, broken, and unusable. In putting the unit together, we realized it is much darker than the product photo shows (I have a side-by-side photo if needed). Seeing that we could not send a half-put-together unit back, we decided to deal with that, too.
On 4/11, I spoke to Isaiah who efficiently took down my information, contacted the warehouse, and promised to have a replacement piece sent in 3-5 business days. I double checked that it would be medium brown. He confirmed. I received the piece in 5 business days (7 days total over a weekend). The piece was even darker than the unit I have.
On 4/18, I spoke to a different customer service rep. She put me on hold for a long time as she tried to contact the warehouse. She said no one was answering, but she would place the order for a new part, indicating that someone mixed up the colors. She said she would put a rush on delivery for me, and someone would call me in two days to let me know the order was placed. No one called.
I called on 4/20 and was on hold for 30 minutes without anyone answering, so I hung up.
I called on 4/22 and spoke to Koya, who apologized that no one called, but said my order was put through on 4/18. She said the new part would take 5 - 10 days to arrive. I asked about the rush delivery the previous rep offered. She said that was not in the system, but I should receive the piece by Tuesday 4/26.
It is now 4/27. I do not have the part. I have a partially put-together console in the wrong color in my living room and the top part of it in my bedroom. This is completely unacceptable, and I am incredibly disappointed that no one is helping me.
At this point, I want to simply send it back and get a refund. I would need packing materials and boxes sent to me, and a pick up. I expect that the return will be free of charge after this unprofessional experience. How can I go about doing that? I hope that I receive an answer this time.
Hi, this is the second time I'm emailing through this site. I never received an answer with my first email, nor did I received an answer when I emailed TeamSocial@homedepot.com as directed by your Twitter account. I have been having problems with my order (W473238940) from March 26 for Home Decorators Rinehart 59 inch Media Console with a fireplace in Medium Brown (Model WSFP59ECHD-1). The product had two broken pieces when it arrived. The bottom piece was cracked, but only superficially on the back, so we dealt with it. The other piece, H, is cracked, broken, and unusable. In putting the unit together, we realized it is much darker than the product photo shows (I have a side-by-side photo if needed). Seeing that we could not send a half-put-together unit back, we decided to deal with that, too.
On 4/11, I spoke to Isaiah who efficiently took down my information, contacted the warehouse, and promised to have a replacement piece sent in 3-5 business days. I double checked that it would be medium brown. He confirmed. I received the piece in 5 business days (7 days total over a weekend). The piece was even darker than the unit I have.
On 4/18, I spoke to a different customer service rep. She put me on hold for a long time as she tried to contact the warehouse. She said no one was answering, but she would place the order for a new part, indicating that someone mixed up the colors. She said she would put a rush on delivery for me, and someone would call me in two days to let me know the order was placed. No one called.
I called on 4/20 and was on hold for 30 minutes without anyone answering, so I hung up.
I called on 4/22 and spoke to Koya, who apologized that no one called, but said my order was put through on 4/18. She said the new part would take 5 - 10 days to arrive. I asked about the rush delivery the previous rep offered. She said that was not in the system, but I should receive the piece by Tuesday 4/26.
It is now 4/27. I do not have the part. I have a partially put-together console in the wrong color in my living room and the top part of it in my bedroom. This is completely unacceptable, and I am incredibly disappointed that no one is helping me.
At this point, I want to simply send it back and get a refund. I would need packing materials and boxes sent to me, and a pick up. I expect that the return will be free of charge after this unprofessional experience. How can I go about doing that? I hope that I receive an answer this time.
Thursday, April 21, 2016
Fireplace Dreams Dashed
Fireplaces cause higher home owner's insurance. I never knew this until we got home owner's insurance and they asked if our new home had a fireplace. That makes sense, though. A fireplace offers a higher risk of burning your own house down. However, an electric fireplace does not (well, I suppose there could be an electrical fire, but that's not where I'm going with this).
I got a little obsessed with getting a media stand that includes a fireplace. Our living room tends to get chilly and our tv currently rests on a hope chest that I can't use for storage because, as aforementioned, the television stands on top of it. With one unit, I could have it all.
We found one at the Home Depot, the Home Decorator's Collection. It comes in two colors: medium brown and espresso. The espresso was available. The medium brown was not. I wanted the medium brown. So I put my email on the list that would alert me if it ever came back into stock.
I waited.
A few weeks later, I got an alert. It was in stock. I ordered it on the spot. I jumped for joy.
A little over a week later, I opened the side door to my house to find a huge box standing in front of it. It had tape around it that said Caution: Over 70 Lbs.
I texted Eddie to ask for advice--how do I get the very heavy box into the house? I tipped it over and got it stuck on the door saddle so I couldn't push it. His answer: A hammer. The two of us would make a stellar home improvement show. The hammer worked; I was able to use the claw to drag it over the hump. I pushed it into the house. Our fireplace had arrived!
We hemmed and hawed about putting it together. Would we be able to? Our putting-things-together skills are not at the expert level. I've put lots of things together, but nothing that had this many parts. We read the instructions and one step called for wood glue. We don't own wood glue. We got wood glue. Then we found that it comes with wood glue. After finding the glue, we figured we could put it together.
We took out all the pieces, putting them across the living room on blankets and sheets. There was Styrofoam everywhere. Styrofoam sheds. I vacuumed all the pieces. In vacuuming, we found that the bottom piece had a crack in the surface.
There was no way we were going to be able to get that back in the box to send it back. I realized the crack was superficial and in the back. We could live with it. Super!
We went through the rest of the pieces. We found a broken and cracked piece. This was not superficial. It was a piece that attaches the top shelf where the tv sits to the rest of the unit on one side. We would definitely need this piece. BUT we could put the rest together right then and I could call the next day and tell them about the broken piece.
Then I realized something. In pieces, I didn't notice. However, as I started to see it growing as a whole unit, I noticed. The color. This was medium brown? Umm, no. It was not. It was dark brown. It did not match.
Not convinced? How about a side-by-side?
Seeing that there was again no way we could get the parts back in the boxes, we continued with my being dismayed. I figured I could stain the bookshelf in the living room to match this dark brown so that we would have only two shades of wood in the room. Ugh.
We put the unit together up to the broken piece. Then we put the top shelf pieces together. So we have the large unit and the back pieces pushed up against one side of the living room in front of a cabinet, and we have the top pieces on the floor in the bedroom. Maybe we should do a home design show instead.
I tweeted the above picture at Home Depot asking if the colors matched. They responded:
I called the number on the assembly manual the next day. The customer service rep was fantastic. He took all the info--the model number, my contact info, when I'd ordered it, everything else he needed. He called the warehouse for me. He told me it was shipping out that day and that I'd have it in 3 to 5 business days. That meant in 3-5 business days, I'd have my fireplace. Yeay! Back on track.
I asked him if I had to send the broken piece back. No, he said, I could throw it out. I then double-checked--the unit comes in two colors and the color I have (supposedly) is the medium brown. He said that the color coincides with the model number I'd given him. Then to reassure me, he read back the number and the entire name of the product: Rinehart 59 inch Media Console Infrared Electric Fireplace in Medium Brown. Yes, that's it.
The piece arrived in five business days, which meant seven total days because there was the weekend. Happy to hear the FedEx guy at the door, I jumped up, grabbed the box, and tore it open.
If I had a working fireplace, like a real one, I would've thrown the piece directly into the fire because it was the wrong color. Seeing that I don't even have my electric fireplace up and running, I stomped my feet and pouted for a minute instead. Then I went a little nutty, turning on and off lights, opening and closing curtains, wondering if I was simply seeing things. But no, this piece was even darker than the unit I'd put together. It wasn't the medium brown in the original photo online. It wasn't the fake medium brown that matches the unit. It was almost black.
I called the number on the manual again. The service rep asked if I had a case number. No, I wasn't given one. She took my information. I explained that not only was the piece the incorrect color, but the entire unit was incorrect, so I was completely puzzled as to how the warehouse would ever send me the correct color considering their color selection seems to be whatever-seems-close-enough. She said that while she couldn't do anything about the overall color of the unit, she could certainly get me a piece that matches. She then said that she would put a rush on it since I'd been waiting for a while now. I thanked her for that as she went to contact the warehouse.
Five minutes later, she came back on the line to tell me that no one in the warehouse was picking up. It looked like they had sent the wrong color because of the model number.
The first rep I'd spoken to had the right number and even repeated back it was supposed to be medium brown. So this made no sense. I said this to her. She said that someone mixed up the numbers somewhere along the way.
Then she said she'd continue to follow up and that either she or the first rep would call me back by Wednesday to let me know when the piece would arrive.
Today is Thursday. I gave them until five-ish last night to call me. They didn't. I called the number on the manual again. I was on hold for over twenty minutes. Then I hung up.
At this point, I would like for someone from Home Depot/Home Decorators Collection to do one of the following:
A) Come to my house, take the unit apart, pack it up in boxes, and take it away, refunding me my money.
B) Send me boxes to pack it up after I take it apart myself and then pick it up, refunding me my money.
C) Come to my house, take this unit away, and replace it with a full unit with no broken parts in the RIGHT COLOR.
Those are the only options. I'm pretty sure that they will have a different option like, I'll send you the right part by October because who really needs a fireplace this time of year anyway? I'll tell you who, Home Depot. I do. That's right. Me.
Say it with me, everyone: FOR SHAME, HOME DEPOT! FOR SHAME.
I got a little obsessed with getting a media stand that includes a fireplace. Our living room tends to get chilly and our tv currently rests on a hope chest that I can't use for storage because, as aforementioned, the television stands on top of it. With one unit, I could have it all.
We found one at the Home Depot, the Home Decorator's Collection. It comes in two colors: medium brown and espresso. The espresso was available. The medium brown was not. I wanted the medium brown. So I put my email on the list that would alert me if it ever came back into stock.
 |
A few weeks later, I got an alert. It was in stock. I ordered it on the spot. I jumped for joy.
A little over a week later, I opened the side door to my house to find a huge box standing in front of it. It had tape around it that said Caution: Over 70 Lbs.
 |
| "Hon, there's a box outside....um, it's large....." |
We hemmed and hawed about putting it together. Would we be able to? Our putting-things-together skills are not at the expert level. I've put lots of things together, but nothing that had this many parts. We read the instructions and one step called for wood glue. We don't own wood glue. We got wood glue. Then we found that it comes with wood glue. After finding the glue, we figured we could put it together.
We took out all the pieces, putting them across the living room on blankets and sheets. There was Styrofoam everywhere. Styrofoam sheds. I vacuumed all the pieces. In vacuuming, we found that the bottom piece had a crack in the surface.
We went through the rest of the pieces. We found a broken and cracked piece. This was not superficial. It was a piece that attaches the top shelf where the tv sits to the rest of the unit on one side. We would definitely need this piece. BUT we could put the rest together right then and I could call the next day and tell them about the broken piece.
Then I realized something. In pieces, I didn't notice. However, as I started to see it growing as a whole unit, I noticed. The color. This was medium brown? Umm, no. It was not. It was dark brown. It did not match.
 |
| Darker than the original picture |
 |
| Light on the left. Dark on the right. |
We put the unit together up to the broken piece. Then we put the top shelf pieces together. So we have the large unit and the back pieces pushed up against one side of the living room in front of a cabinet, and we have the top pieces on the floor in the bedroom. Maybe we should do a home design show instead.
I tweeted the above picture at Home Depot asking if the colors matched. They responded:
Figuring they were giving me helpful instructions, I did so immediately. I have yet to hear back from them.@ChristinaMRau Please send order number/contact info and Tweet to TeamSocial@homedepot.com so we can address. -TeamCare— HD Customer Care (@HomeDepot_Care) April 11, 2016
I called the number on the assembly manual the next day. The customer service rep was fantastic. He took all the info--the model number, my contact info, when I'd ordered it, everything else he needed. He called the warehouse for me. He told me it was shipping out that day and that I'd have it in 3 to 5 business days. That meant in 3-5 business days, I'd have my fireplace. Yeay! Back on track.
I asked him if I had to send the broken piece back. No, he said, I could throw it out. I then double-checked--the unit comes in two colors and the color I have (supposedly) is the medium brown. He said that the color coincides with the model number I'd given him. Then to reassure me, he read back the number and the entire name of the product: Rinehart 59 inch Media Console Infrared Electric Fireplace in Medium Brown. Yes, that's it.
The piece arrived in five business days, which meant seven total days because there was the weekend. Happy to hear the FedEx guy at the door, I jumped up, grabbed the box, and tore it open.
If I had a working fireplace, like a real one, I would've thrown the piece directly into the fire because it was the wrong color. Seeing that I don't even have my electric fireplace up and running, I stomped my feet and pouted for a minute instead. Then I went a little nutty, turning on and off lights, opening and closing curtains, wondering if I was simply seeing things. But no, this piece was even darker than the unit I'd put together. It wasn't the medium brown in the original photo online. It wasn't the fake medium brown that matches the unit. It was almost black.
I called the number on the manual again. The service rep asked if I had a case number. No, I wasn't given one. She took my information. I explained that not only was the piece the incorrect color, but the entire unit was incorrect, so I was completely puzzled as to how the warehouse would ever send me the correct color considering their color selection seems to be whatever-seems-close-enough. She said that while she couldn't do anything about the overall color of the unit, she could certainly get me a piece that matches. She then said that she would put a rush on it since I'd been waiting for a while now. I thanked her for that as she went to contact the warehouse.
Five minutes later, she came back on the line to tell me that no one in the warehouse was picking up. It looked like they had sent the wrong color because of the model number.
The first rep I'd spoken to had the right number and even repeated back it was supposed to be medium brown. So this made no sense. I said this to her. She said that someone mixed up the numbers somewhere along the way.
Then she said she'd continue to follow up and that either she or the first rep would call me back by Wednesday to let me know when the piece would arrive.
Today is Thursday. I gave them until five-ish last night to call me. They didn't. I called the number on the manual again. I was on hold for over twenty minutes. Then I hung up.
At this point, I would like for someone from Home Depot/Home Decorators Collection to do one of the following:
A) Come to my house, take the unit apart, pack it up in boxes, and take it away, refunding me my money.
B) Send me boxes to pack it up after I take it apart myself and then pick it up, refunding me my money.
C) Come to my house, take this unit away, and replace it with a full unit with no broken parts in the RIGHT COLOR.
Those are the only options. I'm pretty sure that they will have a different option like, I'll send you the right part by October because who really needs a fireplace this time of year anyway? I'll tell you who, Home Depot. I do. That's right. Me.
Say it with me, everyone: FOR SHAME, HOME DEPOT! FOR SHAME.
Friday, February 26, 2016
The Creatures and The Wind
A few weeks ago, at the base of the gigantic tree near the driveway, I saw a piece of an animal. It was an inside piece of an animal. It was like bones and organs, or something like that. It was gross. I did what any normal adult would do. I took a picture of it, ran away, and texted the photo to Eddie so that he could see how gross it was, too.
I left it there for two days. I am not proud.
The conversation of which one of us was going to clean it up never came. On day three, it was gone. This is getting Biblical, isn't it?
We have a squirrel issue. The squirrels use our three large trees, one smaller tree, and village-owned-encroaching-on-our-property-dead-end shrubbery and trees as their playground. They use our lawn as a hide-n-go-seek-nut-burial-ground. The holes are growing in number and frequency. The number of squirrels skipping and hopping about is also increasing.
Sometimes one of them will sit on the highest branch possible and make a noise that at first you think is a bird but then you look up and see it's a squirrel and the squirrel does not look happy. I don't know exactly what a happy squirrel looks like, but when they make this noise, it is clear that they are not happy.
Basically, I'm scared of the squirrels.
I'm pretty sure they took the bones and organs. I don't know if they killed whatever it was, but they certainly took care of whatever was left.
If they didn't kill the animal, then it was the raccoons. They appear out of the sewer drain at our curb. One night, they appeared early, while people were walking their dogs. There was an animal stand-off right in front of our house. It ended with the dog walkers waving at us and shouting, Nice raccoons! Because they are apparently our raccoons.
So the other day after the snow started melting, I saw something on the lawn as I drove away. I thought it was maybe a newspaper. I forgot to check on it when I came home. Then again, the next day, it was still there. Again, I forgot to check when I returned from wherever I went.
On the third day, it was still there. No so Biblical anymore. Also, it was not a newspaper. It was pieces of a bird. Not a whole bird, but wings and feathers attached in some way. I didn't take a picture this time. This time, I simply ran away.
The next time I went outside, it wasn't there. "There" means on the front lawn. Nope, instead, it was at the foot of the gigantic tree near our driveway. And on the tree trunk, head towards the bottom and the bird pieces, there was a squirrel. This squirrel, either on its own or with some squirrel friends, had dragged the bird thingie over to the tree. Clearly, it was now trying to figure out how the hell to get it up the tree.
Usually, the squirrels run when they are on the ground or trunk. This squirrel just kept looking at me and then the bird and then me and then the bird. It thought I was going to take the bird pieces. How do I know this? Well, what else would it be thinking if it wasn't running away? So I did what any normal adult would do.
I ran to my car and drove away.
When I got back, the bird pieces were no longer at the bottom of the tree. The squirrel, either on its own or with some squirrel friends, had taken the bird pieces somewhere. It was not a raccoon because it was still midday.
Side note: We did see a raccoon the other night when the wind was whipping all the garbage and recycling bins down the street. We found that shining a bright light at them makes them go back into the sewer.
But back to the squirrels and the trees. During the same wind storm, the trees were shaking violently. Branches and leaves were raining down. These are the only trees I've ever seen that keep their stupid leaves in the winter, so that not only do I have to shovel, but I have to keep raking.
I hate these trees. I hate these three trees in the same way I hated the tree in the front yard that gummed up our sewer main. These trees are massive. One of them doesn't have only branches falling from it, but full-on logs. I shit you not, a log fell out of it once and if we'd been under it or a car had been under it, we and the car would have suffered some serious damage.
So here's the deal. The trees need to go away. If the trees go away, the squirrels go away. As for the raccoons, I can just pretend they don't exist if I stay inside after dark. That's the most adult decision to date.
I left it there for two days. I am not proud.
The conversation of which one of us was going to clean it up never came. On day three, it was gone. This is getting Biblical, isn't it?
We have a squirrel issue. The squirrels use our three large trees, one smaller tree, and village-owned-encroaching-on-our-property-dead-end shrubbery and trees as their playground. They use our lawn as a hide-n-go-seek-nut-burial-ground. The holes are growing in number and frequency. The number of squirrels skipping and hopping about is also increasing.
Sometimes one of them will sit on the highest branch possible and make a noise that at first you think is a bird but then you look up and see it's a squirrel and the squirrel does not look happy. I don't know exactly what a happy squirrel looks like, but when they make this noise, it is clear that they are not happy.
Basically, I'm scared of the squirrels.
I'm pretty sure they took the bones and organs. I don't know if they killed whatever it was, but they certainly took care of whatever was left.
If they didn't kill the animal, then it was the raccoons. They appear out of the sewer drain at our curb. One night, they appeared early, while people were walking their dogs. There was an animal stand-off right in front of our house. It ended with the dog walkers waving at us and shouting, Nice raccoons! Because they are apparently our raccoons.
So the other day after the snow started melting, I saw something on the lawn as I drove away. I thought it was maybe a newspaper. I forgot to check on it when I came home. Then again, the next day, it was still there. Again, I forgot to check when I returned from wherever I went.
On the third day, it was still there. No so Biblical anymore. Also, it was not a newspaper. It was pieces of a bird. Not a whole bird, but wings and feathers attached in some way. I didn't take a picture this time. This time, I simply ran away.
The next time I went outside, it wasn't there. "There" means on the front lawn. Nope, instead, it was at the foot of the gigantic tree near our driveway. And on the tree trunk, head towards the bottom and the bird pieces, there was a squirrel. This squirrel, either on its own or with some squirrel friends, had dragged the bird thingie over to the tree. Clearly, it was now trying to figure out how the hell to get it up the tree.
Usually, the squirrels run when they are on the ground or trunk. This squirrel just kept looking at me and then the bird and then me and then the bird. It thought I was going to take the bird pieces. How do I know this? Well, what else would it be thinking if it wasn't running away? So I did what any normal adult would do.
I ran to my car and drove away.
When I got back, the bird pieces were no longer at the bottom of the tree. The squirrel, either on its own or with some squirrel friends, had taken the bird pieces somewhere. It was not a raccoon because it was still midday.
Side note: We did see a raccoon the other night when the wind was whipping all the garbage and recycling bins down the street. We found that shining a bright light at them makes them go back into the sewer.
But back to the squirrels and the trees. During the same wind storm, the trees were shaking violently. Branches and leaves were raining down. These are the only trees I've ever seen that keep their stupid leaves in the winter, so that not only do I have to shovel, but I have to keep raking.
I hate these trees. I hate these three trees in the same way I hated the tree in the front yard that gummed up our sewer main. These trees are massive. One of them doesn't have only branches falling from it, but full-on logs. I shit you not, a log fell out of it once and if we'd been under it or a car had been under it, we and the car would have suffered some serious damage.
 |
| I mean, this tree has a tree growing out of it. |
So here's the deal. The trees need to go away. If the trees go away, the squirrels go away. As for the raccoons, I can just pretend they don't exist if I stay inside after dark. That's the most adult decision to date.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Home Show
Because we own a home, Eddie and I went to the Long Island Home Show at the Coliseum. The parking lot was packed when we got there. This many people wanted to find deals on fertilizer and chimney sweeps? Actually, no. This many people we found as we finally found an open door were there for the Islander game. We didn't have tickets, but we were able to simply walk into the Coliseum. I suppose that's because the game was letting out. Perfect timing on our part--we couldn't walk anywhere because of the throngs of hockey fans. The Coliseum has no wiggle room. We found that we had to walk against the crowd to get to the escalator to get to the lower level.
The Coliseum has a lower level. I did not know this until the moment the guard told us about it.
Once we got there, we entered the world of windows and patios and vacuum cleaners. Almost every other booth was a solar company. I'm interested in solar power, but this was overwhelming. There were too many companies offering too many options. I signed up for information from a bunch of them even though only one of them had a name I recognized. It was that company that also made an appointment to come out to the house the next week. I also signed up for information and made an appointment with a window company to come out in two days.
We saw spas. We saw covers for baseboard heating. We saw fencing. One company had an actual fencer standing with their booth, and she poked me with her epee and I was like, Yes, I get it--fencing. We saw electric experts who were quite upset when Eddie told them that we'd just had our electric redone. We saw lightbulbs and the salesguy told us we make a good couple and I responded, thank you but I'll come back if I want to buy your bulbs. He said that meant I wasn't going to buy them. Yes, very true.
Mostly, I engaged in a lot of conversation to get free candy. But also to find out about home stuff. We walked away with a free tote bag, some plant seeds, a chip bag clip, and a handfull of bite sized candies and lollipops.
The window people called the next day to iron out some information they needed beforehand. Then they told me they couldn't come if Eddie wasn't home. Apparently, I can't make decisions. I was like, Why did you have me make an appointment on the spot if I couldn't meet you by myself? He was like, well let me give you an idea of an estimate. The estimate is about the same amount I could use to put another down payment on another house that already has new windows, so that ended the potential meeting anyway.
Then the solar people called to iron out some information. At the show, they'd looked at Google Earth for an aerial view of our house and said that we had some trees but someone would come out to see in person if they'd be a problem. On the phone, the guy pulled up the same view and said that they wouldn't be coming out to the house because we had trees. He said that unless I'd planned to get rid of the trees AND the neighbor's trees, I couldn't get solar.
So really, I went to the home show to get poked by a fencer and get free candy. Worth it. Totally.
The Coliseum has a lower level. I did not know this until the moment the guard told us about it.
Once we got there, we entered the world of windows and patios and vacuum cleaners. Almost every other booth was a solar company. I'm interested in solar power, but this was overwhelming. There were too many companies offering too many options. I signed up for information from a bunch of them even though only one of them had a name I recognized. It was that company that also made an appointment to come out to the house the next week. I also signed up for information and made an appointment with a window company to come out in two days.
We saw spas. We saw covers for baseboard heating. We saw fencing. One company had an actual fencer standing with their booth, and she poked me with her epee and I was like, Yes, I get it--fencing. We saw electric experts who were quite upset when Eddie told them that we'd just had our electric redone. We saw lightbulbs and the salesguy told us we make a good couple and I responded, thank you but I'll come back if I want to buy your bulbs. He said that meant I wasn't going to buy them. Yes, very true.
Mostly, I engaged in a lot of conversation to get free candy. But also to find out about home stuff. We walked away with a free tote bag, some plant seeds, a chip bag clip, and a handfull of bite sized candies and lollipops.
The window people called the next day to iron out some information they needed beforehand. Then they told me they couldn't come if Eddie wasn't home. Apparently, I can't make decisions. I was like, Why did you have me make an appointment on the spot if I couldn't meet you by myself? He was like, well let me give you an idea of an estimate. The estimate is about the same amount I could use to put another down payment on another house that already has new windows, so that ended the potential meeting anyway.
Then the solar people called to iron out some information. At the show, they'd looked at Google Earth for an aerial view of our house and said that we had some trees but someone would come out to see in person if they'd be a problem. On the phone, the guy pulled up the same view and said that they wouldn't be coming out to the house because we had trees. He said that unless I'd planned to get rid of the trees AND the neighbor's trees, I couldn't get solar.
So really, I went to the home show to get poked by a fencer and get free candy. Worth it. Totally.
Friday, December 26, 2014
If Only One Tree Were Left On Earth, We'd Burn It
It's time for a house update. The house is becoming more of a home. It was a perfect fit to begin with, but it becomes more homey, less housey the more we do. How serendipitous: Urban Compass, a company the matches people's personalities with neighborhoods to find the perfect NYC Apartments , is interested in Starter Stories, tales of ownership beginnings. We are still beginners, and I think we'll feel like that for a long time to come.
Upon finding a house that had an updated kitchen and bathroom and not much needed except for fresh paint, Eddie and I focused on ridding the property of anything green. We stick firmly to our motto: no plants, no pets, no children. We do not want to be responsible for keeping anything alive aside from ourselves. In our search for a home, we looked specifically for no lawns and small yards, you know, the opposite of what everyone in suburbia is looking for. We found a good match with a small backyard, though we do have a front yard, and since it's a corner house, we have curb grass on two sides. No matter--we plan to get a push mower.
But first, we needed to take care of some larger annoyances. Plants. The plants. Oh the plants plants plants. The woman who lived here before us had a knack for all that is green and flowery. Sure, the three trees curbside are not special for those who have a penchant for gardening, but the tree inside the house was interesting. Yes, a tree inside the house. In the living room. A small tree, but still a tree nonetheless. On the other side of the living room was a jungle of sorts. I'm sure all this was well and good for the production of oxygen, but it was also (1) a chore neither of us wants and (2) a breeding ground for critters. That means keeping the flora would be a violation of two thirds of our motto--plants and pets.
Though these plants were not left behind, the holes in the ceiling that had hooks from which the plants hung were still there. In other rooms, the hooks were still there. Those hooks are a pain to tear out. I suppose that's a good think if you plan to hang things from them so nothing falls on anyone's head, but for those of us non-hangers-of-things, it's a pain.
Getting rid of all plants might seem like an overreaction, so let me tell this next story before finishing the first.
So we were here for maybe two weeks and I'm leaning out the front door to get the mail and I look up and there's a gigantic spider gliding up and down a web from the outdoor light to the mailbox. Gigantic like the size of my fist. Or at least that's what it seemed like. I could be exaggerating. But let's say that I'm not. This spider clearly was having a field day, or maybe just a good strong workout, as it hovered above the zillion plants on either side of the front door. I did not get the mail that day.
But that's not all. As I was sitting in my office, typing away on my laptop, sipping some green tea, content in my new home, I glance to the left, about a foot from my head, and I see a gigantic bug crawling up and over my printer. It had antennae. It had legs. It was skinny and shiny. It was all up and in my grill. So I did what any rational adult would do--I jumped up from my rolling chair, screamed, and ran around in circles and then jump-jogged in place, flapping my hands all over the place. Because, you know, that's helpful.
This was a bug I could not walk away from. So I gathered almost a roll of paper towels and somehow found wherewithall to smother it and throw it out. I don't have a problem taking bugs outside, but the creepy crawlies that crawl in my face I'm not so okay with.
A few nights later, Eddie and I came home from a night out of fun and fantastic times. I walked into the bedroom and flung off my shoes. He stopped short of walking in behind me and yelled, Holy Shit! I looked at where he was looking and there on the base of our floor fan sat a cave cricket.
Cave crickets should not exist. Cave crickets and hyenas. I have no use for either of them. If a hyena had been sitting on our fan, I'd feel the same way.
I have a bit of experience with cave crickets because I used to live in a basement and they, too, lived in the basement at times, just on the steps. Here was a clear violation of private property. This was in our bedroom, not on some outdoor steps. So I did what any normal wife would do--I jumped on the bed and yelled, Get it honey Get it honey You're the boy Get it get it!
Stepping up to the man plate, Eddie removed his shoe and aimed. I warned, You need to get it the first time because if you don't we have to move because it will jump away and we won't find it.
He got it. First shot. It didn't have much of a chance as Eddie wears a size 11 shoe. I'm pretty sure its legs came out from under it. He also cleaned it up. He's a nice boy.
Additionally, there were more spiders. I found tiny ones. I have a long-standing issue with spiders because I once got bit by one and then got an infection and had to take Keflex so that the back of my hand was not puffy and red. I would have left them alone, but because of the Keflex incident, I squashed them. Also, we knew there were more because we found webs every day in places we'd just cleaned.
And beetles. And a silverfish. I am not a fan of either.
So why were we being invaded? The Orkin woman told us that the spiders were there because we had bugs. The Orkin man said we had bugs because we were in the process of moving. And because there'd been a jungle inside. Oh, yes, we called Orkin. They came. They sprayed. They warned we'd see more before we'd see less.
And that's when we went into the garage where I'd seen one large spider who came at me mid-air sideways once and that had been the last time I'd gone in there.
Oh, yeah! I almost forgot. We'd stopped parking our cars in the garage because one morning Eddie pulled his car out and felt a tickle on his ear and turned and saw a large spider web spun inside his car from the driver's seat to the wall of the car and into the back. That was a fun morning.
Back to the garage--oh the cricket-manity! It was like a collective slow hop towards death. There were crickets of all kinds coming out of every corner and wall. Cave crickets. Spider crickets. Skinny crickets. Fat crickets. Just all kinds of crickets all wobbling and wasted. It was quite the disturbing scene, things that nightmares are made of. I didn't want to slowly kill things. I just wanted them to go away.
And they did. The Orkin magic worked and we didn't see much more of anything else. Except for the bees. We had bees in the yard. And that's when we called the gardener. It was time to take a machete to the greenery. The gardener agreed, too. He said it was way too much. In the back, on both sides, in the front, too much. He did want to keep a few bushes on the side, and so we did at first, but then, in the end, we just tore it all up, keeping only some in the front for the sake of the neighbors.
And so we chopped and hacked and trimmed it all down.
We aren't against all green. When we had all the plants removed from the side, we planted grass.
Inspired, Eddie and I decided to trim some of the trees near the curb ourselves.
However, we still have some work to do. These trees aren't the most pest-filled trees (though in bagging our 20 bags of trimmings, we came across white and almost see-through spiders) but they are old and large and scary in the wind. Also, this particular tree had a plant hanging from it and we couldn't take it down because the chain was drilled through the tree. Drilled. Through. Fortunately, we found a friend with some chain cutters and got that down. We plan to call a tree trimming service for these:
And there were more. There's a large dent in the front curb lawn where a large tree used to be. We also have a stump on the side between two of the trees. When Eddie's friend came over to take down the stupid drilled-in plant, he kept tripping over the stump and told me I'd need to get it removed. I said it was in the plans, as soon as I look into trimming or cutting down the other trees. He commented, Wow you really don't like plants, do you? I was liked, I don't like bugs and I don't like taking care of things. That's when he responded: I think if you two had the only tree left in the world, you'd burn it. You know, I can't say whether or not that's true. I think it mostly depends on whether or not we have to take care of it.
We did get rid of one tree already. It was a pretty tree. It's the tree from the front lawn. Though it was pretty, it's the tree directly over the main line to the sewer. We have roots from trees all through the lawn in the front, but this tree's roots were all through the pipe. We do not want another incident of water coming up through the floor of the bathroom like we did two weeks after we moved in due to a completely clogged through pipe.
It was also growing into not only our power lines, but also the lines that were coming from our next-door neighbor. So, we took it down. We still have the stump, and it had been growing so quickly and without care, that it also grew into the wire, so we have one little piece that looks like a bird sitting out there.
That means we still have some work to do. We want that stump out of our front yard. We'll keep the piece attached to the wire so that no one gets electrocuted trying to remove it. We need to actually mow our lawn when spring comes. That means we need to get a lawn mower. We do have a leaf blower that Eddie has become quite attached to--with all the trees still standing tall, the leaf clean up was a never-ending task. The awesome thing about our neighborhood is their leaf-clean-up program. We got to put our leaves out into the street in large piles, and then one morning, a big truck with a large vacuum came along and sucked up all the leaves. It was nothing less than amazing. I wish they had a truck that could suck up trees and stumps, but I suppose I can be content with what I've got.
And I am. I've battled the crickets and the spiders and the beetles and other bugs, and I had the gardener do some reverse-gardening, and it's all been for the grand scheme of making a house a home--something to call our own. So we don't like nature. That's why we bought a house in the first place. So we don't have to live outside.
Upon finding a house that had an updated kitchen and bathroom and not much needed except for fresh paint, Eddie and I focused on ridding the property of anything green. We stick firmly to our motto: no plants, no pets, no children. We do not want to be responsible for keeping anything alive aside from ourselves. In our search for a home, we looked specifically for no lawns and small yards, you know, the opposite of what everyone in suburbia is looking for. We found a good match with a small backyard, though we do have a front yard, and since it's a corner house, we have curb grass on two sides. No matter--we plan to get a push mower.
But first, we needed to take care of some larger annoyances. Plants. The plants. Oh the plants plants plants. The woman who lived here before us had a knack for all that is green and flowery. Sure, the three trees curbside are not special for those who have a penchant for gardening, but the tree inside the house was interesting. Yes, a tree inside the house. In the living room. A small tree, but still a tree nonetheless. On the other side of the living room was a jungle of sorts. I'm sure all this was well and good for the production of oxygen, but it was also (1) a chore neither of us wants and (2) a breeding ground for critters. That means keeping the flora would be a violation of two thirds of our motto--plants and pets.
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| There creeps the tree along with its friend, a bush. |
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| Jungle window |
Getting rid of all plants might seem like an overreaction, so let me tell this next story before finishing the first.
So we were here for maybe two weeks and I'm leaning out the front door to get the mail and I look up and there's a gigantic spider gliding up and down a web from the outdoor light to the mailbox. Gigantic like the size of my fist. Or at least that's what it seemed like. I could be exaggerating. But let's say that I'm not. This spider clearly was having a field day, or maybe just a good strong workout, as it hovered above the zillion plants on either side of the front door. I did not get the mail that day.
 |
| I'm not saying this isn't pretty. I'm saying it's pretty AND pretty buggy. |
But that's not all. As I was sitting in my office, typing away on my laptop, sipping some green tea, content in my new home, I glance to the left, about a foot from my head, and I see a gigantic bug crawling up and over my printer. It had antennae. It had legs. It was skinny and shiny. It was all up and in my grill. So I did what any rational adult would do--I jumped up from my rolling chair, screamed, and ran around in circles and then jump-jogged in place, flapping my hands all over the place. Because, you know, that's helpful.
This was a bug I could not walk away from. So I gathered almost a roll of paper towels and somehow found wherewithall to smother it and throw it out. I don't have a problem taking bugs outside, but the creepy crawlies that crawl in my face I'm not so okay with.
A few nights later, Eddie and I came home from a night out of fun and fantastic times. I walked into the bedroom and flung off my shoes. He stopped short of walking in behind me and yelled, Holy Shit! I looked at where he was looking and there on the base of our floor fan sat a cave cricket.
Cave crickets should not exist. Cave crickets and hyenas. I have no use for either of them. If a hyena had been sitting on our fan, I'd feel the same way.
I have a bit of experience with cave crickets because I used to live in a basement and they, too, lived in the basement at times, just on the steps. Here was a clear violation of private property. This was in our bedroom, not on some outdoor steps. So I did what any normal wife would do--I jumped on the bed and yelled, Get it honey Get it honey You're the boy Get it get it!
Stepping up to the man plate, Eddie removed his shoe and aimed. I warned, You need to get it the first time because if you don't we have to move because it will jump away and we won't find it.
He got it. First shot. It didn't have much of a chance as Eddie wears a size 11 shoe. I'm pretty sure its legs came out from under it. He also cleaned it up. He's a nice boy.
Additionally, there were more spiders. I found tiny ones. I have a long-standing issue with spiders because I once got bit by one and then got an infection and had to take Keflex so that the back of my hand was not puffy and red. I would have left them alone, but because of the Keflex incident, I squashed them. Also, we knew there were more because we found webs every day in places we'd just cleaned.
And beetles. And a silverfish. I am not a fan of either.
So why were we being invaded? The Orkin woman told us that the spiders were there because we had bugs. The Orkin man said we had bugs because we were in the process of moving. And because there'd been a jungle inside. Oh, yes, we called Orkin. They came. They sprayed. They warned we'd see more before we'd see less.
And that's when we went into the garage where I'd seen one large spider who came at me mid-air sideways once and that had been the last time I'd gone in there.
Oh, yeah! I almost forgot. We'd stopped parking our cars in the garage because one morning Eddie pulled his car out and felt a tickle on his ear and turned and saw a large spider web spun inside his car from the driver's seat to the wall of the car and into the back. That was a fun morning.
Back to the garage--oh the cricket-manity! It was like a collective slow hop towards death. There were crickets of all kinds coming out of every corner and wall. Cave crickets. Spider crickets. Skinny crickets. Fat crickets. Just all kinds of crickets all wobbling and wasted. It was quite the disturbing scene, things that nightmares are made of. I didn't want to slowly kill things. I just wanted them to go away.
And they did. The Orkin magic worked and we didn't see much more of anything else. Except for the bees. We had bees in the yard. And that's when we called the gardener. It was time to take a machete to the greenery. The gardener agreed, too. He said it was way too much. In the back, on both sides, in the front, too much. He did want to keep a few bushes on the side, and so we did at first, but then, in the end, we just tore it all up, keeping only some in the front for the sake of the neighbors.
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| BEFORE: There'd been even more in those now-empty pots. |
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| BEFORE: The green is pretty, but the bugs are not. |
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| BEFORE: That tree in the back got trimmed but kept. |
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| BEFORE: Backyard greens near the house. The mini-tree is the only thing I kept and moved to the front. |
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| BEFORE: I mean, come on. There's a plant hanging from another plant here. |
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| BEFORE: It's a jungle out there. |
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| BEFORE: Cute but critter-ful |
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| BEFORE: Trees and bushes and bushes |
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| BEFORE: Seriously, where's the house? |
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| BEFORE: Do you want to walk through this to get inside? Neither do I. |
And so we chopped and hacked and trimmed it all down.
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| AFTER: No more vine! |
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| AFTER: No more plant hanging from a plant |
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| AFTER: We have a fence that we can see. |
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| AFTER: Okay, it's not pretty, but there's nothing attacking us. |
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| AFTER: Some plants. Just some. They are no longer there either. |
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| AFTER: No more dying tree and no more excess bushes |
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| AFTER: No more gigantic bush. And look--still no vine. |
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| AFTER: Much neater |
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| Little baby grass! It's grown so much since then. |
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| This Brooklyn boy has tackled suburban life superbly. |
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| This tree went clubbing without me. But it probably took the drilled-in plant. |
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| There is a tree growing out of the top of this tree. |
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| Creepy Tree! Creepy Tree! |
We did get rid of one tree already. It was a pretty tree. It's the tree from the front lawn. Though it was pretty, it's the tree directly over the main line to the sewer. We have roots from trees all through the lawn in the front, but this tree's roots were all through the pipe. We do not want another incident of water coming up through the floor of the bathroom like we did two weeks after we moved in due to a completely clogged through pipe.
It was also growing into not only our power lines, but also the lines that were coming from our next-door neighbor. So, we took it down. We still have the stump, and it had been growing so quickly and without care, that it also grew into the wire, so we have one little piece that looks like a bird sitting out there.
That means we still have some work to do. We want that stump out of our front yard. We'll keep the piece attached to the wire so that no one gets electrocuted trying to remove it. We need to actually mow our lawn when spring comes. That means we need to get a lawn mower. We do have a leaf blower that Eddie has become quite attached to--with all the trees still standing tall, the leaf clean up was a never-ending task. The awesome thing about our neighborhood is their leaf-clean-up program. We got to put our leaves out into the street in large piles, and then one morning, a big truck with a large vacuum came along and sucked up all the leaves. It was nothing less than amazing. I wish they had a truck that could suck up trees and stumps, but I suppose I can be content with what I've got.
And I am. I've battled the crickets and the spiders and the beetles and other bugs, and I had the gardener do some reverse-gardening, and it's all been for the grand scheme of making a house a home--something to call our own. So we don't like nature. That's why we bought a house in the first place. So we don't have to live outside.
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Moving East
Part of our dream: own a house. Eventually. Some time down the road. Eddie and I went to several open houses over the past year to see what was out there. What's out there is pretty scary. We saw a basement "bathroom" that was clearly a makeshift handyman special since the toilet was up on a two-foot step in a small corner and the sink was on the other side of what seemed to be a wall but couldn't quite be defined as one. We smelled lots of new smells that we did not want to ever smell again. Smoke and cats prevailed over unidentifiable. We saw a house that had a hole in the second floor. The second floor was the "master suite" complete with chimney in the middle, the large hole next to the chimney, walls of closet space, and a new bathroom. Apparently they thought the bathroom was the selling point. Not if you can fall through to the first floor it isn't. These houses were massive and needed massive overhauls. They were priced in the high 3s to high 4s and needed at least half of that additionally in work. Not being exactly handy (neither of us can use a paint brush let alone hang a door or take a drill to anything), Eddie and I put aside that part of our dream for a while.
Because just one town over can make a difference. Because British lit was my specialty as an undergrad and all the streets in the neighborhood are named after places in London. Because it was so darn cute in the pictures. I sent Eddie an email with a link attached from Redfin saying, "I think we should look at this house." Because we had nothing to do on that particular Saturday, we drove about seven blocks over to an open house. It was packed. We parked the car down the block, and when we got out, I said to him, "Now I feel like I'm in a competition and we have to have this house and no one else here can have it." We hadn't even reached the front lawn yet, and I was devising a way to elbow people out of our path.
We made it to the house and figured out which door to enter since we had a choice of two and we walked in and wow -- it did not smell, it was not dirty, we didn't skeeve it, and we didn't throw up our hands and give each other that look of "how do people live here?" Instead, I called dibs on the front office while Eddie nodded in approval at every room, even in the master bedroom where there was a creepy doll sitting on a chair that we could see in the pictures online and was creepier in person. I told him that if we were to live in the house, that doll would haunt it (more on that later).
The real estate agent showed us where we could knock down a wall and then reoriented me when I got confused with which door led to where--there was actually a third door on the other side of the house. For a small house--one floor, six rooms, no basement--it has a lot of doors. We talked about the neighborhood and then left.
In leaving, the two of us got into a what if conversation and in the few minutes it took to get home, Eddie was figuring out numbers. In half an hour, we made our way back and talked numbers. She took all our information. Eddie talked about mortgages in the language saved for only real estate people and mortgage people. I ran around the house, flipping on and off light switches, turning on and off faucets, opening and closing doors. We left in a little while with the promise that she would call us in a few hours. We'd put a bid on the house.
In the course of a few hours, I slowly sank into the fetal position on the floor in our living room so when the phone rang, I was rocking myself to shambles and asking quite loudly, What are we doing?!?!? followed up by, We are not adult enough to own a house!!!!
The first call was to explain that they'd gotten another offer that was for higher than what we'd offered. We were going to wait it out. That's when Eddie explained to me matter-of-factly, You'd better get ready for the next phone call because that means we got the house.
I was like, But they offered more money. Why would anyone turn down more money?
He explained, We're stronger buyers. We're putting down more.
I answered, But it's less money.
He replied, We're better.
In any other situation, I'd be satisfied with "we're better" because that's my answer for anything else in this world. Why should I get something for free? Because I'm the best. Why should I go on vacation? Because I'm so great. Why do I get the answers right in Jeopardy? Because I'm better than anyone. But in this situation, it just didn't compute.
"But why would anyone take less money?"
"Because it's not guaranteed that they'll get the bigger amount with a weaker buyer."
And the debate ended there because the phone rang and I immediately dropped to the floor to roll around in the fetal position some more and I stopped rolling only to hold my breath and listen to one side of a conversation that I understood nothing about and then Eddie came into the living room and said, We're buying a house.
I don't really remember exactly what happened next. I was very happy. I was very excited. I might have blacked out because really the rest of it I simply do not recall.
Fast forward. Eddie worked on our mortgage. We had the inspection and our lawyer said it was the cleanest inspection he'd ever seen on a house. We met one of the owners and her dog and were shocked that they owned a dog because there were no signs of it in the house. We did paperwork. I signed lots of things. We found boxes. We packed. We packed. We packed. We packed. Then came the closing. We did a final walk-through and then went to sign all the paperwork. We laughed and told stories and had a very pleasant time and I found out later that closings can take up to four hours and we were done in about an hour and a half. We forgot to get the keys to the house and the now-prior owners forgot to give them to us so we all met up back at the lawyers' office to get them.
Then we drove to our new house. We went inside. We walked from room to room talking about colors and furniture and what would happen where and when. We were homeowners.
The rest is a lot of usual moving stuff. We cleaned. We brought boxes and boxes over. We met the neighbors. We had a landscaper remove more plants and trees than you could imagine would fit on our very small property. We had the gas company visit to tell me why the burner was cycling on and off non-stop (the gas company didn't turn on the gas when I'd asked them to so with no gas is no heat is no hot water is non-stop cycling until the gas is turned on). We had the sewer people come to blast through the sewer that apparently hadn't been snaked in 25-30 years (real home ownership). We had all the painting completed. We had stuff hung on the walls. We hired a moving company to move the big furniture. We put our bed together, rearranged the living room several times, unpacked everything--EVERYTHING--in all the rooms. I feared that I would not sleep that first night because whenever I sleep in a different place for the first time like on vacation in a hotel or at a friend's house, I can't sleep. Apparently, hours upon hours of moving day after day is the perfect remedy for restlessness. I slept so deeply for so long and it was so good. Eddie woke up feeling the same way.
After that, the first few days I felt like I was on vacation, renting a time share. Even so, it already felt like home. As soon as we'd walked in that first day, we knew this was the place meant for us. Despite some run-ins with spiders, cave crickets, and a silverfish that came crawling across my printer in my office, we are so settled and comfy.
Of course, there's lots to do still. We're getting new doors. We need to buy new blinds and curtains. We still need to figure out if we want to pull out more bushes (seriously, the amount of shrubbery is insane and the prior owner loved gardening, so there was actually a tree in the living room, I shit you not--hence, the attraction of the six-to-eight-legged critters that will soon learn there's no place to live here because we've gotten rid of all the plants and if they don't learn, the Orkin Man will teach them). We have to have some minor things fixed and then some more major things reworked (like hanging the tv on the wall in the living room--guess whose idea that is). In time, we need to pull down a fence, knock down a tree, repave the sidewalks and the driveway. We'd eventually like to have a kitchen dining table instead of using a folding table with a tablecloth draped over it to hide the fact that it is a folding table (though the two metal folding chairs kind of give that away).
For all that to get done, it'll take a long time. And as we cross things off the list, we'll add more things to it because that's what owning a house is. But we're homeowners. We're adults. This is dreams coming true.
As for that creepy doll that I swore would haunt us. I'm not kidding: the radio in the bathroom has turned on by itself twice so far. I'm interested to see what else she has planned for us.
Because just one town over can make a difference. Because British lit was my specialty as an undergrad and all the streets in the neighborhood are named after places in London. Because it was so darn cute in the pictures. I sent Eddie an email with a link attached from Redfin saying, "I think we should look at this house." Because we had nothing to do on that particular Saturday, we drove about seven blocks over to an open house. It was packed. We parked the car down the block, and when we got out, I said to him, "Now I feel like I'm in a competition and we have to have this house and no one else here can have it." We hadn't even reached the front lawn yet, and I was devising a way to elbow people out of our path.
We made it to the house and figured out which door to enter since we had a choice of two and we walked in and wow -- it did not smell, it was not dirty, we didn't skeeve it, and we didn't throw up our hands and give each other that look of "how do people live here?" Instead, I called dibs on the front office while Eddie nodded in approval at every room, even in the master bedroom where there was a creepy doll sitting on a chair that we could see in the pictures online and was creepier in person. I told him that if we were to live in the house, that doll would haunt it (more on that later).
The real estate agent showed us where we could knock down a wall and then reoriented me when I got confused with which door led to where--there was actually a third door on the other side of the house. For a small house--one floor, six rooms, no basement--it has a lot of doors. We talked about the neighborhood and then left.
In leaving, the two of us got into a what if conversation and in the few minutes it took to get home, Eddie was figuring out numbers. In half an hour, we made our way back and talked numbers. She took all our information. Eddie talked about mortgages in the language saved for only real estate people and mortgage people. I ran around the house, flipping on and off light switches, turning on and off faucets, opening and closing doors. We left in a little while with the promise that she would call us in a few hours. We'd put a bid on the house.
In the course of a few hours, I slowly sank into the fetal position on the floor in our living room so when the phone rang, I was rocking myself to shambles and asking quite loudly, What are we doing?!?!? followed up by, We are not adult enough to own a house!!!!
The first call was to explain that they'd gotten another offer that was for higher than what we'd offered. We were going to wait it out. That's when Eddie explained to me matter-of-factly, You'd better get ready for the next phone call because that means we got the house.
I was like, But they offered more money. Why would anyone turn down more money?
He explained, We're stronger buyers. We're putting down more.
I answered, But it's less money.
He replied, We're better.
In any other situation, I'd be satisfied with "we're better" because that's my answer for anything else in this world. Why should I get something for free? Because I'm the best. Why should I go on vacation? Because I'm so great. Why do I get the answers right in Jeopardy? Because I'm better than anyone. But in this situation, it just didn't compute.
"But why would anyone take less money?"
"Because it's not guaranteed that they'll get the bigger amount with a weaker buyer."
And the debate ended there because the phone rang and I immediately dropped to the floor to roll around in the fetal position some more and I stopped rolling only to hold my breath and listen to one side of a conversation that I understood nothing about and then Eddie came into the living room and said, We're buying a house.
I don't really remember exactly what happened next. I was very happy. I was very excited. I might have blacked out because really the rest of it I simply do not recall.
Fast forward. Eddie worked on our mortgage. We had the inspection and our lawyer said it was the cleanest inspection he'd ever seen on a house. We met one of the owners and her dog and were shocked that they owned a dog because there were no signs of it in the house. We did paperwork. I signed lots of things. We found boxes. We packed. We packed. We packed. We packed. Then came the closing. We did a final walk-through and then went to sign all the paperwork. We laughed and told stories and had a very pleasant time and I found out later that closings can take up to four hours and we were done in about an hour and a half. We forgot to get the keys to the house and the now-prior owners forgot to give them to us so we all met up back at the lawyers' office to get them.
Then we drove to our new house. We went inside. We walked from room to room talking about colors and furniture and what would happen where and when. We were homeowners.
The rest is a lot of usual moving stuff. We cleaned. We brought boxes and boxes over. We met the neighbors. We had a landscaper remove more plants and trees than you could imagine would fit on our very small property. We had the gas company visit to tell me why the burner was cycling on and off non-stop (the gas company didn't turn on the gas when I'd asked them to so with no gas is no heat is no hot water is non-stop cycling until the gas is turned on). We had the sewer people come to blast through the sewer that apparently hadn't been snaked in 25-30 years (real home ownership). We had all the painting completed. We had stuff hung on the walls. We hired a moving company to move the big furniture. We put our bed together, rearranged the living room several times, unpacked everything--EVERYTHING--in all the rooms. I feared that I would not sleep that first night because whenever I sleep in a different place for the first time like on vacation in a hotel or at a friend's house, I can't sleep. Apparently, hours upon hours of moving day after day is the perfect remedy for restlessness. I slept so deeply for so long and it was so good. Eddie woke up feeling the same way.
After that, the first few days I felt like I was on vacation, renting a time share. Even so, it already felt like home. As soon as we'd walked in that first day, we knew this was the place meant for us. Despite some run-ins with spiders, cave crickets, and a silverfish that came crawling across my printer in my office, we are so settled and comfy.
Of course, there's lots to do still. We're getting new doors. We need to buy new blinds and curtains. We still need to figure out if we want to pull out more bushes (seriously, the amount of shrubbery is insane and the prior owner loved gardening, so there was actually a tree in the living room, I shit you not--hence, the attraction of the six-to-eight-legged critters that will soon learn there's no place to live here because we've gotten rid of all the plants and if they don't learn, the Orkin Man will teach them). We have to have some minor things fixed and then some more major things reworked (like hanging the tv on the wall in the living room--guess whose idea that is). In time, we need to pull down a fence, knock down a tree, repave the sidewalks and the driveway. We'd eventually like to have a kitchen dining table instead of using a folding table with a tablecloth draped over it to hide the fact that it is a folding table (though the two metal folding chairs kind of give that away).
For all that to get done, it'll take a long time. And as we cross things off the list, we'll add more things to it because that's what owning a house is. But we're homeowners. We're adults. This is dreams coming true.
As for that creepy doll that I swore would haunt us. I'm not kidding: the radio in the bathroom has turned on by itself twice so far. I'm interested to see what else she has planned for us.
 |
| Homeowners! |
 |
| One of the treasures we found in the coat closet |
 |
| Rabbit in the garden. I named him Jesse. |
 |
| Incredibly thick vine in front of our walkway, home to thousands of yellowjackets |
 |
| The boy! |
 |
| Rock face |
 |
| A treasure we found in the linen closet |
 |
| Post vine extraction. Lots of the bushes are gone now, too. |
Monday, August 12, 2013
Levels, Or Cleaning Through The Cobwebs
Inspired by the feeling of accomplishment, I set out on my grand plan to clear out the attic. Much music has been written about attics -- Billy Joel's album "Songs in the Attic," Aerosmith's single "Toys in the Attic" -- and a whole book series and eventually movie based about children being locked away entitled Flowers in the Attic, which S encouraged me and the rest of the eight grade to read. The movie became a favorite. In hindsight, I'm not sure what that says about the eighth-grade mind.
None of these artistic ventures quite capture the experience of cleaning out our own attic. Maybe Eddie and I can write a song or a story called "Spiders In The Attic," and then, in current fashion, follow it up with the prequel "Spiders On The Attic Stairs." Last week, I found myself wanting to get a jump start on the cleaning and got as far as the stairs where I encountered a seemingly uncountable number of webs with some half-hatched spiders lying around. I cleared out the webs and then called the landlord/my mom/the resident scientist to make sure that they were only spider eggs and not something like dinosaur-dragon spawn that would hatch and eat me alive. Yes, that's right, I called my mother to look at the arachnattack. Because she's a scientist and knows about these things. Also because she's the only person I know who doesn't run away and skeeve when she encounters such things. Also, I once was bitten by a spider, hand my hand blow up big and red, had red streaks go up my arm, and then had to take a megadose of Keflex for a week after the doctor took one look at it and said, Oh wow that's not good. Once the webs were gone (there were no dino-dragon eggs), I gave up, skeeved out, not wanting to go into the attic alone.
So instead, on a very warm day, Eddie and I climbed into the unventilated attic and started tossing around boxes. The number of boxes up there was simply ridiculous. Some of them had paperwork and other electronic equipment in them. Most were empty or had packing material. Why we had so many chalks up to Eddie liking sturdy boxes and my thought that maybe we might need to send something when we sell it on eBay, even though we really don't list anything on eBay. We set up a system of throwing them down the attic stairs, dragging them through the pantry, and then breaking them down in the kitchen.
Except for the really large boxes, this system worked. The large boxes we tossed down the stairs to the front door and folded and broke down on the side lawn next to the piles of already flattened boxes. I don't know why we'd thought we could reuse them since they were covered in dust and remnants of webs.
Back up in the attic, we got out hammers and took them to Eddie's old wobbly microwave stand. Now I know why those renovation show hosts let their homeowners swing a sledgehammer. Breaking shit is fun! Then down the stairs, through the pantry, down the stairs to the front door, and around the house to the back we went, piling up the crap that we would have to call the village to collect in the large garbage pickup. Then back around the house, up the stairs, through the pantry, and up to the attic to bring back down the mattress from the old single bed I'd used as living room furniture when I'd first moved. Then back to the attic and through the pantry and then, well, not through the pantry--the bedframe got stuck for a while. Eddie and I put our geometry to work and figured out all the angles we could think of before he finally got it off the stairs and into the pantry without taking out a chunk of the ceiling. Then down the front stairs and out the front door and around the house he went.
While he was outside with the frame, I realized that I could take this golden opportunity to slide the mattress down the stairs. Ooh, fun. That's what I did. I followed it down to the front door, flipped it on its side, and met Eddie as I was about to fling it outside down our front stoop. We took it around to the back of the house.
Back around the house, up the front steps, through the pantry, up to the attic, we found fans and a sleeping bag, a CD/DVD rack and a board with pictures and words glued to it for an old school project, a large book of the history of the world and a leather bound portfolio, and two broken down sets of wheely clothes racks. These things I brought down to my parents' place for them and my brother to go through and take. My mom sent the clothes racks to the back of the house to be trashed, sent the sleeping bag to the basement, and then left the rest for my brother (who was thankful we'd found his teaching portfolio, which he'd been looking for for several years).
Eddie and I can now follow up our two-part masterpiece with something entitled "In our The Empty Attic (except for two boxes and a set of snack tables)". Catchy, huh? In one box are our Christmas decorations. In the other is packing material. The set of snack tables are the three of the four that have broken in some way. We hope to refurbish them in the future. We'll probably throw them out in a year.
Keeping in the mode of getting rid of stuff, I took the stereo that I'd tried to sell on Craigslist for a while and put it out at the curb. While no one was going to take a broken down microwave cart, someone might snag a cassette-deck stereo with speakers. In under an hour, one speaker was gone. Eddie and I watched at the window to see if anyone was coming back to take the other one to no avail. My dad later told us that the guy next door asked if he could take the speaker, and if it worked, he would be back for the other stuff. A few hours later, the whole stereo was gone.
All that's left at this point, for now, is to figure out what to do with the Dr. Pepper menu boards that we found in the basement.
We have two, one in slightly worse condition than the other, but they are so kitschy. If I collected soda-related trinkets, this would be cool to keep. But in the spirit of cleansing, they need to go. Antiques Road Show, here I come.
None of these artistic ventures quite capture the experience of cleaning out our own attic. Maybe Eddie and I can write a song or a story called "Spiders In The Attic," and then, in current fashion, follow it up with the prequel "Spiders On The Attic Stairs." Last week, I found myself wanting to get a jump start on the cleaning and got as far as the stairs where I encountered a seemingly uncountable number of webs with some half-hatched spiders lying around. I cleared out the webs and then called the landlord/my mom/the resident scientist to make sure that they were only spider eggs and not something like dinosaur-dragon spawn that would hatch and eat me alive. Yes, that's right, I called my mother to look at the arachnattack. Because she's a scientist and knows about these things. Also because she's the only person I know who doesn't run away and skeeve when she encounters such things. Also, I once was bitten by a spider, hand my hand blow up big and red, had red streaks go up my arm, and then had to take a megadose of Keflex for a week after the doctor took one look at it and said, Oh wow that's not good. Once the webs were gone (there were no dino-dragon eggs), I gave up, skeeved out, not wanting to go into the attic alone.
So instead, on a very warm day, Eddie and I climbed into the unventilated attic and started tossing around boxes. The number of boxes up there was simply ridiculous. Some of them had paperwork and other electronic equipment in them. Most were empty or had packing material. Why we had so many chalks up to Eddie liking sturdy boxes and my thought that maybe we might need to send something when we sell it on eBay, even though we really don't list anything on eBay. We set up a system of throwing them down the attic stairs, dragging them through the pantry, and then breaking them down in the kitchen.
Except for the really large boxes, this system worked. The large boxes we tossed down the stairs to the front door and folded and broke down on the side lawn next to the piles of already flattened boxes. I don't know why we'd thought we could reuse them since they were covered in dust and remnants of webs.
Back up in the attic, we got out hammers and took them to Eddie's old wobbly microwave stand. Now I know why those renovation show hosts let their homeowners swing a sledgehammer. Breaking shit is fun! Then down the stairs, through the pantry, down the stairs to the front door, and around the house to the back we went, piling up the crap that we would have to call the village to collect in the large garbage pickup. Then back around the house, up the stairs, through the pantry, and up to the attic to bring back down the mattress from the old single bed I'd used as living room furniture when I'd first moved. Then back to the attic and through the pantry and then, well, not through the pantry--the bedframe got stuck for a while. Eddie and I put our geometry to work and figured out all the angles we could think of before he finally got it off the stairs and into the pantry without taking out a chunk of the ceiling. Then down the front stairs and out the front door and around the house he went.
While he was outside with the frame, I realized that I could take this golden opportunity to slide the mattress down the stairs. Ooh, fun. That's what I did. I followed it down to the front door, flipped it on its side, and met Eddie as I was about to fling it outside down our front stoop. We took it around to the back of the house.
Back around the house, up the front steps, through the pantry, up to the attic, we found fans and a sleeping bag, a CD/DVD rack and a board with pictures and words glued to it for an old school project, a large book of the history of the world and a leather bound portfolio, and two broken down sets of wheely clothes racks. These things I brought down to my parents' place for them and my brother to go through and take. My mom sent the clothes racks to the back of the house to be trashed, sent the sleeping bag to the basement, and then left the rest for my brother (who was thankful we'd found his teaching portfolio, which he'd been looking for for several years).
Eddie and I can now follow up our two-part masterpiece with something entitled "In our The Empty Attic (except for two boxes and a set of snack tables)". Catchy, huh? In one box are our Christmas decorations. In the other is packing material. The set of snack tables are the three of the four that have broken in some way. We hope to refurbish them in the future. We'll probably throw them out in a year.
Keeping in the mode of getting rid of stuff, I took the stereo that I'd tried to sell on Craigslist for a while and put it out at the curb. While no one was going to take a broken down microwave cart, someone might snag a cassette-deck stereo with speakers. In under an hour, one speaker was gone. Eddie and I watched at the window to see if anyone was coming back to take the other one to no avail. My dad later told us that the guy next door asked if he could take the speaker, and if it worked, he would be back for the other stuff. A few hours later, the whole stereo was gone.
All that's left at this point, for now, is to figure out what to do with the Dr. Pepper menu boards that we found in the basement.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Preparing To Buy A New Mattress
Thanks to Tempurpedic, I have a free idea about what one of their mattresses may feel like.
They sent me this FREE nifty little package that has arrows that helped me figure out how to open it. It came with a FREE DVD about mattresses. The little square I'm feeling is the material they make their mattresses out of.
Okay, so that little piece of material really isn't helpful in figuring out if the mattress would be good. Eddie and I pondered taping it to his lower back for a night, but then decided against it, seeing that the little piece of foam is not thick enough to offer the full impact of a large mattress. It would have been fun to try simply because I think taping things to people is fun.
Also, I'm learning how to use Moldiv! Very exciting. I can put words onto photos and make collages. Yeay! Yes, still using the crap out of my iPhone to make it worth the price.
Okay, so that little piece of material really isn't helpful in figuring out if the mattress would be good. Eddie and I pondered taping it to his lower back for a night, but then decided against it, seeing that the little piece of foam is not thick enough to offer the full impact of a large mattress. It would have been fun to try simply because I think taping things to people is fun.
Also, I'm learning how to use Moldiv! Very exciting. I can put words onto photos and make collages. Yeay! Yes, still using the crap out of my iPhone to make it worth the price.
Monday, February 4, 2013
No Joke
Maybe you've seen this commercial recently:
It's probably one of the most entertaining things on television today. Every time Eddie and I are watching tv, we laugh. Every time we are fast forwarding through a DVR, we stop, back up, watch, and laugh some more.
The best birthday present I thought to get him was the WaxVac. It had to be done. It was a gag gift, mostly, but if it worked, all the better. Plus, it was buy one get one. This was a great decision. This is why I'm not allowed to make decisions.
Neither of us will answer the phone if we don't know who it is. When the Caller ID comes up with a weird 800 number, we let the machine pick it up. For about two weeks, every day, and sometimes twice a day, a weird 800 number kept coming up. It wouldn't leave a message. Once I tried to call it back and it was busy.
About 9 PM on a Tuesday, the 800 number came up yet again. Feeling adventurous, Eddie picked it up and used his "I'm a person you don't want to talk to" voice to ward off any possible threat of someone trying to sell us something. The voice is a bit like Kermit The Frog's crossed with Barry White. He put it on speaker. This is the conversation that transpired:
Barry The Frog: Hello?
Person: Hello, is this Christina?
Barry The Frog: No, who's this?
Person: Hello, I'm calling for Christina.
Barry The Frog: She's not here. Who is this?
Person: I'm calling because Christina placed an order for a WaxVac. Is she there?
Eddie, no longer sounding like Barry The Frog because he'd just answered this question: She's not here; can I help you?
[meanwhile, he's mouthing to me, Did you buy a WaxVac? and I'm mouthing back, It was a gag gift for your birthday way to ruin the surprise stupid WaxVac people]
WaxVac Surprise-Ruiner: Well who is this?
Eddie: This is her husband; how can I help you?
WaxVac Surprise-Ruiner: We just wanted to let you know, Mr. Raw, that the shipment is on its way and should arrive within the week. Also, as a thank you for ordering with us, we will give you $100 to spend on gas. We'll be sending that out to you when you pay only $1.
Eddie: We don't want that. We want only what she ordered.
WaxVac: It's $100 for gas for you to keep.
Eddie: No thank you.
WaxVac: Okay I'm patching you through to...
[at this point, I don't know what she did because she just gave us to another operator who....]
2nd WaxVac Person: Hello, Christina?
Eddie: No, this is her husband.
2nd Wax Vac Person: Okay, hello, Mr. Raw, I'm letting you know that we're sending out a packet for you to use and with only $1
Eddie: Hold on, please. I just told the other woman I don't want it.
2nd WaxVac: It's $100 in gas money.
Eddie: No thank you.
2nd Wax Vac: Okay we'll get that out to you and you have a good night.
Click.
Okay, a few things:
1. The operators at WaxVac clearly do not use their own product because they didn't hear when Eddie said, NO!!!!
2. Who the hell is Mr. Raw?
3. What was the purpose in transferring to a second operator?
4. What does gas have to do with cleaning out your ears?
We discussed the absurdity of the phone call and wondered why the woman hung up on him. Then to show him what was happening when I'd been calling back, I dialed the number. This time, instead of a busy signal, someone answered: Hello, Christina!
That freaked me the fuck out so I immediately hung up and hid the phone under the couch cushion.
So you got me a WaxVac? Eddie asked.
They ruined the fun! I wailed.
Fast forward to a week later. I have two WaxVacs in my possession.
Fast forward a few days later. The phone has been ringing with an odd 800 number. No one is leaving messages. They are calling when we aren't home. The phone rings when I am home finally and I answer and no one is there and it clicks off to a disconnected line.
I'm pissed so I call the number back. Hello, Christina!
What the fuck???
I answer, Hi, someone just called from this number and hung up on me. Who's this?
I get the response, The phone is on an auto-dialer so the auto-dialer hung up. Is this Christina?
Me: Yes, who is this?
Person: Hi, I'm calling to thank you for ordering WaxVac, and I just wanted to let you know that your order is on its way.
Me: Let me stop you for a moment; I already received my order.
WaxVac: I'm so happy to hear that! Our call system is backed up.
Me: No, people have been calling. Someone spoke to my husband.
WaxVac: Okay, great. So we're going to send you $100 to spend on gas and you pay a dollar and...
Me: Let me stop you again. My husband told two people already that we are not interested and not to send it.
WaxVac: But it's $100 for gas.
Me: No.
WaxVac: Okay so you enjoy your Wax Vac.
1. How do you "enjoy" a WaxVac? It's purpose is to suck water out of your ears. Enjoy?
2. What is it with the gas money????
3. Why is Wax Vac stalking me????????????????
FYI: The WaxVac does not work. Surprise.
It's probably one of the most entertaining things on television today. Every time Eddie and I are watching tv, we laugh. Every time we are fast forwarding through a DVR, we stop, back up, watch, and laugh some more.
The best birthday present I thought to get him was the WaxVac. It had to be done. It was a gag gift, mostly, but if it worked, all the better. Plus, it was buy one get one. This was a great decision. This is why I'm not allowed to make decisions.
Neither of us will answer the phone if we don't know who it is. When the Caller ID comes up with a weird 800 number, we let the machine pick it up. For about two weeks, every day, and sometimes twice a day, a weird 800 number kept coming up. It wouldn't leave a message. Once I tried to call it back and it was busy.
About 9 PM on a Tuesday, the 800 number came up yet again. Feeling adventurous, Eddie picked it up and used his "I'm a person you don't want to talk to" voice to ward off any possible threat of someone trying to sell us something. The voice is a bit like Kermit The Frog's crossed with Barry White. He put it on speaker. This is the conversation that transpired:
Barry The Frog: Hello?
Person: Hello, is this Christina?
Barry The Frog: No, who's this?
Person: Hello, I'm calling for Christina.
Barry The Frog: She's not here. Who is this?
Person: I'm calling because Christina placed an order for a WaxVac. Is she there?
Eddie, no longer sounding like Barry The Frog because he'd just answered this question: She's not here; can I help you?
[meanwhile, he's mouthing to me, Did you buy a WaxVac? and I'm mouthing back, It was a gag gift for your birthday way to ruin the surprise stupid WaxVac people]
WaxVac Surprise-Ruiner: Well who is this?
Eddie: This is her husband; how can I help you?
WaxVac Surprise-Ruiner: We just wanted to let you know, Mr. Raw, that the shipment is on its way and should arrive within the week. Also, as a thank you for ordering with us, we will give you $100 to spend on gas. We'll be sending that out to you when you pay only $1.
Eddie: We don't want that. We want only what she ordered.
WaxVac: It's $100 for gas for you to keep.
Eddie: No thank you.
WaxVac: Okay I'm patching you through to...
[at this point, I don't know what she did because she just gave us to another operator who....]
2nd WaxVac Person: Hello, Christina?
Eddie: No, this is her husband.
2nd Wax Vac Person: Okay, hello, Mr. Raw, I'm letting you know that we're sending out a packet for you to use and with only $1
Eddie: Hold on, please. I just told the other woman I don't want it.
2nd WaxVac: It's $100 in gas money.
Eddie: No thank you.
2nd Wax Vac: Okay we'll get that out to you and you have a good night.
Click.
Okay, a few things:
1. The operators at WaxVac clearly do not use their own product because they didn't hear when Eddie said, NO!!!!
2. Who the hell is Mr. Raw?
3. What was the purpose in transferring to a second operator?
4. What does gas have to do with cleaning out your ears?
We discussed the absurdity of the phone call and wondered why the woman hung up on him. Then to show him what was happening when I'd been calling back, I dialed the number. This time, instead of a busy signal, someone answered: Hello, Christina!
That freaked me the fuck out so I immediately hung up and hid the phone under the couch cushion.
So you got me a WaxVac? Eddie asked.
They ruined the fun! I wailed.
Fast forward to a week later. I have two WaxVacs in my possession.
Fast forward a few days later. The phone has been ringing with an odd 800 number. No one is leaving messages. They are calling when we aren't home. The phone rings when I am home finally and I answer and no one is there and it clicks off to a disconnected line.
I'm pissed so I call the number back. Hello, Christina!
What the fuck???
I answer, Hi, someone just called from this number and hung up on me. Who's this?
I get the response, The phone is on an auto-dialer so the auto-dialer hung up. Is this Christina?
Me: Yes, who is this?
Person: Hi, I'm calling to thank you for ordering WaxVac, and I just wanted to let you know that your order is on its way.
Me: Let me stop you for a moment; I already received my order.
WaxVac: I'm so happy to hear that! Our call system is backed up.
Me: No, people have been calling. Someone spoke to my husband.
WaxVac: Okay, great. So we're going to send you $100 to spend on gas and you pay a dollar and...
Me: Let me stop you again. My husband told two people already that we are not interested and not to send it.
WaxVac: But it's $100 for gas.
Me: No.
WaxVac: Okay so you enjoy your Wax Vac.
1. How do you "enjoy" a WaxVac? It's purpose is to suck water out of your ears. Enjoy?
2. What is it with the gas money????
3. Why is Wax Vac stalking me????????????????
FYI: The WaxVac does not work. Surprise.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Squirrel Trouble
Squirrels have taken up residence in the garage. Over the summer, I pointed out a hole between the roof and the wall as a potential problem for birds. During the summer and Fall, Eddie and I laughed and cheered on the squirrels that skittered across the garage roof. Then I stood helpless and upset as I watched one lone squirrel facing the hurricane on its apex. I yelled at it to get down but it did not listen. Never did I put two and two together, thinking that squirrels would go through the hole and live inside. If they could do that, they should have done it during the superstorm.
Yesterday, I arrived home to find two traps on the garage roof. I immediately called my landlord (aka my mother) and asked about the traps. She said they were humane traps; the squirrels would be caught alive. I asked then what. She said that the company comes once a week to check the traps. I squealed, Once a week??? How will they live???? What will they eat???? She asked, Are you going to feed them? No hesitation, I said, Yes, I will give them nuts and acorns and set them free. No you won't, she said.
This morning, Eddie called me on his way to work as I was getting out of the shower. I don't want to upset you, he said, but go look out my back window. Two squirrels were writhing around, one in each trap. I yelled to the squirrels, Oh no you must live you must live!
Then, the activist in me kicked in. I made signs:
I went down to my landlords' (parents') floor and taped up the signs. It was about 8 AM, too early for retired people to be awake, so I figured I could start with the signs and then begin the harassing phone calls a bit later on followed by emails and chanting.
I didn't even make it to the phone call portion of the protest. My landlord (mom) called to tell me she'd called the company and they were coming to get the squirrels today. I asked what if more than one got into the trap. She said the traps were big enough. I asked, what if they start eating each other. They're not going to eat each other, she assured me.
They didn't eat each other. Only one squirrel per trap stayed trapped until the trap guy came. My other landlord (dad) was talking with the guy, learning all about how smart all the different rodents are (racoons and rats are the smartest), when I was getting into my car. He called out, We got two of them! The guy turned around to show me and I asked, What do you do with them...set them out into the wild? The guy laughed at me.
So when I came home, I went directly into my landlords' (parents') house and asked, Umm, what are they doing with the squirrels? She told me, I thought that they set them free, but apparently they follow laws about humanely killing them. Also, they come once a day, not once a week.
Kill them? Why set up traps that keep them alive only to kill them? Why can't we set them out into the forest to play with their chipmunk and rabbit friends? And once a day? That's only good if they set them free. Now it's just taking them to their death daily.
They gas them.
Noooooooooooooooo.
Do you want squirrels living in the house? Do you want to go smell the garage?
Um, no.
Okay so then the traps stay until no more squirrels go into the garage.
Well, I'm writing a very strong letter to the exterminator about how squirrels have friends.
But I wrote this instead. My signs still hang on their walls.
Yesterday, I arrived home to find two traps on the garage roof. I immediately called my landlord (aka my mother) and asked about the traps. She said they were humane traps; the squirrels would be caught alive. I asked then what. She said that the company comes once a week to check the traps. I squealed, Once a week??? How will they live???? What will they eat???? She asked, Are you going to feed them? No hesitation, I said, Yes, I will give them nuts and acorns and set them free. No you won't, she said.
This morning, Eddie called me on his way to work as I was getting out of the shower. I don't want to upset you, he said, but go look out my back window. Two squirrels were writhing around, one in each trap. I yelled to the squirrels, Oh no you must live you must live!
Then, the activist in me kicked in. I made signs:
Let my squirrels go.
Squirrels deserve freedom.
Free the squirrels.
I went down to my landlords' (parents') floor and taped up the signs. It was about 8 AM, too early for retired people to be awake, so I figured I could start with the signs and then begin the harassing phone calls a bit later on followed by emails and chanting.
I didn't even make it to the phone call portion of the protest. My landlord (mom) called to tell me she'd called the company and they were coming to get the squirrels today. I asked what if more than one got into the trap. She said the traps were big enough. I asked, what if they start eating each other. They're not going to eat each other, she assured me.
They didn't eat each other. Only one squirrel per trap stayed trapped until the trap guy came. My other landlord (dad) was talking with the guy, learning all about how smart all the different rodents are (racoons and rats are the smartest), when I was getting into my car. He called out, We got two of them! The guy turned around to show me and I asked, What do you do with them...set them out into the wild? The guy laughed at me.
So when I came home, I went directly into my landlords' (parents') house and asked, Umm, what are they doing with the squirrels? She told me, I thought that they set them free, but apparently they follow laws about humanely killing them. Also, they come once a day, not once a week.
Kill them? Why set up traps that keep them alive only to kill them? Why can't we set them out into the forest to play with their chipmunk and rabbit friends? And once a day? That's only good if they set them free. Now it's just taking them to their death daily.
They gas them.
Noooooooooooooooo.
Do you want squirrels living in the house? Do you want to go smell the garage?
Um, no.
Okay so then the traps stay until no more squirrels go into the garage.
Well, I'm writing a very strong letter to the exterminator about how squirrels have friends.
But I wrote this instead. My signs still hang on their walls.
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