Pumping Irony

So There I Was, Holding My Nose...

I landed in Charlotte, NC this morning and had a voice mail from Dave. Apparently last night a mama skunk fell into my window well with her family of 3 babies, and sprayed the place! Just my luck, eh? Dave said they were still there at that point, which figures, since skunks are nocturnal.

So I get home around 9pm. Yep, they're still there, still sleeping. Once the dreary daylight finally lost its grasp, and the shadowy tendrils of the night blanketed the earth, mama skunk and her little ones woke up. And they were not happy. The maintenance guy had come during the day and put a board in the window well so they could hopefully climb up and out. I wasn't so sure they could do it, at least the babies; it's a very steep climb. Dave gets the idea to run outside and nail sections of cardboard to it so they'd have something to grab onto and make the climb easier.

Now, why the hell no one at all in the building did absolutely nothing other than tossing down a board for them is quite beyond me. Call the Fire Dept or something! If they can't deal with the problem, they'd surely know who could. This would not have been an issue a second night.

Which brings us to now.

As the skunks were struggling and squalling against the window, the mother climbing up and down the board trying to teach the babies to do the same, she either got scared at something or someone outside, or she got pissed off. Either way, she sprayed again!!! Between this ungodly stench and the noise of them against the window, there's no way in hell I can sleep in here tonight, so I'm shutting down, closing up the door, and pulling out Dave's futon in the living room, where I hope the smell doesn't reach in any strong quantity...

Comment Spam

Funny, or ironic, that I was just having a discussion last night that I'd only ever had a single instance of comment spam. Early this morning, I got hit with 12 in a matter of minutes. Granted, I doubt I have much of a reader base, but I will likely do something to combat the evil vermin. I'm still unsure about MT3.0. It sounds great on paper, so-to-speak, but quite honestly, I don't know that I write enough here, or that the little I do write is read by anyone, or even interesting enough to bother reading. So spending $70 for MT3.0 is not something I'm really up for at this moment in time. Tomorrow, perhaps I will have changed my mind, but for now I will at least check into instituting a few changes here. With luck, I won't have to go as far as disabling comments; after all, comments are the best way to know anyone's even remotely interested in anything I've written.

Divorcing Randy

Well, it practically seemed like it, anyway. We (read: She) hired this handyman, contractor, whatever the hell he calls himself to come and paint our condo. We fully intended on doing it ourselves, but with our crazy schedules, and especially me splitting my time between Jacksonville and Akron, there was simply no time. So we hired... Randy.

Randy tells us the job will take a week, tops. Five weeks later, not only is the job not completed, but we are going to have to go back over what he did do and fix his blemishes. The bathtub has scuffmarks from his ladder. His drop-cloths, tools, and assorted crap is all over the place. It's a brand-new condo, one which isn't even being lived in full-time yet, and you'd think it was 10 years old now. After repeated phone conversations, Randy was apologetic, even eager to make up for his ineptitude and garner our favor once more. However, yet another week passed and he still had not even showed up, much less finished what he started.

So, much like a jilted lover, his things were gathered and placed outside the door. One final phone call ended the relationship. "Randy, we need to move on with our lives. Please come get your stuff and we can bring closure to this experience."

... Heavy Sigh ...

How's This For Wasting a Day?

Ok, I had talked to Lorenda on Friday. We discussed plans for the weekend and my birthday, which is tomorrow.

So, last night, I try to touch bases with her again to confirm things and remind her to pick me up at the airport in the morning. No answer; straight to voice mail. Well, ok, she does have a penchant for not taking her phone with her when she goes out. I'm sure she'll get it, right?

I wake up this morning at the ass-crack of dawn, like 4am, to head to the airport and catch the very first flight to Atlanta. Plenty of seats available on AirTran (I love AirTran, I just love them. Now HIRE ME dammit! ) I get to Atlanta and call again; still goes straight to voice mail. Ok, this is not looking good. I realize it's still early, like 7:00 or 7:30 am but she's an early riser. Personally, I would contemplate putting a contract out on anyone who called me at some ungodly hour like that, but hey, no one ever claimed I was a morning person, least of all me. Anyway, I leave a message reminding her what time my flight arrives in Jacksonville.

After landing in JAX, I call yet again. Still no answer! Ok, I also realize she has a penchant for simply leaving her phone in bizarre places, be at the office dropped in someone's filing cabinet, or in a corner plant, you'd be amazed at the places she can find to lose her phone. Or there's always the possibility she simply left the phone in her car overnight, either on or turned off. I decide to go ahead and rent a car ($66 per day, what a scam those car rental places have got going!) and drive home. I get to the condo and not only is she not there, it appears she hasn't been there in awhile! So I drove over to the apartment she shares with one of her employees while our condo is being finished up. She's not there, either, so I go back home.

I then notice that the air conditioning isn't working at all. It's 94 degrees inside, back by the door, which is the coolest part of the condo. At 9am! I remember the last time I was there, I suspected it wasn't working, so I turned it on to test it. That was 3 weeks ago. It's still turned on, and it's quite obvious that indeed, it's broken.

I put together a list of maintenance items I want fixed, the air conditioning at the top, and put in work orders with the office. Now, what to do with my day? Hell, I'm finally home in Florida, I'm going outside and enjoying the weather! Sounds great, right? Well, yes, it was. Up until I got bored. Me and my MTV attention span, gotta love it. Every time I go inside and spend more than a few minutes in that heat, I'd start to feel queasy. I still was not able to get hold of Lorenda, which was not exactly helping my mood either.

Finally, in a fit of exasperation, I broke. I gave up. I got dressed in my uniform and drove to the airport. Screw this, I'm going back to Akron. I'm in Charlotte right now; I just called again and left a final voice mail stating that, basically it's been 3 days since I have had any contact with her. I will assume she has to work tomorrow, so I will call the office. If no one's seen or heard from her, I'm calling the Jacksonville police to see if her name shows up...

I hope she's ok...

Update:
Landed in Akron and I'm telling the captain this whole story and the phone rings -- it's Lorenda! She left her phone somewhere, she just got home to Jacksonville. "Oh no, didn't I tell you I was visiting my parents this weekend?" Um... NO!!! If you had, do you think I would have dragged my ass out of bed at 4 in the morning to fly across the country for no good reason?