Lame Agents, Bare Behinds, and a Heat Wave (Part Two)

Please read the previous post (part one) before reading this one for a little bit of background information.

So we wear ourselves (and my dad and brother and mom out) the next day packing and moving.  We move in, finally pick up "Ralphie" and take him to our new home.  Guess what.  The air conditioning isn’t working.

That’s right.  NO air conditioning on the hottest week so far this summer—temperatures in the 90s…nothing but unpacking for me to do.  And what’s worse The Hubby didn’t believe me for hours until it was too late to call anyone.  (Actually it was too late anyway, but still he needs to start believing me!!)  You should also know that I go CRAZY when I am tired and hot and often get sick when I get overheated so I was flipping out, literally.  So mom basically drags me out of the house (I’m convinced this was more to save The Hubby rom me than to actually help me) and brings me to Wal-mart where we buy three osolating fans (I have NO idea how to spell that and apparently Word has no idea what I am trying to spell either, so…sorry!)

Ok, so we get the fans going, but the temperature in the house keeps creeping up even as the evening wears on…80…81…82…83…etc.  I am laying there like a sweaty slug trying to calm myself while my house is covered in boxes, the food hasn’t been brought over (and won’t for probably 24 hours) so I am hungry as well (my family has a tendency to get SUPER grumpy when we are hungry...I'm the least worse of those of us infected, but it's nowhere close to pretty) and try to remain calm and keep from getting to sleep.  Finally we bath Ralphie, The Hubby akes a cold shower and then I do.  I feel slightly better, but am sooo not excited to have to sleep in the heat.  I don’t know about you but I can’t sleep very well in the heat.  It's like super impossible for me.  We had the windows open and I have this intense (The Hubbycalls it ridiculous) fear of someone sneaking in our house at night and stealing Ralphie.  So of course, with the heat and the fear mixed together, I lay awake for hours….and hours…and the clock rolls on.

And I just keep getting more frustrated and hot so I continue to toss and turn…finally at about 2 or 3am I get up and go downstairs.  I figured I might as well be productive if I can’t sleep so  I find the manual for the gas furnance/air conditioning unit thingy where the air conditioner is attached and read the troubleshooting page…well, not too helpful since I have no idea what the crap it’s talking about.  So more frustrating than ever I head upstairs and close all the windows, thinking that since there is a tiny bit of cool air coming out of the vents maybe that would work better.  And per my OCD I make sure they are locked tight, and proceed to throw myself in bed and groan some more.  (I should add that Ralphie has been asleep this entire time!  I can’t tell you the last time he slept that long without waking.  It was like some kind of miracle.)

Anyway, my most recent groan wakes up The Hubby and after some groans and frustrated conversation between us we decide to get up (in our undies cause that is all we were wearing because of the heat) and go into the garage and check out the system.  Well, we head through the utility room and The Hubby pens the door to the garage.  I briefly think it’s weird that I had locked that door (I know, I know, The Hubby ells me it constantly, I’m OCD and too freaked out about someone getting into the house, but whatever)—anyway, I think it’s weird that I had locked the door but The Hubby pened it no problem.  But this was literally a brief instance of thought though since The Hubby as continuing out the door and heading toward his drill and so I quickly followed him out.

Ok, so The Hubby akes apart the bottom of the system and all seems to be working…so we have no idea what’s up. Nothing looks wrong or switched off.  So we sigh and he starts to drill the plate back on.  I go to the door to check on Ralphie…and um, yah, the door is locked.  Apparently it was locked but not closed when The Hubby ent through it to the garage.  So there we are…in our undies, locked out of our new house with no keys, or cell phone, and our little baby asleep (hopefully) inside.  Our little baby who wakes up every night totally out of it (takes after his mommy) and freaks out if he can’t find us.  And he is locked inside the house, upstairs, in the dark with only one bathroom light on and nothing else, in a new house he doesn’t know, where mom can’t come to him when he calls for her. 

So I literally start freaking out.  The Hubbygets mad, asking me why I locked the door and why am I so OCD and why do I even think someone could get in through the close locked garage and adds, also, that no one could ever climb up onto our second story to get Ralphie.  We stare at each other  and wonder what the hell we are going to do??

The Hubbyopens the garage and we go outside (undies and all) and he looks around trying to decide what the best option was.  The workers who had built our house had left a pile of sand bags and tiles next to the garage and by the outside wall.

“I’ll climb up and get in through on of the windows,” The Hubby says.

Through my frenzied, emotional wreck, guilt-ridden self, I say, “you can’t.  I closed and locked all the doors.”

He glares at me.  “You sure?"  

I can only nod.  

"I think I’ll try in case.”

So he climbs up on the sand bags grabs the roof and pulls himself up onto it (in nothing but underwear--no shirt or anything.) 

Let me throw this in here while I have the chance and a voice—and he wonders why I think someone could easily get into Ralphie's window.  Sheesh.  And he has done this before in even harder circumstances, so sorry, but if someone wanted to steal Ralphie they could do it if they were strong enough.  Sheesh!

Anyway, he pulls himself up and checks Ralphie’s window.  Nope, locked up tight.  He kind of walks around up there angrily for a second and then climbs back down.  Then he goes to the back door just in case it’s unlocked.  You got it, locked up tight thanks to his OCD wife.

            So he comes back around and we go back in the garage and try to decide what to do.

            “Your mom has your keys right?” he asks.  “I’ll have to go get them.”

            Again, the over emotionally, crazy lady (me) says, “you’re only in your underwear.”  Even though I knew that was our only option, I still didn’t think he would do it.  “What if Ralphie wakes up, freaks out and falls down the stairs?” I cry suddenly all freaked out.

            He just stares.  “Aren’t there ANY clothes in here?”

            Then I remember that there are actually some boxes that the boys had put into the garage instead of the appropriate rooms because they were so tired by that point and that perhaps there were some clothes in there somewhere!  “Maybe,” I tell him.  And began searching while I pray we can at least find something for him to wear.

            A miracle, by some bizarre chance…amongst the girly sweaters and a silky robe I find a pair of his swim trunks.  I keep looking hoping that I can find shoes, but to no avail.

            He stares at me then, in only his swim trunks and undies and thinks a moment. “Ok, I’ll have to run there barefoot.  It’ll take me six minutes or so to get there.”

            (My parents now live only about 1.2 miles away, so you do the math.)

            He heaves a sigh and points to the rocker that we left in the garage for him to fix.  “You can sit and wait there.  I’ll kind of close the garage.  It’ll take a little while, ok?”

            I nod crazily and he heads out.  And then the longest minutes of my life start.  Long minutes where all I do is stand by the door, rocking crazily (this was either from being freaked out with worry or because I had to pee really bad) and listening for a scared frightened cry behind the locked door.  My mind goes crazy (as a mind of an OCD, overly worried, fatigued mind does) and I think…”what if Charming gets bit by a rattler or attacked by that damn coyote that’s been wondering around the neighborhood without fear?”  Our little neighborhood is at the bottom of a hill surrounded by nothing but mesa.  Once you go the 1.2 miles to my parents then you get to their little neighborhood around which is nothing but mesa…so yah, it’s very possible those things could happen…unless rattlers aren’t out at night, but I have no idea about that.  So I rock back and forth for five minutes or so that seem like five hours and finally decide to start counting the seconds to maybe calm myself.

            Meanwhile, Charming, after running on a lightless, dead street he finally arrives at my parents house…sore-footed, sweaty, and tired.  He rings the doorbell, waits a few minutes…nothing.  He tries again…and again…who knows for how long.  My little brother Trent finally comes to the door in a confused, sleepy state—he said later he thought it was the police since in our past besides a crazy family we once knew in another state that is the only time our doorbell was ever rang that late at night.  He stares at Charming and Charming says, “we locked ourselves out, Ralphie’s in the house alone and we need Sandy’s keys.”  

           So Trent hands them to him and stares again.  “And I need a ride home,” Charming adds.  

           And Trent kind of shakes himself awake and is like, “oh yah, duh.”  Lol, he’s cute.  Anyway, they finally arrive and we are able to get into the house.  Ralphie slept through the whole thing and never woke up that night until 6am…that was a crazy, once in a lifetime thing for him!  So quite a blessing.  We finally went to sleep…Charming had to get up 2 or 3 hours later to go to work poor guy.  Days later his legs and feet are still aching from the barefoot, dark run.

            The next morning we went to my mom’s house to email the house people about the air conditioner.  My mom, all distraught says, “what kind of mother doesn’t wake up when her poor son-in-law is half dressed and locked out of the house at 3am?”  

            Lol, my dad and brother start cracking up and ask me if Charming was “bare-assed” under his swim suits.  When I told them no, they said they were sure he was and begin to tell me about some part in that movie “Water Boy” (which I have only ever seen part of) in which where they are all reminiscing about someone running down a football field losing his pants but the guy runs “bare-assed to the touch down” or something.  So they start saying in a deep southern accent (which is not hard for my dad, being from New Orleans and once having an accent himself--which still crops up now and then), “remember that time when Charming got locked out of the house and ran 1.2 miles bare-assed to get the key?” and start busting up.  Mom adds, “that’s probably how the story will go down in our family history.”  Haha, probably knowing my brothers and father that's true.

            Well, two whole long days later (after finding a huge, basketball sized, 50 pound chunk of ice frozen around the air conditioner pipes and waiting for it to melt and another day for them to arrive) we finally got it fixed--it was low on...free-on because someone didn't do their job fully.  Since then it turns out our microwave is shotty and only works half the time…we probably shouldn’t use it for that reason, but I NEED my microwave to thaw meat and crap.  (Ok, that sounded really gross haha)  Anyways, that’s the story and as I sit here headache and all I’m just glad I have air conditioning, and wasn’t the one who had to run bare-assed 1.2 miles.  Also there are some cute little desert owls that live in a dirt hill one our way out of our complex…they are adorable!  I love to stop and see them every time I come and go. :-)  Pictures soon I hope!

THE END

Lame Agents, Bare Behinds, and a Heat Wave (Part One)

            We made it.  We’re here…in our new home…finally.  Oh, and our air conditioning is working.

            Say, what?  Oh, I see you missed that headline.  Let’s start at the beginning.

            Everything went pretty smoothly the whole while our house was being built—minus the fact that they forgot one of the windows that we paid extra for and were going to put our tile in our dining room down crooked, but yah, whatever, we got that taken care of without too much drama.

            Even our walk-through went well.  Charming’s dad, through a stroke of genius, suggested we film it.  Which we did and in the two weeks since we have referred to it numerous times since.  But a few days after that was when it started to get bumpy.

            But, I need to step back again briefly.  We originally were meeting with Mark Smith at Frost Mortgage here in Albuquerque. We LOVED him!  He was fantastic!  He made our buying a house possible through his know-how, even though Charming was self-employed for six months last year.  He knows his stuff!  Anyway, we just adored him, but at some point we got transferred to another person.  A lady who is here in town, I am guessing because she was closer and Mark Smith is so awesome he was needed elsewhere.  Well, she was not as wonderful as Mark, not even close.  She never told us what was going on and always informed us of things last minute.  And later we realized her secretary did most of her job anyway.  Yah, she’s one of those people.

            Anyway, we call her a few days before the walk-through to see what the deal is and why we haven’t heard anything about closing.  She tells us they are planning for the twelfth.  We are excited—knowing we have given them everything they wanted and the literal hour they asked for it.  No messing around or procrastinating.  We were on top of things.  So let’s see…the walk-through was Thursday the 7^th and closing was supposed to be Tuesday the 12^th.  So Friday (at 5:50pm, of course) the secretary calls us and tells us that they had us fill out one of the forms wrong and we need proof of employment from Dish Network before 11 on Monday.  Wow, thanks lady. 

So we are frustrated, mad and worried all weekend wondering if we can even get that that fast.  We know Dish Network and they are jerks to their employees…we don’t even want to know how mean they are to their ex-employees.  Ugh.

So first thing Monday Charming calls them…only to find out that it’s even HARDER to get proof of employment that we had figured.  You have to go through this email address and it can take at least 5 days.  So we are mad.  Mad that the lady told us to fill out the form wrong, mad that Dish can still torture us even though we quit them.  So we email, and hope they get back to us in not too long.

Days roll by…days and days…Wednesday we hear back…oh, sorry, “Please advise.”  What does that even mean.  At least use the word correctly.  So we send them some extra info, and figure we have to wait at least two more days.  Friday the 15^th in the morning, the secretary calls us…the lady (notice I am omitting her name to be nice) called and hounded Dish, accusing them of breakings some equal employment act.  So they eventually send the proof over and it goes to underwriting.  The lady tells us we could maybe close that day. We don’t.  So she says Monday.  We don’t.  Finally Tuesday we close…and it’s a breeze because we have everything prepared.  And the house is ours! Nothing can go wrong…well, except for that we can’t move until Friday cause of Charming’s bizarre work schedule. But wait!  TCharming goes to work and finds out that by some rare occurrence his schedule was changed (in six months they have only changed his schedule one other time) that we can move Wednesday!

So we wear ourselves (and my dad and brother and mom out) the next day packing and moving.  We move in, finally pick up Ralphie and take him to our new home.  Guess what.  The air conditioning isn’t working.

To be continued (because that is probably enough reading for right now huh?)