I mentioned in my Stupid Wizard post in August that I
wanted to move,
and am happy to announce that we finally did.
In fact, we were able to find a great deal on a townhouse, closed on
October 1st, and have moved in.
Sounds all sunshine and roses doesn’t it?
This past week I’ve been fairly
silent. Two weeks before we were
planning on moving, hubby was sent unexpected away for a week of training by
his job; I stayed home to begin packing. When he returned home we had one week
to pack the entire house (I have entirely way too much crap), get all the
utilities set-up, my 8-year-old’s school transferred, and everything else that
goes along with moving. Not fun—but we
were steadily plodding along.
The owner generously gave us access
to the home a week before closing so that we may begin moving our things and
complete whatever work we wanted done. I
was so grateful because the idea of closing on the house late in the afternoon
on the first, and moving out of our rental that same day was daunting.
No Lights
First hiccup in my plan: Hubby
calls the power company to turn on the electricity—easy peasy right? Wrong!
On the Tuesday before we were
scheduled to close on the house, the power company came out to install the
meter. The old one was removed because
the home was empty for a while.
Unfortunately they could not turn the power on. The meter base was
damaged and needed to be repaired before a new meter could be installed.
On Wednesday the repair men showed
up but could not fix it; the entire meter base needed to be replaced.
On Thursday the electrician
installed a new base. Great! Let’s turn on the power. NO—the power company wanted the city to inspect
the electricians work before installing the meter. Grrrr. Permit paid for; inspection scheduled.
The inspection should take place on
Friday. The city would inspect, and then send their report to the power
company, who would then schedule the
installation of the meter. Now, my head hurts, but it is still alright because
we continued to pack and move things to the new house while there was daylight.
Closing was not until Monday afternoon, and the power should be on by
Monday.
The weekend came and went. We needed
to vacate our rental by Sunday (the day before the first) to make way for new
tenants. There was no electricity on in the townhouse, so after we moved all
our things, we checked into a hotel (Sunday night). At least we were all able to just fall into
bed without the chaos of assembling beds for the kids and wading through boxes.
There is nothing like being homeless, when you just purchased a home.
Monday afternoon we went to the
attorney’s office, and signed the papers.
Congratulations, we now own the
townhouse! Yay! The city never did
the inspection; back to the hotel.
Tuesday we checked out of the
hotel, and by this time I was going seriously broke. Moving, attorneys, down
payments, utility deposits, moving costs, eating out, and hotels! Seriously broke, and no city inspector in
sight.
After spending most of the morning
on the phone with different city offices, we found out they hadn’t even
scheduled the inspection! They wanted to wait until Wednesday, which meant no
power until at least Thursday—not good.
Persistence paid off. We did get someone
to agree to come out that same day to inspect the electrical work, and the
power company agreed to send a crew out as soon as the inspection report was in
their possession foregoing the “at least one business day wait.”
It was late afternoon before the
inspector showed, but everything went well and we were assured that he would be
sending the report to progress energy the minute he got back to the office. He
told us to go ahead and call the power company (the wait-time is usually at
least 20-30 minutes), and by the time I had someone on the phone they would
have the report. Great—no hotel tonight!
The phone beeped only a few moments
after a customer service representative answered my call; it was the inspector.
“I am sending the report now. It is going through the fax as we speak,” he
said.
It was nice of him to call me. I
returned to the customer service rep., who I got to put on hold for a change, and
asked him to check for the inspection report.
That had it!
“I am sorry Ma’am, this report says
Unit 21—you need service for Unit 20.” What?? I have my copy of the inspection
report and it clearly says Unit 20!
“I am sorry; we cannot send anyone
out there until the city resends the corrected paperwork.”
My eye is twitching.
Of course, the inspector was out of
the office when hubby called back to ask him to resend the paperwork. The clerk
was not at all helpful, would not try to contact him, and continued to just
send the calls to his voicemail. What
did she care, she was going to home to a house with electricity!
Foot is flapping.
Frustration = Anger building
Rage Meltdown?
I felt like a pressure cooker. I
called the city office myself. I know that I asked if the inspector had a
cellphone they could contact him on and have him call us, or give him the
message. It was approaching five o'clock and I was concerned that progress
energy would not send anyone out to install the meter if I didn’t call them
back before six.
To be honest, I don’t remember what
she said, but I know it could not have been good because the next thing I remember
is her telling me, “you’re not gonna call here and curse at me!”
My cellphone paid the price when I
flung it across the room. Did I curse at
her? I don’t know…maybe…it is possible since I cannot remember. I didn’t remember during then, or two second
afterwards, or now.
“Well, did you curse at her?” Hubby
asked.
“I don’t know!”
My insides were shaking. I wanted
to scream, to break things, to toss all the boxes piled in the living room with
no lights onto the floor and kick them! My hands trembled. I clasped my fingers
behind my aching neck and squeezed my head with arms. I had both forearms
squeezing my temples, my elbows together in front of my face—desperately trying
to breathe—to control the massive rage meltdown that I felt like was
coming.
Rage meltdowns are rare for me.
But, one thing I know is like a bull I see red, and then it all goes black. I
don’t remember what I said, or did afterwards. Thankfully, I can count on one
hand the times I can remember having full-blown rage meltdowns—most occurring in
my teenage years.
The anger took me by surprise. I
was too tired, too frustrate, too overwhelmed, and my body and brain were
rebelling. With my hands on the back of
my neck, and my face buried between my arms, I rocked and rocked and rocked and
rocked until the tears fell. This is what usually does happen.
Shutting down
Deep breaths…tears…all the energy
draining from my body at the same time. I felt dizzy, and laid my head down on
the sofa. It was like my entire system was just shutting off; it was
overloaded; circuit boards fried—a robot shorting out.
I don’t know how I can go from
being so angry to asleep in such a short amount of time! In fact, I don’t even
remember falling asleep.
I slept for about an hour.
When I woke I was nauseous and
still groggy. Hubby informed me that the
inspector called him back, progress energy received the correct report, and
were sending someone out tonight (it
was already after six). Our power would be on in a few hours. We left to get
some dinner.
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