Thursday, August 1, 2013

Why I'm Usually Not Allowed to Do the "Adult Stuff"

We are looking homelessness square in the face right now.

Our lease is up on the 15th.  (We told the apartment people that we are leaving on the 26th, we need to talk to them about that...) and we have an offer in on a house, but it's a short sale and we may not hear anything for up to six (6) months and it will take 30 days from the time they accept our offer until we close... So, we are looking at a solid 6 days of homelessness even if they call tomorrow.  Every day they don't call adds a day to our couch surfing.  Needless to say, our nerves are shot.

In the midst of all this we've had to begin moving out (boxing up all our stuff and putting it into storage, making emergency plans in case the dog doesn't work out living in our cardboard box... turning off all of our utilities).

Turning off utilities falls on a spectrum from super easy (log in to website, set date, done!) to stupid hard (contract in place, cancelling costs money, website only offers transfer, we don't have a new address... BALLS!!!!)

*Internet Company* is hard.  (We do have a contract and breaking it costs money... and we need all the money we can get to give to the bank so they will give us a house.)  Luckily their website has a nifty feature where you can chat live with a representative... (unluckily their representative is the slowest typist on earth which leaves me plenty of time to type in snarky comments... my apologies to Christian Joseph, seriously).

So, this happened:

Christian Joseph>

All you need to do is call our hot line and they will place your account on a Seasonal disconnect.


Guest_>

Oh, easy enough. 


Christian Joseph>

Yes. Then once you are ready, you can call that number back for the transfer.


Guest_>

Can we pretend like we have a summer home?


Christian Joseph>

Yes.


Christian Joseph>

No problem with that one.


Christian Joseph>

Do you have any other questions for now?


Guest_>

Good, cuz that sounds a lot better than, "I'm sleeping on my mother-in-law's couch."

(Wish this was timestamped because there is a silly long pause here where no one is typing...)


Guest_>

Thanks, Christian, you've been good help.


Christian Joseph>

You're welcome!


Christian Joseph>

We'll look forward to hearing from you again.


Christian Joseph>

Goodbye for now!

I think I may have made a new friend (check out all those exclamation marks).  I always feel a little bad because I'm not sure if I come off as an ass or as slightly clever.  I suspect it is more of the former and much less of the latter.  I had another very honest conversation with an "online representative" for a cell phone company this week, as well... I think maybe we were better off when we all had to deal with our social anxieties and make phone calls...