We didn’t wake up one day and determine this was a good day to be hoarders.  We didn’t all of a sudden think, “passing up a real good deal is not worth it if I have a square foot of floor space available.  I should spend all I have to fill that space.”  And, we didn’t even say, “I need a hobby–I should hoard.”  The consequences of the decision are something we don’t yet fully understand.  As the picture above indicates, our bathtub is no longer usable.  A corner of our bedroom is the proud parent of a growing stack of tubs and boxes.  The end of our bed also has a stack allowing only a narrow passageway out from my side of the bed.

Fortunately, our hoarding (not real hoarder but stuff not tucked semi-neatly into a closet) is because of a little mistake I made when changing the water filter on the refrigerator a couple weekends back.  I popped out the old filter and popped in the new one.  The process seemed a little different then previous filter changes, but water still came out, so in my mind, all was good.

Jump ahead to Tuesday (I believe I had some other semi-traumatic events that took place in the mean time, but since they are not relevant to this story, I will leave those for a future posting or to be erased in the sands of time when my brain starts failing its memory test)  Judy find water sitting in her closet.  Clothes in our bathroom (right outside of her closet) are soaking wet.  Since we always had a basement before, we thought “maybe” something went wrong within our concrete slab…possibly a slab leak.  A call to a plumber had us prepared for the worst.

Sometime right before the plumber arrived, I thought back to the water filter changing.  I got in there and pulled the filter out and made extra sure I got in seated correctly this time.  The “whoosh” convinced me the lack of “whoosh” before was probably the reason for the water problem.  The plumber still came and allowed me to write him a small check for the privilege of telling me I should be more careful when changing the water filter.

Drying out the closet and the issues that followed will be saved for another post.  Believe me, the really easy part was creating the mess.  It was the cleanup where my patience was truly stretched.

Boy, the Oreo packaging looked good.  They took this brand the women (and young girls soon to be women) really love and tried to expand it.  Although they get credit for trying, the experiment was not a very successful one at our house.

The cookies made an entrance into our house a couple of weeks ago.  The consuming was fast and furious the first couple of days.  As the picture indicates, their are 4 orphans remaining.  And, I believe it is the same orphans who have been snuggled together for the entire period since the cookies lost their coolness.  As cleaning for a graduation party nears, I am guessing these 4 punch-oreos will spend their eternity snuggled together wishing they could have been born chocolate.

With a slightly late start and the traffic lights wanting to admire my naturally handsome smile by making pausing and stare at numerous of their kind, I was a little bit more intense than usual as I took my disguised school bus (going to school, but not yellow–yes, I felt it a little awkward, too) toward the schoolish direction.

As I drove the street of my special school shortcut, a parked car on the right entered into traffic.  At the STOP sign just a few yards from his house, he turned right.  Unfortunately, so did I.  With a speed limit of 30 and this vehicle barely going 20, I was looking for any excuse to get around him.  When he pulled to the right curb, I thought he was going to park and stop.  My instincts were false.  He kept driving and my effort to pass him was greeted by a need to immediately floor it to get around the on-coming traffic.  All was fine.  The car with the problem (I realize I also had a problem, but from my perspective, it was all him-it was only when reflecting back on it to I even suggest I was slightly in the wrong) made a right hand turn and cleared the road.  My daughters gave a slight jump.  I made some sort of experienced-dad comment like, “That was more interesting than it should have been.”  The drive to school continues.

This week has been a bad week for trains.  Karma was not to be robbed.  We here the horn announcing the trains impending road blockage.  As the track come into view the gates are down and the train is slowly crossing the tracks.  (Many times this train will stop on the tracks.  Yes, we have sat through it a few times.  We have tried to outrun it to the south and cross before it blocked the tracks, and we have strategized on ways to avoid it in the future.  The “leave the house early” has saved us many a delay, but see paragraph above….)  Today, we chose to turn right before our normal crossing place and be satisfied with crossing the tracks at a road slightly to the north.  This did work out…kinda.  Because of the cars backed up on the other side of the train, the “plan” of turning left after crossing the tracks on the different road did not work so well.  By the time we made the left hand turn and wound our way through the residential streets seeking our normal school path, the train had cleared our “regular” spot.  Karma-One; Andy-Zero.

The school drop off went okay.  Yes, we were later.  Yes, there was more traffic.  Courteousness remained.  I was on the road again ready to avoid any Karma remaining in my morning drive.  I did avoid most of it. (maybe he laid no additional traps or I was too slippery for him to catch me.  As a rule, I do cut through another neighborhood that runs past our church to avoid a few lights and LOTS more traffic.  I may have scored a point or two against Karma here.  If I didn’t see it, it can never be tallied.  I have far better things to do than seek out traffic reports of alternate routes to defeat a fictitious nemesis.)

As I made my last “real” shortcut, Karma did try again.  This time it was a car accident on a two lane road where the accident was in my right turn lane swelling into almost two lanes.  After staring at a bumper wondering if a turn was available while the traffic light seemed VERY slow to change, I took the matter into my own hands.  A quick left turn gave me an alternate option to my desired road.  The rest of the drive home was nothing a little normal traffic light patience could not handle.

With a possible recognition by Karma of my elusive nature, I was able to pull into the driveway 5 minutes before the trash truck arrived.  With the trash out, Karma (I hope) will put me back into the “to-do” jar.  And, with any luck, my name will not be drawn again for quite some time.

What started as a second insurance claim within a few weeks ALMOST got very ugly, but fortunately, it was resolved without the “worst” happening.

As I returned the rental car to the collision repair company our insurance company told us to use (Service King), I thought everything was fine.  I gave the clerk the car keys, and I went over the “fixed” car with the my service rep.  All seemed fine. (I did eventually have to take the car back due get the A/C recharged; it was fixed without incident.)

Unfortunately, 3 hours later my wife (it was her car) was contacted by Enterprise Rental cars.  On the rear driver panel of the car, there was a small dent.  I knew I was not responsible, and after some texting/talking to my service rep, he also confirmed he had no memory of the damage to the car.  (Because the car was turned in at Service King and Enterprise did not have a rep located [they do rent space from Service King, but if it is not staffed, it doesn’t count] in the lobby of Service King when we turned in the car, the “check-in” was not official.)  So, by Enterprises standards and according to their contract, we were responsible for all of the damage to the vehicle.  (When I contacted Service King, they were told the vehicle had already been taken to another different collision repair company.  The car could not be looked at.  We were just told we were responsible for the damage. Also, we also had damage to the car caused by a neighbor backing into our car the previous summer.  We were leaving on vacation the next day and we noticed it at 10:00 at night.  When we returned, the suspected neighbor whose house was for sale, was gone and we were stuck with a dented rear driver panel.)  Service King said they would have fixed it for free, but since Enterprise had already moved the car, the option was no longer available.

Once we found out we were supposed to make another claim with our insurance company to get the damage fixed, we took quite a few actions:

1. Since this was the second claim this year on our policy and since we had the same rep, I tried to get him on my side by having him vouch for my character.  And, he did same something like, “He is a stand up guy.”  Not sure if this helped at all, but our continued insisting in our innocence couldn’t hurt.  I know it was stated more than once, “If we caused the accident, we would not be going through any of this.”
2. We checked the Service King website.  The site claimed all Service Kings had the Enterprise people on site.
3. On the folder given to us with our Service King bill, it has Enterprises logo and mentions them a couple times.  My lawyer wife seemed to think (I agree) this implied Service King was an agent for Enterprise.
4. We received a letter from Enterprise claims settlement.  We filed a dispute with them.  They said they would let us know in a couple of weeks.
5. I tried to go directly to Enterprise to talk to the responsible manager.  (I ended up helping a very disoriented man find the Wells Fargo bank behind the Enterprise location.)  He was not there.  And, the Service King manager brought this up with the Enterprise management over lunch.  Enterprise seemed very content to maintain there stance of us being fully responsible for the accident.
6. After additional conversations with Service King, I found out SKs new policy is they will no longer take the keys on behalf of Enterprise.  (i.e. they have changed their policy because Enterprise is not responsive to customers)
7. During the same conversation, I mentioned how on the Service King website states “Satisfaction Guaranteed”.  And, how at this point, I was not satisfied.  In regards to the survey, he told me I should do what I needed to do.  When I did complete it, I tried to be complimentary to the service rep, but for the “recommending” part, I graded low.
8. I had a conversation with the Enterprise manager.  He wanted to make sure we understood what was in the contract.  And, he restated, “You are responsible until it is checked in by an Enterprise rep.”  I commented to him, “So, if the Enterprise logo is not on their shirt, I shouldn’t give them the keys.”  I also stated how a very false impression is created when the keys are taken.  A “normal” customer would quickly believe their responsibility is completed at that point.
9. My wife called Service King customer service complaint department.  She felt it went well.  Her comment of, “No one seems to be denying this accident happened on SK property after we dropped it off.” At the very least, they said all of the right things.  It gave us hope that something might still happen to save us having to pay the full $1000 bill.

A couple of days later, a miracle did happen. Service King called back.  I was told the bill would be covered by both Enterprise and Service King.  If I received any more bills or correspondences, I should pass them to Service King.  Of course, we were quite pleased with this outcome.  Now, we hope to give the $1,000 to a charity of some type rather than waste it on an accident we weren’t responsible for.

I love the Geico commercial with Pinocchio!  I wish Washington DC had to play by the same rules!   The plastic surgeons would all be very wealthy there, and the politicians would have to pay from their own pockets – not covered by Obamacare!

Just to be clear, I am an adult.  I know the world does NOT revolve around me.  However, a couple things this past week did not go the way I would have planned them….

First, I was looking at a business on eBay.  (I have existing internet businesses, but I was hoping to find something to get excited about–the other business has slowed)  I saw the business listed previously, but now I decided to try and contact the person who listed it.  (I am being vague on purpose–it should become clearer as the story unfolds.) After a couple of days, he provided his phone number.  And, the following morning, we were given the chance to talk for about 45 minutes.  The person I was speaking to had been involved in organized crime.  He had served a couple of years in federal prison.  (Searching the internet on his name provided a few other colorful stories of his business exploits.)  After getting out of prison, he had consulted with various individuals to provide information to the government on how to protect themselves from people with his expertise.  And, now that his criminal pursuits are denied him, he has started a business on the “straight and narrow”.  Due to age and health issues, he wants to sell this business.

At the end of our phone call, he promised to send a couple of emails–which he did.  I think we were fine up to that point.  It was my response to his emails that may have sent us the wrong direction.  I let him know, “I know how important it is to talk to my spouse (my wife is an attorney) about the possible decision I might make.  I did tell her a little bit about your background.  She is a little concerned, but she does trust my judgement.”  I think the “attorney” information dried up the lines of communication.  So, granted this is a rejection, but sometimes I view a rejection as God giving you a “you don’t want to do this” wake up call.  So the first minor rejection….

Secondly, I was planning on going on a mission trip with the church.  I attended an informational session.  I found out most of the trips are done as a twosome (i.e. husband/wife, parent/child or a whole family).  Because my family was all tied up this summer, this was not an option for me.  The coordinator said we could work something out where I could be included with another group.  After a few emails and an additional meeting with a couple I was to be paired with, I was having doubt that spending two weeks in  a foreign country with near strangers would be a fulfilling experience.  The wife of the potential team seemed to embrace the idea of me being part of their team; unfortunately, her husband did not give a similar vibe.

This past week I sent an email to the coordinator and the husband/wife team.  I was making them aware I would not be participating.  I was not expecting a “dripping” email response, but I thought they would reply with something.  BUT, they didn’t.  So, I chose not to go on the mission trip and made it look like it was my inability to commit to the trip.  I didn’t say, “I am not going because I really don’t think he wants me there.”  Oh, well.  The rest of the week was pretty good!