Paint job

Lately, I feel like every time I deal with people, I hate all of humanity.

We recently moved out of an apartment where we had lived for eight years.  During that time, we never got a paint job.  So I assumed any damage to the paint on the wall would be something we wouldn't be responsible for, given places need to be painted more frequently than that.

So I was really surprised when we got a bill for $140 for painting the apartment from the giant company that owns our complex.

When I called, they complained that there were stickers on the wall that were "difficult to remove" and had to be sanded off.  I find it really hard to believe that a child's sticker required more than soap and water, but whatever.  I didn't even think of it.  Then they complained there was some crayon on the wall, so the whole place had to be repainted.  I said that in eight years, weren't we entitled to ONE free paint job?  They said no, that they expected the walls to be in the condition they were when we entered eight years ago, except for "minor touch ups." 

Also, we paid to have the apartment professionally cleaned when we left, but I forgot to tell her to clean the fridge.  So we got a bill for $130 for cleaning of the fridge and oven.  Except the oven is self-cleaning.  So it's $130 to clean a fridge apparently.  I should get a job cleaning refrigerators.

Then they told us like they were being so nice to us that we didn't have to pay for them to replace the carpet, which wasn't even new when we moved in.

I mean, it's not a huge amount of money but it's the principle of the thing.  We lived there eight years.  I feel like we're entitled to one paint job, for god's sake. 

IT help

Yesterday, I spent a whopping THREE HOURS on the phone with IT.  I wanted to cry by the end of it.

The only silver lining is I actually really like the IT guys.  They are centered in Alabama, and they all have these absolutely adorable Southern accents.  Really sexy, actually.  I want to comment on it to them, like, "I love your accent," but I suspect it will be taken the wrong way.  I probably sound like I have an accent to them.  I recently got told for the first time that I had a New York accent, which seems odd considering I haven't lived in New York for over a decade so how could I be getting a New York accent?

Anyway, I was joking with one of them about how hot it had been lately, and he was laughing at me and saying I didn't know what hot meant.  Then he told me about how the whole state got shut down over half an inch of snow in January.  I said that around here in January, that's just Monday.

That said, three hours on the computer helpline is beyond painful.

Too late

My kids have been going to the same summer day camp for about six years, which has also been their afterschool program.  It's a great program, and for the most part I've been happy with it, although they will not be attending next year because we're moving.

Anyway, on one of the last days of camp on which only my youngest was attending, they were going on a field trip, which they do maybe 3-4 times a week.  It was an 8:30 a.m. cutoff (which is usually 30 minutes before the leave time), and this is generally earlier than we would arrive most days.  So I got my daughter going early, and even with some bad luck with traffic, I got to the camp with the clock in my car reading 8:30. 

Except when I got into the camp, the trip director Lucy said, "Oh, I'm so sorry, it's 8:32, and the cutoff was 8:30 so we can't take her."

I was absolutely shocked.  First of all, my watch said 8:30.  Second of all, the bus for the trip hadn't even arrived, the lunches were still in an open cooler in the classroom, and nobody has made any move to leave.  When I pointed this out, she said, "Yeah, but I've already done the buddy list.  So there's nothing I can do."

We went back and forth on this for much longer than it could possibly have taken her to add one child to the buddy list.  (Presumably less than two minutes, since the cutoff was 8:30 and she was done with the buddy list by 8:32.)  I mean, it's not like a rocket was taking off and the doors were slamming shut at 8:30.  It would have been so easy for her to let this happen.  In fact, on another occasion three years earlier, I got the cutoff wrong and was late by FIFTEEN minutes, and even though they yelled at me and had already put the lunches on the bus, they still let my kid stay.  If they had turned me away that day, they would have been justified because I was really late, but they didn't.  So there was no reason for me to believe that being late by something between not at all and two minutes would result in rejection.  I'd seen plenty of parents stroll in at the deadline.  In five years, they were NEVER strict about this.

At some point, I was almost in tears, begging her to let my kid stay because I genuinely didn't know what I was going to do.  And my daughter was crying because she thought she wouldn't be able to go on the trip.  I'd known Lucy for about six years--she was new as trip director, but she taught my kids dance several years ago.  She was a new mom, so I thought she'd be sympathetic.  But no.

Finally, I saw the owner of the daycare, who I also knew pretty well.  I flagged her down and told her I was two minutes late, could my kid go on the trip.  She said, "Of course!  We always do a five-minute window!"  I had a feeling she'd say this, but I didn't want to go over Lucy's head.  But I had no choice, and Lucy had to eat it.

So my daughter got to go on the trip, I got to go to work, so technically, I WON.  But I was fuming all day.  I felt like Lucy had an opportunity to very easily be decent to me and she chose not to for no reason other than... I have no idea what.