Funny how things work sometimes. This bit of odd humor that I can’t make a pop tart moment but however, the timing is still impeccable and not at all planned. There are funny parts to this, and there’s a few tear jerking moments. In the end, I just had to be glad it was over.
Well almost. My gates still need to be fixed so they shut first. But I jump too far ahead.
Many months ago I decided after 18 years it’s time to replace my falling off gutters and get the house repainted. Go through the motions, find the contractors, and ok the project. Normal enough and happens every day in this country. Sometimes twice I hear. But this time brought drama and odd coincidences along the way.
We’ll start with the gutter crew coming out to remove the old ones from my house. Simple job as they were falling off the house anyway. I came home from work one day and whoosh – they were gone. Go inside, let the dog out and start preparing some dinner. About 45 minutes later I get a call on my cell phone and answer it in time to listen to the voice mail. Again. And again. And again. OH HELL HARLEY IS OUT! I finally understood.
I rush outside and find her coming back my way and a lady driving by wanting to know if it’s my dog. Yes, she sure is. Well she said Harley bit her son several times. NO WAY – I knew better and the markings WERE playful scratches as she just wanted some to jump on someone and share her Harley love. By this time the animal shelter had been called and since there was a bite accusation she had to go into quarantine for 10 days at a cost of $100. After just getting this poor baby out of a shelter and giving her a backyard, yes. This big guy teared up as I had to be the one to put her in the animal control truck to be taken away. She had no idea, just a puppy playing and look what happened. 🙁
And now I need to get my gates fixed because they were a *little* difficult to shut but should not have been the problem. Call fence repair for it and no, it’s not just the gates, it’s every pole in the ground put in with a stake, not concrete so the fence is forever unstable. While that reminded me of myself, I decided to spend the $2400 for the fence repair I’d need to have done anyway. Gates started to be repaired and I called the painting contractor to let them know their gutter crew left at it turns out BOTH gates open and let my dog out and I was not happy but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make sure they shut the gates when done – they’re getting fixed now so no excuses.
Paint crew came and went and house looks great. Gutter crew comes back 10 days to the day and I know this because they were putting the final touches on the gutters when I went to get Harley out of the shelter as her time in the pokey was over. I come back, look things over, and say nice. Looks good and we’re done. I put Harley in the house, they wrap up and I go outside to look at the house once done. Here I notice they moved the doghouse to get to the gutters and then I notice part of the side of the house on the ground – they broke it. Didn’t tell me or I’d have asked them to help me take it to the curb and have been done with it but they didn’t tell me. PARTY FOUL. To cap it off not only was my back gate open, but it was propped open with the trash can.
Call back to contractor and let him know this time I’m pissed. I’m in the middle of spending $2400 on my fence, called and asked VERY NICELY to NOT do that again and look what happened. The next day the gutter guy came out and tried to tell me they didn’t break the doghouse (cough bullshit cough) OR leave the gate open (cough get the fuck outta here cough) but in the end the painting company did in fact credit me $350 overall for the doghouse and the fee for Harley’s pokey trip.
I thought this would be over except after agreeing to this, I get the bill for the emergency room trip of $350. Sigh…ok, no one is taking advantage of anything, she’s a worried mother who I believe overreacted but did the right thing for her son. Yesterday I went ahead and took the lady a check to pay for it and we parted company hopefully as good neighbors and more aware of the other people we will run into in our lives. At this point I just figured that I paid my ½ of this and the painting crew paid the other ½ in the $350 credit for the doghouse and impuppy fees.
I get home and go through my mail and for some reason state farm send me a refund check due to some settlement I wasn’t even aware was going on. Want to guess what they check amount was for?
$350.
Now I would think this would round up the end of the story and the coincidences and figures would have all played out and I can put the last of this behind me but for one minor detail.
My gates are even harder to shut now than they were when all this started.
Fence guy is cool and we talked because after redoing all the posts the gates need to be realigned and he will be wrapping that up when it quits raining long enough for him to get out and get it done.
Kinda scared to spend my windfall check until all this clears but I think I’ll get something cool for Harley.
And me. J
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