screw karma
… screw karma …
I’d love to say something like, “There is nothing more satisfying and calming, than sipping a cup of Harvest Chamomile tea, softened with milk and sweetened with sugar and enjoying it in those few solitary moments before your work day begins.” I really would. Unfortunately such is not the case. Even the healing power of tea can’t seem to break through my mood. The fact that I was interrupted on the way to the hot water, the sugar and the milk by intervening cow-workers doesn’t help any.
So, I did go to see the apartments on Saturday. I was rather proud of myself actually, I took the train into the city, walked to the one in Columbia Heights at 11am, was a bit early for it, however she was home so I saw the place. It was nice… for a basement apartment, however it was exactly that. Very standard, very dark. It had all the appliances I like, but still, dark and not very large as the ad says. Additionally, she wants to move it immediately. Still I was feeling pretty good about that, I admit the place didn’t thrill me, but it was withing 2 blocks of the metro station and not a bad neighborhood.
After that appointment I walked a few blocks down to the area near where my friend Mike lives, I haven’t physically seen Mike in over 2 years, but we chat online a lot. After about 20 mins of calling him and getting busy signals, I got ahold of him and we ended up going to a bowling supply store that he frequents. My next rental appointment wasn’t until 3:30 so I had plenty of time. He bowls on a league in Alexandria and now another in Falls Church. It was pretty cool, he bought a new ball, and I got some education on the process and ball types and such. We headed over to Fuddrucker’s for lunch and as we get in the door, Michael calls me asking what I’m doing. Now last Monday at bowling, Jon had said “We’re going shopping for balls this weekend, ok?” Since I already had a ball, I said maybe, especially since Jon had said that the place they were going was in Bethesda and I wasn’t really looking forward to another drive around the beltway at the time, since it was already a freaky evening for me. So Michael calls and asks if I want to go with them to a bowling supply store “someplace in Alexandria”. I inform him that I’ve already gone to one with Mike, and there’s this momentary attitude of “So you weren’t sure you wanted to go with us, and now you’ve already gone with someone else.” I explained that it was unexpected, and that I’d call him later to see what was going on.
Mike and I talked over lunch, went to Landmark Mall, a place I haven’t been to in over a year and he dropped me off at a metro in DC so I could make my 3:30 showing. Now the reason I took metro was that both people said “walking distance to Metro” in their ads and I wanted to test the veracity of that. The first place was an easy walk. The second one was a rather healthy walk, which was about a 1/2 block longer for me ‘cos I got turned around. I finally made it to the place, glistening a little and short of breath, which points to both the distance I had to walk and the fact that I could use more exercise. I meet up with the agent and regardless of the fact that we had discussed a 2-bedroom place, he looks at me and says, “Now… you were looking for a… 1-bedroom? I hope?”
Since starting this process I have developed a serious dislike for “professionals” that can’t even be bothered to do their job. I’ve called realtors that haven’t called me back, met with people that completely ignore what I have to say, and others that just plain forget what you say between one conversation and the next. Basically since I have “friends” that are like that, I can’t help but expect a higher level of treatment from people who supposedly get paid for what they do.
So this guy looks me in the face after seeing me walk about an 8 block distance and says, “I’m sorry, that’s been rented already.” Now I’d called him earlier in the day to confirm our appointment, and he told me to call him early so that he could let me know if the place was already rented. Needless to say I was pissed. ‘cos its one thing to walk a long distance to see an apartment that you’ll probably really like. It’s another to walk the distance for a 30 second conversation and then walk BACK with nothing to show for it. I will say that due to my anger, the walk back seemed to be shorter. On the way back to the train I called Michael and left a message for him to call me back. Made it home by about 5 at which point Mike (keep up now) called me to see what I was up to.
Mike and I made plans to go bowling, so I showered and changed and we met at the alley later. I bowled some great games. All the while I kept checking my phone ‘cos I thought that maybe Michael would call me back. Then for a while I didn’t want him to call me back ‘cos then I’d have to tell him that I was bowling and I was afraid I’d get another “without us?” comment. There was no worry of that though as he didn’t return my call and hasn’t yet.
