"Well, he left a message…"

Man…I have never been so glad to see a day end as I was last night.

It started innocently enough…the folks from the gas company were supposed to come out to turn on the gas, and were going to call me thirty minutes before they arrived so that I could meet them. That was a problem until I called them and found out that the call is just to make sure the house is open. No worries…Scott went by on his way to work and unlocked the house. Nothing in there to get stolen. Problem solved, right?

Wrong. I never heard from the gas company. I had my cell phone with me at all times yesterday (save a few times when I was interpreting in group or on the unit, but there was someone close by to answer it both times). PollyAnna here thought, “Well, maybe since I spoke with them Monday and let them know the house would be open, they just didn’t call.” I went along my merry way, but it was about that time that the doubt and worry started to creep in…

Yesterday at work was stressful. It wears me out to have ONE patient in the hospital, let alone two that are on opposite ends of the building. I was very glad to see 4pm roll around so that I could leave. I’d gotten a shipment of books mailed out and the oil changed and food bought for the dogs on Monday, so I was good to just go home (and feed the cats and feed the dogs and clean the cat box and do a load of dishes and and and…).

Scott gets home around 8pm. As he is heading to bed around 9:30, I ask him, feeling silly because I know he’ll say yes, if he remembered to go by and lock up the house.

The expletive that came out of his mouth next let me know he had forgotten.

So for an hour I debated getting in the car and going to Greenville. The house had been open all day, what was a few more hours? Scott said he’d go by on his way to work today and lock it up. This little voice in the back of my head kept saying that I would not sleep if my house was just standing open, so at 10:30 I got in the car and drove the 40 minutes up to my house…

Which was locked.

The deadbolt was locked, but the doorknob was unlocked. Now, keep in mind dear readers, it’s now 11:15pm and I am standing in my flannel pants, sweatshirt, and bedroom slippers on the front porch of my house and I just drove up there for nothing. Oh, but what is it that the old commercial for knives used to say? “But wait, there’s more…”

While I’m there I decide to turn on the heat so that when the guy came to finish the painting and carpet and all that it would be warm in the house for him. I walk in and turn on the switch in the den.

Yeah, you saw this one coming, huh?

No power. I tried the guest room and office switches. Nada. Tried the kitchen. Nada zero zip. By this point, I’m in tears and very angry. I locked the house up, got in the car and came back home.

Scott, of course, is sleeping soundly, all snug in his bed. “The house was locked,” I announce loudly, not caring if I woke him up.

“Then someone must have locked it,” he says, then resumes snoring.

After I’d pulled out all my hair…just kidding. Resigned to the fact that I could do nothing more that night, I finally fell asleep around 2:30.

This morning I decided to just check on the gas company because I had a bad feeling that Scott had unlocked the doorknob and not the deadbolt. After being on hold for fifteen minutes, a very dour sounding woman answered and informed me that according to their records, the service person called my cell phone at 5:00pm.

Not possible…it didn’t ring, it was in the same room with me all night. I tell her so and she responds with “Well, he left a message. Did you check your voice mail?”

I took a deep breath and told her that I was holding the phone at the time and there was no missed call nor was there voice mail.

“Well, he left a message,” she says again.

Finally we rescheduled the visit for Monday. Now, understand that both my patients will still be here Monday, rendering me unable to physically meet them at the house. I will have to trust that the door gets unlocked and that they will actually call this time or I will have no heat for the cleaning service coming on Wednesday.

And what about the power, you may be wondering? This would be the point at which I am an idiot. I called the power company, and the incredibly sweet and a bit too chipper woman that answered checked on my account to find that sure enough, the power had been turned on. I explained that I’d tried the switches and nothing happened, and she said very gently, “what happened when you tried the breakers?”

Breakers?

Apparently there are indoor and outdoor breakers that were in the OFF position, hence the lack of light in my den. I thanked her for being so patient with a dumb-arse like myself and she laughed and told me that a lot of people call with the same question.

Somehow that didn’t make me feel any smarter…

It also occurred to me yesterday that I have paid for two weeks worth of rent on a house I don’t live in, and on Thursday of next week I’ll pay for even more time not living in the house (because it will have to be painted before I can completely move in).

What doesn’t kill ya, right?