Pardon my French, but....

..."Does my ass look like the damn K-Mart?"

That is actually what I said after hanging up the phone this afternoon. Honestly...some of our residents at work are insane with their demands. They seem to mistake the Leasing Office at The Crazy Farm with the Concierge Desk at the Ritz Carlton New York.

For instance, one of our particularly high maintenance residents called in one weekend with an "emergency" maintenance request and asked me to call in the on-call maintenance tech (who lives a half hour away) to fix the problem. What was so urgent that it couldn't wait until Monday? His icemaker didn't work and he said "This is very important. We use a lot of ice." hahaha...apparently the 3/4 mile drive to the gas station to buy a bag of ice for the weekend was out of the question.

In another instance a couple weeks ago I had this phone conversation with a resident:

Me: Thank you for calling The Crazy Farm. this is Mark. How can I help you?
Caller: Hi, I'm a resident here and I was just wondering...when does daylight savings time change?
Me: ........... What?
Caller: Daylight savings time. Does that change this weekend?
Me: No.
Caller: Oh, I thought that was in October sometime. When is that?
Me: Ummmm....I don't know. They moved it back this year........Hang on, lemme ask.
Me: (randomly shouting out to the entire office) When is the time change?
Random person yelling back: (Mama Bear I think) Halloween weekend.
Me: (on the phone) Halloween weekend.
Caller: Oh, okay. I thought it was sooner. Thanks!
Me: (after hanging up) Do these people not have Google?

Sometimes I don't understand what goes through people's heads when calling us. As though we just sit there waiting to do everything for them. And that leads me to the reason for today's outburst. Here's how the call went:

Me: Thank you for calling The Crazy Farm. This is Mark. How can I help you?
Caller: Hi. I'm a resident there and I was wondering if you had any AA batteries up in the office I could come get from you.
Me:..................
Me: Forrrrrrrrrrrrr?? (thinking perhaps his smoke detector or other necessary item might need batteries for which we'd be responsible...despite the fact that I think all of our smoke detectors are hard-wired)
Caller: Oh, I just have a remote for a device that needs batteries and didn't know if you might have some I could get.
Me:.......... Uh, no. We don't have any.
Caller: Oh, okay. Thank you.
Me: ( Hanging up the phone and announcing to the office staff around me) Does my ass look like the damn K-Mart?

Now, keep in mind when I tell you this...it's not exactly like our community is out in the boondocks miles away from modern conveniences for our residents. No, quite the contrary. In about 3.4 miles this resident could have driven his behind to Target, Wal-Mart, Publix, Lowe's, or Kroger. And In fewer than 2 miles he had his choice of a CVS, Walgreens, and any of 3 gas stations, among other stores. But no...he calls the leasing office to see if we have any for him. Seriously???!!! You can tell it was a full moon!

I work at the Crazy Farm!

I don't think I've mentioned it on the blog yet, but about 3-4 months ago I got a new job in property management. I do on-site leasing for one of those big apartment communities that you probably lived at in college or just afterward. I love my job- I really do -but I definitely refer to it as the Crazy Farm (as it shall henceforth be called on this blog). You see...we have some crazy residents on a crazy property. And all of us on staff are a little bit off too, haha. Any job in property management is a least a little bit crazy...it's always fast paced, every day is different, you never know what you're gonna encounter, and you always have some special people who live on your property. But our community, is a whole unique breed. We're not really sure why, but it is leaps and bounds above all others in craziness. Several members of our staff who have worked at other properties before have all commented on separate occasions "I thought we were [crazy/hectic/busy/insert adjective here] at 'X' property, but we had NOTHING on this place!"

My joke since almost week one has been that we need a reality show around that place! Everyone agrees. I've mentioned before...I need to make a call to Bravo because America would be glued to their TV sets watching us run in circles around that place! The hard part would be editing it all down to only one hour per week!

The cast of characters:

• A former coworker (who would have just left the show, but she still appears from time to time): the blonde hair, the fake boobs, the fake tan...the girl had enough personal drama to earn her own spin off when she left. Oh, and she was a single mom too. Well call her Barbie. I've already briefly introduced you to her here.
• Coworker 1: the black lesbian single mom. She's off the chain for real! She started out really shy and ditzy...saying things like "what's legal paper?" and "I don't know how to make coffee." and, my personal favorite "I don't know how to use a paper cutter." She's come out of her shell quite a bit and just acts crazy. Still our source of entertainment, we call her a blonde stuck in a black girl's body. We'll call her Lipstick (b/c she's a lipstick lesbian).
• Assitant Manager: the 50 year old woman who's also the office veteran having been there for over 3 years now. She spent almost 10 years working at a biker bar before and is still a bit rough around the edges. She tends to over react to most everything and also can jump into hyper-mom mode, trying to take care of everything. But at the same time, we NEVER EVER EVER know what's gonna come out of her mouth. She's missing that certain filter you're supposed to have between what runs through your mind and what comes out of your mouth (probably because of all the drugs she has done/does...seriously). Usually it's something dirty and inappropriate, but always entertaining. She'll be Mama Bear.
• Manager: the overly energetic ringleader of us all who is incredibly random and full of quirks. She's half white and half Thai and runs around the office laughing and screaming about whatever. She has no boundaries whatsoever with us and keeps a healthy dose of crazy around the place. I don't really have a nickname for her, so I'll just call her HNIC for now. If you don't know what that means, ask somebody...preferably somebody black (but make sure it's someone you know well, haha).
• Head Maintenance Guy: the crazy Puerto Rican man that runs around the property supposedly keeping everything running smoothly. In true Puerto Rican fashion, anything you ask him to do, you're going to get an argument back from him. But...he usually goes ahead and does what you want anyway, after the argument. The residents love him for some reason, but he just tells them exactly like it is. He's been on the property for like 8 years and they all know him. His name will be Papa Bear (no relation to Mama Bear...that's just what people call him in the office).
• The New Coworker: Barbie's replacement. This is only her second week working with us, but she seems to fit in well with our crowd. Although she'd been working at another property before us, she's really young (19 I think). She's still in school too, despite working full time with us. Since she's so new, I don't have a ton of stories about her yet (although she did manage to drive into our entrance gate this afternoon because she didn't even realize we had one...right in front of Mama Bear and our courtesy officer), but I'm sure some will come. For now, I'll call her The Young One (subject to change).

By the way, I've been told my character would be that of the slick salesman who comes in all suited up in the shades and all and can sell to anyone and close a deal regardless, haha. Kinda true...which is helpful since part of my pay is from commissions, lol. There's also a couple other maintenance and corporate people who are around. They're typically more minor characters, but I'll introduce them as stories arise.

Add to this mix all of our crazy residents...many may earn nicknames as I share stories. We seriously have some that come into the office or call us at least 3 or 4 times a week for something and they're all crazy! haha Some are a good kind of crazy that just entertain us, others are a high maintenance kind of crazy that annoy us, and others are just a rude and demanding kind of crazy that actually piss us off.

So yeah...since I'm sure I'll be blogging plenty about this place, I figured I needed to set the stage and introduce the characters to you. Stay tuned for outrageous insanity, haha!

Fall has....fallen?

Ahh, it's finally fall around SC. The weather has a certain crispness to it (which is an actual tangible crispness...unlike the "fall" we had in Florida, where anyone who's not lived there for at least 10 years and hardly knows any better would even realize the season changed). Temperatures are consistently in the 70's during the day, 50's at night (great sleeping weather, btw), the skies are consistently bright blue with just a few wispy white clouds. Tailgating and football entertains all Saturday every week (and give us something to talk about during the rest of the week). Actually...this is the South...football does more than entertain once a week, football is the basis of our entire schedules. Work functions, social outings, even weddings are planned around the football schedule. (Seriously...try to get married on game day and people will very truthfully be mad at you and will likely not come...great way to keep the reception budget limited though, haha).

Oh...and another real sign that fall is in the air in SC...the State Fair has come to town! Okay okay...anyone who really knows me just scratched their head in confusion. I do not, in fact, like the fair. I've really only attended once or twice before. All of my friends will confirm that I don't in any way care for large gatherings of loud dirty rednecks or country/ghetto people. And everyone knows that a fair is the breeding ground of such people (seriously...they go there to find dates...ugh). No one likes to people watch more than me, but even I have my limits. Of course, on top of the people there...there's really little else to draw me to the fair. The food is grossly unhealthy (I believe I've blogged about the various fried products available...bread, pickles, ice cream, oreos, Pepsi...yes, even fried Pepsi), the country music acts usually are people I've never even heard of or simply don't care about, the rides...well, if portable roller coasters were really a viable option, Disney World is grossly overspending. Be that as it may, the coming of the Fair certainly does mark the onset of fall better than most other ways.

These are the days I live in SC. The weather, the fun, the relaxing! Yay fall!!

Is this affecting you too?

http://www.thestate.com/statewire/story/537108.html

Probably not if you're not in the Southeast, or at least not in North or South Carolina. But still...it's pretty ridiculous.

Not only are motorists in SC and NC paying the some of the highest amounts in the country per gallon of gas (which is even worse considering we have just about the lowest taxes on gas in the country and are therefore typically the lowest priced gas) but at a lot of places here, you can't even find it at all! Basically since Ike was threatening to come through Texas, back in mid-September, we've had a horrible gas crisis here. If a station has gas it all, it's pretty much guaranteed to not have all different octanes, which leaves you driving around town for a while looking for enough for your tank (if the station will even let you fill your tank...many are capping motorists to $50 at a time, which is about 12-15 gallons max).

Last time I went to fill my tank I only drove past 2 or 3 gas stations that were completely out of gas, and only had to wait in line for 5 minutes or so to fill up, but before that I saw as many as 6-8 stations with no gas at all, plus several that only had higher octanes before finally finding one with good old 87 octane. Of course, there was a line there too.

Honestly, its kinda counter intuitive to me that a storm which reports show did little or at least less than expected damage to the refineries should still be affecting us so greatly nearly a month later! I mean, lets think about this...first of all...the Texas refineries sit right on the Gulf of Mexico. Should we expect and prepare for storms in this area and maybe have a back up plan, other than just cutting off the pipeline to southeastern states? If we didn't before, after 2005 we certainly should have had something in the works. Secondly, the official reasoning for our continued shortage is that "pipelines and refineries are still not up to full capacity" and are expected to take another 3-4 weeks to hit that point. I'm not oil expert, so I can't really assess the truth-value of that statement, but if they're able to shut them down and empty the pipeline literally overnight (2 days before the storm it was business as usual, no increased prices, no shortages, etc., but the day before the storm prices skyrocketed $1 or more overnight and suddenly everyone was out of gas), they why on earth does it take a month and a half or longer to get us out of the woodwork? And don't blame it on people hoarding gas. There is no possible way people can be hoarding gas for this amount of time. Did people go fill up their tanks before the storm out of fear? Possibly, but that was a month ago...I guarantee all that gas has been used by now. We're back to normal usage (or possibly below because of increased prices, etc.) by now for sure. I just don't get it!!! Arrghh!!


NOTE: I originally started writing this post last week, but fell asleep while doing so. I sorta forgot about it and never finished until now. So, here ya go...you get it a week later!

A fitting end...

...to such a horribly flawed and troubled administration.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/bush_markets

Since I am unfortunately not at a place now where I have any investments, or even retirement for that matter, and I'm not in a position to be getting a new loan for cars or houses or anything else in the near future, part of me wants to just say "Forget it...let Wall Street sort itself out. The people who were greedy and unwise with their money of the last few years should suffer with the rest of us." But...the compassionate Democrat in me can't let that happen. Not so much because I have compassion for Wall Street, but because I know the damaging effects will trickle down to people who are already so desperately hurting as it is.

I don't know what the answer is...I haven't followed the economy closely enough, not to mention I only had one Economics class in college...and HATED IT!! (Partly because it was all based in theory and nothing in reality...I need practicality, folks...and partly because I just really strongly disliked the professor.) Whatever the case, something needs to be done, but it needs to be done cautiously. We've all seen what happens when people get caught up in excitement and fear and blindly listen to a certain Texan and his advisors.

You all know behind whom I've thrown my support, but regardless of the outcome, January 20th cannot come soon enough!

UPDATE: I forgot to say earlier...My favorite part of the article is how Bush was "tracing the origins of the problem back a decade." I didn't actually see the speech, and am currently too lazy to look for it on YouTube, so I don't know how skillfully or craftily he built this argument, but it is a convenient way to shift the blame just far enough away to make it look like someone else's guffaw (a recurring theme). Now I'm not naive enough to say 100% of the blame for this (or any other of our current problems) squarely falls on the Bush administration, nor am I saying there may not have been contributing factors predating the 2000 election which may have led up to this, but over the last 7 and a half years, our economy has gone through a whirlwind of changes that just 2 years ago many in Washington considered a major feather in their cap. Honestly? Enough crap...time for some people who make sense at 1600 Pennsylvania.

Live on location

I'm blogging to you from Memphis, TN right now. Sitting in my hotel room. Came up here for a training thing for work, so it should be an interesting week. Maybe some good blog fodder will come from it. Who knows! :)

Where's Mark been?

Hey! I think I mentioned in a recent post that things have been kinda crazy lately and that I would be filling you in soon. Well I guess soon is gonna right now.

About 3 weeks ago, one of my coworkers had the day off and we get a call from her saying she's leaving, can't give a two week notice, just has to pick her daughter up from school and is moving back to her parents' out of state. We have a pretty small staff at work, so we're kinda like family there anyway...so naturally we were concerned. Apparnently her boyfriend and she had gotten into an argument the night before (she found out he was cheating on her....again) and it turned physical. He ended up beating the crap out of her (again) and she was done.

We talked her into coming by the office that afternoon before leaving. So after she picked up her daughter, she came limping into the office with a black eye and all. She had some vacation time saved up so we talked her into taking her vacation to go to her parents and figure out what the best plan of action was. Of course we wanted her to stay, but we all knew the best thing for her and her daughter would be to go back to her parents' and her support system rather than staying up here and trying to make it on her own.

After her week off, she called to officially put in her two week notice so she could leave on a good note and move on. But...she still had to work out her final two weeks back here in SC so she had to come back. Obviously she wasn't going to move back into her (now ex-)boyfriend's house and getting a hotel for 2 weeks would have ended up costing her more than she would have made over those two weeks. So, since I live alone in a two bedroom house, I offered up my guest bedroom (her daughter was staying with her parents during this time). So...for the last 2 weeks, I've had a roommate here. Obviously she had a lot going on trying to take care of her final details up here and filing a police report against the scum bag and everything else, but we took the opportunity to go out and enjoy plenty too, lol.

All in all, it was a good time...she and I get along really well anyway so we had fun, but it was kinda a long and crazy 3 weeks dealing with the beating and all. She took pictures of all the bruising after it all showed up and she looked horrible. I mean covered in bruises! Of course, the ex filed some bogus report saying he told her he was tired of her being drunk all the time or something and she didn't take it well. He accused her of flipping out, locking him in the bedroom and beating him up, haha. We got a kick out of that considering she's all of 108 pounds standing about 5'6" and he's a big navy boy, haha. Oh, he also alleged that his roommate (a former navy boy) was a witness to this beating...as though between the two of them combined couldn't pull my coworker off of him, lol. I think he ended up withdrawing the report, or at least never pressed charges on it.

So yeah...that's been my last few weeks. Honestly...there are very very few people in the world I actively dislike. Almost no one I have such a distaste for that I really don't think I could even be in the same room with them. Or if I were out some where and ran into them I couldn't at least just ignore them and go about my business. But now there's definitely one person on that list in her ex bf. It's obviously a horrible thing that he beat her black and blue, broker her toe, everything else...I mean that's enough of a reason to hate the guy. But what's worse is he did all this while her 6 year old daughter was "asleep" upstairs and heard all this going on...I mean, that's the kinda of stuff that can scar a kid for life! Even more so...he had been cheating on her for a while, but was always around looking like the doting boyfriend through it all. He threw my coworker a birthday party last month and invited everyone from work over...trying to look all sweet, all the while he was messing around on the side. He basically pissed me off even more b/c he was acting like a nice guy trying to get me and everyone else to like him while he knew he was a dirtbag. If I had seen a dirtbag before, it'd be one thing...but to play us all like that? Ridiculous. Honestly...he's a little punk and if I do see him again, he'd better hope I'm not behind the wheel of a car...that's all I'm sayin!

...And it's only Monday!

Hey kids...still around. Things have been a little crazy lately. I'll fill you in on some of those details later. But right now...I thought I'd give you a quick summary of my day just to remind you that my life is still incredibly random! haha

So yeah...my day in a nutshell...


bloody stairs, dime bags of crack, talks of a promotion, super-glued penises, squealing golf cart tires, orthopedic shoes, myspace stalker/future roommate, The Hills, and Donovan Marcelle doing Tina Turner on Showtime at the Apollo


I'll have to fill you in on more specifics later...but it's waaay too late here. Oh, and the sad part? All in all, this really wasn't all that random of a day for me. Always something colorful...always something exciting! haha

Admission is the first step...

When I'm flying down the road at 15 or 20 over the speed limit, weaving in and out of traffic, flying through every yellow light to make it to the liquor store before it closes...maybe I should take it as a sign that I might have a problem. hahaha

Actually...I do have a problem. But that problem is not alcoholism, it's Blue Laws. See, lovely SC has some holdovers from their ridiculously conservative days (like last week, haha) known as Blue Laws. Basically they're just laws that enforce morality. Don't get me wrong...I tend to fall on the more conservative side of the tracks as far as morality is concerned (well...for most of the world, maybe a bit less so compared to SC), but these particular laws often just irk me.

The main law in question now is one requiring all liquor stores to close by 7 pm every night and not open at all on Sunday. 7:00???? Are you serious?! I guess the goal is to keep the drunks from heading to the store at 2 am and buying some malt liquor or something, but in reality, it just causes people to have to plan their drinking in advance. (Oh...for the record, I arrived at the store at 7:02, but they hadn't locked the door yet, so they let me run in and grab what I needed real quickly. I guess it might have been illegal, haha...I'm a bootlegger now, maybe!)

Last night being the USC Season Opener (that's Gamecocks...not Trojans...don't front!) (and I'm talking football, by the way), I had to grab a little adult beverage to take to my boss's house to watch the game. I picked up a bottle of my new favorite drink....Sweat Tea Vodka!! Seriously folks...it doesn't get too much more Southern than this, I know...but this stuff is great. If you live in the South, check your local package store and see if you can get it. This stuff is dangerous too. It tastes JUST like sweet tea...you don't even realize you're drinking until you go to stand up and things are a bit wobbly. Wow...it's great!

Anyway....other blue laws include: (In certain counties) nothing other than groceries and health and beauty products are allowed to be sold before 1:30 PM on Sundays. So that means Saturday at midnight, all the Super Wal-Marts have to rope off the non-grocery/health & beauty sections until 1:30. Also, I hear rumor that in certain counties, up until a few years before I moved to SC, you couldn't even go to the movies on Sundays b/c that was considered sinful or immoral or something. Ugh!!

Oh...and in case you were wondering, South Carolina shut out NC State 34-0!!! Whooo Hooo!!!

Those Mischievous Republicans!

A true crime occurred last weekend! Grand larceny in my opinion (although hardly even a crime in the eyes of the law, but that's beside the point). I was robbed!

At some point between when I returned home late Friday night/early Saturday morning and about 3ish in the afternoon on Saturday when I was wandering around my front yard, someone stole my Obama yard sign!! I know!!! Shocking! The literally just picked the sign up off the stakes and carried it away. So depressing!

Haha...I got the image of some geriatric John McCain supporters on their Rascals rolling by and being mischievous, posting videos on YouTube or something. In reality, though, it was probably just some of the neighborhood hoodlums that come from the next neighborhood over and walk down my street to get to the stores and stuff. I think assuming there were some political motives behind the thievery is giving the perpetrators far too much credit, but I can believe!

On that note, I'm sitting here watching the opening of the DNC. I don't think I ever mentioned it on the blog (it was during my summer hiatus) but, following the heated primaries, I decided I needed an election break before losing my mind (or be one of those crazy obsessed politicos with nothing else to do with his life). I decided then that I would virtually ignore the campaigns until at least Convention time and then hop back on board for the remaining 3 months. Guess I'm back on board (and ready to order a new sign).

Overheard at Taco Bell

Remember my obsession with Taco Bell? Well I was having lunch there today and I overheard a Rhodes Scholar at the table behind me. She was chatting with her boyfriend at a volume loud enough for pretty much the entire restaurant to hear. Here's a few highlights from her chat:

"See that sign that says '79 cents makes sense'? Shouldn't it say c-e-n-t-s instead of s-e-n-s-e? Isn't that what they meant?"

"Ooh, I saw a typo on the Closed Captioning the other day." (which, as we all know, is practically the MLA standard of writing) "Well, at least I think I did. The Korean woman was asking why she couldn't find (something) and they put the question mark outside of the quotation marks. I think I was always taught they go inside the quotes. But maybe that's wrong."

I think there were others, but that's all I could remember...and all I could stomach before my lunch was done. It's nice that she was kind enough to share her genius with the entire restaurant. I'm sure we all needed something to blog about today. Although I think I wondered more about the guy who was there with her. I mean, how could he really sit there and listen to that kind of high brow conversation day in and day out without going insane? I could only imagine what might come out of his mouth, haha.

Only Mark 2.0, or Beta, or something

Yeah, I don't really know all those technical software terms, but the point is, I'm back. But, since I doubt anyone still reads this at all, we'll call it a relaunch, haha. (sounds much more exciting that way anyway)

Sorry for the lack of activity. I think I really just ran out of things to say, lol. I was looking for a new job for a long time and, without a job to go to and without a ton of money to go out and live a life, there really just wasn't that much happening for me to write about, lol. At least not the kinda of stuff I was posting all over the blog.

But...now I have a new job. Been doing it for a little while now and I love it. I swear most days that it needs to be a reality show. Some of the crazy drama that goes on there...haha...Bravo would eat it up! Seriously, I don't think we could ever get our corporate office to agree to it, but it would be waaay better than that stupid "Stagers" show they have. (Sidenote...when I went to Bravo's website to link to that show, I couldn't find it. Was it that bad that they are already denying making it? haha) I mean, my work place is just about as colorful and exciting as Jeff Lewis's office, but we have a bunch of clients to add to the craziness, lol. I'm sure you'll hear more little tidbits about my work in the near future, but the point is I really do love it. And even when there's drama and craziness, for probably the first time ever, I actually enjoy going to work everyday.

So yeah...after an extended summer vacation, it's time to get back on the horse (or wagon...or whatever...I'm really bad at colloquialisms...always mess them up) and get back to writing.

If you're still reading (or even if you never read before and just started) leave a comment and let me know!