Annoyances of the apartment life

I apologize that I have been so lackadaisical with my blog lately (It's a real word). I know that some of you crave my rhetoric like the air you breathe, and I feel like a donkey bottom for letting you down. You may be saying to yourself (about me) "Well, he must have been busy again with all kinds of tight deadlines like he usually is." Or, "He is so devilishly handsome, so he must be in high demand." The truth is, yes, I have had some tight deadlines, and yes, I am handsome, but the excuse for my absence in the world of blogdom is because of the NBA Playoffs. The Playoffs have left me so very stressed out this year, even more stressed out than the things in my life that actually matter. Thinking about the Playoffs is what has increased my heartbeat and sweat production when I should be sleeping. I usually write about the things that keep me up at night, but I have tried on three separate occasions to write a blog about my NBA Playoff induced stress, but I can't really seem to organize my thoughts into any sort of structured topic, and most of you wouldn't be interested anyway. I figured I'd leave that topic alone in this venue, but I will say this: I hope the Lakers crash and burn. That's all.

Now I move on to something else I can complain about.

I've never really had any major complaints about my apartment complex. Ocassionally I can hear the neighbors yelling at each other, or the neighbors above us decide that 2 a.m. is the perfect time to move their furniture around, and the neighbors below us have a subwoofer that shakes the pictures off my walls, but it is still significantly quieter than my apartment was in Vallejo. The management staff in my Emeryville apartment have often misplaced our rent check and consequently sent us letters threatening of immediate eviction, a thousand plagues to come upon my family, and death of my firstborn. However, when I have trekked to the office to clear up this ever-so urgent misunderstanding, they calmly say "Oh, yeah, don't worry about that." Still, I have never really had any major complaints. Until last Sunday.

Sunday was slated to be a busy day for us. We usually wake up early on Sundays because we sing in a choir at our church, but this Sunday was a bit different. Luanne had arranged her own music that the choir was going to sing, and she was going to be the director. We woke up a little earlier than usual, got dressed, ate, and had time to leave and actually get there early. It was a great start to that day, and we felt good, too. Birds were chirping, the sun was smiling, and I even wore deoderant. We walked down the 3 flights of stairs to the basement of our apartment complex where the parking garage is. I noticed that there was yellow caution tape stretched across the huge iron gate of our garage. I thought that it was probably some stupid prank, or teenagers trying to have fun in the dark of the night. However, when I drove over to the gate, it didn't automatically open up for me like it usually does (I even said the magic words). At first we thought that maybe the caution tape was holding it down (strong tape . . . Ok, maybe I wasn't thinking clearly, despite my good night of sleep), so Luanne got out of the car and cut the tape off. Still motionless. I put on my cloak, spoke in a British accent, puffed a tobacco pipe and took on further inspection. We found DNA belonging to the leader of the Cartel 7 drug ring. Ok, just kidding. We noticed that one of the very large springs on the gate was completely disconnected. It was then we realized that the door was not faking it and we were stuck inside. I tried to lift the gate open myself, but with one giant spring still attached (not to mention the gate probably weighs a few hundred pounds) I struggled. And I don't mean to brag or anything, but I totally blasted my pecs the night before at the gym, so I was still a little sore. As Luanne and I both stood there contemplating our next move, a very nice woman from our complex who was on the other side of the gate came to help. With her pulling on her side, and me pushing on my side we swung it open. But I was taller than the woman, so I had to squat the gate and lift it above my head while Luanne drove through, and I thought I would die, seriously. It was so heavy, and I was shaking, and I thought that it would crush my body like an empty soda can.

The woman who helped us was livid because she had called the office the previous day when she discovered the gate was broken. Luckily she parked her car outside just in case. It made me somewhat angry when I had learned that she already called the office, because that means that they were the ones that put the caution tape over the gate! At first I thought maybe it was just some nice tennant who wanted to warn other people, but it was the freaken management! I can just imagine them now, saying, "Oh the gate is broken and all these cars are stuck in the garage. Well, I bet they don't have anywhere to go, so we'll just put this tape over the gate. They'll see it, and say 'Oh well, I guess I can't get out,' and then they'll just go back inside." I mean, really? What made them think that it would be ok to trap all their resident's cars inside? I understand that these mechanical malfunctions happen, but they could have at least left the gate open, or I don't know, TOLD their residents what was going on so that we could all make adjustments instead of leaving us in the dark, metaphorically. The woman who helped us told us that we should call the office and leave a message on their machine. Apparently a lot of people did that because they turned their machine off. Nice, right? We called the security number, and when we got back the gate was open and a scrawny security guard was there making sure that only residents were coming in. Was that so hard? I wish they would have called the Governator to stand there and hold the gate over his head, and yell "Get in the Choppa!" as we drove by.

So, there's my first major complaint about my apartment complex. Stay tuned for more, because now that I've experienced my first major complaint, I should start to nit-pick, and hilarity ensues. As for now, I have to go watch the Lakers lose.