A Joker in the Pack

Friday the 11^th was supposed to be the day of our site visit so Clayton Homes could send someone out to assess the build site and draw up a quote for the land-development costs.

But, our contact Brody texted me the night before to say that his general manager had tested positive for the infamous COVID and would have to reschedule.

My first thought was to ask whether it was fashionable to still be contracting yesterday's virus; but, since I know that the G.M. is actually Brody's dad Ed, I kept the snarky comments to myself just on the off chance it actually ended up being one of those rare bad cases of it.

(Spoiler alert: It wasn't.)

Of course, Athennia had by that point made plans to leave work early and make the drive up to meet Ed on site Friday afternoon—an hour's drive from her work, versus two hours from our apartment. So, I could hardly blame her when Friday afternoon rolled around and she texted me that she was thinking of cutting out early despite the lack of necessity to do so.

She had a headache-free drive home on the turnpike (being so ahead of the rush-hour traffic she usually hits), and we spent the early evening hours packing a dozen boxes' worth of stuff in our bedroom :)

We'd planned to whip up a pizza for dinner—one of our staples (although, personally, I've packed all my staples and most of the rest of my office supplies already).

Imagine our surprise when Athennia rolled the dough out on the kitchen table, just for us to only then remember that she had used up the last of the tomato sauce when she meal-prepped our lunches the previous Sunday.

So, pizza was a no-go.

But, no matter: We had a ton of other ingredients; so, we decided we would just turn this bad boy into a stromboli instead...

Everything came out perfect, except that I had to tell the molerat six or seven times to stop eating the raw flour...

Later in the evening, the three of us made a trip over to my parents' house to drop off a bunch of packed boxes and say goodbye to them before they headed off to their friends' lake cabin for a week.

Athennia spent Saturday morning at the laundromat and the grocery store; so, I spent a couple hours packing most of the kitchen and taking us down to pretty Spartan conditions where we basically each have one plate, one bowl, one glass, one coffee mug, and one set of silverware.

Having patched most of the holes in the walls from Athennia and the kids' 13-year residence here, I've also taken to looking for other light touch-ups I can do to ensure the landlord won't come knocking for any additional cash beyond Athennia's original security deposit.

But anyway, I've had my eye out for easy touch-ups I can make; and there's been this black glob of Mod Podge crusted into the carpet just inside our front door for the better part of a decade now—a souvenir from the kids' arts-and-crafts days in their younger years, I guess.

Athennia has forever considered it a lost cause—and is 99% sure the landlord will tear up our carpeting when we leave anyway, to replace it with the hardwood floors most of the other units have these days.

But, I asked her for some of her nail-polish remover, checked to make sure it was acetone-based, dumped a generous amount onto the carpet, and started scrubbing with all my might...

...And, since I'm apparently some sort of weird salmonella Popeye who gets freakishly strong when he eats raw flour, I managed to get most of the Mod Podge out of the carpet... and then accidentally got some of the carpet out of the carpet as well.

We now have a (relatively tiny) bare spot just inside the door now; but, that is the most heavily-trafficked area of the entire apartment—and I think a bare spot in the carpeting falls more cleanly into the "ordinary wear and tear over 13 years' of residency" category than a big ol' glob of blackened Mod Podge does.

So, I'm counting it as a win :)

Sunday was uneventful by comparison... which is actually kind of sad to consider, as it occurs to me that Saturday's highlight was, apparently, scrubbing a spot of carpet.

But anyway, Athennia and I packed a few boxes of stuff from around the apartment, and the molerat arbitrarily decided to try her hand at baking a Funfetti cake—which came out quite well (and happens to be my favorite).

Monday evening, Athennia and I loaded up the car yet again and made a trip over to my parents'—racing the clock to beat an incoming thunderstorm (which seems to be par for the course on these trips).

We managed to beat the rain by about 15 minutes; and I made sure to text my parents from their living room...

You've been reverse-burgled: We broke into your house and put a bunch of stuff in it.

Athennia didn't feel so hot after dinner Monday night, and she ended up coming home a few hours early on Tuesday—semi-nauseated and experiencing some pretty bad stomach cramps :(

I let her sleep for about five hours and whipped up some popcorn chicken and French fries for dinner for myself and Riley, and then later on we watched an episode of Lucifer and some random videos on YouTube before bedtime.

She called in sick on Wednesday and slept most of the day. Our realtor Angel sent over another metric ton of documents for us to sign—which I pored over with a proverbial fine-toothed comb and responded with a list of requests for clarification on everything that was worded too ambiguously for my liking. (Then I told him we would get around to signing everything tomorrow or Friday when Athennia was feeling better.)

She woke up early Wednesday evening—starving from having not eaten for basically an entire day—and managed to hold down bell peppers and hummus for dinner... then, for the ultimate test, ice cream for dessert!

So, it appears she's in the clear :)

On a sadder note, our crappy downstairs neighbors seem to be in the clear as well: They finally fixed their tire (after about three weeks of it being flat, and two weeks of their vehicle not moving at all).

I did my best to snap a picture every day so I could share a quick collage with everyone. Ready? Go!

Ugh, of all the people to block my shot, it's this guy. Of course it is.

I call this couple Hardhat and Ditz—because he's always leaving early in the morning with a neon yellow work vest on, and she's always coming home at random times in trendy clothes and with an inevitable $9 iced latte in her hand.

And, while I won't say I hate them, I will say that I said hello to them once as we were getting into our cars at the same time shortly after I moved in, and the guy just looked at me and didn't say anything back.

Not very sportsmanlike, coming from what really might be the only other white couple in this entire complex. I would've thought they'd invite us to be part of The Alliance, or something.

But, no.

No invitation into The Alliance.

No solidarity.

No neighborly friendliness.

And now, he's blocking my award-winning shot of the enemy's flat tire?

Whatever.

Step aside, Hardhat! It's collage time...

Ready? Go!

Alas, all good things come to an end...

...And, in the midst of snapping all those pics, I captured a sizable portion of the rest of the cast of characters around here, too.

Here's some assclown who shows up a few times a week and blocks people in for 10 minutes at a time while he visits his kids or something...

Now, "oh, that's not so bad," you might say. "He can always just move if someone needs to get out."

True. But, does he need to pop the trunk and all his windows and doors to blast gangsta rap from his Wal-Mart subwoofers the entire time?

I think not.

Next up, we've got our next-door neighbor Ruth, who doesn't bother us too much—although she annoys the crap out of her downstairs neighbors Jeff and Lillian (literally the only people in this entire complex whom I genuinely like), because she has her TV volume cranked to 50 blasting televangelists around the clock.

She has the IQ of a carrot, too—which I guess is why she's rocking a pair of... what would you even call them... harem pants? ...despite being middle-aged...

And, speaking of carrot-IQed people, check out these streetrats: Three generations of stupid, walking in the middle of the road.

I've never seen them before; but, with behavior like this, I predict it's only a matter of time before they get pancaked by a Mack truck and no one else ever sees them again either...

And, who could forget Superstar?

I've nicknamed him as such because his Main Character Syndrome is off the charts and he struts to and from his job at the Giant out front like he's some 8'20" Will Smith or something...

...Also, he's high literally all the time: Athennia and I constantly happen to glance out our front window and catch one of his drug deals going down in the parking lot.

But... his royal high-ness doesn't come close to the one and only Magic Mike!

I know, I know... He looks like he's squatting to take a dump.

But, this guy put on a whole production the other day—breakdancing on the porch, fighting imaginary squirrels, and tweaking for a solid 10 minutes straight like he was absolutely whacked out of his gourd.

(Spoiler alert: He was.)

Athennia thought she was taking a video, but it turned out all she got was the pic above. She said she called the cops on him once, a decade or so back; and, apparently, he has to wait out on the porch until his sister comes home with the keys to let him into the building.

What a life!

I look forward to someday soon when we have neighbors I consider human enough to want to learn their names and think of them as actual people instead of NPCs from a Grand Theft Auto game with primitive A.I.

But for now, we're lucky enough to get some rain every now and then—which chases everyone inside so we don't have to see or hear them...

And anyway, I have Riley as my next-door neighbor—and she's a pretty friendly and considerate one, all in all.

Every now and then she tries to provoke me by sending me a picture of Lucky with a stern-looking expression on his face... But then I just hit back with a Domo pic, and that's usually the end of that ;)