Keriosity

So, on the day when all of the inspectors came to the new house, a giant wolf spider made its presence known by hanging out on the living room floor. Not wanting to appear like a “girl” in front of all the manly inspectors, I waited until no one was in the room and I scooted the spider out of the front door using the end of the tape measure, which I had extended to a spider-safe distance of 5 feet. But, the natural animal-lover in me isn’t as easily hidden as the “girl” in me, so of course I had to talk to the spider reassuringly. “Now you get out of here, little guy. That’s right. Out the door with you!” I looked up to see the punk-surfer chimney guy watching me suspiciously. “I can’t believe you just did that” he said. “I would have squished him. That is a HUGE spider!” I explained that I was afraid that if I tried to step on him, the spider would grab my leg and pull me to the floor where a vicious battle would surely ensue. Has anyone else ever seen that 1977 flick, Kingdom of the Spiders? Starring William Shatner? No? Well I have. Spiders can kick your ass.

Once our move into the house became imminent and I had spent enough time at the house to realize that spiders were going to be an issue, I started doing research online to learn which spiders I can expect to come across and which might kill me. Ugh! What an itchy 2 hours that was! Not only did I learn about identifying spiders, but I learned that some people in this world actually trap spiders and keep them as pets. And name them! All pet spiders are named Wolfie, Legs, Spike, or Charlotte, by the way. (If I had a pet spider, I would name him “Eek!” And then I would check myself into the nearest insane asylum. Keeping a wild spider as a pet is just not something sane people do.)

My online research lead me to a chart of non-dangerous vs. dangerous spiders, or, more practically speaking: spiders you can squish with a rolled up magazine vs. spiders you have to squish with a broom. Most need to be squished with a broom. Also, a good drowning using a hose works well too. You never want to try to kill a dangerous spider with a magazine or tissue, because what if you miss and the spider jumps on your hand and kills you?

I don’t care what that book my parents read to me as a child said: Spiders are not “our friends.” They are icky and scary and leggy and sneaky.

Here is the most traumatic experience I’ve ever had in regards to a spider: Often when I’m sleeping, I open my eyes and I think I see spider webs over my face or I think there’s a giant spider in my bed. I can’t tell you how many times my husband has woken up by either me screaming and throwing all the covers off the bed, or the movement of me, in my sleep, waving away “webs” in the air over my face. (This web-spider-hallucination thing is actually not that uncommon. So stop thinking that I’m crazy.) But - one night, I had an itch on my lip and I felt something there and I grabbed it and threw it on the floor, yelling “Turn on the light!!!!” Emil, out of habit, grumbled “There is NO spider. Go back to sleep.” But once the lights were on, and I saw there WAS a half-squished spider on the floor, I was both vindicated and horrified.

“That spider was on my LIP!!! MY LIP!!!”
“Great - finally an actual spider. We are never going to have a quiet night’s sleep again” Emil muttered.
“I could have eaten it by accident!”I cried. He wasn’t very sympathetic.

Someone once told me that the average person eats 10 bugs a year. The average WHAT person? Reality show contestant? Jungle-dwelling tribe member? Homeless person? I find it very hard to believe that I ingest 10 bugs a year and don’t know about it. How often do you hear of a person eating a bug? Like 3 times in your life? I’d think that if you ate 10 bugs a year, you’d know about at least 7 of them. Also, we’d all talk a lot less because, I don’t know about you, but if I thought that there was a possibility of inadvertently eating 10 bugs a year, I’d never open my mouth.

I’m really itchy now so I’m going to stop writing about spiders. Ugh!

Autumn is in full swing out here in Southern California. I guess. It’s hard to tell, really.

When I decided to move here from the east coast, people asked me if I would miss the seasons. Autumn is my favorite season - and part of me misses it very much, but another part of me is enjoying how Southern Californians attempt to integrate “autumn” into what is really just a prolonged summer.

First of all - some trees here do change color and lose their leaves. Not many, but there are a few and their leaves all turn tannish brown. Without seeing them in a bunch of fellow trees whose leaves change to rich colors and fall gracefully to the ground, these deciduous loners lack context - they just appear to be drying up and dying. The other oddity about seeing these random trees is that their leaves are not left on the ground to be picturesque and autumny. Landscaping is such a big thing here, so the leaves are immediately raked up and taken away. There are just these half-naked browning trees here and there and it’s not very pretty or fall-like. Further pondering of this travesty has lead me to the conclusion that it really is for the best that these leaves are taken away. With the arrival of Fall comes the rainy season, which means several weeks of remembering how to drive in wet conditions - so I’m not sure that the addition of wet leaves into the scenario is such a good idea.

One of my favorite examples of the Southern California manufactured Autumn is this “pumpkin patch” that suddenly appeared off of the 405 freeway in Huntington Beach. One day I noticed a sign that said “Pick Ur Own Pumpkins!” and there was a plowed “field” with about 2 dozen rows of neatly scattered pumpkins, as if they had been growing there all along, when in fact, that pumpkin patch had been a grassy resting place for junky cars just the week before. I guess the sign means “pick out ur own pumpkins!” because there is no way those things grew in a week.

As far as decorating for fall, there are colored artificial leaves and pumpkins, festive gourds and Indian corn all around. This is all well and good, but the palm trees and flip flops kind of kill the seasonal illusion that everyone is trying so hard to create. It’ll get worse as the winter nears. The only real differences between fall and winter in Southern California is that fake snowy things replace fake harvesty things, and the girls start wearing uggs with their miniskirts and tank tops.

So do I miss the seasons? Apparently, I can have whatever “season” I want with enough decorations and credulity. I think I’ll start replacing Thanksgiving with Easter, since I prefer eating chocolate bunnies to dead turkeys. I might also do Christmas in August - to get it out of the way early and avoid the chaos of holiday shopping. Besides, I think I’d feel better about Christmas shopping in shorts and flip flops if it was actually summer.

Here is my house in Summer:

Here is my house in Autumn:

I may be wrong about this, but I’m guessing this will be my house in Winter:

It doesn’t suck - that’s for sure.

You may recall my list of moving inconveniences that you’ll never find in any moving literature - well I moved again. And I am beyond frustrated. Not with the yogurt this time - I gave up that brand of yogurt because it wasn’t worth the trek to the only store in all of Orange County that carried it. This time, my frustrations are mostly about finding a proper cleaning lady and finding my new nail salon.

The nail salon part is not that interesting.

But the cleaning lady part: well it’s more gross than interesting. But, as with all gross things I experience, I must share the details with others since I cannot stand being the only grossed-out person.

Ok, so Emil and I decided that we really need to step-up our “help” requirements to include errands and such. Turns out, a person who both cleans your house and runs errands for you is actually a Housekeeper and no longer a Cleaning Lady. Any ol’ person can be a Cleaning Lady (well any ol’ LADY, that is.) I guess it must take a very specially qualified person to be your Housekeeper, because there seem to be much fewer of them.

While googling “Housekeeper, Los Angeles”, I came across one service that has been around for hundreds of years and they help match Housekeepers with people who are too busy to take care of themselves. I called that service and scheduled a Housekeeper to come the following week.

That Housekeeper failed to show up and, apparently, was never heard from by anyone ever again. Hm. Not a good sign. But, the company offered me 3 free hours of cleaning services, so we scheduled Housekeeper #2 to come the following week.

Housekeeper #2 called me the night before to confirm. That was very professional, so I was pleased. Then, on the morning of our scheduled day, she called me again. “I think I am at your house - is it blue?” I looked outside the kitchen window and was very startled. Were it not for the fact that she was on the cell phone with me at that moment, which confirmed that this was, in fact, the Housekeeper I was expecting, I would have honestly thought she was showing up for a hot meal and not to clean my home.

I feel incredibly shallow and judgmental for even going there - but she was dirty. Her clothes were stained and badly mismatched. Now, I don’t expect a cleaning person to come to the house fresh from the shower and in her best clothes. Obviously, cleaning makes you a little icky anyway, so I can understand a less than squeaky appearance. However, she just looked sloppy and dirty.

And I’m not sure she was “all there” because she laughed at everything I said. “I keep the cleaning supplies under the sink in this plastic tote.” “Ok, hahahahahahaha!” I failed to see the humor. If I kept my cleaning supplies in a jack-in-the-box, maybe. The plastic tote is decidedly not funny.

But - it gets worse. So much worse.

I handed her the list of chores to be done, as requested by the service, and rather than make her stand in the living room to read (we had no furniture in there yet), I invited her into the kitchen to sit and read. She laughed, of course, and sat down. And when she got up and walked away - I swear to you - her pants were wet. The seat of her pants was wet down to her knees. And she turned to me and I saw that the front of her pants was wet too.

You know in movies or TV when something is so shocking to a person that they use that camera effect so that the person stays the same size and the background zooms away from them? That’s exactly what happened to me. My eyes fixed on the wet pants and my world started to fall away.

Are you kidding me?! Only I would get the Incontinent Homeless Housekeeper. Remember The Dirty Yoga Instructor? These things happen to me!

Thank god I was getting the chairs reupholstered!

When she walked into the next room, I immediately and gingerly pressed a wad of paper towel to the kitchen chair to see what the hell had just happened. It appeared dry - so she was like this prior to coming over and she still showed up that way. Great.

What was I going to do? How can you ask someone to just leave without giving them a reason? And you all know I can’t lie.

So I let her clean. She did a pretty good job - but she stunk up whatever room she was in. I opened every window in the house and was freezing all afternoon.

I had to call the company to tell them - and I had to be honest. When the manager asked me how the cleaning went, I paused.

“Tell me,” she said.

“Well - there’s a hygiene problem,” I said delicately.

“Really?! In what way?”

“Um…it’s really embarrassing to even have this conversation. She was dirty and she smelled. Her clothes were stained. And…um…her pants appeared wet.”

“Gasp! Oh my god - she peed herself?” she asked.

“Well…yeah, I think so.”

I was offered another 3 free hours and the manager was scheduling me with their BEST Housekeeper ever. And the only explanation of Housekeeper #2 is that “she’s new”. I see. She must not have had a chance to read the Housekeeper Handbook in which I’m sure they address why you should never pee on yourself at work.

Housekeeper #3 came early on the scheduled day. She was dressed neatly in scrubs (smart!) She completed everything on my list, did a decent job, was very nice and I liked her a lot. But when she came back the second time, she brought her 4-year old nephew. Sigh.

Is it too much to ask that I find the perfect Housekeeper? Where are the Alices, the Florences, and, if need be, the Tony Micellis? Could it be that TV, in addition to portraying unrealistic body images, family dynamics, and romantic expectations, has also been greatly exaggerating the availability of good Housekeepers? I want a Rosie Jetson! Even my Roomba has turned out to be a disappointment.

For the time being, I am keeping Housekeeper #3 in the hopes that this kid, being her nephew after all, must have several other caregivers at his disposal and that coming to work with his aunt was an isolated incident.

And in truth, she does remind me a little of Florence from the Jeffersons.

So we are in the process of buying a house. Yay for us. I would be more excited if this process was even slightly more pleasant than ripping out my own toenails.

While scrutinizing your Credit Report, especially for the first time ever which is what we are doing, you come to realize a horrifying truth: You have enemies. You have powerful enemies and many of them are financial institutions with no sense of humor.

You also begin to have the sinking feeling that everything you have ever done in life or ever will do in the future, ends up on this report. It’s quite shocking to have this little trip down memory lane when there are points attached.

Remember that time in 6th grade when you borrowed 50-cents from Jenny and were late paying her back? Well, Jenny held a grudge and reported you to Experian. And the 50-cents that you told her you’d give her on Tuesday at lunch but didn’t until Wednesday at recess is preventing you from getting a mortgage 20 years later.

The Almighty Credit Score quickly becomes the valuation of your self-esteem, especially if there are inaccuracies or little glitches that you try to fix. You lose faith in mankind’s ability to be compassionate and forgiving, and you lose faith in yourself and your ability to control your own financial life.

I had to call American Express in regards to my own account. It seemed that, although I removed my husband’s name from my account last year and the balance is currently zero, Amex never updated anyone and there remained a balance on HIS report. I was very polite in my request to send me fax verification that he is no longer on my account, and that the account balance is zero.

“We can’t do that,” I was told by the surly Customer Service Associate.

“Why not?” I innocently inquired.

“We don’t send personal information in a fax to a private party.”

“But I only need you to say that my husband is no longer on my account and that my balance is zero. You don’t need to put my social security number or the card number in the fax,” I said.

“We do not release names and we do not fax information to a private person.” She was getting testy.

I pleaded. “But this is MY account. I am asking you to give ME information on MY account.”

“We can fax it to your bank.” ?!!

“You can fax it to a third party - but not to me?!” Now I was getting testy.

“That is correct. Who is your lender and what is their fax number please?” I gave her my mortgage guy’s name and MY fax number.

“Can you please remove this from my husband’s credit report and send us verification that it has been done?” I asked.

“No ma’am. Your husband needs to call us to make that request.

“But again, this is MY account and you should have updated this information last year. I’m just asking you to update the information and send us verification!!”

“He needs to call to make that request.”

My mortgage guy called them back and pretended to be my husband. They did everything he asked.

I’m so glad American Express is on top of the identity theft epidemic! I cannot access my own information or ask that it be updated, but I can have my personal information sent to someone else and any man can call up and pretend to be my husband.

I have news for Amex: People engaging in identity fraud are NOT doing it so that they can go around improving people’s credit scores!

I have a feeling that these Customer Service Associates are so unpleasant to talk to because they have to spend all day making excuses of why no customers can speak to a supervisor. Are there even supervisors? Having never spoken to one, I have no way of knowing. I feel bad that these people don’t have a support system in place - that no one has their back when they have to face a difficult customer.

I imagine the “Supervisor” drunk and passed out in his office while the Customer Service Associate nervously chatters on about “Oh, hee hee. There’s no need for a supervisor to be involved,” gently rubbing the fresh hand-mark on her cheek.

No need?! What I NEED is a house and in order to get one, I NEED for you to be a human being, I NEED for you to have some understanding of my situation, and I NEED this goddamned fucking piece of shit bogus information taken off my husband’s vindictive, lying, craptastic credit report. If you won’t do that for me, then I NEED to speak to someone who can and will. I imagine that would be your supervisor. While that person is speaking to me, why don’t you go ahead and look up our history with your company, particularly the part about how much money we spend on your card and how we pay it off every single month in full (don’t bother rechecking - the decimal is in the right place) - then maybe you and your alcoholic supervisor can decide if you feel the NEED to make me a happy customer today or an account-canceling customer today.

If only I had the nerve. What I REALLY need are some balls.

And two extra points on a credit report.

Next week is Christmas and I am getting my 5-year-old niece the entire Suze Orman book collection with the advice to get into the habit of checking her credit report annually starting at age 7, and try try try to marry a mobster so she can pay for everything in cash.