Right before 9:00, I called down to Michelle to ask that the housekeeper start with me. She’s usually quick and to the point over the phone, but she took the time to ask how I was and told me to have a good morning after assuring me she’d have me done first. It was my favorite that arrived shortly afterward – Kissum.

Tom met both her and Satish, cuz Satish came to bring me a clean blanket which I had asked for after giving Kissum the one that had been here ever since, with things spilled on it like coffee, soda and other things best left to the imagination.

Just a little while ago, I called the front desk to complain about the room below us. They’d been partying, shouting and slamming doors down there for 3 hours. Meanwhile, I’m trying to get some work done and I don’t need to hear it. The fact that they were below us and not next to us ought to give you an idea of just how loud they were. I was told security would ask them to quiet down or they’d have to leave. Well, other than a few scattered bumps and bangs, it’s definitely been quieter since I called.

In an email from Jessie responding to my telling her I worried that Rhino was a scam, she said that’s horrible and asked if I could call the news people. Then she asked, “I know you hate it, but how much do you need for an apartment?” This makes me think she may want to help spring us out of here and into an apartment, and you know what? As much as I hate apartments, I’m so sick of this place sucking every last dime out of us that I’m ready to go for that if that’s all that’s meant to be, and you know we’re not allowed to be where we want to be anyway. But at least there, as insanely noisy as it would be, we’d have our stuff, more than one room, and we’d no longer have to deal with housekeepers. Being in a cheaper place would be half the battle which would be wonderful, but there’s still the 2, preferably 3 grand we need for a new vehicle and some furniture and appliances we need, plus I’ve still got to see a dentist. Once we get moved, then he can start looking for a new job that pays better and that will insure us both ASAP. But with this place sucking every spare dime we’ve got, our hands are tied. It’s $330 a week for this room, plus the storage, plus gas/food. He has a 35-minute drive to/from work.

Then I got an idea. I told Jessie I at least received the $100 Spa Finder certificate I won, but would much rather have our storage paid for. I told her it’d be no biggie if she said no, that we had all month to pay it, but that if she wanted, I’d gladly mail her the certificate if she’d pay our storage online, using our account number.

As I also told her, Tom said that the reason he still thinks they’re going to pay is that it really does take a couple of months to get all the necessary signatures to cut checks and all that crap. The only difference is that while Clorox, who’s a much bigger company and more experienced with sweeps, told us it’d take a couple of months up front, Rhino didn’t. But if worse comes to worst, he also said we’d have to wait 6 months, which would mean around July, but yeah, we can contact the consumer protection department and let them know we never received payment. We have the win notice and all the emails saved. Tom will start hounding them again too, with more harsh and insistent calls and emails of his own. I really hope he’s right and they pay up in time.

As I told Jessie, the apartments themselves are gorgeous and have a lot to offer for the money. It’s the damn noise, both inside and out, that’s utterly maddening. But like I said, if that’s the best we can do for a while, so be it. We’re ready. Getting our expenses down, if only a few hundred a month, is half the battle. It’s the only way to be able to move ahead, so to speak, and get other things we need. Then would come the icing on the cake, as in getting new ratties. I miss having pets!

I was freaking out for a couple of days after a huge misunderstanding. I partly misunderstood Tom, but I also thought he was playing down how bad off we were. I thought we were back in October again, facing either the streets or death. I’d still definitely take death over the streets, but I’d much rather live and do some of the things I miss doing, even if I have to do them in the midst of loud, rude, obnoxious assholes that are so attention-starved they just can’t shut up.