Making Friends Already

Well we made it to Lexington and into our new place.  I'm currently sitting in an empty dining room in a lawn chair writing this blog post.  Our truck will be here early tomorrow morning and we will be SO glad to have our stuff back.  We got here Saturday evening and Byron flew out to New York for work Sunday morning.  He's doing his training for IBM and getting all his equipment (toys).  I just saw that he posted on facebook that he is officially an IBMer.  I'm not sure what that means but I hope he didn't have to get branded or a tattoo or something.
With Byron gone that leaves yours truly to hold down the fort for a few days.  It should be easy because how hard is it to take care of an empty house?  I've certainly had my bumps in the road the past couple of days but almost everything is going good.  The major problem was that when we got here we realized the water heater was gas.  I was TOLD by my cocky property manager that everything was electric so I didn't turn on the gas.  So we haven't had hot water since we've moved it.  I've been boiling water on the stove and hauling it up the stairs in a bucket a la "The Money Pit" style.  Not a big deal though.  I was going to call Monday and get the gas turned on.  I called.  They took my info and said I need to sign some paperwork and pay a deposit.  Hmm....weird but whatever.  She said if I come down to the office and fill out the paperwork she can have someone come out in 3 days.  Groan!!!!  But what can I do?  I go down to fill out the paperwork and the guy tells me I need to have my license verified by a notary, etc, etc and all this other bull dung.  I say "This is crazy.  I have good credit. (I do, really!).  I didn't have to do this with the other utilities.  What's going on?"  Well, turns out they have me listed as Alyssa Paul.  Not surprisingly, that name did not match up with my social.  Back to the customer service phone.  I explain the whole situation to the lady.  She asks if I have an acct. number.  I give it to her.  Then I kid you not she says, "How can I help you?"  Did you not hear anything I said before the acct number???  I re-explain.  She changes my name.  She says it still shows I have bad credit.  I said, "Spell my name"  A-L-I-C-I-A  H-U-L-L.  I correct it for her again.  She runs it again and I says it's still coming up bad.  I said, "Your system is wrong.  I just rented a home and set up other utilities.  I could not have done that with bad credit."  I'm practically sobbing into the phone of the lobby of the gas company.  I'm sure I looked like a crazy person with my dirty hair and dirty kids in our dirty clothes and crying to the lady to please turn on the gas.  All I needed were rollers in my hair and fuzzy slippers!  We'll I know I should have stayed on that phone and fought that lady to the death about turning on the gas but I was just too tired.  I just told her my husband would set it up under his name and hung up on her.  That's right!  Alyssa Paul hung up on someone.  Not in anger, just in exhaustion.  Then I came home and took a cold shower that woke up every pore in my body.  Yowey-Zowey!!  I wasn't tired after that.