Travels and Tribulations

So I closed by last blog with the prediction that I would be keeping busy once I got to Norfolk. Well, I was wrong. Here I am in VA with not too much to do. But first let me tell you about the woes of yesterday.
The day started out fair. When I filled up the car with gas yesterday morning there was a sign on the pump, which I found fairly entertaining. It said “For Receipt Please Cashier”. Since I did not know how to please the cashier, I did not get a receipt. The drive went fairly well except that I had allergies. Max behaved really well. See how cute he is all curled up on the seat.



There was a lot of traffic on the road, so it took an hour and a half longer than it should have. I arrived at 8:15, and took Max to the new house to let him run around the yard. I was feeling pretty good about the day, but then things went down hill from there. I drove to the Navy lodge to check in and ditch enough stuff so that I could fit Wes in the car. There were only two people in line in front of me and so I thought that it would all move along pretty quickly. I was wrong. It took the desk clerk so long to check the first person in, I was ready to scream. Then I was relieved that the next person only wanted to rent two movies. That couldn’t take too long. I was wrong again. It took so long you would have thought that she was writing a summary of each movie. Finally, my turn. I asked to check in and a man pops up to the counter to ask about pizza delivery. The desk clerk proceeds to give him a five minute spiel on pizza delivery. I wanted to say something, like “excuse me, but I have been waiting,” but was so wound up after the long drive and the long wait, that whatever I said would have come out like “ITS MY TURN!!! RAHGREEE.. WHAT THE FURGEUDLNKJLSIFON CSDJSFB!!!!!!!” That, of course, was not warranted, so I internalized all my frustration. Finally I have been checked in, but then I had to sign a paper saying that if I bring pets into the room, I have to pay a $100 fine. Wes had booked a pet-friendly room. I didn’t have the time or patience to straighten things out, if they even could be straightened out. Wes’s plane had already landed at this point. I schlepped some stuff to the room, only to figure out that my key card didn’t work. I was so close to screaming curses and just taking out my frustration on the door with my foot. AAaaaaHHH! Finally get into the room and realize that the awful noise I had heard in the hall was coming from our bathroom. The floor of the bathroom is literally shaking from whatever was wrong. Again, no time to investigate. Max and I head off to the airport to pick up Wes. When you see your spouse after a long day apart, you are supposed to greet them with a little TLC. Poor Wes got a huge dose of my frustration. In the interest of all things sane, I withdrew from the field of battle and let Wes engage the front desk clerk.

Twenty minutes later, even though we had reserved a pet room and they had screwed up our reservation, the only way Max can stay in the room is if we pay the 100$ fine. It ten o’clock at night and we have nowhere to put the dog. We called our mortgage guy and begged him to keep him for the night. Talk about going above and beyond the call of duty. Tonight Max is at puppy club med. The noise in our room had not abated by the time we got all the other stuff straightened out, and there were no other rooms to be had. The replacement clerk (thank god the slow one went home) was amazed at the ridiculously loud noise coming from the floor. Just as we reconciled ourselves to the thought that we would have to live with it, we flushed the toilet and it went away. Then it came back, so we kept flushing the toilet until it went away permanently. Apparently it had something to do with the water pressure. Weird!

As for the house, we were supposed to sign today. Well the bank did not get their stuff in order and we did not find this out until we were on our way to VA. Now the bank is trying to put it off until the 28th. Obviously this causes quite a few problems for us, the least of which is that we are here in Norfolk with very little to do. Fortunately we have a fun weekend planned in Annapolis, which we have been expanding to fill up the time we were supposed to be spending on the house. Look out friends. Here we come!