Sunday, June 14, 2015

Stranger in a Strange Land

So we moved.  We have most of the stuff we are unpacking, unpacked.  The garden is started and the bird feeders are filled.  I've set up a chore chart for the kids to start tomorrow, but for the most part they've been very helpful.

But I'd be remiss to say everything is great.  I don't quite know how my husband is going to do this job long term, mostly because this city appears to have given up.  It's very rare to get good customer service; everyone is rude.  And worse, I think that everyone in town is used to having everyone give them rude service, so no one even gets worked up about it anymore.  Evidently the only people who Brian has had complain about it are from out of town (and expect better).

We've heard probably from no less than 10 people "Why would you ever move here?".  One was a person working at Shopko pharmacy for 23 years and drives in a half hour every day.  And she wouldn't have it any other way.

I am a customer service oriented, people pleasing person.  I abhor bad service (and I reward good service).  The only good service we've gotten is at the local Papa Murphy's.  Every time we go they are helpful and pleasant.  And that's it.  Most of the time people don't bother to say please or thank you.  When they do, they come off insincere.

I just don't want my kids to think that's ok.  And I don't want to get so jaded that I act that way, or accept it.  I actually did my big grocery shopping for 2 weeks-$260 worth-up in Stevens Point after receiving such shitty service at our local Copps.  Today my parents came down and we went to the local Shopko garden center.  The worker (a high school kid) was a complete ass and could have cared less.  The plants looked half dead.  We ended up going up to Plover and checked out the local Shopko garden center there.  The plants looked great.  The person who checked us out (a high school kid) was helpful and friendly.  We went in the store to buy seeds, and the person who checked us out (another high school kid) was helpful and friendly.  So WTF?  Why does everyone treat everyone else like shit here?  Can it be fixed?  Am I having to resign myself to drive 25 minutes away to do all my shopping? 

Probably.  I refuse to get treated like shit.

Anyway, onto other news.  I feel like my house is indoor camping.  I woke up the other day with a giant spider crawling on my arm.  When I wacked it against the wall, it made a loud thunking sound. There are so many bugs: flies, wasps (they are getting in the basement, and we can't tell where), ladybugs.  And ticks.  Ticks everywhere.  Every day at least one of us has a tick on them.  We pulled one out of the cat's head.  I just took one off my neck as I type this.  It's terrible.

Our landlord told us that he's renting out the storage units, but the people only come by to pick up their vehicles in the summer and leave them in the winter.  So far, we've only seen one person coming to those.  But he failed to tell us when he was talking about how "he does a little farming in the gardens across the driveway" and his "daughter grows some pumpkins to save for money for school" that he's actually RENTING out the gardens, and we have random people coming by every day.  They don't come up our drive way, but they are right across from us.  And we have yet to see his daughter that grows pumpkins.  Just him.  And lots of random day labor people.


I am not a "call the landlord" type person.  But I swear every time something breaks, I'm having Brian call.  I am not fixing a damn thing in this house.  I'm not.

So I was going to complain about my house.  But I decided I'm going to talk about the good things.

1. I have a whirlpool tub that is giant, with jets.  It's very relaxing.
2. Everyone has their own bedroom, and we have two bathrooms.
3. The appliances are all new, or nearly new.
4. I finally have a dining room, and we finally bought a decent table.
5. I have a nice back deck.
6. We have bluebirds nesting in our yard.
7. We have a nice sized garden.
8. My air conditioning works.

So there.  I ended on a postive note.  And the tick is drowning in alcohol.  Hopefully I will be soon too.

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