Are you sick and tired of prom themes that over-promise and under-deliver?
Well, have I got just the theme for you…
“C’mon! Y’all know my prom theme is da bomb! ‘Ten Steps’ is way more cool than just ‘A Step’. Why do y’all insist on being so boring!?!”
I was attempting to fulfill my duties as a member of the Rolla High School Junior Class Prom Committee, and give the Seniors–aka the Class of ’98–a prom they would actually remember. But no one was daring enough to actually do something cool for once.
Despite the tacit acknowledgment that my idea was indeed pretty ----- awesome, my fellow RHSJCP Committee members wouldn’t take the plunge and commit to my suggestion of having a classic Old West theme entitled, “Ten Steps Back In Time.”
I mean, who wouldn’t want to hearken back to the simpler time when cowboys would regularly resolve their differences in a civilized and gentlemanly gun duel that may or may not have ended in the death and/or maiming of one and/or both of them? There’s nothing quite as romantic as some unnecessary violence, amiright?
Nope, instead we were stuck with “A Step Back In Time”–still Old West themed, but with all the lameness that seems to be obligatory for high school prom themes.
Realizing that I was completely outgunned on this one, I eventually gave up. I had to simply resign myself to the very unoriginal gift that we would be giving to our upper-classmen and -classwomen.
The only solace I had was knowing that “a genius is rarely recognized in their time.”
Wait a sec…I think that is supposed to be ‘prophet’ instead of ‘genius’…
Putting me in charge of putting up the giant letters that would spell out our prom theme? That was their first mistake.
A month or so later, and apparently they had already forgotten that they had picked a super-vanilla theme over my Vanilla-Ice cool theme back during the planning stages of this whole she-bang.
But now it was go-time, and we had to get the lunch room decorated for the party that was about to go down later that evening. For some reason I was deeply unmotivated to do anything, and I found myself just sitting there, blankly staring at the letters in front of me:
Figure 1: The RHS 1998 Prom Theme, simulated here with Scrabble(TM) tiles.
As I kept staring, the letters started to swirl in my mind. I could see a message hidden in there, but I couldn’t quite make it out. Thank goodness I had been playing Scrabble since the age of 6, and in that moment I just knew that destiny had been preparing me for this all along. So I went to work…
Interestingly, this is the point where Present Me had to take “A Step Back In Time” himself, and do a bit of time-travel investigating.
You see, I clearly remember that a very important Message had been transmitted through Teenage Me–a mere humble conduit–but I couldn’t quite remember exactly what it was, only that the Greater Being(s) of the Universe had oddly chosen to include a slight typo in their Message.
Wanting to present an accurate account of what transpired that fateful day, I had to bust out ye ol’ Scrabble game and do a little historical reenactment. And I’m not going to lie: I’m not as spry in the mind as I used to be, and my Third Eye is going a bit blind. It took me awhile, but it was indeed quite the revelation when I finally figured out what very important Message could be constructed using ALL the letters from that lame-ass prome theme “A S T E P B A C K I N T I M E”. The very same Message that was revealed to us rural teenagers, all those years ago…
…
Are you ready?
…
Are you sure you’re ready?
…
I mean, once you have heard such a world-view shattering Message delivered from upon high, you realize your life will never be the same, right?
…
Okay, well, you’ve been duly warned. I wash my hands of anything that happens after this point.
…
Take a deep breath, and prepare to receive the Message:
…
Ok, J.K. Kidding! Call me a tease, but I feel the urge to keep you in suspense a little longer…
It occurred to me that high school proms are like modern-day versions of Araby–you know, the 19th-Century short story by Irish author James Joyce. Just like Joyce’s protagonist, you’re young, full of hormones, and ready to, um, “come-of-age”–and Prom is your very own Arabian market where you just know all of your youthful lusts will be fulfilled.
But does it ever work out that way? No! Or to be fair: Rarely!
It’s supposed to be this super-romantic night, yet for all-too-many youths, it doesn’t exactly go the way they really hoped it would go.
Tragically too often, the evening instead ends with disappointment and frustration…
And this singular thought, pithily summarized by the 1998 Rolla High School prom theme that almost made it past the teachers, passing through their mind:
(Read with the most depressing Redneck accent you can muster in your head:)
Figure 2: Spoken like a true prophet: “I Keep Mastubatin…” (sic).
Man, if you’re going to jump ship and abandon me when I need you the most?
At least let me down gently…
“Well, we better be done by next Friday…that’s my last day on the job.”
“Wait, what? Like, last day on this project?”
“Oh, no, last day with this company. I’m moving on to bigger and better things in a few short days!”
Shit. This is not the conversation you want be having with the project manager of your slightly-more-complicated-than-usual home “restoration & remodeling”.
Yet here I was, almost 4 weeks into a home reno adventure with Daniel–our project manager–and this mother ----- couldn’t have bothered to mention this earlier? That party foul alone renders his right to anonymity null and void. I’m using your REAL name buddy here on out–no alias for you!
“Uh, congratulations?”
That was just about as a cordial of a response to this news that I could muster. I mean, good on him and all, but I know how this story ends. The Boss Lady reminded me of that fact the instant I told her, “Welp, Daniel’s last day is Friday…”
The Boss Lady and I? We like to be non-traditional. And not just with our home renovations. Nay, this trend started from our very first shared occasion of note: our wedding.
Despite being reliable members of our local church, we changed things up a bit and opted to have our matrimonial ceremony and reception in the butterfly garden of our local life science museum. But because of this unique setting, we needed a wedding coordinator who knew the place inside and out, so who better to ask than the director of said garden of butterflies?
We were quite ecstatic when she agreed. I couldn’t even help myself from shouting from the rooftops “She said ‘YES’!!!!!”
Okay, so I wasn’t that jubilant. But having her at the helm killed quite a few birds with one stone, so we were happy to have her on board.
Fast-forward 2 months to our wedding day. Guess what she casually mentions when she met up with the Boss Lady that morning? That’s right: “Oh, by the way, today’s my last day on the job. You’re wedding will be my last official act as the butterfly garden director before I head on down to Wilmington. How exciting is that?”
Cool, cool…
Later that evening, our festivities were going relatively smoothly. We somehow managed to awkwardly place 100ish guests along the path that wound through the garden.–and most of them even had a view of the happy couple!
We got to the part where the Boss Lady and I exchanged rings, wiped the sweat off each other’s brows (it was sooo ----- hot and humid in there), and shared our first kiss. You know, the usual. And then…it was time to escort the guests out of the stifling December heat and to the reception.
But did we get the orderly and peaceful transition that we had paid for? Hecks no.
Instead, complete disarray and chaos ensued. As the late(?) great Jeff Foxworthy would say, “It was pandelerium!”
Apparently our “wedding coordinator” decided to peace the ----- out early, because, hey, it was her last day. She had already gotten her $50 Target thank-you gift card–no reason for her stick around to see the job through, right?
Thanks for leaving us hanging like butterfly pupa, Tiffany. Dammit. I really wish I could remember your real name right now…you deserve all the public shaming I can conjure up!
Anyways, I found it all just a bit too ironic, considering that “commitment” was the whole ----- theme of the night and all…
Needless to say, we’re a bit leery of any ass-hat that is supposed to be working on something for us while they’re on the way out the door. So, yeah, Daniel was making us a bit nervous.
But, the good news is that history doesn’t always repeat itself.
The bad news? It usually does.
I should have known something was up when he would continually evade my simple question, “So when are going to have the mantel installed?”
He would reply with something vague like, “Yeah I looked at it.” Yeah, that tells me NOTHING.
Lo and behold, the Wednesday of his last week, he pops in at our house unexpectedly to do a quick final walk-through. And of course, I ask him about the mantel again. The mantel–the $300 piece of wood sitting in front of our fireplace, covered in paint cans, instead of being sanded, stained, finished, and suspended safely 5 feet off the ground.
“Oh, that…yeah we couldn’t figure out how to install it without possibly destroying the whole fireplace, and no one wanted to be liable for that. We’ll credit you back what we were going to charge you for the install.”
You. ‘Ve. Got. To. Be. ----- Kidding. Me.
I paid this ----- to literally “Leave the mantel hanging”, and instead he just decided to figuratively leave us hanging. A bit on the nose, don’t you think, Universe?
The point of the story is…well you get it, right? Never be anybody’s “last job”. They’re bound to screw you over one way or another.
Just don’t expect them to screw your mantel into your ----- fireplace like you hired them to do in the first place, though…yeah. maybe I’m bitter just a wee bit…
Special thanks to the Woolly Mammoth for heroically posing for the mantel picture…and going above and beyond getting me out of the home reno fiascos I managed to get myself into over the last 5 weeks.
What do you say to the unapproving insurance rep who doesn’t want to pay for your sea-side condo because it’s too fancy?
“Beach, please…”
So lately you may have been wondering why my pointless parables have been slightly more sporadic. Well, long story short, I’ve started a new career as an interior designer. Sort of.
About 4 months ago our house sprung a couple leaks, and it all appropriately started when my mom, who was in our kitchen at the times sent me this pic, accompanied by a pithy, yet ominous, message:
“Serious problem, lots of water. Xo”
*Sigh*
Welp, Mom-stradamus has turned out to be a modern-day oracle indeed. Not only did we have an obvious kitchen sink leak, but the insurance adjuster uncovered a much-longer problem with our master shower.
And yada, yada, ya, here we are, living 3 hours away at the beach for 4 weeks while are house is put back together with a few, er, “modifications.” Perhaps down the road I’ll document for you the domestic debacles that I’ve managed to get into by micro-managing the project manager of our repair/remodel project–as foreshadowed by my reference to becoming an interior designer–but that will have to wait for now.
Right now, if I may, I would like to #HumbleBrag about how I got my family a month-long beach-side stay courtesy of Amica Insurance…
As it turns out, insurance will pay for you to stay elsewhere while your house is being repaired as part of a home-owner’s claim. So early on, we got the bright idea to just jam out to a mountain cabin or a beach house instead of staying within 30 minutes of our hometown. Since we all either work from home or attend school virtually, there was no logistical reason why we couldn’t.
Now while our insurance agent had been doing a superb job of taking care of us, she was surprisingly cagey about the process of finding a place to stay during the repairs. When I originally floated the idea of staying in the mountains, long long ago when we thought it would be for maybe a week, she was hesitant, suggesting that I send her a link of any place we were thinking of staying so she could ask her boss for approval. Apparently, she’s dealt with people who had the same basic idea as we did, except these assholes went all out and booked a high-end ski resort and tried to get the insurance to cover it.
Fair enough, I thought…
Fast-forward to about 2-1/2 weeks before the contractors were going to start ripping our house apart. It was only at that point that we found out the exact dates we would need…and the first time we faced the reality of living in a strange and foreign land for 4 whole weeks.
I called “Emily”1Yes, that is her real name. What the ----- does it matter at this point? and had a Groundhog Day experience where we repeated the exact same conversation as before, and I walked away with even less of an idea of what a reasonable price for alternate accommodations looked like.
It being barely two weeks out, I immediately started scouring VRBO, AirBnB and other various mountain rental websites, only to come up with 4 or 5 decent options that were available for that entire time frame–and this didn’t even begin to address the “Anne” and “Frank”2Aka Checkers & Chess. situation. Again, details about the complications arising from being new pet parents are beyond the scope of this tail,3Do have to point out the pun here? and will have to wait their turn to be revealed.
The price tag for 4 weeks at these places came in between $4500-$6000, which all in all, was actually fairly reasonable. A brief cursory look at vacation rentals near us showed that was about what we would expect to pay if we stayed local, so I was pretty confident there would be no issue with our little plan.
Now, I hadn’t had the chance to run these options by the Boss Lady, but since time was of the essence, I fired off the links to these rental to ol’ Emily on this particular Friday afternoon. I wanted to get this ball rolling and a bangin’ cabin booked, ya know?
Over that weekend, the Boss Lady and I finally had a chance to discuss things, and it turned out that she really wanted to hit up the beach instead. Just great. All my hard mountain rental research had just gone down the drain. I told her if she found some suitable places, I would consider them at least.
Sunday afternoon she found quite a few options…except they were closer to $8k-$10k, rather than the $4k-$6k that I had already presented to Emily. I had to talk the Boss Lady down from some of the more expensive options, and we finally agreed that the luxurious “Eden Cove 9”–aka EC9–should be acceptable to all parties, given that I could save $500 by booking directly with Better Beach Rentals instead of through VRBO. Just over $6k, so no one should be complaining, right?
But before we continue, I need you to check out the listing for this place on VRBO here. Any description that begins with “absolutely the most luxurious town homes on Oak Island!” is going to be mother ----- winner, amiright?
Anyways, Sunday night I shot the manager at BBR a few important questions that I needed answered before attempting to get Amica’s approval–most importantly, “I see this property is pet-friendly. Are there any additional pet fees?” This was very coyly worded, in hopes of them revealing whether or not “pets” meant “cats, not just dogs” without me revealing that we very much so indeed need to bring our to feline family members with us.
Well, come Monday evening, and I haven’t heard a dang peep from either Emily or the BBR manager. At this point, I’m getting pretty antsy, because I know that all it takes to make any of our options suddenly unavailable is for some dingus to rent the place out for Easter weekend or some other asininely small number of days. So I decided to make an executive call: I just went ahead and reserved ol’ EC9–a non-refundable move, though, mind you.
I sent Emily the bill and explained to her that I pulled the trigger because time was running out, but, hey, I saved them $500 by booking direct, so all should be well, right?
Wrong.
Mid Tuesday morning, I hear back from Emily for the first time since Friday. Apparently, she hadn’t bothered to tell me that she had sent the mountain rentals I had shared with her on to her supervisor for approval, and she was “having some issues justifying the pricing” with him. Allegedly, they “were able to find some very reasonably priced rentals in [our] area.” Further, she made an argument that EC9 was too fancy, and that alone should disqualify it: “location can have a huge impact on pricing and obviously a rental by the beach with a pool is going to be more costly than a home in your area.”
Ah, snap. They were gonna give me flack for a $4500 rental? Had I totally missed out on local options in the “very reasonable” price range? What is that anyways? $2k? Either way, what was done was done, but I faced the very real possibility of being on the hook for $4k of our rental…ugh!
So I humbly set out to see where I had gone wrong and did a thorough search of the AirBnB and VRBO options near our home, as if we had decided to stay local instead. How did that turn out, you ask? Let’s just say the facts were not in Emily’s favor, and she got the full Point of the Story treatment, starting with a histogram of the options, excluding the one outlier that would have actually been cheaper than EC9:
What you can’t see in the picture is the cheapest option, a suspiciously cheap but otherwise decent-looking place in Durham (uh…no thanks!). While its nominal price was $2900 the additional taxes and fees would bumped that up to $3792. Tack on the $700 it would have cost to board our two cats elsewhere, and suddenly this “very reasonably priced” rental comes out to about $4,500. Yes, that’s right, the same amount they were “having a hard time justifying” us spending on a mountain cabin rental.
Lies! All lies, I say!
The best part about this is, see at the bottom of the picture “Executive Rental, Apex NC”? This was our second cheapest option. Its nominal price was $5,844, so appeared slightly cheaper than EC9, right? But by the time you actually checked out ($7,821) and added on the cat boarding ($700), those A-holes at Amica would have been looking at a bill around $8,500. Would they have us rack up a bill that is $2,400 more just based on the principle that we should stay local?!?
But here’s the real problem: check out the Executive Rental’s listing here. If you’re in a hurry, here’s a quick peek at the master bedroom, replete with a completely unnecessary sofa for some reason:
You basically have to call long-distance to talk to somebody on the other side of the frickin’ room, for frick’s sake! Apart from not having a pool, this place was waaaaay fancier than EC9–and our current house. I bring up our house, because they make a big deal of trying to match the luxuries and amenities of your house, but really don’t want to go beyond that if they can help it. This all lead to this little juicy nugget and I included in my fact-based and fact-filled response to Emily:
“[referencing the Executive Rental] Now, most of the other options in this price range aren’t quite as fancy. But that brings up a very confusing question for someone who is dealing with enough of a stressful situation already: would you force us to stay in less nice accommodations, even if they were more expensive?”
It was a serious question for these ----- fat-cat bureaucrats. I was certain they were going to make us stay in $9k local shit-hole, just to make sure that we weren’t one iota more comfortable than we would be in our regular home. Insane, I say!
Well, long story even longer, I fired off my courtesy reply to Emily, including thorough documentation of my research, and was left holding my breath hoping that cold, hard facts and basic common sense would prevail. Because of course she couldn’t have been bothered to shoot me a quick reply acknowledging the information I had just shared with her or anything like that.
I was a nervous wreck for a good day and a half before getting a text notification out of the blue, informing me that Amica had issued me a payment. I rushed to my computer and checked lickety-split, and confirmed that it was indeed for the full $6,123.86!
I had won! I had really won the battle with the insurance company! Oh, happy happy us, we’re going to the beach; oh, happy happy us, we’re going after all!
Okay, so that didn’t rhyme. So sue me. It was a huge ----- relief–especially because I had actually managed to bear that burden all by myself, and hadn’t mentioned a word of the situation to anyone.
And that gets us to the point of the story: in retrospect, I realized that they would have probably never approved our little beach trip had a obediently waited for Amica’s approval before booking it. Indeed, this a living example of the old adage “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.” Though, now that I say that out loud, I think it’s supposed to read “easier” than “better,” right? Oh well, you get the point.
Now, why would I cryptically hint that “some sins are never forgiven”? Well, I’ll get around to it, but I promise to share the, uh, “experience” that EC9 would have in store for us. Stay tuned…
P.S. Yeah, sorry I didn’t ask your permission to assault you with such a long meandering tale…I beg your forgiveness, Dear Madam or Sir…
Content created on: 1 April & 1-2 May 2021 (Thurs/Sat/Sun)
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