Floods, Fires, and People Who Know Nothing

I realize that I have been radio silent for awhile but the last few days of January and the month of February has been full of mishaps and frustrations. In an effort to keep myself from ranting too badly I decided to wait to post about them until I could laugh about them a little.

Floods

I guess January went out with a bang or should I say a burst. A burst of water that is. Where I live, it seems like we either have no rain or torrential downpours. There doesn't seem to be such a thing as "gentle" or light rain. The rain began a few hours before I went to bed. It was heavy but I wasn't overly concerned because there were no severe weather listings on my go to weather source, weather.com, or on the news.

Apparently that changed in a hurry after I decided to go to bed. I awoke around 2am to the sound of a storm right on top of my house. The thunder boomed so loud that every picture on my wall seemed to rattle and I feared they would fall off and come crashing to the floor. The lightning lit up my room eerily and cast ghostly shadows around my bedroom. I lay awake listening to the storm and found myself unable to go back to sleep. I had a nagging feeling that something was wrong; something other than the possibility of my pictures falling off the wall.

I dragged my butt out of bed and threw on a a pair of sweatpants and a long sleeve T-shirt. Walking around the house, nothing seemed out of place but the nagging feeling remained. I grabbed my Tablet and pulled up weather.com to see what they were saying about the storm.  That's when I noticed a warning about an approaching torrent of golf ball sized hail.

I had left the car parked in the driveway because it was covered in bird poop and I was hoping the rain would wash it off.  Worried about hail damage I decided I had better pull it into the garage.  I grabbed a coat from the closet, pulled up the hood, and grabbed the first pair of shoes that I could see.  I realized my outfit probably looked ridiculous but at at two in the morning I didn't think anyone would notice.  I grabbed the keys and rain out into the pouring rain.

I stepped out of the door, right into a freezing cold puddle.  Ugh... Awesome.  I slogged my way down to the driveway.  It was completely flooded. My driveway points downward on a hill towards my house and at least a foot of water was swirling and gurgling around the garage door.  The grate that is supposed to drain the water just could not keep up with the downpour.  In that instant a sinking feeling told me that there was probably water in the garage... The nagging feeling that something was wrong told me I was right.

I stood there for a minute trying to decide what to do.  I still wanted to pull in the car.  I figured that the water in the garage was probably less than the water on the driveway and I really did not want hail dents in our one year old car.  I also wanted to know if water was in the garage because if so I would need to rescue some boxes we have stored in there because our garage had never flooded while the basement had in the past.

I opened the garage door.  Water had already leaked inside and the boxes and furniture were wet but when I opened the door the problem had become ten times worse.  All of the water that had been pooled on the driveway rushed in with a vengeance.  I quickly pulled in the car and shut the door to prevent any more water from getting in.  The water covered my shoe but at least it wasn't up to my ankle like the driveway water.  I turned on the light and began trying to "rescue" our stuff.  The basement was still dry, go figure, so I moved everything there.  Everything was soaked. Speakers, boxes, a desk, our Christmas tree, and a really nice refrigerator my parents had given us.  CRAP. 

I have no idea how I did it; how I moved everything into the basement myself.  I even managed to move the fridge.  There was no way I could lift it over the step up to my basement doorway.  I pushed it over to the the door and pulled it towards me into the basement onto its side.  Later I would wonder where I found the strength to do this alone.  I am chalking it up to one of those things where you gut a surge of adrenaline under pressure and can do super human feats.

I shut the basement door and decided to hope for the best until morning.  Only problem was when I went to lift the garage door to go back into the house, I realized that when I had closed it, it had somehow become locked.  I have no idea how this happened since you have to physically turn a knob on the outside to make it lock but maybe the pressure of the water coupled with the force of the door closing triggered it?  I have no idea.

So there I was.  Trapped in my garage and I was beginning to panic.  I was soaking wet and I took several deep breaths to try to keep myself from freaking out.  OK, you can figure this out.  I said to myself.  I pulled up as hard as I could...the door barely budged.  Did I really think that was going to work? No, but in my state of panic I was hoping for a miracle. 

I was completely trapped in the garage.  To make matters worse... It was by this time 3 in the morning, still pouring, I was soaking wet, freezing, and I realized that the windows in the basement had been nailed shut.  On top of that, I had pulled the car into the garage so no one would even think to look for me.  They would assume that I wasn't home.  AND, my cell phone was in my bedroom.  I hadn't though to grab it since I was just going to be running out to pull in the car.

Panic rising I prayed out loud again and again, "Dear God, please help me to get out of this garage!"  I didn't know what to do.  I found the directions to the garage door tapped to the door.  Unfortunately they only explained not to let children play with it.  Not how to unlock it from the inside.  Go figure.  They didn't even show to to take it apart.  I briefly considered running the car through it.  I knew it would damage the car but I had to get out of the garage.  I pulled at the door desperately trying to get it to open.  Eventually I figured out that the bar of the locking mechanism could be bent.  I was able to bend it just enough to force it up one notch which allowed the door to to open enough for me to crawl out under it.  Unfortunately this also meant crawling through a foot of water so now I was really really really soaked and freezing cold.

From the outside of the garage I put the door back down all of the way and trudged back inside hoping for the best and deciding to let the rest be until morning.  By this time it was about 3:45 am.  I had a doctor's appointment in just a few hours time.

I stripped off all of my soaked clothes and left the sopping shoes at the door.  I needed a shower.  I was covered with mud thanks for the fact that I have no grass and so the dirt had flooded onto the driveway with the water.  I took a quick shower and crawled into bed for a few last hours of sleep.

The next morning after my appointment (which I had walked to) I opened the garage to discover that the water inside had completely receded.  But it had left a a wet muddy mess in its place.  I pulled the car back onto the now drying driveway.  Thankfully, the rain had stopped. 

I spent the majority of the day dragging wet cardboard to the curb and trying to dry things out and clean up the mud.  My back was not thanking me for my efforts.  It took three days for the garage to dry out completely.  Then came the task of moving everything back into it from the basement.

Thank God for Helpful Neighbors

I began moving things back into the garage but the fridge was blocking the way of moving anything large.  I could not budge it an inch.  I have no idea how I moved it in the first place.  I needed help.  With Hubby gone I wasn't sure who to ask.  I finally opted for my next door neighbor.  The neighbor across the street had essentially shut the door in my face when I had gone to bring over a batch of congo bars to welcome them to the neighborhood but thankful the couple next door is really nice.

I knew the soldier's wife was on a trip away from home and I felt bad asking for his help but I didn't know anyone else who I felt could help me move my ridiculously heavy fridge.  I sheepishly knocked on the door and asked if he would mind giving me a hand.  A bit to my surprise he enthusiastically ran out to help.  He didn't even hesitate.  God bless him.  He helped me move the fridge back, although he admitted it was heavy and even offered to help me with everything else.  I took him up on the offer to move a few of the heavier boxes and thanked him several times.  I brought him a plate of cookies the following day. 

It wasn't until a few weeks later that I felt confident enough to plug the fridge in to see if it still worked.  Thank goodness it does. 

Crisis averted I hoped that would be the worst thing I would have to deal with for awhile.  Unfortunately a week later the garage had water again.  At least this time it only made it a few feet inside so it didn't get anything important wet a second time.

Fire

After the flooding issues I had pretty much had it and wanted to hide out from everyone.  I just didn't feel like being social.  I was relaxing on the couch one night watching TV when all of the sudden, I smelled something burning.  It smelled like burnt pizza.  It was 11:30pm.  I hadn't even used the stove to cook dinner.  I searched the entire house including the basement and garage for the source of what I assumed had to be a fire.  Everything seemed normal.  In an effort not to freak out I called May.  I am so thankful to have her.  Who else could I call at absurd hours of the night?  She told me to call the housing office and have them come out to look at it.  Something  burning it not something to mess around with and I agreed with her.

In an effort NOT to bore you to tears I'll make a long story shorter and tell you that I spent at least an hour on the phone trying to get a hold of somebody and then it took an hour or so for that somebody to come out to my house.  Needless to say it was 2:30 by the time the guy had left my house... He couldn't even find anything wrong.  Fortunately the smell has dissipated and I felt OK knowing that he had checked  everywhere.  At least he had smelled it too when he arrived so I knew I wasn't crazy.  He told me it had probably been cause by the fog.  Fog causes burning smells? 

People Who Know Nothing

A few days later I was trying to gather our tax paperwork.  After going through it with Hubby we figured out that we were just missing two documents and that both happen to be from companies that he used to have student loans with; loans that we had paid off last year and should be getting a tax deduction for.  Hubby had called both of these companies while he was home on leave to request the appropriate forms but I wasn't surprised that they had not followed through.  Feeling bad that Hubby has little time to deal with this stuff and because of the time difference overseas, I offered to call the companies to request the forms again.

One company had an automatic request system. No problem.

The second company however was less than helpful.  The first representative told me that my husband was nowhere to be found in the system and that I must have the wrong number.  Taking a deep breath I told her that this number was on every single statement and letter that we have concerning this particular loan including the letter we received to confirm that the account had been paid off.  She asked me if I was sure.  No, I thought to myself, I'm just looking at it.  I read her what the letterhead said but she still insisted our account did not exist as a past or present customer.  I asked to speak to another representative.  The jerky woman who clearly knew nothing informed me that I could but they all work from the same system.  She then put me on hold... for 20 minutes.

I was getting more than annoyed. I  hung up and called back.  This time I got a different representative.  This woman could not find us in the system either but after putting me on hold twice and having me give her our information time and time again she finally found the records.  I had been on the phone for over 45 minutes.  I then asked her if she could please send us the required tax form.  She informed me that she couldn't because I was not authorized to do anything on the account.  Seriously?  I didn't even ask for any info.  I PROVIDED all of the info.  All I wanted was for a tax form to be sent to the address they already had on file.  She told me that if I faxed a copy of my POA that I could call back in a week or two to request the form again.  It's a good thing that I wasn't taking to her in person.  I might have decked her one. 

Poor hubby had to call because I was to pissed to deal with the situation and did not want to wait two weeks just to "request" the form.  He was told that we have to wait a minimum of 17 days just for the request to be processed. 

So, in conclusion...  it has been a rough month.  Did I mention that the DVD player in my bedroom stopped working and the TV in our living room seems to be on the blink?  Sigh... hurry home Hubby.  I miss you :(

Dear Bank of America. You Make Me Want to Scream.

I HAVE HAD IT WITH BANK OF AMERICA.

I have tried REALLY tried to be patient but they have tested my patience beyond its breaking point.  Warning: I am about to vent my frustration.

Shortly after my husband deployed in June I received a letter from my credit card company stating that they were being bought out by Bank of America (BOA).  Until then I had never had any problems with my credit card company and really liked their customer service.  Hubby and I choose to put him on my account and to cancel his credit card company when we married and joined accounts because I had had my card since 2006 and have a great credit limit.  We had been happy with this choice up until I received this letter.

With hubby deployed, he uses/depends on this card quite a bit.  In particular his Internet is charged to it every month and without Internet, our communication is diminished and he cannot work on his grad class work.

When I received the letter about the buy out in June I was not happy.  I was worried about Hubby not having access to the new card.  I immediately called up my credit card company and asked them about the buy out.  I asked if my credit card number would be changing and they said no.  They also told me that my hubby could continue to use the card he had even though I would be receiving a new one with the BOA logo since the actual account number was not changing.  Reassured that everything would be fine, the issue floated to the back of my mind.  I was not too worried.  I had actually had a BOA bank account before we were married and only cancelled it when we opted to get a joint account with the more military friendly USAA instead.  I decided that having a credit card with BOA would be fine.

In July I received another letter about the change over and call me paranoid but I wanted to confirm what I had been told the month before because I was still worried about Hubby and his card.  This time when I called I was told that my card number was changing but that due to Hubby being deployed I could get special permission to keep my card number until he returned so that he would not be inconvenienced.  After several minutes on the phone with a supervisor everything was arranged.  Again I thought I had solved the problem before it became an issue.

August came and with it yet another letter notifying me of the change over.  Seeing as the "story" had changed last time I decided to call again to verify that my card number still would not change.  Again call me paranoid but as you will see... it turns out my intuition was justified.  This time when I called I was informed that my number had to change.  However, they were willing to send Hubby's card directly to him instead of sending both cards to me at our home address so that he would receive his card at the same time I would and so our card would have less chance of being compromised (I was advised that sending him his card myself would be less secure not to mention that it would take a while to go snail mail and there was a chance that the old card would become inactive before he received it).  They were willing to send his card directly to him because his address is an APO which means that it would not cost them anything extra.  They took down his address and confirmed everything before I hung up.  The change over was set to happen at the beginning of September.

One day in early September I came home to work to find a BOA envelope in my mail box.  I knew this was my new card but as I opened the envelope my stomach dropped and I was instantly filled with a feeling of unease as I saw that it contained not just my card, but a card with Hubby's name on it as well.  Fearing that his card was sent to me I dialed the customer service number.  As I held to speak to a representative I prayed that they had sent a second copy of his card to him and that sending one to me had just been an automatic thing?  My fear was confirmed.  Everything I had sought to prevent had happened.  They had not sent a card to Hubby. 

I explained the whole situation for the fourth time.  I was informed that not only had they not sent Hubby his card but that but they "do not mail to APOs".  I was irate.  I demanded to speak to a supervisor.  The supervisor claimed to have no record of my previous calls and blamed it all on my old company.  After two hours on the phone the supervisor finally agreed to "expedite mail" my hubby his card and to "waive" the $25 fee as a "courtesy" to me.  I was about to give him Hubby's address when suddenly he was like wait a minute... please hold.  Annoyed I thought.... now what....several minutes later he came back on the line and said by any chance is this your husband's address? reading his address to me.  I rolled my eyes.  "Yes" I said.  It is.  Hmmmm now how could they have that information if as they claimed.. I had never called before?  If.. as they claimed they had never agreed to mail to an APO... If as they claimed my other company never would have agreed to do that on their behalf.  Idiots. 



For the next week and a half I pestered Hubby incessantly to check his mailbox.  Finally his card arrived.  I called to active the new cards only to be informed that they could not be activated.  I was put on hold for several minutes while a representative "looked into it."  Believe it or not I was informed that the card had been compromised and that we would have to be issued new cards.  I was speechless with disbelief.  How could it be compromised if it has not even been activated yet?  Turns out it had been compromised THAT MORNING by a glitch in the BOA computer system.  Go Figure.  High Five BOA.... High Five.  NOT. 

I informed BOA that they would have to send  Hubby another card at no charge to us again and I was assured that they would do so and that the card that had been "compromised" could be used until Oct. 23rd and that we should continue to use it since our original card was now inactive.  I also want to add that I was told that numerous things I had been told by the "supervisor" last time were in fact not true.  Awesome.  I informed Hubby of the status.  He was going out to the field so we would have to wait until he got back for him to get his card.  I wasn't too worried since we had two and a half weeks before the current card would be no good and Hubby was only going to be gone a few days. 

The  next day while I was at work I got a call from BOA asking me to call them back ASAP.  I spent my lunch hour on the phone to them.  They claimed they could not mail to an APO.  Seriously?  I explained to them the situation and how they had mailed to Hubby's APO just  week before and literally explained to them how to do their own job.  I never had time to eat.

Over the weekend Hubby and I both had issues using our cards.  Today is only October 17th.... the card was supposed to be fine until the 23rd.  Luckily his card had arrived and I called today to activate the new new card.  After being on hold for 20 minutes I finally got to speak to a representative to informed me that I had to talk to authorizations.  He transferred me and again I waited on hold.  But I was disconnected after waiting 10 minutes.  I called back and waited another 17 minutes to talk to another rep.  When I finally got someone I explained that I had been disconnected and had been holding for quite a long time.  This rep felt bad for me and said he would personally transfer me.  I asked the authorizations rep why our card had not been working over the weekend.  She claimed her system said that our card was fine until the 26th (yes 3 days past when I was told) and she had no reason for why it had been denied over the weekend.  She activated our new cards and I hoped everything was over.

I logged onto my computer to set up my online BOA account.  I like to be able to see the credit card balance and Hubby wanted to be able to see our points.  I set up the account but was dismayed that it would only let me use my maiden name as a login and would only show my maiden name on the homepage.  I assume this is because the system recognized me from when I used to be a BOA banking customer and had an account. 

Reluctant to call again I noticed an online chat button.  I clicked it and hoped I could resolve it all over the computer as I watched a favorite TV show.  After waiting on hold for 10 minutes a rep finally typed back to me.  I immediately told her that I wanted to update my name on my online banking account.  She confirmed my request and began to take all of my information.  After half an hour she confirmed that my card and account showed my married name but that my online account showed my maiden name.  However, she then informed me that I had to call a 1 800 number to get it fixed.  She could not do it.  She claimed she could not fix anything with the online banking.  When I asked her why she wasted my time and took all of my information when she could have told me first thing that she could not help me, she told me that I had a good point.  She "apologized for the inconvenience."  It took an additional 15 minutes on the phone to get this error fixed.

I am done.  SO DONE.  It is time to shop for a new credit card company.  While we are at it I think it is time to find one that does not charge fees for Hubby's "foreign transactions."