When the world doesn't spin like I want it to.

I'm going to whine.  You have been warned. 

It's been a week since we submitted our application to lease a house in Houston.  We were told the credit check takes about 24 hours then it could be another day or so for them to present everything to the owners and get a decision.

It's been 168 hours and still we have no answer.  I check in daily with the realtor and I'm given the "we're waiting on this, we're waiting on that" routine.
 
In her defense, I really don't think any of this is the fault of the realtor gal we're working with.  She just had the misfortune to be the Agent on Call when I called to schedule a time to look at the house and couldn't get in touch with the listing agent.  Bless her heart, she didn't realize who she was talking to, otherwise she would have run screaming hysterically in the opposite direction since I'm a well-known walking Murphy's Law/Freak Magnet.

The first delay was not being able to get in touch with the listing agent.  I left several messages on her cell phone's voice mail as did Ms. Agent On Call.  None of our calls were returned which is just weird.  Normally you can't get a realtor to stop calling you.  Having one completely ignore your calls is probably the first sign of the apocalypse.

The next delay was getting the credit report/background check done.  On the day it was submitted we got a call at the office to verify my employment so that was an encouraging step in the right direction.  Marti took the call and told them that I was the Chief Creativity Pastor, I had worked there since the time of the Patriarchs and I made $250K per year.  She made one tiny mistake but all things considered I think I can overlook it.  My official title is Chief Creativity Pastor IN CHARGE...meaning all creative ideas must be passed by me so that I can determine which category they belong to: creative, cheesy or churchy.  Those are the 3 Big C's in the industry and I have a tendency to reject the last two unless they are to be used in an intentionally ironic way.

We were told that the credit check was taking so long because of the way Louisiana does things.  This is a very viable excuse and I almost believed it until Ms. Agent On Call went on to say that in Louisiana it's all done by paper, they don't have it on computer.  Okay, that's bullsh*t.  Seriously.  Even the Flintstones have laptops now and I know that for a fact cuz I seen it on the TV.

Yesterday I sent Ms. Agent On Call a fish or cut bait email.  I told her, very sweetly of course, that we need an answer by 5 p.m. today or we're moving on.  It shouldn't be this difficult which makes me think that maybe this isn't the house for us.  Either that or it's just another day in the life of the Green family where the simplest tasks quickly turn into brain surgery.

She said that the homeowners were waiting to hear back from their insurance company to see if our particular breed of dog is on their banned list, which is information they could probably get from a 5-minute Google search.  AND (yes, I'm getting angry now) their house has been up for lease for over 2 months and they advertise that they will accept pets on a case-by-case basis.  If I was Mrs. Landlord I would have done my homework ahead of time so I could tell a potential resident if I would allow their dog or not since I'm advertising that it's a possibility.

Just look at that face.  Who could turn down that face???

We were honest about our dog, which I regretted when I found out that the amount of the pet deposit is determined by the weight of the dog at approximately $10 per pound.  Snappy is a 60 pound Rottweiler mix but had I known that was going to cost us a $600 pet deposit, she would have been a 4 pound toy Chihuahua. 

I'm really sort of anxious to see what they do about that "mix" situation.  Most insurance companies have Rottweilers on their "watch" list if not completely banned.  Since Snappy was a stray who adopted us, we really have no idea what breed or mix of breeds she is.  Her coloring and markings are definitely Rottweiler so I'm pretty sure about that part, but her body shape is all wrong and she has white on her chin and chest.  Her toes are webbed which makes me think she's got some husky in there.  She's scary smart and one vet told us he thought she might have some border collie in her.  I don't know, I don't care, it's never been an issue until now.

I didn't say anything on our application about my tendency to "rescue" any small furry creature that crosses my path and appears to be in need.  Hopefully by the time I have amassed a family of squirrels, rats and groundhogs, we will ready to buy our own house/zoo.  Oh yeah, there's the horse too.  If we let her graze in the backyard we won't have to mow (or fertilize) so everybody wins.  If Mr. & Mrs. Landlord knew how much trouble I could potentially be, they wouldn't be so uptight about a 9 year old dog who's never bitten anyone in her life.

That's enough complaining...for now.

I thought you might like to see the contents of my "How to Live in Houston" packet that I sent off for.  Actually, it's several packets.  And actually, all I was really looking for was a map of Northwest Houston.  The Houston maps I have cut off those areas and I simply must have a paper map in my car to supplement the Garmin and my iPhone which are both notorious liars.

The Relocating to Houston book is very comprehensive and is about the size of a Sears catalog.  Okay, maybe just the Sears Christmas Wish Book. 

Then there's this whole other guide you can get if, like us, you're relocating to the Northwest Houston area.  It's basically the same information as the big book, just confined to one particular area.

And the third book covers the Katy area and came with lots of information about veterinarians and pet grooming. They were also the only ones who included a separate map so they win.

All three books are full of helpful information on school districts, shopping, night life, sporting events, concerts, and a bunch of other stuff I'm really not interested in.  I'm glad postage was on them.

See the portfolio thing at the top from Woodcreek Development Company that has a pocket that looks (and feels) like tooled leather?  They build stuff like fancy office buildings and "master planned communities", which is just another way to say "subdivision you can't afford to live in".  The portfolio itself is glossy, embossed, tasteful and definitely wins the prize for the most pretentious junk mail I've receive this week.  Their starter homes are 300K and are not located in California which makes them just a tad pricey in my book.  I would never buy a Woodcreek Development home since it's obvious that a good portion of their proceeds go toward this fancy embossed portfolio they send out for free to any yo-yo like myself who requests Houston relocation information.  Really...all I wanted was a Katy map.