Is My Face Red

Yesterday …… realizing I’d not received this month’s Activity Calendar, I headed for the office to pick one up, detouring by the big bin to toss trash.

Seems the car that parks near the dumpster – the one that had its windows smashed all to heck, was not out for repairs after all. Instead, the owner has replaced it/parking a little white car instead.

Not bringing the original vehicle back, now parking a different one, only deepens the mystery of why that particular car was targeted in the first place.

Kinda reminds me of when my girls were around 10-years old and we were living in an apartment in Compton. The next-door neighbor had a dispute with the landlord, decided not to pay rent.

The landlord did not serve her with eviction papers, did not take her to court. Instead, he had his "boys" sneak into the parking area one night, smash ALL the windows to her car out.

She couldn't prove landlord had anything to do with the vandalism, but we all knew their dispute was related and feeling unsafe, next-door neighbor promptly moved out.

Next time I run into the Talker, I’ll have to remember to ask what she knows about this current situation of windows smashed/different car.

So, anyway, there were two things I’d not realized before I stepped out of my unit, headed towards the office yesterday.

The first thing was that the time was 4:30 in the afternoon. The office closed at 4:00. The building was locked up tight.

The second thing I did not realize was that outside was 105◦, with a heat warning in effect.

So there I was, having trekked across the desert to a locked building.

Not wanting my suffering to have been in vain, I retreated, walked back through the gate, hung a right and a right again, headed for the mailroom to check mail.

Nothing but useless ads inside to be tossed; but something told me to stoop down look towards the back of the box.

Inside is a deep black hole built into the wall. I saw nothing.

Then something told me to stick my arm all the way to the back and feel around.

I did and touched something hard. Something that that felt like what a key to one of the parcel lockers would feel like.

After my rant about the mail carriers depositing parcel locker keys in the wrong mailbox, and residents lucking up on packages that don’t belong to them, you have a good idea where this discovery is heading.

My intention here was to post photos. Photos to show you how deep the mailbox is/how far back I had to reach into the cavern by posting a pic of how deep my arm had to reach in, and a photo of the box and its contents (the two sheets of scrapbook paper) that came out of the parcel locker; but Blogger be trippin. Won't let me post photos. And, for a split second this morning, Blogger would not let me reply to comments …… a message popped up that I needed to log into Google. So don't be surprised if my ability to reply to comments doesn't happen again, and for longer than a split second.

All in all, let me just say …… IS MY FACE RED.

The parcel locker key was there all along, pushed all the way to the back AND, it was the only key at the back of that deep dark cavern. Indicating all the other packages I’d miss had truly been misdirected and kept …… Fortunately for me, just not this shipment.

At any rate, I’m back to completing that layout.

Heading back to my unit, I ran into my next-door White-Haired Neighbor, returning from her son’s house, looking as drained from the excessive temp as I was.

She asked if I’d gotten a notice posted to my door about an Inspection this Friday.

I had …… on Tuesday, the day after I’d shampooed the carpets, which meant two or three people (the Maintenance Guys and Manager or Assistant Manager) would be dirtying up my freshly Monday-shampooed carpets on Friday.

Neighbor said she was worried about the inspection because, where she moved from, after 35 years, the manager hated her, retaliated against her because she’d reported him for animal cruelty. He would pull frequent inspections, go through her closets, open her cupboards, told her he can come in when he wants, go through whatever he wanted.

I told her not to worry. That management inspections here are a precursor to when the State and Federal inspectors come in. They just want to make sure the units are clean and everything is in working order, so they won’t get dinged by the agency inspectors.

She said she was on the County and that the County inspected where she lived before only every two years.

That surprised me … that she is on the County and, consequently, must have been placed here through the program and on the program the entire 35 years she lived at the other place.

How does someone get 35+ years of County assistance?

No judgment. I just really want to know as she seems so able-bodied, well put together, and mentally all there.

The conversation ended with my telling her that though management pre-inspects every unit, that the Federal and State inspections are random. Her unit might get inspected, might not, depends on what the agency inspectors want to do.

She said, "But I just moved in".

"Doesn’t matter", said I and told her that I had an agency inspection right after I moved in back in 2012 and did not get another agency inspection until last year. It’s all luck of the draw, and not to worry about Friday because management just wants to make sure the place is relatively clean, no hoarding, and everything works which, in the past has worked in our favor in getting management to make repairs we'd previously requested but they had been dicking around with, because they didn't want us to point the problem out to the agency inspector.

I don't know why she seemed so worried about Friday's inspection, but it makes me curious to one day get a look inside her unit.

I opened the door and showed her mine, which isn't all that fabulous. Maybe one day, she'll show me hers.