Saturday, February 24, 2007

Cleaning Check Update

We had our re-check yesterday. She walked through and was in an out in two minutes. Also, we found our elusive cookie sheet. It was under the stove. So maybe something good did come of this.

As a random thought, anyone that hasn't ever seen Mystery Science Theatre should check it out. It is weird, random, and hilarious.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Spite and Malice

My apartment had cleaning checks today. We were supposed to have them yesterday, but since most of us were not getting back from the long weekend until Monday night I called to reschedule on Friday. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi! I'm calling from apartment 21 to reschedule our cleaning checks. It's just at a really bad time and I was wondering if we could change them.

Cleaning check person: I don't understand. You only have cleaning checks once a month so I don't understand why it should be a problem.

Me: Oh it's not that, it's just that most of are going out of town and we won't be back until late Monday night, and then we all have morning classes on Tuesday.

CCP: (sound of annoyance) Well, I can charge you the five dollar recheck fee and come on Wednesday.

Me: (And I'm thinking, who does she think she is?) Um, no. I don't see why we should have to pay a fee. It says right here on the sheet that if there is a problem with the time we just have to call and reschedule at least 24 hours in advance, and this is well over 24 hours. So I don't know what the problem is.

CCP: (Very annoyed voice) Well, I am going to have to call you back in about an hour. Is that alright?

Me: Yes that's fine.

Fifteen minutes later she calls back and very pleasantly says that she can come and check our apartments on Wednesday. Great.

So I make sure that my assignments are done before she's supposed to show up on Wednesday. My room is clean, the bathroom is clean and the floor is vacuumed. She shows up and goes through and . . . fails us all!

Please examine the facts. Our apartment is cleaner that it has been for the last two cleaning checks. Checks that we passed without a problem. Here are the reasons we failed.

Carly failed because the drawers in the refrigerator need to be wiped down. Um, right. At least the fridge isn't full of nasty food like it was for our last check.

Charlotte didn't actually fail, but that was because she actually grabbed the wrong cleaning assignment sheet. (There are four cleaning assignments, and only three people living here. Char accidentally grabbed the other bathroom assignment.) So Char passed, even though her bathroom didn't actually get cleaned this time around. The toilet wasn't cleaned because we don't have a toilet brush. I cleaned my toilet. I cleaned it with a paper towel, actually reaching my hand into the toilet to scrub off the grime. (Here's a question. Why is it impossible to get cold water out of the tap, but the water in the toilet is freezing?)

The extra cleaning assignment (the one that was really Charlotte's) failed because the oven drawer didn't get pulled out so the floor underneath could be cleaned. Never mind that the oven itself hasn't been cleaned since before we've lived here, the area under the oven wasn't clean.

And I failed because the bathtub wasn't clean. There's something you have to understand about these tubs. They are impossible to get clean. There is a layer of grime that is permanently embedded into the surface of the tub. I've spent hours trying to clean the tub before and it ends up looking about the same as when I only spend a few minutes on it. It isn't any dirtier than it's been since we moved in. Granted it looks dirty, but the same person does our cleaning checks every month, so you'd think they would remember that it hasn't ever looked any better.

Let's take a trip back to December of last year. A few weeks before finals we had our last cleaning check of the year. Now, we all somehow managed to forget what day they were supposed to be on, so when the person showed up our apartment was a disaster. I had clothing scattered all across the floor in my room, and my bed was a disaster. The bathroom hadn't even been wiped down, let alone scrubbed.

We passed. There was one comment about the cleaning checks in January being harder, but that was it. We passed and no one had really done anything.

I think it's all just spite. We inconvenienced someone. Heaven forbid they walk over to the apartment on a different day. Never mind that the Riv hasn't held up their end of the deal either. We were promised a hot tub. We went without one the entire time. They are just finally starting to put one in. They charge us $10 a month for a phone we don't use and Internet that is supposed to be high speed but moves at a snails pace and knocks us offline.

But whatever. It's mostly just annoying. If I had known we were going to fail anyway, I would have slept in today.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

An explanation of the title

In greek mythology, Eris is the goddess of discord. One day while watching Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas with some friends I made the comment that "Eris is so cool. I wish I was the goddess of discord!" And it kind of stuck. So every time I make a comment that is more unusual or disturbing than normal I get the response "yeah, well you're the goddess of discord, so no surprises there."

Also, as to the blog address, Kallisti is greek for "to the fairest one." It was the apple that Eris offered at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis (the eventual parents of Achilles) to the most beautiful one present. This led up to an argument between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite over which of them was the most beautiful. Now, the other gods were smart enough to keep out of it but the goddesses managed to get Paris (the idiot) to answer by each bribing him with something. Hera offered him political power, Athena promised skill in battle, and Aphrodite promised him the most beautiful woman in the world. Unfortunately, the most beautiful woman in the world was Helen, who just so happened to be already married to Menelaus of Sparta.

Too bad bad Paris didn't make the connection that Menelaus' brother was Agememnon (slayer of men is the nickname this dude gets). Also he failed to make the connection that getting the most beautiful woman in the world doesn't do you a lot of good if you don't have the political power or the skill in battle to keep her. I mean, honestly either of those choices would have been better. But really, the gods had the right idea to just keep out of the whole thing. Because, yeah, you might end up on the good side of one goddess, but you just made two really powerful enemies.

So Troy was destroyed. And it all started with Kallisti, thrown in by the Goddess of Discord.

Oh yeah, and I hope you are happy Jen. Hopefully I will come up with enough to write about to have this blog be worth it.