Friday, January 10, 2014
Monday, November 18, 2013
Friday, November 15, 2013
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Deceptive
Practice and Poor Services
By
Annette
Bergman
I recently bought a
house that I wanted to remodel and I had a man who said he would do the work
and that we would need a dumpster. He
called the Dumpster Company from my house and then repeated everything the
person on the other end of the conversation said. “So it will be $175.00 for delivery and then
$100.00 when we have it picked up. That’s it?”
He nodded yes.
So I said, “See when it
can be delivered.”
“Friday between 1:00
and 5:00P.M.” the man repeated.
I nodded okay as I knew
this man had to work on Friday.
Having sold real estate
for thirty years I couldn’t help but think how long I would have lasted if I
had told a client, “I’ll meet you there between one and five for you to look at
the house.”
With cell phones and
tracking devices you would think a business could come a little closer than
between one and five. So I was there
just a little early and I waited until 2:30 before I heard the truck.
He asked where I wanted
the dumpster and he backed it up exactly where I said. Then I said, “I believe I need to write you a
check.”
“I don’t know I’ll have
to call the office.”
He climbed back in the
cab of the truck and in a little while he said. “Yea, they said I needed a
check for $475.00.”
“I was told it would be
$175.00 now and $100.00 when the dumpster was picked up.”
He got back in the cab
and called again. “She said that didn’t include the use of the dumpster. So its $475.00 totals?”
“I tell you what I’m a
little sick of the deceptive practices of businesses today so you just load
that dumpster back up and take it with you.”
He got back on the cell
phone and said, “She’s refusing the delivery.”
Then he apologized for
the misunderstanding and loaded the dumpster back on the truck and left.
That would have been
like me selling somebody a house and then at closing, “You do know that the
ground the house sits on is leased?”
I then called a company
that rents totes. I got an answering
machine three times on Friday and left messages for them to call me, but no
returned calls. So on Saturday I called
back and the machine said if it was an emergence to call another number. So I called the other number and got another
answering machine saying to leave a message and I did. “If you would return your calls during the
week you probably wouldn’t need an emergency number. Don’t bother calling me
back.”
I have found creative
ways to dispose of most of the materials, but I did have to call a nice young
man with a trailer to haul a load off for me and he was so helpful I had him
come by my house and clean out the back of my truck.
Then I had to take my
husband to have his eyes examined. He
had a change in his eye sight and need a stronger prescription. They were having a buy one pair of glasses
and get the second one free. I thought
it only made good sense to get his sun glasses too. The first pair was going to be $173.00 and
some change. He wants the same frames
and then she totals up the bill and says that will be $324.00.
“I thought you said it
was a buy one pair and get the second pair free.”
“It is, but we have to
figure”… and she lost me. How
complicated can buy one get one free get?
Is this a new way of
doing business? If it is, I can say with
one hundred percent honesty that I don’t like it. Have the times changed so much that you have
to be deceptive to get people in your store?
And while I’m at it I
might as well complain about the grocery stores and their sales. The sale should start when the newspaper
comes off the press. I went to a store
this summer that had corn on sale. I
asked about the corn that was on sale and the man said. “That sale doesn’t
start until tomorrow.” You know I wasn’t
happy and I didn’t go back there for corn.
It wouldn’t have hurt for him to say go ahead and get what you want and
we’ll honor the sale price. Therein is
the problem. There is no honor…or at
least it’s difficult to find with the deceptive practices and poor services.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
A
Rehab Moment
By
Annette Bergman
Working on this final rehab house has me thinking
about a time during my childhood when my Grandpa and my Dad was building a
house for our family on Tybee Island. My
Dad and Grandpa started the house in 1948.
I remember this only because my mother was pregnant at the time and by
the time my brother was born in May of 1949 the house was finished.
My Dad and Grandpa would kid one another about what
size putty they needed to make a fresh cut of wood fit. My Grandpa said he had quarter inch putty,
half inch putty and three quarter inch putty.
My carpenter on this final rehab job has used seven
cases, (make that eight cases) of caulk.
Each case has twelve tubes of caulk in it and I have to believe that
caulk has replaced putty to fill the gaps from the miss-measured boards.
This carpenter wouldn’t use three
quarter inch caulk; he wouldn’t use half inch caulk or even quarter inch caulk. His measurements are very accurate and he
works like his butt is on fire. He goes
constantly and the smallest crack has to be filled with caulk. He has caulked over fresh paint, put caulk in
every crack he has come across. I’m get nervous when he has caulk gun in his
hand.
Every time I turn around he is caulking a tiny crack
and I’m wondering if the house it nailed together or just caulked. He was
always saying a little caulk works miracles and it can make this place look
like a million dollars.
Today I asked him if he was sure the hot water
heater was bad. “I’m sure that it is,” was his reply.
So I bought a new hot water heater and he and the
electrician thought they could save me some money by installing it for me
instead of me calling a plumber. We have
been working on this house for two months without water and I was sure today
would be the day that the cool, cool water would flow.
I was ready to leave and my daughter called out, “Mom,
George wants to know if you could come and take a look at this water heater
before you leave.”
I went back in the house and down in the basement. The electrician and George had the old water
heater in their grip and holding it horizontal.
The bottom and side of the water heater was crumbling from rust and had
disintegrated about fourteen to eighteen inches up one side of the water
heater. I looked at George and said,
“Just put some caulk in it.”
Now there is a third way to fill holes and cracks
and that is with a product called Dap.
My friend, I’ll call him Sam, could use less Dap and make the whole
house look like a million dollars on a fraction of product. You can paint over it and it doesn’t
show. The caulk dries and it can’t be
sanded. I’ve never liked caulk and I dislike it even more now.
Since I’ve given up rehabbing homes I’ll be working
on my latest novel, “What I know about Sam.”
Not his real name, Sam stands for Super Attractive Man,
and he increased our homes value by eleven percent with his perfection work. You going to enjoy, "What I know about Sam."
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Marjorie Rawlings Home
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Marjorie
Rawlings Home
By
Annette
Bergman
For years we have driven highway
301 in Florida and each trip I saw the sign that said Cross Creek: Home of
Marjorie Rawlings. I wondered what it
looked like and with each trip I became more curious. This time I was
determined to stop and find out for myself.
There
were no cars in the parking lot when we arrived. We took the dirt path
through the orange grove leading toward the house. I saw two ladies dressed
in old fashion cloths and ask if the house was open. “No, it’s closed on Monday.”
I felt like a balloon that had just had just
been pricked with a pin.
“But,
you can walk around and look in the windows if you would like to.”
“Thank
you so much. I have wanted to come here for years.”
“Take
your time and stay as long as you’d
like.”
I
was so grateful to be able to walk the ground of this Cracker style home
where Marjorie Rawlings had written so many novels.
Painted
white with forest green shutters, the long windows was just perfect for
peeping. Several round braided rugs covered the time worn natural wood
floors.
The
furniture seemed to be the original furnishing in the home. The screened
porch had a sitting room at one end with a daybed covered with a chenille
bedspread. The other end of the porch
held a round oak pedestal table. A manual type writer was situated on top of
the table where the view was to the road in front of the house. The chairs
were ladder back and the caning had been replaced with deer hide. Some of the hide was bear of hair and other
spots still had the deer hair on them. This was the table and chairs that Marjorie
Rawlings used to write.
The
small bedroom had a crocheted bedspread on the bed. The closet still held her
clothes. This was Marjorie’s room, there again with a view of
the road. A treadle Singer Sewing machine was opened, a red pin cushion and a
Kerr jelly jar, with old buttons in it, were sitting next to the machine.
A
second bedroom had a small pieced quilt on the bed and was very neat and
sparsely furnished.
The
bath room had been added later, the claw foot tub was painted pink on the
underside and the floor was covered with rose colored linoleum with yellow
and turquoise flowers.
There
were porches on all sides of the house. Some screened and some not. The back
of the house had a big wooden bench complete with wash tubs, and the boiling
pot was upside down in the yard.
A
peek into the summer kitchen that was separated from the house by a breeze way,
held a wooden ironing board with a pop bottle sprinkler top on it. A wooden bucket and an ice cream churn were
sitting next to a wooden bench. A
homemade clothes pin bag hung on the wall. The kitchen had an old wood stove
and small table, along with cooking utensils of the twenties and thirties.
The
garden at the back of the summer kitchen was complete with a high fence to
keep out the wild animals.
I
could see how Mrs. Rawlings had found the peacefulness to write in such a
setting. I was just hoping that by
some strange miracle of nature I could experience some type of osmosis, from
walking where Marjorie Rawlings had walked and lived, would give me some
talent, or just a fractions of the talent, that this Pulitzer Prize winner
possessed.
I
wanted to stay longer and soak up more of the atmosphere that her beloved
home had to offer. It was wonderful to experience a step back in time to
tranquility. I somehow think that Marjorie watched the road, as I do,
wondering if it lead to magic places of if at any minute a new experience
will come from the other way.
I went there thinking The
Yearling, was her first and only novel. It was her third book. Her first was South Moon Under, 1933, in
1935 she wrote Golden Apples. The Yearling was in 1938. She cranked out six more books after that
and then three others were published after her death in 1953 at the age of
57. Three of her novels were made into movies. Yet, she chose to never leave
her home on the edge of Orange Lake where she had lived in her inspirations
to write.
Annette Bergman Author of: Things That Make Me Nuts and Return To Tybee Web site: www.annettebergman.com http://annettebergman.blogspot.com/2012/... |
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