This is Our Normal

We have a running joke in our family that if we had a dollar for every time we heard " That is the first time that has ever happened" or "That has never happened before" we would be Billionaires! We are very blessed that the major things in our lives work out fine, not always smoothly, but fine, not so much for the everyday or minor events. Cue our vacation a few weeks ago.

We own a condo in Florida that we rent out most of the year, and get to visit a few times a year. This June we went to the condo with our son and his girlfriend. Should have been a simple week at the beach, but NOOOOOOO!

Most of the week was pretty easy going. Mornings spent on the lazy river floating for an hour or two, until the kids show up. Afternoon naps on the beach in a beach chair under an umbrella, or reading a book. Late afternoon at the pool swimming in water so warm it felt like bath water. This is what vacation at a beach resort should be. And then there were the bizarre incidents that happen to us. These things happen so often that we expect them, and are by the grace of God, and our gene pool, we are able to laugh about it later. Sometimes much, much later.

The Lazy River is by far my favorite thing to do in the mornings

Incident one! We went out to eat for dinner at a local chain restaurant. We were sitting at the bar (the only seats available) and had just received our food. My phone rings and I do not recognize the number, but have to answer because I rent the condo and have a house for sale, so it could be about either of those topics.

Did someone named Cindy call about a fire?

This is how the conversation went:
Me: Hello,
Voice: "This is "Tom" from "Name of our apartment complex", Why didn't you tell us you had a fire in your apartment?"
Me: "WHAT?"
Voice: "You are suppose to inform us when there is a fire."
Me: "What are you talking about, is our apartment on fire? We are on vacation in Florida, is our apartment on fire?"
Voice: "How long have you been in Florida? Is your daughter or someone named Cindy staying in your apartment?"
Me: "Tom,  we have been gone for four days, no one is staying in our apartment, and we do not know anyone named Cindy. Is our apartment on fire?"
Voice: "Do we have your permission to go into your apartment and make sure it is OK?"
Me: "Yes and call me as soon as you get out."
Voice: "OK."

We have cameras hooked up in the apartment, so we were able to see them go in, and also see that there was not a fire currently.

A watched phone never rings!

Waiting, Waiting, watch them go in and come out of the apartment, Waiting, Waiting, Waiting,.........

I call my daughter who was at the hospital with her premature baby, and she was on her way home driving past the apartment complex. She saw a fire and water damage remediation truck sitting out on the street in front of the complex and though that may have something to do with the call.
Still waiting for the call back from "Tom". After 15 minutes I call "Tom" back and get no answer.
I call the complex office and leave a "not so nice" message mentioning that I still don't know if my apartment is on fire and asking them to please call me back.

10 minutes later I finally get a call back from "Tom".
Me: "Hello?"
Voice: "This is "Tom"
Me: "What is going on? Was there a fire? You know "Tom" you cannot call someone and tell them there was a fire in their home, and then have them wait forever for you to call them back!"
Voice: "I am sorry, wait for it........This has never happened before. Someone named Cindy called a restoration company to clean up water damage from the sprinklers after an apartment fire. They gave our complex name and your apartment number. As it turns out there is an apartment complex with the same name in Irving, TX and they were suppose to go there. I am sorry for the scare, but it took us a while to figure it out."
Me: "Could you just make sure that you locked our door, and nothing personal, but I hope to not hear from you again while I am on vacation."
Voice: "I understand."

Two days later we go out to dinner, use our credit card to pay and go back to the condo. We were going to go play miniature golf, but first we were going to see if we could find a new patio set for the condo. The chairs are a few years old and starting to leave rust marks on the patio because the plastic stoppers have come off the feet. Thank you sea air!

The new patio set looks great and is very comfy. 

We go to Lowes, find a set we like, and when I go to pay, my card is declined. This happens to us a lot in Florida when we go to buy major purchases for the condo. The credit card company thinks you are on vacation and that someone is using your card to buy major household items. I use another card and on our way to miniature golf I call the credit card company. While I am talking to the man from customer service he says that I need to talk to the fraud department. The lady in the fraud department says that they are canceling our card. What????? She said that one of the stores where we had used our card had a security breach, and they need to replace the card. I said OK, but we are in the middle of our vacation and need to use the card. She said they had to cancel it and that was that. What???????? What if I didn`t have another card I could use, you can`t just cancel someone's card while they are on vacation. I asked who the company was that was causing this problem and she could not, or would not tell me. I gave up because the conversation was going nowhere.

As it turned out the card was not canceled until we activated the new card they sent us, but the lady from the fraud department must not have gotten that far in her training to be able to pass that information to us.

We have had more than a few vacations where the hotel has been on fire, or the fire alarms have gone off. I know most people have never had that happen. But this was the the first time that we had a call about a fire at home while we were on vacation. But there was the time we were at an outdoor concert and it happened. That is a whole other blog!