please hold...

i have essentially wasted the past hour and a half of my life.

opey bought the house. we close may 10th. it's wonderful, it's chaotic; we're trying not to get too excited until it's all said and done in the event that something in the cosmos jinxes us and screws it all up.

however, we have international movers coming next friday, we've sold almost all of our worldly possessions (which is really pretty liberating), and we are getting down to the nitty gritty stuff:

calling all utilities providers and having service canceled/set to transfer for the date of closing. i called our electricity company and waited on hold for a half an hour only to be told that because the account was not in my name, i was not authorized to have it shut off. following this, i waited a while, called the gas company, phone company, and still have to hit the water and trash service here in town. but in the mean time i got smart. it's probably illegal and considered to be fraud in most places, but a lot flies here in mayberry. i called the electric company back and pretended to be the name on the account. whether they believed me or not, it worked. thank god!

it is so infuriating to just sit and listen to terrible music while on hold. i even got bored and googled "please hold." would you believe that there is a company that SELLS "professional on-hold messages, music on hold, voice over recordings, voice mail greetings...?" now, i checked out the site, and while if i were a business owner, i would not find it legit, many testimonials on their site suggest the contrary: http://pleasehold.com/ph2001/testimon.htm

anyway, an hour and a half later and some credits and debits for and against us, it looks like this house will soon be an empty shell of where two crazy hermit crabs once dwelled. apparently, i do not know the past participle of "to dwell." i leave you now as i go in search of grammatical correctness (i'm not sure why spell-check is underlining "dwelled" and must know!) and then head off to see my grams. tchao!