Here I am in Ellensburg, Washington. It’s about 90 degrees out. I’m uncomfortable. We got an apartment, sort of. We filled out about 300 horribly intrusive forms (why do they need to know the address of my school? why do they need to know what bank and branch I belong to?) they informed us that we need cosigners. Apparently Annie and I don’t have credit records (is that worse than bad credit? “but you can trust me, you see, I’ve been preapproved for several major credit cards!”). So Annie’s mom is going to cosign for us. That’s cool. So she agrees to let up put down the holding fee ($250) plus the credit check fee ($60) while waiting for her mom’s credit to check. Then she says we can get the keys if we go get the power switched to our names. We do so (and get phone service too) and then give her the receipt, at which time she informs us that we can now pay the rent to get the keys. Excuse me? That wasn’t part of the deal. We just spent money for rent on power and phone, thinking we could wait until my next paycheck to pay the rent, since we put down a holding fee. Nope. So we have no credit and no apartment until next week when we come back.
I could keep ranting about our experience with this woman, but I’m going to stop, because to be honest, I’m boring myself. I already told this story to everyone who would listen here.
I’m unemployed. There are hardly any jobs in town, let alone tek-related jobs. My hopes for web design went right out the window, as did my hope for a computer-related job. I am dropping in an application for a computer technician on campus. They want three years of experience. I have one, and can maybe argue equivalent experience in other jobs to equal three, but I’m not holding my breath. The most promising job prospect at the moment is a checker at Albertsons.
Tomorrow we return to Portland for a week of stress, packing and change of address forms.
