Tebowmania

This has been a stressful couple weeks.
As you know, the residents at the property I managed receive assistance from HUD for their housing. This means that we have to follow all sorts of special rules and use special forms and follow special procedure to keep HUD happy. HUD checks up on these things occasionally to make sure that we are living up to their expectations. I don't know how frequently they usually do it, but this property has been around for six years and had never had an inspection...until now.
I found out about the inspection about a week and a half before it happened. I spend the next week freaking out because I didn't know what to expect, and I had never really been trained in the proper handling of any of the paperwork. I figured I was going to get fired for screwing some random thing up.
My boss came down the Monday before the inspection (which was scheduled for a Thursday). She brought with her the property manager, David, who has the same job I do in Indianapolis. She had never been through one of these audits at this type of property, but he had. When they showed up, she seemed all tense and worried, but he was pretty relaxed. He knew the lady who was doing the audit and assured us that she would be easy. This would be her first audit, and everything would be fine. She would just come and look around the property and check some files to make sure we were calculating rent properly. My boss was of the opinion that any first time auditor would be hard because they would go by the book on everything. In either case, they both agreed it should only take a couple of hours.
On a side note, this property manager from Indy is very gay. When he and my boss came down, they decided to go introduce themselves to the new Lieutenants at Corps next door. I happened to see one of the Lieutenants while my boss and David were at lunch. He says to me, "What do you think of that David guy?" I told him that this was the first time I had met him. He replied, "He's a little different, don't you think?"
That Monday, the same day my boss and David came down, Mary moved out of her apartment. Part of the audit involves the HUD inspector looking at all vacant units. I am supposed to turn all vacated units in three days. Anna and her mother generously offered to help me paint this one. I don't know how I would have done it without their help, but together, we were able to get the apartment painted by Wednesday night.
My boss showed up at 8 a.m. the Thursday of the audit, to make sure we had everything together before the scheduled audit time of 9 a.m. Linda, the auditor, showed up on time at 9. She looked like a troll.
Linda had the gait of a penguin, a bald spot, buck teeth, and an air of genuine idiocy about her.
The first thing we did was sit down and go through 24 (I'm serious) pages of questions about operating procedure at the property. As soon as we realized she was asking us about things even my boss had never heard of, we knew we were in trouble.
As it turns out, some new government regulations took effect on the first of August. The government didn't seem to find it necessary to inform anyone.
The day started dragging on. My boss and I would exchange looks of exasperation. My back was killing me from sitting still so long.
At one point, Linda decided she needed to go to CVS for a calculator (I think she planned on checking all the rent calculations right there with us). When she came back, she had her calculator and a disposable camera. She promptly broke the camera by prying the shutter release button off. She couldn't understand why it didn't work. My boss patiently tried to explain to her that the 'flap' should have stayed where it was because it was how you took the picture. Linda didn't believe her. She spent about half an hour trying to make the camera work without the shutter release. I spent about half an hour trying to keep a straight face.
The day was dragging like this blog entry. After five hours, she started telling us she would be done soon. After six hours, she assured us that she was almost done.
After seven and a half hours, Linda finally waddled out to her car and left, but I really think she only did so because my boss made it very clear that she had to leave to pick up her kids from the babysitter.
My boss left at the same time, with a vow to murder David.
I went back to our apartment glad that I hadn't been fired yet.

In other news, today was the Donkey's first pre-season game. This means that it was Tim Tebow's NFL debut. He threw for just over a hundred yards and ran for a touchdown. This means that the media is all excited, and I'm sure that many uneducated Donkey fans are excited as well. I, however, can tell you that Tebow was playing as the third string quarterback against third string defenders. I will not get excited until he wins us a Super Bowl.
The Rockies don't want Jimenez to reach 20 wins. They don't even want him to reach 18 wins. They want to make sure he gets at least a no decision or a loss in the rest of his games. They want him to lose his one run gems. They refuse to hold a lead for him in the ninth inning. Basically, I think they hate the guy.
I stink right now. It has been so hot and humid, and today, I spent a little too long in a car devoid of air conditioning.
There is much more I have to write about, but this post is already too long. Maybe I will get the motivation to tell you more about everything that is important in life soon, my faithful readers.
People who live here: John
John moved in to 103 last week, after Mary moved out. He is Katie's ex-husband. Because of this, he and Katie have the same last name. Except, they don't. Her's has a 'u' in it, where his has a 'w'. I noticed this on his application but figured I just couldn't read the writing, but I was really shocked when I saw his SS card. I asked their daughter about this when she was helping him with his paperwork. She said the kids didn't realize it until they got older and started having to get things like driver's licenses. Apparently, amongst the children the last name was spelled two different ways as well. After learning this, I think I can guess what happened. Remember that Katie is completely illiterate (and I think John might be as well). I am willing to bet that when they got married, someone had to fill out the marriage certificate and the name change application for them, and they replaced the 'w' with the 'u'. I am also willing to bet that when the various children were born they just showed someone a driver's license to give them the spelling of the last name, and thus the kid's last name was determined by which parent's license was produced.