Aggravating Day

So, today we had Leo and Jeffrey and Carter (a new guinea pig) brought back.  Want to know why?  When the guy adopted, he lived in a pet friendly apartment.  Well, then he had to move because "things got bad" and moved into an apartment that was not pet friendly, but he said, oh the one lady had a cat for like 10 years and they didn't care.  Well, long story short, they cared about the guinea pigs and he had to have them gone like yesterday.

Uh-huh.  He adopted Leo and Jeffrey from here, and got the other pic from Petco (?), so he filled out the adoption form, read the care packet, all that stuff.  He'd built them a C&C cage, and originally was using fleece at the bottom.  Well, that didn't end up working out for him, so he switched to... get this... cedar.  Cause, you know, the care packet doesn't have a few sentences on why NOT to use cedar.  No, course not. 

Also... nails were super long on the guinea pigs, and the one nail was so long it was curling.  So I asked, they did know that they have to cut them, right?  They said yes, and they said, I actually showed them how to cut them when they adopted (kudos to me).  They said they tried, and it just wasn't that easy and they couldn't do it.  So they asked their vet if the vet could do it, and the vet said, before being able to cut nails, they'd each have to have an exam, so $50 for the exam, plus whatever it cost to cut nails.  So needless to say, the pigs had never had their nails cut... since the beginning of May when I did it.

Grrrrr.....

Moving along, we had a chin dropped off for chin-sitting, so Tytus is back with us for the week....

Moving along, I had a 5 pm appointment.  They texted earlier today asking if a check would be alright for payment.  I told them, sorry, but no, I don't take checks except from people I see all the time (some people I see like monthly), because people tend to buy like $500 worth of stuff and then bounce the check.  I told her, nothing against them, but that's just how it is.  Happy to take cash or credit card.  She said she understood, and at that point, it was 4:30 and she said she was running late because she was stuck in traffic.  I told her, I would be here when she got here.  They're in Valpo, so assuming she'd already left at 4:30... shouldn't have put her here much later than 5 pm (probably later, but not excessively).  Like even if they'd JUST left, maybe 5:15 the latest coming here.  5:30 with traffic.  Well... time passes, it's 6:15, and that's almost 2 hours from when she said she'd be late, so I texted her asking if they were still coming.  No answer.  So 7 pm rolled around, and I texted them one last time to tell them that I was assuming they weren't coming and that I appreciated how considerate they were about all of this, considering I'd been sitting around waiting for them for the last two hours.  I told them, as my time is apparently not valuable to them, since they couldn't take the time to let me know they weren't coming, for them to not contact me again, as I don't have any more time to waste on this. 

You know, I hate to be an ass.  But... I waited around for hours for these people, who couldn't even have the good sense to text me and say, you know, hey, we decided not to come.  I was talking to one of my friends, and I told them, even if they had texted like a half hour after saying they were going to be late, and said, hey, you know, we can't come today  Would have been completely different.  But no, no response to my text, and no text about not coming... I don't care to deal with people like that. Sorry, but they wasted my time, I don't care to spend any more time on them. 

I'm getting ready for a garage sale right now (will be this weekend).  Some stuff in the garage needs to go down to the basement.  If I moved that stuff, I could actually have gotten ready more stuff upstairs, because I would have cleared off a table.  But no... see, I didn't want to start taking stuff downstairs, cause then, when the people came, I'd have the garage open and not be up there.... so I thought, I'll wait, and when they leave, do it.  Well... as you know, they never came.

Turns out... they said they'd been driving around Hammond for two hours, got lost, went to the wrong house.  Asked for Ashley (that's me), and there was an Ashley there, so they went in that house looking for me.  Must be interesting people that live there, that just let random people in looking for someone... so we shall see.  I told them, when we schedule another appointment, that time, I won't be waiting more than 15 minutes if they're late.  Cause I don't have time to mess around with this...

Oh, and moving along to an email from a few days ago.  Someone wanted me to take in their chins.  So the email talks about the chins and then there's one line that goes... "Your website says that you are at capacity, but do you think it would be possible to take her on at the moment, or in the near future?"  Um... no.  That's what it means when the rescue is at capacity...

And... emailed someone a care packet and adoption form, and specified they need to send a pic of the cage when they email back.  So they say, "Already have a cage but it's not put together. I can put it together for a picture if you really need it. I currently have another chinchilla now that's in my second cage. The cage I'll put her in is a 3 level cage."  Told them, "Seeing / approving the cage is part of the adoption process, so you will need to put together the cage and get us a pic for us to approve you to adopt.  You'd need to put it together sooner or later to put the new chinchilla in, so think of it as getting a headstart."  I wouldn't ask for a pic of the cage if I didn't need it... hello....

Moving along... a friend of a friend wanted to buy a critter nation that I have for sale.  With the shelves and other stuff they wanted, the cage ended up at $154.50, and they paid the first $50 back in mid April.  Said they'd pay more the following week.  Well... didn't hear from them for about a month and a half, and I emailed her... didn't hear back until I talked to her friend (who is my friend) and then, I got an email back from the person, saying they were sorry, had their hours cut at the job, yadda yadda.  So she said in the email, she would send some money next week.  That was May 28th.  Let's fast forward to June 19th, when I still had not received any payment and had not heard back from this person, so I again contacted my friend, who talked to her friend, and between several times of that and several emails from me, I finally got an email back saying, they were sorry, they feel bad, and so on.  They said, in that email, if I could bear with them, they could send some money right then, and would pay more the following week on the weekend.  That was the 20th.  On June 23rd, I emailed back saying that we needed to do some sort of a payment plan, and I didn't care if it was $10 per week, but we needed to set up something so sooner or later, it would be paid off.  Even at $10/week, this would have been paid off in 2.5 months, even quicker if she paid more than that per week.  Well... it's now June 5th, and I had not heard from her, nor received the payment that I was supposed to get "now" (June 20th) or a week later (the following weekend)... so I sent her an email:

I know you have stuff going on in your life, but I do as well, and I feel like if you can't find the time to respond to my email (for 12 days) and figure out a payment plan... I can't find time to constantly hound you for the money.  And again, no other place would deal with this. 

Even if you put an item on layaway, once you defaulted on payments, they would cancel your layaway and keep the item (and your money).  And they sure wouldn't contact you, to say, "hey, waiting for a payment...let's find a way to work this out," they would just cancel the layaway and take the item and keep whatever you'd paid, once you defaulted. 

This has been going on since beginning of April.  It's now the beginning of July.  3-4ish months.  I'm not waiting any longer, I'm not emailing you again. I understand you have stuff going on at home that is making it hard for you to pay, I really do, but I don't feel some small amount (say $10/week) is not-do-able, and I don't have time to keep hanging onto this cage forever or bugging you about it.  If you were at least emailing me back, or even doing what you said you could manage (the last email said, you would pay some right then and some next week... unfortunately never happened), we might be having a different conversation.  I'm patient, but to an extent, and I appreciate getting emailed responses, and payments.  Without them... I can't do this forever.

If you somehow come upon the money sooner or later, by all means, let me know, and you can buy it (when you have all the money).

It's much too late for me to actually refund your money per paypal's 60 day refund allowance, so I will send you $50 from the rescue account for what you have already paid into the cage. 
I don't even really care if that's kind of snarky.  I feel like, if she can't email me back, or pay when she's going to, I feel like I don't need to be nice anymore.