Rasputin

I realized when I sat down to the computer tonight that I accidentally posted the draft I was working on about my car getting found. I had a really hard time writing about it, there's just so many details and so much emotion that it was a post in progress and I guess I hit send at one point and it ended up "out there" before I was done. Sorry if you left a comment. I did see the comments in my mailbox so thank you.

And now I can't find the post in my drafts so I don't know where it is. A lot of odd things like this are happening lately. I don't know what's up with my life these days. Honestly I'm starting to wonder. Anyway for a recap if you didn't get my post in your reader, --my car was found by the police and it ended up it was just next to the window installer's stock warehouse in a store parking lot, 150 meters away. People in the store watched in the parking lot as the guys set fire to the car in broad daylight and then ran off. They all gave some kind of vague description but the interesting point was that they all said that guys were wearing blue uniforms and that's pretty much what these window guys wear so it was odd. Another person said they saw them come from the warehouse parking lot pulling my car. They were seen by lots of people tugging my (no doubt) out of gas car along, chug, chug, chug.

The window guys have been giving us problems since forever and I haven't blogged about it because it wasn't something we wanted to dwell on. To be as brief as possible they cashed a check held in escrow, a biggie! and then they never, ever, ever ordered our windows. Three months later we still kept getting the phone tag runaround and we couldn't start any other work until the windows were in so out of desperation Seb cornered the commercial rep at the sales office one afternoon and the guy said "look I'm quitting tomorrow-- these guys are nuts and you'll never get your windows or your deposit money unless you sue them. They haven't paid me in weeks!" then he gave him the address of the warehouse where he said his boss was living because of personal problems, go figure. Sure enough Seb found the guy half asleep in his underwear in the warehouse and asked when we could get our windows. The guy blamed all the delays on the corporate headquarters so Seb, ever the detective called the hq in Alsace and found out that they had no idea who we were and our windows were never ordered. The hq ordered our windows but we still had to deal with our local sales branch.

So anyway when the window installers came they had HUGE attitudes and I've been dealing with them for weeks now. They also installed the wrong window upstairs, completely nuts and a whole other problem that I blogged a little about on my Flickr page. And so two weeks ago when I innocently asked Rasputin* the head installer about a few problems with the shutters he suddenly just blew up at me and I was completely shocked. It was like he had all this pent up rage and he was there just inches from my face screaming. He was saying things like "people like you with your old houses think you can have new windows that work correctly? Oh come on lady!" and I couldn't get a word in because he was just an explosion of anger. And I said to myself "oh wow he's probably the boss's brother or something."

I was pretty sure from the start that it was them for a few obvious reasons. My spare keys, or OUR spare keys were by the door he was working on that day he blew up at me. Seb is missing his spare keys too now. They knew my school pickup hours all too well because I'd always say it before I'd run out because I'm polite like that and I was worried they might need something while I ran out,--I'm such a naieve country hick. I see that now. And they knew I'd go in the basement for snack time and they knew the angle of the windows and what you could and couldn't see, because from the outside it looks like the people inside can see well but Rasputin installed those windows so he knew what parts of the driveway you can't see.

And he kicked my cat one day. I saw him do it. People who kick cats are generally criminal minded. So there.

The police aren't all that interested in our story and they said if there's another incident they'll look into it, *yawn*. Meanwhile my car is torched and impounded and they stole my kids Christmas gifts and set fire to my son's car seat. They likely have the keys to our house too because they installed our doors. They also very likely have Seb's car keys too, and get this they have to come back and work in our house at least three more times. I'm a little freaked out.

I can't figure out why we keep having such bad luck lately. It's like we have a black cloud following us.

*(he looks exactly like Rasputin, same beard and everything, and he has a sort of Polish-Russian name)