Bear. Tenant. Sears.

Here are three things impacting my life at the moment: I almost get arrested at Sears yesterday afternoon over an air conditioning unit. Tenant is blowing me off. Bear wants to "show me pictures from her vacation" at her place tonight.

Sears:

Monday night my super-hot blond tenant called me and said her AC unit died. I told her I would replace it ASAP. Turns out that was a little harder than I thought since it's almost fall and stores aren't stocking air conditioning units anymore. I called around to almost every store within 35 miles and all I could find were huge units, ones far too big for a little bedroom.

Finally, yesterday afternoon I found a Sears in Maryland that claimed to have three units in stock that were the correct size and only $150. I told the rep on the phone "OK, great, I'll take one, let me pay over the phone and set it aside for me". The reps response was "I can't do that", which is total bullshit. That just means he doesn't want to do that, he's a lazy fuck and wants to get back to sitting on his ass or walking around the store pretending to be busy. I said "Well, then can you set one aside from me and I'll come there right now and get it". He said "We got three of them, they aren't goin' anywhere, I don't need to set it aside for you, just come down." I had a bad feeling about this but immediately got in the car and drove the thirty minutes to the store.

When I arrived there was one person working the whole floor of Sears. One person covering like 50,000 square feet! I waited ten minutes for him to finish up with two other customers then said "Hi, I called earlier about the AC units", and he brought me over to an area that had five boxes sitting on the floor next to a display. He said "This is all we got left". All the units were huge and cost $400-600. I said "But when I talked to you on the phone you said you had three of the 5200btu units left, these are all 12,000btu's, they are way too big for a bedroom. What happened to the others? I drove thirty minutes to get one and now they are all gone?" I was beginning to unravel. He said "Well, the computer said we had three in, but it was wrong." Fair enough, I can see how that can happen. Would it have fucking killed him to look and see what they had? No, but I said "OK, you have the display, I guess I'll have to take that one then." The prick immediately got defensive and said "Nope, we can't sell the displays."

And-I-snapped. I said "Let's go through the again. You told me you had three, which you didn't. Then had me drive all the way out to Maryland for nothing. Now that I'm here, and you actually do have one in stock, you won't sell it to me?" He said "That's right, because it's a display." I said "So Sears is in the displaying business, not the selling business? Go get a manager, anyone with authority to sell this." The dude left and I heard him say over the loudspeaker "We have a code two in appliances." Great, now I am a code two. I was expecting tear gas canisters to come blasting through the windows at any second. A minute later a young woman walked into the area and asked the dude where the code two was, and he pointed at me. She walked over and said "Is there a problem, sir?" I said "No, I don't think so. I'm here to purchase this air conditioner." She said "I'm sorry, but we're all sold out".

Lest you think I'm dense, I understand that stores don't usually sell the displays for a variety of reasons. However, given the circumstances you would think that someone would try to locate me one at another store, or cut me a deal on a larger unit, or try to fix the situation in some way. You know, use a little salesmanship. I'm a ready willing and able buyer, and Sears is presumably in business to sell merchandise and turn a profit, so let's make a fucking deal here.

Home renovations, abortions, traffic jams, ambulance sirens, cabbies that can't speak English, every aggravating thing that I've been suppressing in my life for the past month now boiled to the surface in one ugly black moment. I snapped. I pulled out my wallet, handed the girl my credit card and started unplugging the AC unit from the display. I said "Here's my credit card. I'm taking this unit. I'm willing to pay you full price for it, and you can either charge me or not. I don't care either way, but for the record I'm not stealing it." I wrapped the cord around the front of the unit, gathered the remote control that was on top and was about to lift it up when she said "I can see you need to speak to a supervisor" and jogged away.

Literally five seconds later another woman came out of the back room. She asked the original salesman what the problem was and he explained how ridiculous it was that I might actually want to purchase something from the store. He was actually mad at me. I don't know what the supervisor thought, but she looked at the salesman, and the girl and I and said "So sell it to him!"

Done. Sold. NN is a happy customer. I'm I the crazy one here?

Tenant:
Tenant is blowing me off and I'm not happy about it. I talked to her Monday and she said she had a hectic week and couldn't get together. I was the bigger person last week and reached out to her. I feel like I clearly expressed I was interested, then reaffirmed it this week. I'm not called or texting her again. If she wants to get together she knows how to reach me.

Bear:
What's with this girl? She sent me a text and wants to get together tonight so I can see pictures from her vacation.

I need some new prospects.