Baby Mama Dish Drama

Last Monday night we had a bit of drama here at the ol' apartment complex. I really can't say 100% what happened, in fact I'm pretty certain that my version of the fact are not facts at all because they don't make sense. What I DO know is everyone was in our hallway screaming and it had nothing to do with anyone that even LIVES on our floor and eventually, the police had to be called. So, here's the story as told by me.

Monday night I sat down in the living room to watch a movie. Earlier in the night I had been on Expedia for quite a while looking up info for my sister and bro-in-law's LOOOOOONG overdue vacation. Just as I started to watch the movie I thought of something else I wanted to look up on Expedia so I paused the movie and hopped on the computer in the bedroom. I was on the computer anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes when I heard muffled voices. I honestly thought that somehow the TV came unpaused because that's what it sounded like. Like a TV on in another room. That went on for a minute or two then it got a little louder. I stopped but still couldn't make out actual conversation and so I still thought it was the TV, just a louder part of the movie. Then it got loud. This time I could make out voices and I KNEW it wasn't coming from my TV. I thought, "I think someones fighting out in the hall." So I crept to the front door to peek out the peephole. As I'm walking toward the door I could hear a black woman screaming about how slavery has ended and that she hates white people. "Aw lord!" I thought. I looked out the peephole and all I could see was the back of a very tall black man. He was right up against my door, but not touching it. I could hear someone say something about someone being outside and bleeding and crying and someone getting choked and just a lot of people talking over everyone. The black guy moved a little bit and I could see the woman who lives across the hall from us in the hall on the phone. Her teenage daughters watch my kids sometimes. Then I heard the guy next door out there and he asked if everyone was ok. That's when I decided it was safe enough for me to open my door.

I slowly opened the door and kinda looked around at the faces I knew with that eyebrow raised look that says, "Am I gonna get beat over the head if I step out of my apartment?" The guy next door looked at me and shrugged. He went back inside his apartment. Chicken. The woman across the hall is on the phone to the police. She's telling them the address and to send someone right away. There are about 4-5 black people in our hallway and they're all talking with raised voices at the same time. Some are going outside, some are coming inside. They're pacing. It's pandemonium. Then most of them go outside except the big black guy that once was in front of my door. He starts telling the lady across the hall and I what happened. According to him, he's the father of a baby that was just born to a girl that lives directly above us. Apparently that girl is 15, according to the lady across the hall. Baby's daddy said that baby's mama's mama choked baby's mama because she had a baby with a black guy. Baby's daddy said he told baby's mama if she couldn't handle the baby he would take it home with him. At some point drama ensued and baby's daddy came over with all of baby's aunts and uncles who were pretty mad at baby's grandma for choking baby's mama. Here's the fact of the story that makes me believe my version of the story is untrue in some way. Baby's grandma is white, but both of her kids are mixed, including baby's mama. So why would a woman choke her daughter for having a baby with a black guy when she herself has 2 mixed kids? Makes no sense. For me the drama ended after the police showed up and when the lady across the hall asked someone if the baby was ok. Someone said yes and so we both kinda looked at each other with that, "Well if the baby's ok, screw everyone else and their problems." and we both went inside our respective apartments.

Anyway, apparently someone who lives on the ground floor of our building was pretty upset at everything that went down that night and they wrote a nasty letter to our apartment office. The office started calling the tenants in the building about what happened and Adam and I were the only ones to call back. Adam, being one who wasn't even HOME that night, lol. So I gave the girl in the office my version of the events and told her why my story doesn't add up and that she should call the lady across the hall. From what I gather her daughters are BFF's with the girl with the baby so I'm sure they have a much more accurate account of what happened.

In other drama news, last Friday afternoon our Dish service went out. You'll remember that was the week I was home alone with no kids so I pretty much had the TV on one of the Sirius stations (80's music of course) the whole week. I had it on at 11:45am Friday when my boss called to see if I wanted to come in before my 2nd shift started to go to a meeting so I wouldn't have to come in the next day for it. I hopped in the shower and by the time I left the house at 12:20 the satellite was trying to "acquire signal". I turned off the tv and didn't think much about it. So I stayed after work talking to a co-worker for about a half-hour then got some food and headed home. I got home around 12:20am and the tv was still trying to "acquire signal". I called the Dish Network people and talked to a very chatty rep in Denver. After being on the phone long enough for me to eat a crunchy taco supreme and a nachos supreme he dispatched out a tech to come the following Wednesday. He also credited my account for the 6 days w/out service.

Fast forward to Wednesday. My tech was to be there between noon and 5. No one showed. My sister got to my house around 5 to do some research on her vacation. At 5:20 I called the Dish people. They say the tech WAS at my house but no one was home. B.S.! The rep says tech can come back on Monday. Nope, sorry. After talking to a supervisor she bumped up my appointment to Friday between 8am and noon and the tech was supposed to call with an ETA. She also waived the $29 repair fee.

Today was my appointment. I was up early and stayed close to the phone all day. By the time 11:10 rolled around I KNEW no one was coming. I called Dish and they said, "No, your appointment is on the 21st." Sorry Jr., my appointment is today per a supervisor. I get put on hold. He comes back and tells me to call the 3rd party repair place to get an ETA. I knew then the mgr I talked to before screwed me.

Long story made only slightly shorter, that IS what happened and a nice man named Dave came to the apartment around 2:30 to fix my dish after the 3rd party people squeezed me in. I told him I thought someone probably bumped the dish outside because it was working, then it wasn't. He agreed.

20 minutes later my dish is just about back in working order and Dave is back inside after his repair job. I said, "So, was that the problem? Did the dish get bumped?" Dave says, "Nope. It got stolen."

Ex-squeeze me? You're baking something?? He said he followed our cable out to where the dishes are for the apartments and only saw a pole. So he backtracked to make sure that was ours and sure enough...no dish. He said he's pretty sure who did it but can't prove it. He said there's a company in town that installs Direct TV and they are known to steal the dishes of Dish Network customers when they are installing Direct TV for people at apartment complexes. He said if they can do it quickly w/out anyone noticing then they'll do it. He said then when the Dish Network customers complain then they try to sell them their own service. He said now he carries special zip ties and screws that are a very odd size when he installs at apartments to prevent such things. He said the chance of a tech having a screwdriver and wrench the size of the screws would be unlikely and that they would basically really have to break the dish to get it off the pole and by then someone would notice them. Based on the time of day our service went out, Dave's story makes sense to me.

So we're back in service now. The kids can watch Noggin, The Disney Channel and whatever else their little hearts desire and I can get back to my classic TV shows like American Gladiators, Celebrity Circus and Intervention!