Blowing Up

I rarely get angry enough to yell at anyone. But I exploded at the apartment complex manager. I have lived here three months, and they have yet to fix anything that was broken when we moved in. At first they couldn't seem to manage to come and look at my inventory of problems. Then they assured me they would get to it as soon as the busy season died away. We moved in right in the full swing of moving in for everyone.



Well, the other day, the refrigerator door handle came off in my hands one time too many. Duct tape only holds for so long. I just pure and simple lost it. I stormed into the office brandishing the broken handle and waving my long list of unaddressed concerns, demanding to know what they were going to do about it.



The ladies in the office looked appropriately shocked, and assured me I had every right to be upset. They would get someone on it immediately. True to their word, they came that very afternoon and fixed my fridge handle. But nothing else. Then three days later, I came home late from working my second job, tired. Drew was already in bed. I found a yellow slip on the floor of the kitchen with my list of things that needed to be fixed.



The maintenance man had gone through the entire list and basically dismissed them all, chalked them up to either I didn't know my head from a hole in the wall or else I was too dumb to know how things were supposed to work. I just went through the roof. There was no way I was going to stand for such laziness and incompetence.



So I went back to the office. The manager was there, and I started to show her the list, and to mention that I had not yet been reimbursed for the $100 I was overcharged. She didn't hear a word I was saying. She thought I was insane I guess, and that I was being unreasonable to think that keys should work in doors, that doors ought to be able to be opened, that leaky pipes could be made to stop leaking, that broken cabinets could be fixed.



What level of broken had they come to believe was acceptable? I firmly believe that the rent I pay entitles me to a working and fixed apartment. I could get no where with this woman. I finally began yelling at her. "This is totally unacceptable. I can't get into my building because the lock is BROKEN. I am not some stupid cow who doesn't know how to work a key. Your workman is either lazy or incompetent. Fix this!"



She sighed and began writing a work order. "Look, don't send the same idiot you sent before. He obviously has no idea how to fix things. He can barely speak English. You send someone else. And don't write 50 things on the same work order. Apparently these guys can't deal with more than one issue at a time. Write them on separate orders. Maybe they will at least get some of them done."



I knew I was shooting myself in the foot being angry. I suspected that the result would be my car would get vandalized, my apartment ripped off, etc. by the workmen I was maligning. I was totally aware that there were clients there to look at a unit and I was scaring them out of considering renting here (good). I didn't care.



Problem was, I felt awful afterwards. This was not like me. I don't react this way. What had changed? Why was I playing a role that is not me? Was it all the problems I have been encountering since I arrived and it finally became too much? Was it all the medical testing I knew was coming? Was it all the grief Drew was giving me? Or the car pool? Or the planets out of alignment?



No. It was just me. Not living close enough to God, not listening to His direction, not bringing my problems to Him but trying to solve them on my own. I will spend more time than my morning devotions on my face before God, penitent, seeking. He will fix things for me. He will give me wisdom. There is a better way. He is my covering, so I will stay covered and rest in Him. He will deliver me, I know it.