Several times a year, we journey to Los Angeles to spend time with my sister Karon, Karon’s husband Bill, and their two boys. Karon and her men live in a corporate housing complex known as Oakwood. Oakwood is a great place to live – especially for the boys. Two swimming pools, tennis courts, basketball courts, fitness room, etc., plus activities going on.

When we visit, if we’re going to be in town for 3 or more days, we prefer to stay at Oakwood. It is a little more than a hotel room, but you get a full one-bedroom apartment and we’re near the people we’re there to visit.

Over the holidays, Oakwood tends to empty out. The place caters to people in show business (particularly kids), and those people have a lot more flexible schedule than the people in the “real” world, so why pay rent for a couple of months when you’re going to be out of town..

Got all that? Okay then.

For convenience sake, we always try to get a unit in the same building (or nearby) the building where my sister lives. This place is huge and if we need to get in a car to go visit, we may as well stay at a hotel.

Christmas 2014. (Yes, I am that far behind in blogging.) I make our reservation at Oakwood well in advance. I specifically request the building that I want (or nearby). My sister tells me that people at the office told her they had post-its up in their office saying that we were coming and wanted a unit in that specific building.

We show up after a long drive, go to check-in and they have us in a building that is practically in another zip code from where I want to be.

I am not happy. I am especially not happy because this happens on a regular basis. I, however, have also learned not to put up with this shit. I tell them what I want, what I reserved (which they confirmed on their own system while I was standing there), and they needed to figure this out. NOW.

While they are checking, I asked if there was anything I could do to prevent this from happening in the future.

I don’t like getting all upset and pissy, and I guarantee they don’t like having to deal with me when I’m all upset and pissy. When I’m not upset and pissy, I can be fucking charming. So wouldn’t it be more pleasant for all parties concerned if they could get their collective shit together? And I am perfectly happy (okay, not perfectly) to do what is necessary to help them collect said shit together before I arrive.

Front desk people suggest I go talk to the man in charge of leasing. Okie-dokie.

Leasing guy turns out to be an incredible ass-hat. (I suspect he would have a bit more accommodating if I had a penis – yeah, one of those guys.) I explain the situation and his response is, “We’re not a hotel.”

Yes, they are not a hotel; but they choose to rent out units for short-term visits, and they have no problem collecting rents for those units far in excess of the rate charged for long-term visits.

He asked if I “confirmed” my request. I told him that I had made the request and had received an acknowledgment from Oakwood that they had received (and I could only assume understood) my request. He told me, that I should have called a few days in advance. I told him Oakwood does not provide direct phone numbers on their website, nor did the person I was dealing with through e-mail provide a phone number. I asked him for his card, so I could call in the future. AND HE REFUSED!

I am no longer mad, I am now FURIOUS.

He suggested I get a card from someone at the front desk.

I know what I would have liked to suggest to him, but for once, I chose discretion (after all, we didn’t have a unit yet).

I got a card from the front desk. I also have kept the check-in packet which has a lot of direct numbers.

And guess what. They did have a vacant unit in the same building as my sister, just on another floor – but right next to the elevator.

Now was that so fucking difficult?

And then people wonder why I’m so cranky.