Our Condo Is Spotless

Last week was not a super one, although it ended happily.

It started with having to do my first weekly filing for unemployment insurance, which was something of a confusing and demoralizing process. For that I also needed my final paystub from the magazine, which employees are supposed to be able to retrieve online, however, my login failed. (Which is weird, considering the company has still not removed my access to my company e-mail or the magazine's web-based software ...) So thus ensued a series of annoying phone calls until my paystub was eventually retrieved and a copy mailed to Arizona's "Department of Economic Security." Yippee.

Tuesday I heard back regarding a job interview I'd had just before Memorial Day Weekend. No go. And it was a really, really, really perfect position for me, too. I was extremely disappointed.

Wednesday I was supposed to meet up with a friend who is a horse trainer and hunter/jumper instructor for a free riding lesson, which I now finally have the time to do since I am no longer working full-time. I've waited long time to be able to take her up on her offer, and then on Wednesday she had to cancel at the last minute. I mean, I can't be too upset, because after all, she is doing a really nice thing here and offering to give me a completely free lesson, but she's also leaving for California this week with one of her pupils for the rest of the summer to go on a horse showing tour of Cali or some such biz.

Thursday my debit card number was stolen, or maybe it had been stolen long before that and the thief only attempted to use it on Thursday, who knows. Either way, I was not happy about it. The only good thing about the whole situation was that my card was declined at a coffee shop that happened to be right next door to one of my bank's branches, so I was just like, "Excuse me," and then walked a few yards to ask the teller, "Yo, what the *&$# is going on with my account." This raised an interesting situation, in which I discovered that apparently it takes three representatives to help a customer solve a fraud issue at that particular location. Good times.

Friday morning, before my boyfriend headed off to work, we were sitting at the dining room table, having breakfast, and I said, "You know, we really need to get together with our landlords to renew our lease. I think it expires this week."

Time out. First, some background information you may find helpful. Important things to know:

1. Our landlords are good friends of ours, and were even long before we became their tenants. They're kind of like the super cool aunt and uncle you may already have or just wish you had. This is why they trust us enough to let our lease wind down to the week of without a renewal -- they know we're good for it. This is also why they never felt the need to come by the condo a single time during the whole past year we've been living in it. They trust us and are cool like that. But still, I think all four of us were just getting lazy about the renewal, and I knew we shouldn't put it off any longer, which is why I brought it up.

2. They live in a 7,000-square-foot palace up in the mountains outside of Scottsdale. They have impeccable taste and are, as you might expect, somewhat picky about almost everything. Not in a huge pain in the neck kind of way, but picky.

3. A week and a half ago, I finally made a list for my boyfriend of six or seven things that needed to be done around our condo that I knew either he would want to do himself, or that he should do due to my lack of capability in that particular area. Examples would include replacing our air filter, emptying our vacuum (every time I do it, I make a huge mess and sneeze for days), clean the outdoor grill (which is on loan from our landlords), reduce the piles and piles of random stuff on his desk in the office ... Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

4. As of Friday, my boyfriend had done approximately zero of these things.

Time in. So we were sitting at the breakfast table, and I brought up the issue of the lease. "Yeah," he said, "Let's e-mail or call them today and see if we can swing by this evening to do it." Well, of course that's code for me e-mailing or calling, so as soon as he left for work I sent the wife a message with our proposal. We know it's always more convenient for us to come to them, so we always meet at their home. She wrote back and said that sounded great, we could come over at 6. Perfect. I sat down at my desk, and I began to answer e-mails and settle in for another day of filling out job apps and so on. But then another message from her pops up in my inbox. "Actually," she writes, "we will come to you guys. We can see the condo and sign the lease and then all go to dinner afterward. See you at 6."

Now, believe me when I tell you that from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., I did absolutely nothing but clean. I mean, I keep it pretty clean here all the time, especially lately, because I've been, ahem, at home more often. But let's be honest, there's a difference between cleaning for yourself and cleaning for your picky landlords who are coming over with your lease renewal contract. Right?

So guess who got to take care of the many items on my boyfriend's to-do list? That's right. Me. And the rest of everything else. I started in the kitchen, worked my way into the entry hall, then on to the living room, dining room, hallway, guest room, guest bath, master bath ... And about the time I made it to the master bedroom, about 1:00, my boyfriend came home from work. I told him he owed me big time. He told me I'd done a great job and then he went to go get us a pizza. (I swear they think differently from us, but it's the thought that counts, I suppose.)

To his credit, he did return. Bearing food, no less. And after we had recharged on a Mexican Pizza from Z's, we tag-teamed the rest of the place until it sparkled and shined. We finished at approximately 5:45, I showered in record time, and they were here at 6:15. Whew.

They said the place looked nice. We renewed the lease. And then we went out for a lovely dinner at Rhythm and Wine, where, I can happily attest, I was not asked to clean one single thing.