Sometimes I swear I want to make myself throw up.
We’re having trees trimmed this week, something that hasn’t been done for 10 years so it’s sorely needed. I called and made the arrangements yesterday. I thought I made it clear that I wasn’t home before noon, and he told me that we would be the last job of the day anyway.
Well, apparently, “the last job of the day” means different things to different people. To me, that means he’ll be busy all day and will be by around 3 p.m. to trim our trees. To him, it means that he has 2 jobs today, someone else’s and ours. Which means that the “last job of the day” for him is like 10 a.m.
Had I known that, I would have made an effort to move the car out of our driveway before I left for the morning. I moved the car out of the driveway as soon as I got home at noon today, knowing he would be coming by.
So when he called today at 1 p.m. I was nonplussed thinking he was letting me know he was on his way. Not so. He was calling to let me know they had been out already with three trucks and a group of men and, since they weren’t able to do the job because of the car being in the way, they were going to charge me an additional $75 fee!
I said something really dumb (because I’m an idiot) and he fired me as a client right then and there. So not only did I cause this man anger by not moving the car (and wasting his business’s time and manpower) but I also offended him by making some idiot comment. Thank the Lord I had the sense to apologize over and over again and basically beg him to come out again and trim the trees sometime this week. I’ll just keep the cars moved until he’s been here.
You know what, though? I really HATE it when people have that kind of power over me, and now I’m on the verge of a panic attack knowing that I begged that man to do his job for me. I can’t stand it. I feel all hot and sweaty and my face feels hot and swollen and I want to cry and scream.
You know – I really don’t need this stress. I have SO much going on and things like this really throw me over the edge. It’s been 15 minutes since he called and I still feel like a piece of garbage for begging this man to let me spend $500 that I scraped up from nothing on his services. If the trees weren’t hanging over our roof and scraping our shingles and if they didn’t have huge dead branches that I’m afraid we’re going to lose in a thunderstorm then I would have told him to STUFF IT.
But I need the damn trees trimmed and he’s the best guy in the area to have it done. And now he is offended already by me and there is nothing I can say to take that feeling away.
At least he offered to come back this week, waive the extra trip fee, and call me the day before this time to let me know he is coming. I still swear it was just a misunderstanding and I have no idea WHY in the damn world I let my tongue get the best of me. I try so hard but I just fail and fail and fail.
Ugh.