Periodically throughout the trip, this text exchange would happen:
Eli: Hello.
Eli: Hi.
Eli: Hello???
Eli: Are you there?
Eli: HELP ME I'M DROWNING IN MY OWN TEARS!
Krishelle: What do you want?!
Eli: Oh, hi. Since you seem to be awake, how is everything going at the house?
Krishelle: You know it's 3:00 AM here, right?
Eli: Yes.
Krishelle: The house is fine. Stop asking. I will let you know if it burns down.
Eli: YOU THINK IT MIGHT BURN DOWN?!
She kept insisting everything was fine and that I needed to delete her contact from my phone and that I simply must stop texting her pictures of Tami, etc. But somehow I knew I wasn't getting the full story. And I really started regretting not exchanging phone numbers with the Perfects when I first met them because I know they would have given me the real story if I could have texted them and asked how things looked over there.
Also, I wish I had written down the Perfectss/s/s/'s's's'#''s's'ses names when I first met them because every time I call Mr. Perfect "Joe," I'm 5% less sure that that really is his first name. And I've called him that 742 times so I'm now negative 3483% sure that that's really his name. I did not do the math for that.
I waited with unease until the end of the trip. And then, while on my last layover, I got a call.
Krishelle: Hi. Just fyi--most of your plants are dead and the A/C doesn't work anymore and some of your stuff is broken and I haven't been to the house in five days OK BYE!
To be fair, Krishelle would likely challenge the above quote as not exactly what she said. But that's exactly what I heard.
After significant flight delays, I pulled up to my house at about 2:00 in the morning and surveyed the damage.
This is what my yard looked like before the trip:
And this is what it looked like when I got home:
You guys! You can't even tell that that's the same place!
Krishelle told me that it was unseasonably hot and something about global warming and that she did everything she could. Well, within reason. She also blamed the broken A/C on an elderly Colombian woman named "Herminda" who doesn't speak a word of English and can't defend herself (this is true).
Ok. I know. I know. It is not easy to house-sit for a very neurotic person. She, or anyone I could have possibly chosen, was destined to fail the moment I handed her a key and made her swear a blood oath. The A/C unit is older than all of your grandmas combined so it was destined to break anyway. And last year at this time, I killed all of my flowers when it got unseasonably hot. And I am very grateful to her for taking care of things while I was gone. Blah blah blah.
BUT. If you can't irrationally trash your own family in public forums THEN WHAT THE HELL ARE FAMILIES EVEN FOR?
~It Just Gets Stranger
A family that trashes each other online, stays together.
ReplyDeleteI think that's a phrase...though its not very catchy, is it? Maybe it's not a thing people say. If not it should be. But like a better version that rhymes or something.
A family that trashes each other online will last for all time?
ReplyDeleteTrue poetry.
DeleteI'm pretty sure that's what families are for. Mine hasn't spoken to me in a while. :/ ?
ReplyDeleteThe before and after pictures made me gasp. I can't believe there was that much destruction in a matter of weeks.
ReplyDeleteFrom the photos it seems obvious what happened. The Perfectsssessis'ss's were jealous of your perfect yard and set fire to the whole thing and somehow got the goods on Krishelle and bought her silence. She's totally covering for them.
ReplyDeleteGuess SOMEONE isn't so PERFECT after all! And his name probably IS Joe, but he's using his tricky mind powers to make you doubt yourself. It's all part of the plan.
I don't appreciate having my name dragged through the mess I created in Eli's yard! RUDE!
DeleteNext time you have someone over, run outside the minute you see the Perfects. Chat them up a bit. Then your friend says, "hi, I'm Matt" and the Perfects will be forced to introduce themselves. Problem solved.
ReplyDeleteI've known Krishelle for a very long time and this sounds JUST LIKE HER. Also, you could sneak a peek in their mailbox and look at their mail to figure out their names. Sneak a peek really fast and then run home. You can run, I've seen it. Have Matt video it for us.
ReplyDeleteI dunno; I'm suspicious. "Before" doesn't have the same sloping driveway that we've been shown in the past. Did you move without telling us, Eli, and bring the Perfects with you?
ReplyDeleteI keep looking at the pictures and going back and forth. I sort of feel like they might not be of your house and that you may have just gotten them off of the internet. But on the other hand, you've never exaggerated anything here before.
DeleteIs texting your sister in the middle of the night a younger brother thing? I moved to DC and my brother (in Seattle) texts me all night long. I tell him I'm going to bed and then wake up to weird messages.
ReplyDeleteYou know, Google, the Internet thing... if you type in the Perfects address, their name pulls up!
ReplyDeleteGoogle is the stalker of stalkers, they know all of the things.
I keep coming back to comments, expecting some kind of rebuttal from Krishelle. I'm almost sure there is another side to this story. But nothing as yet, so I can only assume you had her killed upon your return. (Had her killed, not killed her yourself as that might mess up your hair.) Poor Krishelle. We hardly knew ye.
ReplyDeleteI am alive much to Eli's disappointment. We all know that Eli would NEVER exaggerate a single word he writes on this blog but this post is about 5% true. I am his sister, I did house sit for him and Herminda did break the AC. That's about it.
ReplyDeleteEli is extremely lucky to have me as a sister. I'm amazing and he needs to be taken care of a lot.
!!!
ReplyDelete