Life in the City

Ok, so for those of you who haven’t lived in a small community before here is an example of the life...

We needed to put the utilities for our rental in our name. So, Kevin calls the city to do so. Nope you have to do it in person, with a picture ID. Ok, since we are 1.5 hours away (one way), I call my mom and tell her to go down and put them in her name, and then we will just pay the bill. Mom is very happy to do this for us. Monday, she goes down to the city and says “I need to put the utilities at [# Street ] in my name”. Will they do that? No. Why? Because the landlord must first sign a release.

So we contact the landlord, who promptly goes down and signs the release. Tuesday, Kevin and I decide we will take a load of stuff to the rental, and turn on the utilities. We go into the city building and there is a lady at a window, and say “we need to put the utilities at [# Street ] in our name”. She says, “Oh you have to come over here” Over here is really turning to the other side of the counter to that “window”. Then we tell her again “We need to put the utilities at [# Street ] in our name”. The city lady says “I just started that earlier this week for an older lady” Now this tells you a couple of things:

1. My mom is old (She knows this….)
2. There isn’t that much business in Ft. Morgan that she can remember the address and who was in the office.

I politely tell the lady “that was my mom”. So she says, “Ok, I will start over”. What does starting over entail do you think? She goes to her book, and the start of the receipt and she crosses out [# Street ], and then turns the page on a new receipt she writes [# Street ]. Yes that is starting over. Why she had to start over I am not sure, since the only information she had actually written down was the address.

So for the next 5-7 minutes we stand there, while she copies Kevin’s driver’s license, enters information into the computer, and then writes down the information from the computer into her receipt book. Again, I am not sure why you have to enter it into the computer and then also write it in the book, why it isn’t all saved and then a receipt printed out I am not sure. We think she is almost done when she says “Have you had service with us before?” Wouldn’t the computer tell her this? “No, we are just moving to the area”. She says “well then I need a letter from your current company that says you have the credit and that you pay promptly”. Did they tell us that on the phone? NO. So of course we don’t have that. So she says “then you will have pay a deposit” Fine no problem…so finally after all that time and $150 later, we have electricity and water in our name in the grand city of Ft. Morgan.

Happily we go out to the car….and what does Kevin do? He announces to the entire city that we will be moving into the area. Yes he was very loud. What did he do? He somehow pushes the panic button on the keyless entry of the car….HONK HONK HONK! Over and over, “How do I shut it off he says” HONK HONK HONK!, finally after 2 minutes…(I know 2 minutes isn’t long but when you hear HONK HONK HONK, it is a LONG time.), he gets it off. Whew….time to head back to Longmont.....