The Vault and Pizza

We had scheduled our first meeting with our social worker to occur last night. We arrived about five minutes early and approached a very lovely office building attached to a senior living facility. The sign near the road showed that we were in the right location.

I had been specifically told that the agency had evening hours on Monday, which is why I was a bit surprised to see that there did not appear to be anybody inside.

I attempted to open the door, but it was locked. The doorbell may have worked, but we could not hear anything. Upon closer inspection I realized that this place was Fort Knox. The glass was about 18 inches thick (ok, I am exaggerating). I saw another thick glass door that we would have to get through, keypads, voice boxes and I was wondering if we were going to have to undergo retinal scanning to gain access. I looked at the sign again to make sure we were in the right place. This joint was a vault.

After about ten minutes of waiting I called information to get the agency phone number because we did not have it with us. I was forwarded to an answering service and had a very nice conversation with a lady who was nowhere in the vicinity. She might have been in a different timezone. All I knew was that she could not help us. We were becoming convinced that there had been a miscommunciation. Karin's feet were bothering her so we decided she should sit in the car while we waited a little longer.

I realized that there were three people meeting in a room near the front of the building so I waived and gesturing for attention. A guy who, like the answering service lady also didn't work for the agency, opened the doors for me. He couldn't tell me if our social worker was around, but I was in!

In one of the more embarrasing moments of the night, I held the interior door open with my right foot and the front door open with my left arm gesturing for Karin to come from the car. I was now obsessed with these doors and never wanted them to close again. Karin saw me and began the 75 yard trek or so. After way, way too long of a period of time, I realized that I didn't have to hold the doors open. I was inside. Imagine the slow voice in my mind reasoning after a long day, "you can just open the doors from the inside like the guy did for you when Karin gets here"

We are going to fail this homestudy.

We still had to figure out where the heck to go, had no receptionist to greet us, and a vault door to deal with. Victory? A person could be seen through opaque glass inside of the vault! She opened the door and I exclaimed probably with a little too much excitement, "Erin?!"

"Uh, no, who are you?" Sigh. I explained why we were there and she said she would "try" to find our social worker. Try?! How big is this place?

She was successful. Apparently, the receptionist is usually there on Monday night, but not this one. Our social worker was probably sitting inside her office looking at her watch and wondering why these jerks were ten minutes late when she probably wanted to go home. She didn't know the receptionist had left and was just getting ready to call out to see if we were there.

It all worked out and our meeting lasted about 35 minutes. When Erin asked if we had any more questions, I considered asking if we could keep our money in her office instead of our bank. The place was SECURE. I didn't want to be a jerk so I held off. I am now wondering if our home will be safe enough for these people, though.

We ended the night with dinner at one of the town's best pizza joints. We do not get to go their very often and it was a pleasant, relaxing way to end a stressful day.