Sorry it's been so long again, folks. Been thinking about you, and this space, lots. We should talk about what we're going to do around here.
Meanwhile, I had a CMC-appropriate thought.
It is a totally valid life choice to declare, "I'm too old to ever help anyone move again."
and
It is a totally valid life choice to date a person in their 20s.
but
You probably cannot maintain both those life choices at once.
Showing posts with label A moving story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A moving story. Show all posts
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Sunday, July 6, 2008
A moving story, Part 6
(Part 1 here.)
(Part 2 here.)
(Part 3 here.)
(Part 4 here.)
(Part 5 here.)
Yeah, you knew it was coming. Sorry it's been so long, for those of you still hanging on that cliff.
Anyway, the movers showed up just a few minutes earlier than they said they would, which was great. They looked like regular movers, like you might see in a movie. They were men, roughly between the ages of 25 and 45, who seemed entirely capable of lifting heavy things, which they did. Neither of them were visibly pregnant, either, even though we know that pregnant does not necessarily mean incapable of lifting things.
They were friendly and helpful and fast — sometimes too fast for me to be entirely sure where things should go, but they were patient about it, too. At some point, my mother showed up to help me out, which was fantastic.
And then, as they were unloading my desk from the truck — my desk, which, you may recall, was one of the main reasons I paid someone to move me at all — one of my movers said, "[The Guy] told you about the desk, right?" And my mother and I looked at each other, frozen for what could have been anywhere from a split second to half an hour, before saying in chorus, "No."
The movers brought in my beautiful desk with the front left foot smashed off. And a pile of what might generously be described as "kindling," but would more accurately described as, "large splinters." And while I fought tears, my mother assured me it would be all right. And then (some of you know my mother, but if you don't, just know that I am on my way to growing up to be just like her, but she is soooo much better at this than I am, and you will have some idea of the perfection with which this was executed), my mother said to one of the movers, "Hm. Well, I think we won't pay for this until that's taken care of. Don't you think?" And the mover said, "That's what I'd do." And I smiled a lot and gave them a huge tip for their awesomeness.
Then, several things happened, in roughly this order:
I discovered all kinds of things about this moving company. Apparently The Guy and His Business Partner had had a falling out, and she'd left the company, and she was really the glue holding the enterprise together. Apparently, there had been one little issue, years before, when he'd moved an antique dining room table for my family and promised to fix it before storing it for us, but now that we thought about it, no one had seen that table. Apparently, he'd been increasingly losing his temper and periodically acting irrationally. We managed to put this together through a combination of family and community gossip.
and
I had a series of conversations with The Guy about my desk and his payment. To recount them all would be very long, so I have consolidated them into this one, which covers several of the highlights:
The Guy: So, I'll come pick up your desk and find someone to work on it.
bzzzzgrrrl: No, thanks. Find someone to work on it, and then you can come get my desk and bring it directly to that person.
TG: But I don't know who it will be yet.
bg: Right. Let me know, and then come get my desk. I'm sure you understand, under the circumstances, why I might not want to have you loading and unloading this particular piece of furniture a lot of times.
TG: Huh?
bg: You broke it.
TG: We didn't break it loading and unloading, we broke it on the steps outside your apartment.
bg: In Virginia?!?! And you didn't tell me?
TG: We didn't want to worry you. We'd tell you about it when we got it up North.
bg: But then you didn't.
TG: Obviously you were going to see that the whole front foot of your desk was broken. Now, pay us and we'll get it fixed.
bg: Um, no.
TG: Insurance will pay for your desk, but I need my money.
bg: I'll give you half when you get the desk to be repaired, half when I have it back.
[Repeat, often, with variations in angriness and ease of getting in touch, mostly with more talk about money and some shock at my lack of trust.]
and
My mother had a series of conversations with The Guy (who started calling her), and his lawyer (who immediately sided with my mother when he heard our side of the story), and Preggo (who was still answering phones).
and
The Guy lied to us about one million times about having found someone to repair the desk, and then actually did find someone, and then actually did pick up the desk.
Two months later, the desk was ready. There were more glitches and weirdnesses, of course: I took time off from work to wait for the movers; The Guy had the wrong time; The Guy showed up (late) by himself because his movers were lost because he'd given them the wrong address; we sat around chatting awkwardly for a while; the movers showed up; The Guy made me write him a check to himself personally and not to the moving company; my desk was finally moved back into the house in gorgeous condition.
Yea!
I think I said there'd be seven parts to this story. Really, the story's over here, finally, already. Part seven is more of an astonishing epilogue. Stay tuned. Any questions before we get there, that I can answer either in the epilogue or in the comments?
(Part 2 here.)
(Part 3 here.)
(Part 4 here.)
(Part 5 here.)
Yeah, you knew it was coming. Sorry it's been so long, for those of you still hanging on that cliff.
Anyway, the movers showed up just a few minutes earlier than they said they would, which was great. They looked like regular movers, like you might see in a movie. They were men, roughly between the ages of 25 and 45, who seemed entirely capable of lifting heavy things, which they did. Neither of them were visibly pregnant, either, even though we know that pregnant does not necessarily mean incapable of lifting things.
They were friendly and helpful and fast — sometimes too fast for me to be entirely sure where things should go, but they were patient about it, too. At some point, my mother showed up to help me out, which was fantastic.
And then, as they were unloading my desk from the truck — my desk, which, you may recall, was one of the main reasons I paid someone to move me at all — one of my movers said, "[The Guy] told you about the desk, right?" And my mother and I looked at each other, frozen for what could have been anywhere from a split second to half an hour, before saying in chorus, "No."
The movers brought in my beautiful desk with the front left foot smashed off. And a pile of what might generously be described as "kindling," but would more accurately described as, "large splinters." And while I fought tears, my mother assured me it would be all right. And then (some of you know my mother, but if you don't, just know that I am on my way to growing up to be just like her, but she is soooo much better at this than I am, and you will have some idea of the perfection with which this was executed), my mother said to one of the movers, "Hm. Well, I think we won't pay for this until that's taken care of. Don't you think?" And the mover said, "That's what I'd do." And I smiled a lot and gave them a huge tip for their awesomeness.
Then, several things happened, in roughly this order:
I discovered all kinds of things about this moving company. Apparently The Guy and His Business Partner had had a falling out, and she'd left the company, and she was really the glue holding the enterprise together. Apparently, there had been one little issue, years before, when he'd moved an antique dining room table for my family and promised to fix it before storing it for us, but now that we thought about it, no one had seen that table. Apparently, he'd been increasingly losing his temper and periodically acting irrationally. We managed to put this together through a combination of family and community gossip.
and
I had a series of conversations with The Guy about my desk and his payment. To recount them all would be very long, so I have consolidated them into this one, which covers several of the highlights:
The Guy: So, I'll come pick up your desk and find someone to work on it.
bzzzzgrrrl: No, thanks. Find someone to work on it, and then you can come get my desk and bring it directly to that person.
TG: But I don't know who it will be yet.
bg: Right. Let me know, and then come get my desk. I'm sure you understand, under the circumstances, why I might not want to have you loading and unloading this particular piece of furniture a lot of times.
TG: Huh?
bg: You broke it.
TG: We didn't break it loading and unloading, we broke it on the steps outside your apartment.
bg: In Virginia?!?! And you didn't tell me?
TG: We didn't want to worry you. We'd tell you about it when we got it up North.
bg: But then you didn't.
TG: Obviously you were going to see that the whole front foot of your desk was broken. Now, pay us and we'll get it fixed.
bg: Um, no.
TG: Insurance will pay for your desk, but I need my money.
bg: I'll give you half when you get the desk to be repaired, half when I have it back.
[Repeat, often, with variations in angriness and ease of getting in touch, mostly with more talk about money and some shock at my lack of trust.]
and
My mother had a series of conversations with The Guy (who started calling her), and his lawyer (who immediately sided with my mother when he heard our side of the story), and Preggo (who was still answering phones).
and
The Guy lied to us about one million times about having found someone to repair the desk, and then actually did find someone, and then actually did pick up the desk.
Two months later, the desk was ready. There were more glitches and weirdnesses, of course: I took time off from work to wait for the movers; The Guy had the wrong time; The Guy showed up (late) by himself because his movers were lost because he'd given them the wrong address; we sat around chatting awkwardly for a while; the movers showed up; The Guy made me write him a check to himself personally and not to the moving company; my desk was finally moved back into the house in gorgeous condition.
Yea!
I think I said there'd be seven parts to this story. Really, the story's over here, finally, already. Part seven is more of an astonishing epilogue. Stay tuned. Any questions before we get there, that I can answer either in the epilogue or in the comments?
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
A moving story, Part 5
(Part 1 here.)
(Part 2 here.)
(Part 3 here.)
(Part 4 here.)
Oh, and I think I forgot to mention, on his way out, The Guy told me he wasn't sure when they'd be able to deliver my stuff, but the Saturday morning we'd originally talked about was most likely not going to work for him.
We'd figure it out, he said.
Thanks, The Guy.
Obviously, at this point, BTG and I were too tired to do much. So we went to my grandmother's apartment for a quick nap and a shower, and then jumped right into the part of the plan you may remember from Part 1:
We did go out to dinner with my friends (we'll call them D&D), and then out for drinks, because we needed them, badly. We did crash at their house. And then, bright and early Saturday morning, there was still all this crap to deal with.
Luckily, I have the best friends in the universe.
D&D and kay bailey and her husband sprang into action. One of the Ds helped with cleaning. All of them ran errands for me in the morning, taking stuff to Goodwill and returning the famous cable box. BTG helped me sort through boxes and boxes of stuff that I had essentially just been moving around for a decade or so because it was easier (well, more immediately easier) than sorting through it. She will, I feel sure, get into what was in some of those boxes in the comments, but suffice it to say that there were coupons for pizza places in my current hometown, which I last lived in more than eight years ago. And I threw out a lot. I got willing to get rid of a lot of stuff I had intended to keep, but there was Just. No. Way.
And this piece of the moving process is so much longer than I am making it seem here, but it is also boring, so you must understand me when I say we woke up at D&D's at about 7:30 Saturday morning, were at my apartment a little after 8 a.m., and started moving stuff into the parking lot around 9:30 at night.
Here is the best thing about BTG as a moving buddy: She is more patient than anyone I have ever met.
Here is the second best thing about BTG as a moving buddy: She is a brilliant master of fitting things into a car, puzzle-style.
Here is the worst thing about BTG as a moving buddy: She has chronic back problems.
Yes.
Chronic back problems.
It is very good that I let her have the bed and slept on the couch myself at D&D's.
So I took everything that was still in my apartment and put it in the parking lot, prioritizing as I went: "It is very important that this get to New England. It is not at all important that this get to New England. This is less important than this, but more important than that."
BTG and her bad back stood by patiently in the dark and then put almost everything I brought out into the car. Amazingly. Incredibly. Beautifully.
I finished cleaning my house.
And at midnight, sixteen hours after we'd meant to hit the road, when I had decided that I actually was totally willing to just throw my vacuum cleaner away if it meant we could get out of there one second sooner, we left my old apartment behind and started driving. We drove for two hours, to a less-than-spectacular motel in Maryland, and if I'd had any idea how close we were to Delaware, I would have kept driving.
We slept until about eight minutes before our checkout time, at which point I put my dirty clothes back on (because, remember, my clean clothes were all in the truck) and got out of there.
BTG's family was having dinner in Providence, R.I. We figured we could make it. What else did we have to do?
And make it we did, exhausted and (in my case) filthy. They were lovely. There was lots of hugging and sizing me up. I stood firm in the foyer, refusing drinks and nourishment and insisting I had to get to the town my parents live in before I was too tired to drive. As it happens, they know that town quite well, and were quick to talk about who we knew in common, including two people who'd recently died, including the local dentist who'd died in a very unfortunate tractor accident.
I did finally hit the road and made the rest of the trip on my own, without incident. D&D called me with a map in front of them, eager to chart my trip and see how near where I was going would be to where I'd been.
I stayed with my parents, shopped at the local discount stores for a mini-wardrobe, started my new job and closed on my house. Eventually, The Guy got around to telling me when the movers could deliver my stuff; it wasn't an ideal time, but it was convenient enough, especially since my mother was available to help me supervise. Life was glorious.
Until the movers came.
(Part 2 here.)
(Part 3 here.)
(Part 4 here.)
Oh, and I think I forgot to mention, on his way out, The Guy told me he wasn't sure when they'd be able to deliver my stuff, but the Saturday morning we'd originally talked about was most likely not going to work for him.
We'd figure it out, he said.
Thanks, The Guy.
Obviously, at this point, BTG and I were too tired to do much. So we went to my grandmother's apartment for a quick nap and a shower, and then jumped right into the part of the plan you may remember from Part 1:
... go out to dinner with two of my close friends, BTG and I would crash at their house, and we'd hit the road bright and early Saturday morning.Well, sort of.
We did go out to dinner with my friends (we'll call them D&D), and then out for drinks, because we needed them, badly. We did crash at their house. And then, bright and early Saturday morning, there was still all this crap to deal with.
Luckily, I have the best friends in the universe.
D&D and kay bailey and her husband sprang into action. One of the Ds helped with cleaning. All of them ran errands for me in the morning, taking stuff to Goodwill and returning the famous cable box. BTG helped me sort through boxes and boxes of stuff that I had essentially just been moving around for a decade or so because it was easier (well, more immediately easier) than sorting through it. She will, I feel sure, get into what was in some of those boxes in the comments, but suffice it to say that there were coupons for pizza places in my current hometown, which I last lived in more than eight years ago. And I threw out a lot. I got willing to get rid of a lot of stuff I had intended to keep, but there was Just. No. Way.
And this piece of the moving process is so much longer than I am making it seem here, but it is also boring, so you must understand me when I say we woke up at D&D's at about 7:30 Saturday morning, were at my apartment a little after 8 a.m., and started moving stuff into the parking lot around 9:30 at night.
Here is the best thing about BTG as a moving buddy: She is more patient than anyone I have ever met.
Here is the second best thing about BTG as a moving buddy: She is a brilliant master of fitting things into a car, puzzle-style.
Here is the worst thing about BTG as a moving buddy: She has chronic back problems.
Yes.
Chronic back problems.
It is very good that I let her have the bed and slept on the couch myself at D&D's.
So I took everything that was still in my apartment and put it in the parking lot, prioritizing as I went: "It is very important that this get to New England. It is not at all important that this get to New England. This is less important than this, but more important than that."
BTG and her bad back stood by patiently in the dark and then put almost everything I brought out into the car. Amazingly. Incredibly. Beautifully.
I finished cleaning my house.
And at midnight, sixteen hours after we'd meant to hit the road, when I had decided that I actually was totally willing to just throw my vacuum cleaner away if it meant we could get out of there one second sooner, we left my old apartment behind and started driving. We drove for two hours, to a less-than-spectacular motel in Maryland, and if I'd had any idea how close we were to Delaware, I would have kept driving.
We slept until about eight minutes before our checkout time, at which point I put my dirty clothes back on (because, remember, my clean clothes were all in the truck) and got out of there.
BTG's family was having dinner in Providence, R.I. We figured we could make it. What else did we have to do?
And make it we did, exhausted and (in my case) filthy. They were lovely. There was lots of hugging and sizing me up. I stood firm in the foyer, refusing drinks and nourishment and insisting I had to get to the town my parents live in before I was too tired to drive. As it happens, they know that town quite well, and were quick to talk about who we knew in common, including two people who'd recently died, including the local dentist who'd died in a very unfortunate tractor accident.
I did finally hit the road and made the rest of the trip on my own, without incident. D&D called me with a map in front of them, eager to chart my trip and see how near where I was going would be to where I'd been.
I stayed with my parents, shopped at the local discount stores for a mini-wardrobe, started my new job and closed on my house. Eventually, The Guy got around to telling me when the movers could deliver my stuff; it wasn't an ideal time, but it was convenient enough, especially since my mother was available to help me supervise. Life was glorious.
Until the movers came.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
A moving story, Part 4
(Part 1 here.)
(Part 2 here.)
(Part 3 here.)
So yes, as I alluded to before, I had plenty of time for worrying about my stuff and also my mover and also how bad a person I was, because it took a very long time to load the truck. Hours and hours, in fact. And BTG did an excellent job of keeping me calm. Two particularly strange things about my movers:
Except.
Except I neglected to put that trunk into the bathroom, and so instead put it very close to the front door. Where it was probably one of the first seven things the movers put on the truck. Which I discovered only much later, while the movers were taking one of their mystery breaks.
BTG and I ran outside to see if we could still see it, but we could not, and this hour-and-a-half move was already on about its fourth hour and the truck was about a third full. There was no way I was having them unload the truck at this point.
So we went into the house, where my exhausted self freaked out a little more, and BTG sprang into action, grabbing any articles of clothing she could find still in the apartment to assemble a work wardrobe for me for my first week on the new job. That wardrobe consisted of a black velvet dress and a blue t-shirt.
Hm.
It got me laughing, which got me relaxed enough to call Kay Bailey and ask if I could borrow back some of the clothes I'd handed down to her about two weeks before. She let me. And then there was a lot more standing around, and a lot more waiting, and a little more freaking out.
And then.
And then it was about 5:30, and the apartment was close enough to empty that I felt like we actually might have only another hour and a half.
And then.
And then The Guy came back in to tell me that he was running out of room on the truck. I was mad, and I was tired, but I was calm.
"Take the furniture," I said. "I'll figure out what to do about the boxes."
"I'm not going to be able to get all the furniture," he said.
I stayed as calm as I could and pointed out the high-priority items. I was ready to disassemble and get rid of my bookshelves from Target, even though I loved them, because they'd be easily replaced. I could find a place in the car for my standing lamp, probably.
And then he asserted that he didn't have room on the truck for my bed. You might think I'd be the kind of girl who'd have a big fancy bed, and you'd be right, except that I broke it a few years ago. So the bed that would not fit on the truck? Was what we call in my family a "Boston frame," and what they call an "Adjustable Metal Bed Frame," anywhere else. Yeah, the kind that folds up into a stick.
With a beautiful "not my problem" shrug that I could not master if you were asking me to be concerned about what would happen to clippings of President Taft's hair, Preggo and The Guy got in the truck and left, around 6 or 6:30 Friday night. My apartment was not clean, I had not slept, the cable box was not returned, and I had easily five times the amount of stuff I could fit into my Oldsmobile, still in the apartment.
There will be at least six parts to this story. I predict seven.
(Part 2 here.)
(Part 3 here.)
So yes, as I alluded to before, I had plenty of time for worrying about my stuff and also my mover and also how bad a person I was, because it took a very long time to load the truck. Hours and hours, in fact. And BTG did an excellent job of keeping me calm. Two particularly strange things about my movers:
- Periodically, The Guy and Preggo would just disappear. For a long time. Without saying anything. I assume they were taking well-deserved breaks, but it was odd how they would just vanish. Particularly since I had errands to run, but did not feel I could leave, since I never knew when they were leaving or returning.
- Neither of them used the bathroom in my apartment once. This was probably taken care of on those breaks. But where did they go?
Except.
Except I neglected to put that trunk into the bathroom, and so instead put it very close to the front door. Where it was probably one of the first seven things the movers put on the truck. Which I discovered only much later, while the movers were taking one of their mystery breaks.
BTG and I ran outside to see if we could still see it, but we could not, and this hour-and-a-half move was already on about its fourth hour and the truck was about a third full. There was no way I was having them unload the truck at this point.
So we went into the house, where my exhausted self freaked out a little more, and BTG sprang into action, grabbing any articles of clothing she could find still in the apartment to assemble a work wardrobe for me for my first week on the new job. That wardrobe consisted of a black velvet dress and a blue t-shirt.
Hm.
It got me laughing, which got me relaxed enough to call Kay Bailey and ask if I could borrow back some of the clothes I'd handed down to her about two weeks before. She let me. And then there was a lot more standing around, and a lot more waiting, and a little more freaking out.
And then.
And then it was about 5:30, and the apartment was close enough to empty that I felt like we actually might have only another hour and a half.
And then.
And then The Guy came back in to tell me that he was running out of room on the truck. I was mad, and I was tired, but I was calm.
"Take the furniture," I said. "I'll figure out what to do about the boxes."
"I'm not going to be able to get all the furniture," he said.
I stayed as calm as I could and pointed out the high-priority items. I was ready to disassemble and get rid of my bookshelves from Target, even though I loved them, because they'd be easily replaced. I could find a place in the car for my standing lamp, probably.
And then he asserted that he didn't have room on the truck for my bed. You might think I'd be the kind of girl who'd have a big fancy bed, and you'd be right, except that I broke it a few years ago. So the bed that would not fit on the truck? Was what we call in my family a "Boston frame," and what they call an "Adjustable Metal Bed Frame," anywhere else. Yeah, the kind that folds up into a stick.
With a beautiful "not my problem" shrug that I could not master if you were asking me to be concerned about what would happen to clippings of President Taft's hair, Preggo and The Guy got in the truck and left, around 6 or 6:30 Friday night. My apartment was not clean, I had not slept, the cable box was not returned, and I had easily five times the amount of stuff I could fit into my Oldsmobile, still in the apartment.
There will be at least six parts to this story. I predict seven.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
A moving story, Part 3
(Part 1 here.)
(Part 2 here.)
Many thanks to the first two commenters on Part 2 for giving me such a good jumping off point for where I was going with the pregnancy thing I mentioned at the end of Part 3. You both think just like me, as it turns out.
In reverse order:
immediately after I realized she was pregnant.
Because also:
I should say that, unfit as I am, I have always, before now, rented or borrowed a truck to move. The biggest reasons I did not do that this time were:
(Part 2 here.)
Many thanks to the first two commenters on Part 2 for giving me such a good jumping off point for where I was going with the pregnancy thing I mentioned at the end of Part 3. You both think just like me, as it turns out.
In reverse order:
immediately after I realized she was pregnant.
Because also:
Oh dear. You definitely don't want your moving crew to be less physically fit than you are... you might feel obligated to help them carry something. You might as well just rent your own truck at that point ;-)
- See, you'd be hard-pressed to find a moving crew less physically fit than me personally. And also, I am a bad person. Because you would think that if I had sexist thoughts about my pregnant mover, they would come from some misguided patriarchal sense of protection of the delicate flower, some concern for her or her fetus, some sense of obligation to help. They mostly did not. They came from here (not in the comments, this is just in my own head):
If she miscarries, with only herself and her dad doing my move, 500 miles away from where they live, I am never going to get moved. Does that make me a bad person? I am a bad person.
I should say that, unfit as I am, I have always, before now, rented or borrowed a truck to move. The biggest reasons I did not do that this time were:
- the drive was so long and I needed to move my car, too
- my house was not ready to be moved into
- my new job was willing to help with my moving expenses
- I had, since my last move, acquired a large, heavy desk that was a family heirloom and that I was sure I could not move myself without breaking. The Guy's moving company had already moved it safely several times.
Friday, May 30, 2008
A moving story, Part 2
(Part 1 here.)
You may recall that when we left off, there was a plan:
OK. So. I prepared to move. Badly, as is my custom. It was made much more bearable by folks who came by to help, featuring most prominently one friend we'll call "kay bailey," who put up with a lot from me, considering she was also plotting to prevent me from moving but cheerfully packed box after box anyway. Another friend we'll call "nyczoo" also abandoned her family and helped for a few hours. And eventually, the Thursday night before that Friday morning, I picked up BTG, who also helped into the wee hours. We did not mind the wee hours, see, because we had most of Friday to take naps and clean.
And then, at 8:30ish, I had a call from The Guy. He was in a hotel nearby, and he'd be at my house in about an hour. There was no rush, he explained, since "we" weren't trying to do the 500-mile trip back in one day. I had not known before that that The Guy would be doing my move at all; I assumed he was sending other movers. But if he wanted to be part of my team of movers, right on.
I also, foolishly, assumed that the lack of rush meant he was showing up an hour late. It irritated me a little, but I dismissed that as irrational on my part, since I was only actually mostly ready to go. I could use that extra hour for frenzied packing, and I did.
And about an hour and twenty minutes later, there was The Guy. He was ready to move me. The Guy is. Well. Here is the part where I am totally ageist. The Guy is probably in his mid-sixties.
But whatever. He'd probably mostly be supervising, right? He had disregarded my instructions on where to park, so I came outside to see where the truck was and show him where a better parking spot might be. And, obviously, to check out the crew. Which consisted, it turned out, of the one woman I'd spoken to on the phone, who, as it turned out, was probably in her twenties and who had just moved away from D.C. herself not long before.
And she was. Well. Here is where I am probably sort of sexist, and also where she gets that name I promised you: We'll call her The Guy's Visibly Pregnant Daughter.
BTG is reading over my shoulder, and suggests that "Preggo" would be better. I will acknowledge that it is at least shorter, so we'll go with that.
And that, my friends, was my whole moving crew: The Guy and Preggo.
Stay tuned for Part 3.
You may recall that when we left off, there was a plan:
The movers would show up at my house between 8 and 8:30 on a Friday. They'd be able to move me out in about an hour and a half (which I thought was optimistic, and so rounded up to three hours) and then hit the road. I would spend the rest of the day cleaning my apartment with a friend (we'll call her Bread Truck Grrl) who'd fly down to help me drive my car up. Then I'd go out to dinner with two of my close friends, BTG and I would crash at their house, and we'd hit the road bright and early Saturday morning. My new job would start on Tuesday, I'd close on my house on Wednesday, my things would be delivered on the following Saturday.
OK. So. I prepared to move. Badly, as is my custom. It was made much more bearable by folks who came by to help, featuring most prominently one friend we'll call "kay bailey," who put up with a lot from me, considering she was also plotting to prevent me from moving but cheerfully packed box after box anyway. Another friend we'll call "nyczoo" also abandoned her family and helped for a few hours. And eventually, the Thursday night before that Friday morning, I picked up BTG, who also helped into the wee hours. We did not mind the wee hours, see, because we had most of Friday to take naps and clean.
And then, at 8:30ish, I had a call from The Guy. He was in a hotel nearby, and he'd be at my house in about an hour. There was no rush, he explained, since "we" weren't trying to do the 500-mile trip back in one day. I had not known before that that The Guy would be doing my move at all; I assumed he was sending other movers. But if he wanted to be part of my team of movers, right on.
I also, foolishly, assumed that the lack of rush meant he was showing up an hour late. It irritated me a little, but I dismissed that as irrational on my part, since I was only actually mostly ready to go. I could use that extra hour for frenzied packing, and I did.
And about an hour and twenty minutes later, there was The Guy. He was ready to move me. The Guy is. Well. Here is the part where I am totally ageist. The Guy is probably in his mid-sixties.
But whatever. He'd probably mostly be supervising, right? He had disregarded my instructions on where to park, so I came outside to see where the truck was and show him where a better parking spot might be. And, obviously, to check out the crew. Which consisted, it turned out, of the one woman I'd spoken to on the phone, who, as it turned out, was probably in her twenties and who had just moved away from D.C. herself not long before.
And she was. Well. Here is where I am probably sort of sexist, and also where she gets that name I promised you: We'll call her The Guy's Visibly Pregnant Daughter.
BTG is reading over my shoulder, and suggests that "Preggo" would be better. I will acknowledge that it is at least shorter, so we'll go with that.
And that, my friends, was my whole moving crew: The Guy and Preggo.
Stay tuned for Part 3.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
A moving story, Part 1
So, I've been hinting about telling you all this story for a long time. The problem with it is that it's a really long story, even by my standards, and so I am simultaneously too lazy to write it and worried if I write something that long, no one will read it. Probably, I need to do this in parts.
So, here goes.
There is a moving and storage company up here that my family has some history with. In general, they have done a great job of both moving and storing our stuff. It was, until recently, owned by a guy we'll call The Guy and a woman we'll call His Business Partner. His Business Partner is, in addition to being a good business person, from a family my family has known for generations, though we don't know her personally all that well. So when I was moving from city to country, I hardly shopped around at all. I called around a little and found that these people we trust were actually at the low end, pricewise, of the normal range.
So, naturally, I hired them to move me.
I dealt entirely with The Guy and a woman who will get a name soon enough, but not His Business Partner. There were some things that I thought of as sort of country quaintness to our business dealings, that in retrospect were giant red flags.
We made a plan. The movers would show up at my house between 8 and 8:30 on a Friday. They'd be able to move me out in about an hour and a half (which I thought was optimistic, and so rounded up to three hours) and then hit the road. I would spend the rest of the day cleaning my apartment with a friend (we'll call her Bread Truck Grrl) who'd fly down to help me drive my car up. Then I'd go out to dinner with two of my close friends, BTG and I would crash at their house, and we'd hit the road bright and early Saturday morning. My new job would start on Tuesday, I'd close on my house on Wednesday, my things would be delivered on the following Saturday. Callooh, callay. Perfect.
Watch this space for Part 2.
So, here goes.
There is a moving and storage company up here that my family has some history with. In general, they have done a great job of both moving and storing our stuff. It was, until recently, owned by a guy we'll call The Guy and a woman we'll call His Business Partner. His Business Partner is, in addition to being a good business person, from a family my family has known for generations, though we don't know her personally all that well. So when I was moving from city to country, I hardly shopped around at all. I called around a little and found that these people we trust were actually at the low end, pricewise, of the normal range.
So, naturally, I hired them to move me.
I dealt entirely with The Guy and a woman who will get a name soon enough, but not His Business Partner. There were some things that I thought of as sort of country quaintness to our business dealings, that in retrospect were giant red flags.
- There was no contract.
- He had to keep calling to ask for my address.
- He asked for a list of my stuff, and then, when I gave it to him, said he wasn't sure the truck he was planning on using would be big enough (So? You're a moving company. Bring a bigger truck.).
We made a plan. The movers would show up at my house between 8 and 8:30 on a Friday. They'd be able to move me out in about an hour and a half (which I thought was optimistic, and so rounded up to three hours) and then hit the road. I would spend the rest of the day cleaning my apartment with a friend (we'll call her Bread Truck Grrl) who'd fly down to help me drive my car up. Then I'd go out to dinner with two of my close friends, BTG and I would crash at their house, and we'd hit the road bright and early Saturday morning. My new job would start on Tuesday, I'd close on my house on Wednesday, my things would be delivered on the following Saturday. Callooh, callay. Perfect.
Watch this space for Part 2.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
For the sake of a good story, we'll just ignore the fact that pregnant does not mean infirm or unfit to work.