Left my Wallet in El Segundo
by If you know that song, we can be friends. It was definitely the theme song of our moving adventure. You know that feeling you get when something happens and there's nothing you can do about it? You just have to throw up your hands and go, "Oh well, I guess we're just screwed." That was exactly what happened to us moving this weekend.
My last day at work on friday was cool; everyone brought cake, took me out to lunch, etc., it was good times. Donovan's, on the other hand, was horrible. He was supposed to come home and finish packing at noon, but he didn't walk in the door until after 5. Needless to say, we didn't have everything packed on Friday, and we were scheduled to get the moving truck and start moving the next morning at 9.
So Saturday morning, we go to the horrid uhaul store to pick up our truck, and we also ordered a trailer to tow our convertible (we have 1 too many cars!). The guy behind the counter barely speaks english, and after pissing off just about every customer in the store before us, we finally get our chance to be annoyed by him. I give him my name and confirmation number.
"Yes, Mrs. Remaley, I see your confirmation number, but unfortunately, I think I just gave your 1-way truck to the woman before you."
Me: "What?!"
Dude: "I have a local truck I can give you."
Me: "That's unacceptable; we're moving to Connecticut. What do we need to do so that I walk out of here with a 26' truck going one way?"
Dude: "I can give you a 26' truck if you return it here."
Me: "That's the opposite of what I just said. Make it happen."
Dude: "Um, I can give you a 17' truck?"
Me: "We're not communicating. Get me the truck NOW."
The dude then got on the phone and located a truck at another location about 5 miles away. No biggie, we'll go get it, load it, then come back for the trailer.
The "loading" at our house was insane. Lots of people from the congregation came to help, which I'm very grateful for. But... since Don and I couldn't pack everything, they were just throwing things, important things, in boxes. I had 2 boxes with clothes for the next few days, our shower curtain and bedding set aside, and they threw them into the back of the truck. *Sigh*
The loading is finished at about 4, we say our goodbyes to our friends, and head to the uhaul store to pick up the trailer. The guy spends about 2 hours trying to hook it up to the truck, and tells us there's a fuse issue with the truck; it won't connect to the turn signals on the trailer. We can take it, broken, or come back tomorrow. We decide to get a hotel and come back, now defeated.
The hotel stay was the highlight of the trip. A hot shower and room service, need I say more?
The next morning we went back to our place to clean, and my in-laws joined us. (I appreciate their help, but they were driving me insane!) Finally, the trailer is fixed, the truck is loaded, my in-laws follow us up to CT (again, insanity for me. Donovan's grandmother came - his grandmother!) We got to our new house at about 8:30 Sunday night; by this time, I don't want to see my in-laws ever again. But they're persistent. They stay until about 10:30 unloading the big furniture from the truck. I put our bed together, we showered (without a curtain, because that box was lost) and went to bed.
The whole experience was a series of events in which we were messed up constantly. If you listened to any of this story, take it from me, hire a moving company.
AI Summary
14 Comments
Yea, moving is not a fun experiance...even if it's just miles away. Is your new place bigger than your old place?? (And you already have your internet connection hooked up??)
Are you looking for a new job?
We scheduled the internet hookup before we moved - we'd never know where anything is without google! We're going on vacay from May 20-28, so when we get back, I'll look for a job. It doesn't make sense to start looking until after that. So for now, I'm a lonely housewife. When Donovan left for work this morning, I had an intense pang of missing him instantly. I've got tons of unpacking to do, but I still feel useless without a job. And I have to figure out how to hookup the x-box so I can play morrowind. :)
wow, sounds like an adventure you'll never forget
in 20 years you'll laugh one day and say hey remember when we moved to CT
it'll be fun
we do that now, only a couple years after a horrible move where it was pouring rain, our Uhaul truck was given away to someone else and there were no other trucks, it was Easter weekend so there were no trucks anywhere on Sunday, and we wound up renting a truck from Home Depot to move stuff.. oh man.. good times
i love this song, i listen to it all the time ... i never pictured you as a q-tip fan
great story. it seems you write in a way that can be speed read. i read that, and understood everything, in like 45 seconds.
not a smooth trip, but, hey, it's over. now you can get back to micromanaging and laying intricate plans and cackling with glee as they come off without a hitch! have fun! lol
Hahaha... Micromanaging! You reminded me of my first boss! LOL! I'll say no more...
Hope everything from here on out is a much smoother ride. Here's what ya do Di... STEP #1)Take out chocolate fountain
STEP#2) Take out strawberries
STEP#3) Watch trouble melt away* =)
*may have to repeat several times, result will vary from fabulous to delicious.
Hahaha - that's a great idea! :)
i've helped a lot of people move, it's really nice when everything is packed and ready to go when you get there. it sucks when you get there and their house is completely in tact, and they're taking an hour packing up nearly empty shampoo bottles
I know, I know. I'm grateful for everyone's help - we just moved quickly. It's hard to pack everything in a week and a half. I'm going to mail biscotti to everyone who helped. :)
We went to our first meeting last night - the congregation is so nice! It's small (something like 80 publishers), and when we said to one person that we just moved in, almost everyone made their way over to us to say hello. It seems really cool.
One thing, though: We told the secretary our address and he said there's a bookstudy around the corner and a young couple a few blocks away, which is awesome. But he also said the neighborhood can be "kind of rough." Great. We spoke to the families who live nearby, and they told us drug deals happen and there's some gun activity. Wonderful. So we've pretty much decided that we'll run out our year-long lease and start looking for a new place next spring. Our neighbors on our block seem really nice - one offered me the keys to his car in case we needed to move it to get our moving truck out, and then he offered to help me with groceries. Plus, our landlords live on the other half of our duplex, and they made it clear that it's common knowledge in the neighborhood that they have many guns in their house. We'll just keep the blinds closed and leave a hockey stick near the door.
That you talking to the 'dude' dialog reminds me so much of the rent-a-car Seinfeld scene. "...So, you know how to take the reservation.. you just don't know how to hold the reservation."
I keep thinking about this journal because we're planning to leave our current house once our lease is up next spring. But I think this time we're going to use one of those "store and move" companies that lets you park a storage unit in your driveway, then they move it when you're ready. I've already gotten a couple estimates for that service because I really can't wait to get out of this house - our landlord's a jerk and the neighborhood is... er... questionable.