where to start? where to start?
I suppose the beginning is as good a place as any.
we were scheduled to be packed out Wednesday and Thursday with our stuff going on a truck Georgia bound on Friday.
Wednesday the movers arrived at a little before 10am and stated they’d be able to complete the packing in one day. we rejoiced. angels sang. and we were mostly really excited that the 5 strange men that came to our house would only be there one day.
I wasn’t sure why they arrived at the house so close to 10am when every other time I’ve ever had movers, you better have donuts and coffee because they are arriving about 45 seconds after you roll out of bed and put on a bra. but I digress.
at 230 on packing day one, I guess they decided they weren’t gonna finish so they packed up and left. thanks for that sweet 4.5 hours of work, guys. 1 of those 4.5 hours, I know, they spent hoarking down $50 worth of pizza we ordered for them and smoking. there were a considerable other number of smoke breaks, so I’m thinking they put in roughly somewhere around 45 mins of actual work. but im gonna go out on a limb here and bet they billed unca sugar for 8 hours. day 1 of packing our tv got unhooked and all of our bedding got packed… save 1 comforter, 1 sheet, and 3 pillows about as thick as rice cakes. so we had no entertainment and only enough bedding for 1 bed.
when they left at 3, they said they’d be back a little earlier the next day. I assumed they’d show up the next day with 5 people again. nope. Thursday morning at the ripe ole hour of 930, two lone packers arrived at my house. they were as nice as they could be and worked hard from 930 to 545. a definite plus. I thought things were looking up for this move for sure as they rolled out of town in their penske truck chariot.
and then Friday happened.
I might mention that 4 3/4 people sleeping in a queen bed is about as conducive to sleeping as trying to catch a few winks at a black sabbath concert. the 3rd time I got a foot to the face I got up and headed to the couch. c followed. so rather than sleep in the queen bed with daddy j, j, c, and me, I slept on a couch with c. way better. or not.
Friday morning, daddy j had to outprocess and left me at the house to wait for the truck driver who would arrive between 9 and 10. so, I waited. and waited. at 930 daddy j called me and told me that the truck driver had been shut down for the day and that he wouldn’t be arriving until tomorrow. say what?
I’ll spare you the details here but I called the coordinator at the trucking company and tried to be like Paul Harvey and figure out the rest of the story. after a game of phone tag hither, thither, and yon, it was determined that the truck driver was 6 hours away. so I was super stoked he realized he was 6 hours away 30 minutes AFTER he was due to arrive at my house. I’m no logistics expert, but I’m guessing he knew he was 6 hours away before he was 30 min late. bad news isn’t wine. it doesn’t improve with age, folks.
so after a bit of crying, I decided if call my liaison on the army end. he was super nice and i was super nice. I explained the situation to him and told him that if the driver was really shut down for weather, i understand. however, finding out at 930 that he was 6 hours away seemed like his timeline had more holes than Swiss cheese. and I bet he had some wine with his cheese the night before. or maybe a little too much wine. or maybe a whiskey on the rocks party in his tummy. the liaison agreed. they actually have us $100 towards a hotel and meals for our inconvenience… which to a 36 week pregnant lady who’d slept on the couch with a toddler for 2 nights was a mighty fine and appreciated gesture.
we ate out for supper, went and got bathing suits for the kids (since I forgot to pack some), swam a little at the hotel, and slept. started today with a fresh, happy attitude.
today the driver was supposed to arrive between 8 and 9. he rolled up to casa Drew at 856 and when he got done playing mrs. packman with his truck all up and down our street and finally parked it was about 915. he was alone with no help in sight. thankfully they showed up a few minutes later because I was getting the truck packed today and I had no plans of hulking up and down the stairs with boxes.
as soon as we got in the house and downstairs the driver said “how much weight are you allowed”. I answered. he responded “nope… you’re going over that” which made me think that he was purely asking to find out how many bricks of cocaine he needed to load on his truck to make sure we had to pay $ for our shipment as payback for complaining about him the day before.
the rest of the packing/loading day went smoothly. except, the driver said we’d be done at 2pm and we were done at 445pm. close-ish. one problem here that will present itself later is mostly all of our furniture is exactly the same color and they made no denotation of which beds rails came off of or which furniture pieces came off of-so that should be fun to sort out later.
the movers finally left at 445 and we were gonna head out to Raton, New Mexico for the night but we couldn’t find one of our cats. we got to spend the next hour canvassing the neighborhood only to find her behind one of the drawers in the basement.
finally! we could leave!
I cried like a baby leaving the house. we had so many memories in that house. I think daddy j may have taped me crying talking to j which will need to be destroyed later but that’s a task for another day.
we finally got on the road at 6pm. the van was driving horribly with the tow dolly and the car behind us. we couldn’t figure out what was wrong, but we made it to the nearest major cross street from our house before we realized that our towed car’s tires were smoking. in our haste to leave Colorado, we had not put the car in neutral or taken off the parking break. so cheers to that. daddy j got to jump out at the traffic light and fix that while getting honked at constantly by someone who was really desperate to make a u-turn– probably in an effort to make it to the marijuana dispensary before they closer for the weekend. so thanks for all that honking, Coloradan.
next up we needed to stop by daddy j’s office building to have his leave form signed. he let the non-runaway cat out to go pee at which time the cat did pee… on him. just another feather in our cap.
we finally got on the road for real, for real at 645. we made it 1.5 hours before we decided to call it quits for tonight. we stopped at a best western in “the next town we see” and are now laying in our beds in the hottest hotel room on the planet.
the heater is currently set to “off” but is running full blast. the room also comes equipped with a lovely window unit that’s running on high as low temperature wise as it can go annnnd the window is open. yet, we are still slow roasting in a human oven for the low low price of $120 a night. what a bargain!
im just hoping that I can cool off enough to fall asleep and praying that tomorrow is a better day.
tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya tomorrow.
so that’s the story. better me than you, eh? 🙂
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