The Big Move.

For over 2 years, I had most of my personal belongings in storage. We are talking bed sheets, pots, pans, bicycles, CD's, lamps, you name it.

Today was moving day. Time to empty out.
Rather than doing this over the Labor Day weekend, I made a wise choice in moving out on Friday instead. Ileana had aleady called the storage facility before snooping to see whether or not I was there, and I did not want to have any chance of having an altercation with her or her son while moving. Figuring she would be working on Friday, it made perfect sense. Also, there was this little 14.2 mile race to be had on Sunday, so moving on Friday, would have, at least, given me SOME time to recuperate.

I picked up Scott at 6:30am at his house, and after a big breakfast at a local diner on Cross Bay, we made tracks over to the UHaul rental location on Atlantic Avenue. Interestingly, it was only blocks away from her son's house. Hee.
The serviceman there was a complete asshole, and that's putting it nicely. He gives me the key and without even leaving the booth inside the gas station, points his finger in a haphazardly direction to indicate where the truck was. I walk outside and there are like 10 trucks in the vicinity of his dirty, curry-crusted pointed index finger. But, I walk across the street to check it out. And as expected, I could not find the truck at all. IF PEOPLE CANNOT SPEAK ENGLISH, THEN WHY ARE THEY ALLOWED TO PROVIDE CUSTOMER DISSERVICE TO THOSE WHO DO?

I walk back inside and now he is helping another customer. I break into their conversation, when the new customer (or victim) tells me, that I had my turn and now it's his. Shit! I am on a schedule here!!! So I tell him that I was here before, and I still don't have a truck. Then that fucking idiot tells me that I have to wait until he is finished. I HAVE TO WHAT???

Sometimes I am surprised that I am still alive. This guy was about a foot taller than me, and although he was a tub of lard, I turned to that ass, and I said, No, you are going to have to wait until I AM FINISHED. He looked at me all surprised, muttered some shit under his breath, and backed off. Hey, who knows? Maybe he thought I was packing....and not boxes either.....

Bangladesh Bob walked outside and showed me the truck. I finally went back in there, and noticed damage. Uh-huh, like, you want me to drive this damaged truck out, and you will charge me for it when I bring it back like it's my fault right? Again, I had to go BACK to the store.

I actually made TWO more trips, but I will spare you the extra and undulated angst I had to suffer. You get my point.

Scott and I got to the storage facility off of Jamaica Avenue, and began, in earnest to load my entire life's worth of shit into a 17 foot truck. We made what seemed like a 100 trips up and down the elevator. Fortunately we had the bay to ourselves for much of the move. We started at around 9am and finished up by 1:30pm. The manager there, her name is Michelle and she works at the SafeGuard, advised me that I had a balance due of $3 dollars and change. I had asked her what it was for, and she told me that she didn't know, but that she had to charge me. I told her that I don't pay for things that I don't know what they are for. This conversation ensued until I finally erupted by looking at her colleague and saying, I will pay you this money and not to her. Michelle asked me if there was a problem, and I said "Yes There Is. For one, you should not be working in customer service because you are not a nice person. This is not the first time you have given me grief. here I am paying nearly $250 a month and you are squabbling over $3 dollars for which you don't even have a record of what it's for."

Today was a shining example of idiots indeed.

Hungry, we drove the truck onto the LIE. Big Mistake. The LIE was shut down in both directions at exit 38 to exit 40. It was a parking lot. What should have taken no more than an hour, took nearly 2 and a half hours. I was spent. Scott, driving my car behind me was spent also. When we got to my new place, we parked the truck, got the keys from Tony, and went into town for a nice late lunch at an Italian restaurant. It gave us a little bit of energy, but we still had to unload EVERYTHING.

As I write this today (Sept 18th) it is almost impossible for me to imagine just how much work we did that day. Better put, I don't even want to remember. However, we somehow finished up by 8pm, and I managed to lose nothing, break nothing. I have to give Scott the biggest props for helping me here.

I drove the truck and Scott home, then realized I left my car charger for the phone in the truck and drove back to the service station. I didn't get home until almost midnight, and collapsed on the twin mattress, bare and all, in the hot and messy confines of my kids room.

WHEW!!!!