Thursday . October 3 . 2002 . 2:17pm |
a moving experience This is going to have to be a quick entry. I'm holed up in the computer lab at the Health Sciences Library, waiting for a patient to get out of echocardiology lab. So we moved. I know you must have thought that I was being overly pessimistic and neurotic with all my talk about how bad it sucks to move, but honestly, it was pretty terrible. Brief outline of the day. 6:00am: Wake up. The movers will be here at 9:00, after all. 6:00-8:00am: Last minute packing. 8:30: Call moving company. "We're on our way," they say. We believe them. Because we are idiots. 8:45am: Call moving company to reconfirm. "The truck left already! It should be there in a few minutes." Continue waiting outside the building. 9:00am: No truck. 9:15am: Still no moving truck. 9:20am: Call moving company again. "The truck is stuck. We'll call you back when the truck is free again." What do they mean, "stuck." Like, in a ditch? Down a well? Someone call Sting. 9:30am: Call moving company again. Now the story has changed. "We didn't have enough trucks available for the day. We don't have a truck for you. Maybe we can send one over after one of the earlier moves have finished. How is 2:00pm?" The building we were moving into has a "no moves after 3:00pm" rule. 9:35am: Cry. Wallow in self-pity. Look at all the boxes we have to move and cry some more. Also, curse cruel god and the too-cheap-to-be-good movers we hired. 9:45am: Try to hustle and book another moving company on the day of the move itself. Amazingly, this can be done. The people on the other end of the line don't even seem all that surprised that we got stood up by our original movers. 9:50am: "The truck has left. They'll be there at quarter after ten." I have no such high hopes anymore. Joe remains optimistic, and refuses to leave the vicinity of the front of our building in the event that the truck miraculously shows up. 10:15am: No truck. 10:30am: No truck. Call the movers again. "They'll be there any minute!" 10:45am: No truck. Call the movers again. "They'll be there any minute!" 11:00am: No truck. Call the movers again. "They'll be there any minute!" 11:15am: I rip the phone out of Joe's hand, because he's being too nice. "Look, you said that we'd have a truck here an hour ago. AN HOUR. I don't care how, you just get that truck over here NOW. Are you understanding me?" 11:20am: The truck shows up. Moods perk up. "We don't have a lot of stuff," Joe says hopefully, "we should have the truck loaded up in an hour." 1:30pm: We finish loading up the truck. 2:00pm: Joe and I drive down to the new apartment. The super starts screaming at us. If we are not finished moving in by 3:05, he's shutting down the elevators. 2:10pm: The moving truck has still not arrived from uptown. 2:20pm: The moving truck has still not arrived from uptown. 2:30pm: The moving truck calls. They are stuck in traffic around Times Square. 2:40pm: The moving truck pulls up to the building. We tell them that we have to be moved in about half an hour. They look at the truck full of furniture, and then at us, like we're talking crazy. 2:41pm: We haul ass. All of us, the movers, Joe, me, even my dad pitches in. We're carrying furniture on our back, pushing boxes, loading up the elevator until it's groaning under the weight of all our stuff. We bribe the super with a little green and he agrees to look the other way for an additional half hour. 3:50pm: The last box is upstairs. 4:00pm: We pay the movers, and are now short many hundreds of dollars. Present Day: We live in a shantytown of upside-down furniture and cardboard boxes. It was all worth it, right? More updates soon. xo Michelle |
