Outrageously bad timing
The day of the move, I couldn't believe how tired I
was. I assumed that it was all of the stress and build up - packing and moving
things around - but I was wrong...
The movers showed up at about 2:30pm - a pair of
Turks from Vancouver. The lead guy was younger and very friendly. His "second"
was like an older, Turkish version of Teller from Penn and Teller. When I first
talked to him, he just pointed at the other guy, called Hakkan. It would be
hours before he'd finally speak, and I realised why he didn't say much - his
English was broken beyond repair.
As soon
as the move started, it was chaos. We had everything somewhat organised but had
neglected to put the manifest lists on the boxes as we went. They just started
grabbing stuff and moving it. At one point, a box with about $2,500 of
microphones went missing. I panicked - I doubt that freezing a microphone's
diaphragm is good for it. I finally found it up in the studio, but that just
sort of demonstrates how the day was going. Steve and Janet, the newlyweds,
stopped by on their way back from Santa Barbara (they're taking their honeymoon
in January), and were an amazing amount of help. I kept telling Steve how tired
I felt... just couldn't get moving and
motivated.
Wendy left with the kids
around about 6pm, and I stayed with Hakkan and Teller. A few hours later, after
moving the washing machine, they found that the gas line to the dryer was jammed
and trying to unscrew it was just stripping the nut. Hakken wanted to take a
saw to it but Teller explained, a la Harpo Marx, that there was still gas in the
pipe, the saw would heat the gas, and it would probably explode. I decided it'd
be best to call a plumber. It took him about two hours to get there, under five
minutes to disconnect the pipe, and cost me $40. By 8pm or so, I was really
starting to feel burnt out... could hardly do anything... and then about 9pm, it
started - the runs, the vomiting, and the cold sweats. At 10:30, I called my
brother and begged him to come and oversee the rest of the move. He was down in
the Valley, so it took him an hour to get there. Chris and his visiting friend,
Jeff, helped me haul some stuff to my parents' car (my car's still in the shop -
$600 for a new alternator), and I took off. I spent the rest of the night in my
parents' guest bed, semi-delirious and drenched in
sweat.
I feel a little better today, but
our Friday departure's certainly looking unlikely. I'm just praying that no one
else catches this. I spent a couple of hours on the phone cancelling the
get-together scheduled for tonight but hope that if we leave maybe on Monday,
I'll be able to get to see everyone over the
weekend.
Alas, no pictures of the move...
no video... nothing. I spent the majority of the move lying on the floor trying
to get more comfortable and completely forgot about anything else. The one
memory I think I'll take away from this, though, was from around 7pm. Wendy and
the kids had left, and the house was trashed - stuff absolutely everywhere with
these two mad Turks ripping through the place like a pair of dervishes. I
walked outside and could hear one of the kids' toys playing a Mozart piano piece
from a box inside the truck. Kinda puts everything into perspective - your
entire life, your kids' lives, everything in the back of a
truck.
Oh... and it ended up that the
movers didn't have a large enough van - there's still a bunch of stuff in the
garage. Not sure what we're going to do about that, yet. What a mess. Wendy's
at the house right now with the cleaners - carpet cleaner coming at 3, so she's
expecting to be home by dinnertime. I feel like a gimp for not being able to
take care of anything, but what can you do? This thing hit me at a really bad
time, but I suppose it could've been worse - we could've been in
Utah.
Posted: Wed - December
7, 2005 at 02:19 PM