Andare, Partire, Tornare ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cardboard boxes and the meaning of life There�s a button somewhere that says �Friends help you move. Best friends help you move bodies.� I am here to prove that statement utterly false. The weekend�s events would have been far more stress-free had we only a couple of stinky cadavers to tote instead of all of Bemo�s and my posessions, and thank goodness Persia and Cherbear were around to help out, because they not only helped with physically moving boxes, but they helped prevent a loss of life! Much more difficult than chainsawing a body into pieces and throwing them in the lake, really. The day began with the discovery that although we had the �freight elevator� at our new apartment reserved from ten am to noon, the rental office didn�t actually open until ten, so we spent the first 45 minutes of our block of �freight elevator� time signing the lease, getting all our paperwork squared away, and driving around the fucking apartment complex four times because the idiot girl at the rental office didn�t know how to steer us around to the back of the building where it was mandated that we load in our crap. We�re actually on the lobby level of the building, but they have a strict policy against moving stuff in through the lobby (we got a warning note about it later, because we disregarded it, along with about five other people also loading in their crap) so we had to trek around the back and into the �freight elevator� to take it up two floors. See how I�ve put �Freight elevator� into quotes the whole way through? That�s because there isn�t a fucking freight elevator in the building. You can put a piano in a freight elevator. The elevator in our building is an ordinary people-moving elevator, and is not all that large, plus it has an angle to it that makes it well-nigh impossible to put long things into it. The fact that the rental office refers to it as a freight elevator is like saying that if I rename myself Catherine Zeta-Jones, I will immedieatly acquire a killer bod and fabulous hair. Face it, that�s not the way things work. Bemo and I were thanking god that we were on the main floor, because another couple was busy schleping things up five floors via the stairwell. Things like a futon and a queen-size mattress. Heavy things. We broke for lunch and then headed back to the apartment to discover problem number 2 of the day � Roommate�s mom and dad were in the townhouse, radiating hostility. Why were we not moved out already? Why was the oven not clean? (Search me, I may not have cleaned it but your daughter certainly didn�t either.) Every time we brought something through the front door, we had to wait for Roommate�s dad, who was sanding something on it, to step aside. Cherbear got barked at for daring to ask for a trash bag. Bemo was about ready to commit murder, and I was a ball of anxious irritation, torn between throwing up on somebody, fleeing into the woods, or joining Bemo in a Roommate Parent Murder Spree. It was a near thing. In the end, we got the majority of our shit into our new apartment, and it is a Good Thing, Too. Gracie-cat loves having the place all to herself, and is strutting around like she just was crowned Empress of All Kittens. Persia kindly bought me two sackfulls of cleaning supplies, and she and Cherbear are trying to teach us how to be grown-ups. We have discarded tons of useless objects, and are on our way to discarding tons more. Aside from our total lack of money, we�re cool. The new apartment is pretty nice, although we�re right next to the elevator and at night, you can hear it humming behind the wall. It�s no worse than hearing the train rumble by at one of the houses I grew up in. I�m thrilled with the new kingsize bed mom gave us. I love having a gas range. Even the new shower curtain from Target makes me happy. Even my commute doesn�t suck as badly as I had feared it would. As soon as I adjust to all the newness, I�ll be relaxed and happy again. 2:16 p.m. - 2004-03-24 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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