I'm sitting in a hospital emergency room waiting area with a dead phone (there are no outlets -- every few minutes someone looks around the waiting room
hoping it will have magically sprung some new outlets, and I want to
say, "Nope, not yet"), sucking on a candy cane I found in my purse left
over from Christmas (because I haven't eaten since 2 pm and
it's now 10:43 pm), writing on the back of a car rental receipt because
my journal somehow got misplaced, listening to a CNN documentary on
Israel after doing a few Sudoku puzzles, waiting for my fiancé to get staples in his head.
We
were supposed to finish moving today. Well, actually we were supposed
to finish moving last Sunday, but then there was a blizzard Saturday and
we ran out of boxes and no place was open to buy more, so after the
moving truck somehow moved us with two and a half feet of snow on the ground (and
with a very nice super who padded the elevators of the new place last
minute after never being informed of our move), we still had a lot of
packing and moving to do. (Oh, and I should mention that we've been
dealing with the old building's carpet beetle infestation for the past
two years, so packing is an incredibly time-consuming and laborious
task, as every single item has to be vacuumed, lint-rolled, and if
possible either frozen or heat-treated right before being packed. The
freezer has been full of my sheet music and wedding dress all week.)
So,
with the truck gone and lots of work left to do, after vehemently
saying, "Uh-unh no way are you crazy?!" to my fiance's suggestion that we
could move the rest by foot and train in the remaining week on our
lease, I rented a mini-van for yesterday (the source of the receipt on
which I am now writing in teeny tiny letters with a dull pencil because
my pen seems to have gone missing along with my journal). Turns out the
car rental place is only open until 1pm on Saturday and not at all on
Sunday, but that should be enough time, especially for two stage
managers, right? Wrong. After waking up bright and early to get the car
right at our scheduled pickup time, we waited
in the cold industrial neighborhood at the door to the car rental place
that looked more like a front organization than an actual business,
hoping
someone would actually show up so we could get on our way. Finally, 20
minutes after the time for which I'd reserved the car, a guy with his
pants around his knees limped (I assume to keep the pants from winding
up at his ankles) up to the door and moseyed on over to the desk... where
he proceeded to mumble at me in something barely above a whisper. I
couldn't make
out a word he was saying, and after asking, "What?" a few times before
realizing the guy had no intention of speaking at a volume that would
allow actual communication to occur, my fiancé and I started looking at
each other and repeating to each other the parts we could hear, hoping
between the two of us we could figure out the content. "I think he said _____," one of us would say. "No, I think the last part was ____," the
other would reply. Then we'd both look at him expectantly and be met
with a blank stare. Eventually I said "no" in response to whatever he
was asking enough that he got around to
telling me the total charge, which was way higher than the price I'd
received when I reserved it online. Cue another 15-minute delay because
he didn't know the difference between a deposit and a hold.
So finally we were on our way to the old apartment. We parked, brought down a load, and... couldn't get the trunk open. Just a momentary hiccup, I thought. That's what car manuals are for, right? Something as basic as how to open a trunk should even be in the "Quick Guide." Wrong again. Not only wasn't it in the quick guide, but it wasn't in the index of the full manual under trunk, doors, hatch, or rear door, and I was out of ideas for what other fancy words might substitute for "trunk." I tried to Google the solution, with no luck, and, completely flummoxed and at a standstill, I did exactly what any rational person would do in this circumstance. I called my dad. Dad to the rescue!! I still have no idea why it wasn't in the manual, but with a working trunk, we were back to packing and loading -- until we had to stop due to time before all of my fiancé's papers were carpet-beetle-checked. So, leaving behind two heavy, huge, heavy, plastic heavy bins, the actual food contents of the fridge and freezer, a Dustbuster, and some other (heavy) odds and ends, we got what we had time for over to the new place and then returned the minivan, and, after hitting a traffic jam, still got it back with three minutes to spare.
So that brings us to today, when we were planning to finish the last of the move by getting the remaining (heavy) stuff over via a cab. I cleaned the apartment while my fiancé finished bug-checking his stuff. We were behind our 8:30 pm goal, but by 9:30, everything was ready to go, and I was cleaning the Dustbuster while he made one more trip around the apartment to make sure we didn't leave anything behind. And then I heard a ton of cursing and swearing from the other room. I admittedly didn't think much of it at first, because, well, I've already heard a lot of swearing this weekend, such as the many times the elevator tried to close on us because the motion detector doesn't work and one of us would try to push the doors open while the other finished getting stuff on it. And a toe stub by the male half of this household can produce some pretty bad words. So I figured he probably stubbed his toe, but after a couple moments I went to check on him anyway. And instead of him clutching his toe, I found him crouched down clutching his head. Which scared me. And then I asked what he did and he turned around and I shrieked. And then he said "WHAT?!" at me because I'd shrieked. And I'd shrieked because there was blood pouring down his head and into his hands and through his fingers and onto the floor. And then he looked at his hands and said a lot more words and started appropriately freaking out and I called 911. The 911 operator must have wondered what kind of situation this was because the whole time I was on the phone with them I kept yelling at my fiancé to stop talking because he was drowning out me to the 911 operator and the 911 operator to me and we had to keep repeating everything (yeah, turns out yelling, "Tell them to come fast!" at the person who's calling 911 is actually not helpful). So my fiancé kept apologizing for hitting his head, I kept telling him not to apologize and that he'd be fine, he asked if there was still blood pouring down his face, I tried to figure out if the correct answer to that was, "No, sweetie, I don't see any blood at all" while crossing my fingers, and then the paramedics came and did what they do and bandaged up his head, while I wiped blood up off the floor because I didn't know what else to do, and then he went in the ambulance and I took a big breath, sighed, sat down on one of the huge, heavy (did I mention it was heavy?) bins and tried to figure out how in the world I was going to move out by myself in two and a half hours. I'm physically strong, but I'm not that strong. Forgetting the volume of the stuff left, the individual bins are too heavy for me to carry downstairs for a car service. And we lose the apartment at midnight. If my brother were still in the city I could call him, but he lives in North Carolina now, so unless he can blink his eyes like Jeannie, that probably wouldn't work, and I have no one here I can call to help me move at 10pm on a Sunday night. And I also have to be at work in the morning. A trip down to the doorman to ask if we could stay an extra night or if they'd be in the apartment in the morning and get rid of our stuff proved useless. He just shrugged and said he didn't know what would happen.
I was at a loss. A month of pure stress was all coming down on me in that moment (and the blood-soaked paper towels that had no place to hide now that we had no garbage cans left weren't helping), and I had no idea what to do. So once again, I did what any rational person would do. I called my parents and asked them what to do. My dad answered, and when I tried to explain the whole thing, my voice cracking, he handed the phone to my mom (I imagine saying something like "She's cry-talking. It's for you."). My mom, of course, is an expert at understanding my cry-talking (that is, after all, one of the many magical abilities that moms possess), and my parents came up with a plan for me to call out of work now, call the building management company first thing in the morning and explain, and then get over to the old apartment as soon as possible in the morning with some cash and tell the workers at the building that I needed help getting the stuff down and in the car. I had a plan. Parents are awesome. So I gathered my stuff, left the old place, and then got a text from my fiancé that the doctor examined him and he would be fine and get discharged after getting some staples in his head and he still wants to finish the move tonight. Personally, I really want to eat and sleep. But getting out of that horrible apartment once and for all is good too. So here I am, sitting in the hospital’s emergency room, waiting for my stapled-together fiancé to get discharged so we can finish our move. What a week.
*** We got out, technically on February 1st, about four hours behind schedule, but in one piece, plus some extra hardware. The moral of the story? Don't ever live in a building with a bug infestation. EVER.
So finally we were on our way to the old apartment. We parked, brought down a load, and... couldn't get the trunk open. Just a momentary hiccup, I thought. That's what car manuals are for, right? Something as basic as how to open a trunk should even be in the "Quick Guide." Wrong again. Not only wasn't it in the quick guide, but it wasn't in the index of the full manual under trunk, doors, hatch, or rear door, and I was out of ideas for what other fancy words might substitute for "trunk." I tried to Google the solution, with no luck, and, completely flummoxed and at a standstill, I did exactly what any rational person would do in this circumstance. I called my dad. Dad to the rescue!! I still have no idea why it wasn't in the manual, but with a working trunk, we were back to packing and loading -- until we had to stop due to time before all of my fiancé's papers were carpet-beetle-checked. So, leaving behind two heavy, huge, heavy, plastic heavy bins, the actual food contents of the fridge and freezer, a Dustbuster, and some other (heavy) odds and ends, we got what we had time for over to the new place and then returned the minivan, and, after hitting a traffic jam, still got it back with three minutes to spare.
So that brings us to today, when we were planning to finish the last of the move by getting the remaining (heavy) stuff over via a cab. I cleaned the apartment while my fiancé finished bug-checking his stuff. We were behind our 8:30 pm goal, but by 9:30, everything was ready to go, and I was cleaning the Dustbuster while he made one more trip around the apartment to make sure we didn't leave anything behind. And then I heard a ton of cursing and swearing from the other room. I admittedly didn't think much of it at first, because, well, I've already heard a lot of swearing this weekend, such as the many times the elevator tried to close on us because the motion detector doesn't work and one of us would try to push the doors open while the other finished getting stuff on it. And a toe stub by the male half of this household can produce some pretty bad words. So I figured he probably stubbed his toe, but after a couple moments I went to check on him anyway. And instead of him clutching his toe, I found him crouched down clutching his head. Which scared me. And then I asked what he did and he turned around and I shrieked. And then he said "WHAT?!" at me because I'd shrieked. And I'd shrieked because there was blood pouring down his head and into his hands and through his fingers and onto the floor. And then he looked at his hands and said a lot more words and started appropriately freaking out and I called 911. The 911 operator must have wondered what kind of situation this was because the whole time I was on the phone with them I kept yelling at my fiancé to stop talking because he was drowning out me to the 911 operator and the 911 operator to me and we had to keep repeating everything (yeah, turns out yelling, "Tell them to come fast!" at the person who's calling 911 is actually not helpful). So my fiancé kept apologizing for hitting his head, I kept telling him not to apologize and that he'd be fine, he asked if there was still blood pouring down his face, I tried to figure out if the correct answer to that was, "No, sweetie, I don't see any blood at all" while crossing my fingers, and then the paramedics came and did what they do and bandaged up his head, while I wiped blood up off the floor because I didn't know what else to do, and then he went in the ambulance and I took a big breath, sighed, sat down on one of the huge, heavy (did I mention it was heavy?) bins and tried to figure out how in the world I was going to move out by myself in two and a half hours. I'm physically strong, but I'm not that strong. Forgetting the volume of the stuff left, the individual bins are too heavy for me to carry downstairs for a car service. And we lose the apartment at midnight. If my brother were still in the city I could call him, but he lives in North Carolina now, so unless he can blink his eyes like Jeannie, that probably wouldn't work, and I have no one here I can call to help me move at 10pm on a Sunday night. And I also have to be at work in the morning. A trip down to the doorman to ask if we could stay an extra night or if they'd be in the apartment in the morning and get rid of our stuff proved useless. He just shrugged and said he didn't know what would happen.
I was at a loss. A month of pure stress was all coming down on me in that moment (and the blood-soaked paper towels that had no place to hide now that we had no garbage cans left weren't helping), and I had no idea what to do. So once again, I did what any rational person would do. I called my parents and asked them what to do. My dad answered, and when I tried to explain the whole thing, my voice cracking, he handed the phone to my mom (I imagine saying something like "She's cry-talking. It's for you."). My mom, of course, is an expert at understanding my cry-talking (that is, after all, one of the many magical abilities that moms possess), and my parents came up with a plan for me to call out of work now, call the building management company first thing in the morning and explain, and then get over to the old apartment as soon as possible in the morning with some cash and tell the workers at the building that I needed help getting the stuff down and in the car. I had a plan. Parents are awesome. So I gathered my stuff, left the old place, and then got a text from my fiancé that the doctor examined him and he would be fine and get discharged after getting some staples in his head and he still wants to finish the move tonight. Personally, I really want to eat and sleep. But getting out of that horrible apartment once and for all is good too. So here I am, sitting in the hospital’s emergency room, waiting for my stapled-together fiancé to get discharged so we can finish our move. What a week.
*** We got out, technically on February 1st, about four hours behind schedule, but in one piece, plus some extra hardware. The moral of the story? Don't ever live in a building with a bug infestation. EVER.
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