I hate moving.
I mean, I really hate moving.
As you know, we moved to a new apartment yesterday. Based on the amount of time that it took to move Brian and Gill from their apartment to their house, I assumed (rather stupidly, it seems) that the trip would take about five hours.
We started about 8pm the night before. Allison’s parents (who graciously wasted two days of their vacation helping us move) arrived and began to help us finish packing. We’d been packing for nearly two weeks, but due to all the other things we had to deal with we simply didn’t get everything done.
The next morning, the packing resumed on the remaining small things. At about 11:45am, I headed out to get the truck. We rented a 17-foot cube van, which I thought would be ample to the task of moving our stuff. That was mistake #1.
Traffic was a nightmare. My dear, close friend Murphy was following me everywhere. The rainy season had started in the Lower Mainland, of course on the day we had to move. The lights were out at Nanaimo and Kingsway, backing traffic up for blocks in both directions. I just knew it was going to be a rough day. If only I had known how rough.
Returning to the apartment with the truck, we proceeded to load our lives’ possessions into the truck. I was extremely grateful for the Collins’ help — we never would have been able to move on our own. Because we were moving on a weekday, we were also unable to get friends to help — they were all at work.
The idea had been to load the truck by 2:00, get down to the new apartment by 2:30, and have the truck back by 5:30.
That was the idea.
In reality, we had the first load ready by 3:00, we were unloaded by 4:15, and back to the old apartment to pick up the second load. Fortunately, we’d lucked out by having Michelle and Tyler (two friends of ours) leave work early to help us move. We stole Tyler going back to the old apartment.
The second load was ready somewhere in the neighbourhood of about 8:00pm, give or take a half-hour. (By that point, it really didn’t matter any more.) We were unloaded by somewhere around 9:45. After that, I took the truck back, picked up my car, and drove to my new home.
10 hours. It took 10 hours to get it all done. Note to self: Remember this the next time we get the silly idea that we can live someplace better.
As it stands, the apartment is a disaster. There’s stuff everywhere. It’s gonna take us about a week to sort it all out.
Like I said, I hate moving.
Next time, we’re getting professional movers.
And of course, there’s the aftermath. Rogers botched our @Home installation (we’re about 1 second away from getting ASDL to compensate for their incompetence). We still have to clean out our old apartment and turn in the keys.
Overall, this isn’t an experience I want to relive for quite some time. So for the foreseeable future, here’s where you can reach us:
[This information not available on the web. Sorry…]
Be talking with y’all later…
