The move

This is a little late in coming, but I just kind of kept forgetting to come back to it. Anyway, here is the story of my move from Lakewood to South Euclid.

At the end of July, I left the upstairs of the house on Lincoln Avenue in Lakewood and have taken up residence in South Euclid. It was kind of a sad occasion, as my roommates (Mike and John) and I all went our separate ways. Mike went most separate of all and is now in North Carolina to attend grad school. John and I both decided that it was perhaps time to get places of our own. I had a change of heart, however, when I realized that I wanted to start saving as much money as I possibly could. At that point, I wasn’t sure exactly what to do, since I didn’t really know anyone who was looking for a roommate, but then my friend Darcy came to the rescue. She currently rents the basement in her friend Paul’s house, and she suggested to him that I could rent one of the bedrooms. He quoted me a price that I couldn’t quite pass up.

So that was all set, then. I had a place to live. The problem then became finding a way to get my stuff there. I’d amassed a great deal of belongings over the three years in which I’d lived in Lakewood in addition to the things I’d already had before moving to the Cleveland area. Having lived in furnished apartments whilst going to school, I hadn’t previously had need of a bed or dresser of my own. Apart from those, I had also bought a large amount of books, DVDs and comics. I decided to sell off a large chunk of those before the move, but it still probably wasn’t enough. (I didn’t actually sell any of the comics. Those are pretty difficult to unload.)

The last time I visited my family in Lima, I decided to switch cars with my parents. They had my grandpa’s old station wagon, in which I could fit far more stuff than my tiny ‘93 Honda Civic. (Sure, it wouldn’t make me a hit with the ladies, but it would only be for a limited time.) I also couldn’t resist letting my dad know that he was always welcome to help me move. After all, I certainly couldn’t lift a lot of that stuff by myself, and when I thought about it, I couldn’t think of too many people who’d be able to help. To my delight, my parents accepted the offer, and they decided that our dog Macy would “help” as well. (To those of you who are unaware, Macy is one of the best dogs ever.)

To facilitate the moving of the large, heavy items, we decided it would be best to rent a U-Haul truck. I picked it up on Friday afternoon, and the first thing I noticed was that it looked like it was at least ten years old. Aside from that, none of the advertised amenities actually came with the vehicle. The air conditioner didn’t work; the tuning button on the radio was broken; the suspension seemed shot, thereby making the promised “gentle ride” false advertising. But as long as it got to where I needed it to go, I could put up with it.

Loading the truck was slightly easier than I expected. (We had a bit of trouble getting the box spring around the tight corners in the house, but once that part was over, it was easy from there.) After we had it as full as we could get it, we proceeded to drive it along the highway. It was at that point that the truck began to make a loud knocking sound. The hood also began to rattle as though it would pop open at any moment. About a mile from the exit we were to take, there was the unmistakable sound of something breaking, and black smoke began to rise from under the hood. We pulled the truck onto the shoulder, and let it sit for a moment. We then tried to restart it, but to no avail.

I called U-Haul’s roadside assistance and tried to listen to the operator. The passing traffic made it difficult to hear the woman who mumbled to begin with. She said she would call back in about thirty minutes to inform me of how soon they could get a tow truck to the area. She kept her promise, but for some reason, she was unable to hear me. (I actually heard her better during that conversation, ironically.) I tried yelling as loud as I could during the call, but she still couldn’t make anything out. Instead, she just told me that there would be a truck there in about an hour and a half.

We called Mom to come get us just so we wouldn’t have to stand out on the side of the interstate. Not being used to it, she can’t totally handle city traffic like what Cleveland has to offer, so she was understandably jittery by the time she got there. We waited around, and the truck actually arrived fifteen minutes earlier than the operator had predicted. The driver looked to be in a fairly precarious position every time he had to hitch up anything on the driver’s side. I don’t know how one gets used to that sort of thing, but I would have totally been in fear for my life.

He towed us to the house, since we were pretty close, stopping partway to turn the U-Haul truck around. (Apparently, it’s preferable to tow it from the rear.) After getting us to our destination, I slipped him a twenty and thanked him for his service. The unloading went quickly, but seeing as how the tow truck didn’t arrive until a quarter after eight o’clock, I knew there would be no way of getting the U-Haul back to the rental office by the 8:30 deadline they’d given me. I called the hotline back to make sure that I was all squared away, and they told me that I would be. They also told me that it would take about two and a half hours to get another truck to haul it to a repair shop, so I left the key in the glove box and left with my parents and my brother, who had arrived later.

The next day, I dropped by the rental office to request a refund, and that was when I discovered that they had no idea that the truck was no longer in my possession. (I found out later that they’d called me earlier and left a voicemail message to inform me that I was late returning the truck and that it was supposed to go out that day to someone else.) The guy pretty much told me that, unless I wanted to fight it out directly with the U-Haul Corporation, he could drop a ton of charges and make my final bill about $27. I figured I could live with that, since ultimately it sort of did what I needed it to do.

After my parents left, I began the process of cleaning the old place and ruthlessly trashing everything I didn’t need. This took a long, long time, and thanks to the weather, I was exhausted by the end of the day. This, of course, was only the first of the three evenings it would take. The second was by far the worst, as I didn’t have a chance to shower the entire day. (Okay, technically, I did, but I was so tired that I opted not to.) The third was more tolerable, although I still had a lot of cleaning to do. Plus, I needed to get rid of the couch. (Neither John nor I wanted it.) Apparently, the Salvation Army couldn’t be bothered to pick it up until sometime in September, so I tried a local second-hand furniture place. Someone from the store came by to look at it, but she said she couldn’t use it. Therefore, the couch got tossed.

The funny thing about the removal of the couch was the fact that, in doing so, we broke a segment of the stairway window. The whole time we lived in the house, we never broke a window. Hell, I don’t think we broke much of anything that actually belonged to the house. (The lone exception would have been a part of the balcony railing, which had been rotting long before we moved in.) Somehow, our landlord Norm decided it wasn’t a big deal, and he gave the full deposit back to both me and John.

So now I’ve been living there for about three weeks, and it seems to be going fairly well so far. The house gets a bit crowded at times. Aside from Paul, Darcy and me, there are also a few occasional occupants: Paul’s fiancée Maggie and Paul’s daughters Rachel and Rebecca. There are also animals, Darcy’s cat Sabrina and occasionally, Paul’s dogs Bosko and Peppy. (He shares custody of the dogs with his ex.) Pretty much, I keep my bedroom door closed at all times. As much as I love animals, I don’t like the hair, so I figure that if I cut them off completely from the room, it should keep hair to a minimum.

Also, I’ve gotten Darcy into Doctor Who. Slowly but surely, I’m spreading the gospel.