Moving: Wacky Hijinks Ensue!

So, I have finished moving. Understandably, I’ve been keeping a low profile while packing, and the day of the move itself was rather long and arduous, involving three trips along various highways to and from the old apartment for disinfection and other sundries. I was done with everything around nine on Saturday. Sunday, I unpacked a goodly amount of boxes, but I’ve got quite a few to go. And Monday…

Oh, Monday.

Until the scheduled move date, I’d been frantically divesting myself of worldly possessions via freecycle and Craigslist rather successfully until I hit a tiny snag: nobody, it seemed, wanted to buy queen mattress set. Why!? I wondered, I’d taken great care of them; they practically look brand new! But, alas, apparently people are understandably cautious about shady bedding of questionable origin. I knew they were basically quality, gently used, and not even half into Lebeda’s boasted twenty-year durability guarantee… but who trusts people on teh webz?

No, I got questions ranging from Have cats sprayed on them? to bargain-seekers proclaiming I’ll give you $50. I looked through similar postings, did my research, and figured $100 wasn’t too much to ask, and indeed, three people stated they’d come look at the set. One flat-out promised to arrive on Saturday to pick it up. Foolishly, I believed this person, all the way to Saturday at 2pm when I called her and confirmed she’d be in the area around 4pm to drop by.

4pm arrives and I’m back at the old apartment sweeping, swiffering, and dousing it with Pine Sol for about three hours, periodically taking a break to call my mysterious no-show, figuring she’d been caught up somewhere. Every time, it goes straight to voice-mail, or rings to infinity. Well shit. So I call the second person who contacted me, and she comes by with her sister to take a look. “We’ll take it!” they squeal. Ah, but how do they intend to take it? Sunday’s out with such short notice; they need to find someone to get it to their cousin’s house.

Uh oh.

Monday arrives, and after work, this particular customer actually answers her phone, and I wander to the apartment to pick up the one thing I forgot there, and to wait for her, or somebody, to show up. She calls back and weeps that her sister doesn’t get home from work until 7pm. I grumble, but I can handle a little waiting. So I head to the Firehouse bar and have some grub and a St. Bernardus Abt 12 to kill some time. Turns out, I should have stayed a lot longer. Go home and wait. Wait. Wait longer. Call them at a quarter to eight and tell them to reschedule, as I really want to go home now.

As I’m standing at the train station, literally four minutes before the train arrives, I get a call: “Are you still there? We’re on our way!!!” ZOMG, indeed. So, I go home, and twenty minutes pass, and I call them. “They’re coming, I promise! Her ride has to come all the way from Howard and Custer!” Except I could walk from that particular intersection to my apartment in twenty minutes. These people are clearly idiots, or sprung from mentally deficient roots, so I roll my eyes and wait again. At a quarter to nine, I call again and even she’s surprised her relatives haven’t yet arrived. Turns out they got lost. Finding a place I with my terrible sense of direction had no problem locating last year. Let me also mention the woman accompanying the driver lived literally five blocks away. An hour, to find a house five blocks away. We’re talking biblical levels of stupidity here.

So I see a tiny Honda drive up, and the driver asks if I’m selling a bed. Double uh-oh. So, I help him lug the bed down into the ally and hoist it on top of his car, and without the aid of bungee cables, he and the buyer drive away disturbingly nonplussed about their chosen method of mattress and box-spring transport. I wished them luck, shook my head in disbelief, and walked to the Firehouse bar again to kill some time, as the next train didn’t come until 10pm. Taking transfer into account and the fact neither expresses nor bus shuttles run that late, this would get me home around midnight, and only after I finish the last two miles by walking.

Why didn’t I drive to the station, you might ask? Why, because according to the Downers Grove parking permit office, there’s a four year waiting list for the parking lot historically minimally half-empty regardless of temporal distribution. Ah, government incompetence. So I’ve essentially been walking, pacing, or jogging constantly since around 5pm, topping it off with a two-mile power walk back to the apartment complex. My calves, shins, and will ache with the welts of a thousand crowbars from yesterday’s ordeal. But at least it’s over!

Until Tomorrow