An all too brief update
Well, I survived moving, but it was a close call. Just about everything that could go wrong did, it was even more aggravating and exhausting than the last time we moved and I didn't think that was going to be possible.
I'm in the library right now, we won't have internet access for another two weeks at least. So let's see if I can sum up all the bullshit quickly before my time here is up.
Well, most of it comes down to one person: Dominic, our thankfully now ex room mate. He was a good portion of the reason why the move was such a mess last year. Last year he had gone to an anime convention with his ex now current again girlfriend said he'd be back in a day and disappeared for two weeks, no one could get a hold of him and he wasn't trying to contact us despite that he knew we were trying to find a place to go to. When he eventually did call, he no longer particularly cared where we went, had no interest in helping with the proceedings whatsoever and left everything up to Renee and me. When it was time for us to actually move, he showed up, announced that he was only going to move his stuff into the new place and then vanish with his girlfriend again. This caused some fighting among us and pissed off the three people who were driving our stuff back and forth free of charge a good deal; when he forgot some of his things in the old house after leaving the drivers refused to touch it so we had to argue with him to get him to come back and pick it up. Since we had moved out very last minute and everything was insanely rushed, that was a load of shit we really didn't need.
Dominic remained an absentee tenant for most of the last year, but with a few exceptions he paid his rent on time and there wasn't much cause to complain. He had decided within about a month of moving last year that he didn't intend to stay with us beyond the end of this lease; after he was gone so much of the time, Renee and I had decided we didn't want him to stay beyond the end of the lease either (it is really hard to find an affordable three bedroom place that isn't in the ghetto, we don't intend to live in an unsafe neighborhood so Dominic has storage space while he all but lives with his girlfriend). So this was mutually agreed upon a long time ago. I understand that Dominic's plans to live on his own sort of fell through, I understand that the last several months have probably been difficult on him finanicially, but still. He knew this day was coming, he had plenty of time to make plans, try to get people to help him, make phone calls, anything.
Friday evening, the day before we were moving, I get a phone call from him. He knew we were going to be renting a UHaul to make our trip easier, he wants to know if he can borrow it for a short time. He is only planning to bring a few things with him, and his dresser just simply can't fit in the car. He has a concert he's going to so he has to leave by about three, but he'll help us move stuff around until then, and then he'll quickly run the dresser in our truck down to Glen Burnie where he'll be living now, have the truck brought back, and he'll pay half plus the mileage.
There was a little tweak in the back of my mind at this, but I ignored it. We said yes, sure we'll help you out this one last time.
So he shows up on Saturday at ten before the truck arrives as we asked him to. This was so that he could get his stuff ready and it could be packed up right away. Apparently this was lost on him, he did absolutely nothing until the truck got there. And then he's talking about having to get his stuff down to storage by one o'clock which was not the plan we heard the day before and pretty much meant he wouldn't have time to help us with shit. And still we said nothing. We loaded what boxes we could into the cars, left the truck with them, and I and the drivers went down to the new apartment to unload, figuring by the time we were done Dominic would be gone and probably halfway back.
I call when everything is unloaded and we are somewhat rested (three steep flights of stairs, up and down, up and down, its a killer :-)), Renee tells me he hasn't even left yet. There was a lot more he loaded onto the truck than just a dresser (didn't put anything in his girlfriend's car except the cats) and he was taking his sweet time about doing so. Missed his storage deadline, which I guess is fine, it only affects him and he can do what he wants there. But in the meantime none of our stuff was getting loaded and time was wasting away.
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell Renee to get all his stuff off the truck, you waited too long now tough shit. And that is exactly what I should have done, and I don't know why I didn't. We got back to the house and he was just getting ready to leave. The truck didn't get back until after four o'clock and by that time half our help had to leave. So when it came time to move the furniture, the part we really needed the help with, it was down to me and a friend of Renee's taking everything up the stairs by ourselves. Instead of being done on Saturday it took until Monday to clean our place out and bring all the furniture upstairs (glad the landlord was understanding and let us keep what we couldn't carry in the hallway downstairs). I was so sore and so exhausted it wasn't even funny. I'm just now starting to recover physically from that.
So, the lesson of the story is: don't be nice to anyone, it will come back and bite you in the ass. Or so it often seems anyway. I'm still so angry at Dominic right now I don't even want to talk to him. Which is too bad really, him and I were good friends at one point in time.
But all is well now, we're loving the new apartment. I'll be wandering down to the library periodically to glance through Livejournal and check email, and in two weeks I should be back full time again.
I'm in the library right now, we won't have internet access for another two weeks at least. So let's see if I can sum up all the bullshit quickly before my time here is up.
Well, most of it comes down to one person: Dominic, our thankfully now ex room mate. He was a good portion of the reason why the move was such a mess last year. Last year he had gone to an anime convention with his ex now current again girlfriend said he'd be back in a day and disappeared for two weeks, no one could get a hold of him and he wasn't trying to contact us despite that he knew we were trying to find a place to go to. When he eventually did call, he no longer particularly cared where we went, had no interest in helping with the proceedings whatsoever and left everything up to Renee and me. When it was time for us to actually move, he showed up, announced that he was only going to move his stuff into the new place and then vanish with his girlfriend again. This caused some fighting among us and pissed off the three people who were driving our stuff back and forth free of charge a good deal; when he forgot some of his things in the old house after leaving the drivers refused to touch it so we had to argue with him to get him to come back and pick it up. Since we had moved out very last minute and everything was insanely rushed, that was a load of shit we really didn't need.
Dominic remained an absentee tenant for most of the last year, but with a few exceptions he paid his rent on time and there wasn't much cause to complain. He had decided within about a month of moving last year that he didn't intend to stay with us beyond the end of this lease; after he was gone so much of the time, Renee and I had decided we didn't want him to stay beyond the end of the lease either (it is really hard to find an affordable three bedroom place that isn't in the ghetto, we don't intend to live in an unsafe neighborhood so Dominic has storage space while he all but lives with his girlfriend). So this was mutually agreed upon a long time ago. I understand that Dominic's plans to live on his own sort of fell through, I understand that the last several months have probably been difficult on him finanicially, but still. He knew this day was coming, he had plenty of time to make plans, try to get people to help him, make phone calls, anything.
Friday evening, the day before we were moving, I get a phone call from him. He knew we were going to be renting a UHaul to make our trip easier, he wants to know if he can borrow it for a short time. He is only planning to bring a few things with him, and his dresser just simply can't fit in the car. He has a concert he's going to so he has to leave by about three, but he'll help us move stuff around until then, and then he'll quickly run the dresser in our truck down to Glen Burnie where he'll be living now, have the truck brought back, and he'll pay half plus the mileage.
There was a little tweak in the back of my mind at this, but I ignored it. We said yes, sure we'll help you out this one last time.
So he shows up on Saturday at ten before the truck arrives as we asked him to. This was so that he could get his stuff ready and it could be packed up right away. Apparently this was lost on him, he did absolutely nothing until the truck got there. And then he's talking about having to get his stuff down to storage by one o'clock which was not the plan we heard the day before and pretty much meant he wouldn't have time to help us with shit. And still we said nothing. We loaded what boxes we could into the cars, left the truck with them, and I and the drivers went down to the new apartment to unload, figuring by the time we were done Dominic would be gone and probably halfway back.
I call when everything is unloaded and we are somewhat rested (three steep flights of stairs, up and down, up and down, its a killer :-)), Renee tells me he hasn't even left yet. There was a lot more he loaded onto the truck than just a dresser (didn't put anything in his girlfriend's car except the cats) and he was taking his sweet time about doing so. Missed his storage deadline, which I guess is fine, it only affects him and he can do what he wants there. But in the meantime none of our stuff was getting loaded and time was wasting away.
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell Renee to get all his stuff off the truck, you waited too long now tough shit. And that is exactly what I should have done, and I don't know why I didn't. We got back to the house and he was just getting ready to leave. The truck didn't get back until after four o'clock and by that time half our help had to leave. So when it came time to move the furniture, the part we really needed the help with, it was down to me and a friend of Renee's taking everything up the stairs by ourselves. Instead of being done on Saturday it took until Monday to clean our place out and bring all the furniture upstairs (glad the landlord was understanding and let us keep what we couldn't carry in the hallway downstairs). I was so sore and so exhausted it wasn't even funny. I'm just now starting to recover physically from that.
So, the lesson of the story is: don't be nice to anyone, it will come back and bite you in the ass. Or so it often seems anyway. I'm still so angry at Dominic right now I don't even want to talk to him. Which is too bad really, him and I were good friends at one point in time.
But all is well now, we're loving the new apartment. I'll be wandering down to the library periodically to glance through Livejournal and check email, and in two weeks I should be back full time again.