This Moving Thing is a Young Man's Sport...

As many of you know, I, The Chuckmeister, have been deep into the process of moving.  As in, moving from one house to another. And trust me, it's not for the faint of heart.  Literally...

About five years ago my since-dearly-departed wife, Elaine,  and I purchased a nice little ranch-style home on nearly an acre in the lovely development of Meadowview in Temecula, Commiefornia, planning to live out what remained of our lives in peace and quiet.  Whilst quaffing loads of good wine, of course.  

It was fine for awhile, but before long grew to be waaaay to much for an old guy with an increasingly worsening back to care for.  And, with Elaine's sickness and then demise adding to the difficulty, I made the decision that it was the time to make my move.

I found a nice little 1,250 square foot, single-level place in a 55 and Greater (my descriptor!) community nearby my old digs.  I put my house on the market.  It finally sold, finally, and since then I've been treated to a front-row seat, witnessing that "Murphy's Law" and "The Peter Principle" were both  absolutely on target when they debuted more than 30 years ago.  

For those of you who aren't familiar with Murphy, his "Law" stated that, "If a thing can go wrong, it will, and sooner rather than later."  That's especially true if you pick the wrong "professionals" to represent you.  

"Peter" has it that, "People will be promoted to their own level of incompetence."  That means you'll get bumped up in your job, promotion after promotion, to the point where you are absolutely incapable and unable to do the job you've been given.  And there you'll sit, accomplishing little or nothing, while irritating the crap out of all those unfortunate enough to labor under your manifest incompetence.    

And boy, have those old adages proven to be true...

First, it took a year to sell my old house when it should have taken a month, at most.  The agent actually stated it would sell in five days.  She was wrong.  And then the escrow company associated with that agency employed a 12 year-old to work on my documents.  Well, she might not have actually been 12.  She just performed like it.

She "forgot" to do some of the paperwork entrusted to her, such as asking for my wife's death certificate, which extended my closing by eight days.  Which prevented the new house from closing by 14 days.  Which meant a process I was guaranteed should take no more than 4 or 5 days between the old house and the new, took almost a month.  Did I mention that this toddler was the granddaughter of the agency's owner?  

And that meant it was necessary for me to then accept the generous offer from one of my wonderful daughters, Tiana,  and her family, to camp out on their trundle bed.  Did I mention my bad back?

I should add that they were kind enough to purchase some plywood to place between the mattress and the springs and thus minimize the torment caused by a metal bar trying to break what's left of my ailing back.

Anyway, the Pod I rented to hold my stuff for "a few days," and the truck I rented for the same purpose and for that same short period, took mucho longer than planned, and cost mucho more dinero than expected.

Forgive me for lapsing into Spanish.  I live in Northern Mexico, you see, and just can't help myself.

And then there's the issue with size.  The size of the house I left, that is.  A guy who needs a cane to get around has difficulty packing up 2,300 square feet with one hand.

By the way, did I ever introduce you to "John, my Cane?"

Heh, heh...

So that process took weeks, not days.  And, of course, I had to divest myself of a lifetime's collection of all sorts of flotsam and jetsam.  The house before this last one was six bedrooms and four bathrooms, and a whopping 4,800 sq. ft. in size.  So the move to Meadowview required a remarkable 6 dumpster loads to force-fit us into the 2,300.  And now it was time to downsize once again...

Did you know you just can't "throw away" excess furniture?  No?  Well, you can't.  The garbage collectors...won't collect it.  They are sooooo particular!  So what you can't sell for a $1.00 at a garage sale, you have to pay some guy with a pickup truck to haul away.  Imagine paying good money for a bedroom set you now don't need and can't use, and then paying good money to get somebody to haul it away!  What's that I hear you saying?  Simply give it the Salvation Army?  Yeah, well, good plan, Pilgrim, but they're pretty damn particular also.  They will not take beds, or bed frames, or frame rails, or mattresses or box springs, or pillows, or sheets, or, or, or...  

Goodwill?  Same story.  And remember, Goodwill is a privately-owned outfit whose owner makes $Millions off of the charity of unsuspecting citizens.  And neither of these will come to your home and pick it up.  You have to deliver it to them, preferably wrapped with a nice bow on it.  And, they may not take desks or chairs or hutches or a whole lot of other stuff.  When did charities become so damn persnickety?

BTW, you simply must hear about my divestiture of one particularly large and heavy "day bed."  That's a trundle bed with a fixed back frame.  I acquired it somewhere along the line.  Or maybe Elaine acquired it.  Probably Elaine.  But it weighed about 100 pounds, was fitted out with springs and bars and all sorts of things that will bite you.  I tried to sell it, and couldn't.  So I offered to give it away.

I got a call one Saturday noon.  The lady offered to take it, and showed up in an aging Toyota Prius.  She weighed at least 400 pounds.  I handed her a wrench and she began taking the bed apart, bolt by bolt, spring by spring, rolling all over the floor.  And carrying it out to her car.  By then her "boyfriend" arrived.  In an old Prius.  He also weighed in excess of 400 pounds.  Maybe 500.  They proceeded to wrestle the day bed pieces on top of the Prius-ses-es.  And tying them on with bailing twine.  Bailing twine!  That's the brown stuff about the diameter of a pencil led.  It was a hoot to watch.  And it took hours.  They even took a break, got some lunch from the local MickeyD's and sat down in my driveway to graze.  

I mentioned, jokingly, that I had a couple of well-used, wooden deck chairs and cushions that needed a new home. And, knowing there would be no way they could take them, I offered them anyway.  They glommed on to them immediately, began taking them apart, and hoisting them atop the Priusssesses!  

So, to sum it up, here we have two old Priussessessses, two extremely large 60+ freebie-gatherers, with a big bunch of day bed and an even bigger bunch of deck chairs and cushions, precariously perched upon their cars, about 7 feet into the air, and only scarcely secured by a ball of bailing twine.  I can tell you I was keeping my fingers and everything else crossed until I saw them leave and drive out of sight.  Whew!  What a memory...

So anyway,  with the help of my daughters, Tiana, Dana, Lauren and Jennifer, and their husbands and some of their kids, we were able to throw a bunch away, sell some for bupkus bucks at dreary garage  sales, and then stuff the rest in a Pod and a truck.  Moving Day was here!  And I was exhausted!

Finally, after a month at my daughter's, Moving Day #2 was upon me!  The Entire Family showed up and began furiously unloading.  The Plan was to get everything off the Pod and the truck and inside, with the locked doors closing everything in by sundown.  We achieved that lofty goal on a Saturday.  And then on Sunday, the Fam returned and set about unpacking the boxes, setting up the bathrooms, making the bed, hanging pictures and making the kitchen into a kitchen.  

Oh yeah, at least another dumpster load didn't make it in.  Back in Missouri we used to call this a "blivit."  That's "two pounds of s**t in a one pound bag" for all you non-Midwesterners.    

And then dealing with all those "vendors."  You know, the gas company, and the electric company, and the water company, and the cable company, and all the other outfits you have to deal with to effect a move.  And it's uber-frustrating.  I have to tell you that the level of intellect and competence at "customer service" at nearly every company is horrendous!  This is "hire the handicapped" gone berserk!

I actually had to call my cable company five times in order to finally get them to do what I wanted.  I had to hang up three times because they couldn't find my account.  You know, the one I'd been sending them $Thousands a year for. 

But "move in" was finally complete.  The Fam went home, the water and gas and lights were turned on, and the cable guy came and turned on the internet and the TVs.  And so I stayed my first night in my new house.  And it was thrilling!  My old bed welcomed my aging frame with a warm embrace.  And I drifted off to my first really good night's sleep in a month.  Hallllaluuuyaaaa!

So, the moral of this story is:  If you've done your job as a parent, you do for your family when you can, and they do for you when you need it.  And boy, did I ever need it.

The Chuckmeister is now all about finding the perfect throw rugs for this room, and the perfect lamp for that one.  Now, you should know that like any good husband I never, ever was forced to make decisions of this magnitude.  And it's kind of therapeutic to be forced to make them now.  It reaffirms one's ability to call upon the lessons one has learned over the course of living, and to apply them to solve new and challenging problems.  

And it serves to keep one young...