Not Quite What Sisyphus Has to Go Through, But Still...

This entry was started on Monday, but time got away from me, and it didn't get finished until today. Damn you, City of Heroes!

Yesterday [Sunday] was the day we moved M's desk and table out of my brother's garage and into the new house. It should be the only time any of us will have to do any moving ourselves (we're bringing in the pros for both of our apartments), and that comes as a great relief.

The day began with lugging M's curio down the stairs to her car, which had been carefully measured to ensure that the thing would fit in there before we went through the trouble of lugging it. The back seats were lowered, the opening between the trunk and the back seats was measured, and everything seemed to be in order. It was noticed that the back seats didn't go down far enough to make a level back seat-to-trunk surface; the folded-down seats caused a bit of an upslope. Since there was an extra 4 inches of extra vertical space between the depth of the curio and the height of the opening, we were confident that it would end up fitting just fine.

If only we could have been proven wrong without having to drag that gorram thing all the way down, only to have to drag it all the way back up to the apartment.

So, once we had the curio back in the apartment, we were running a bit late to the U-Haul place. There was a bit of a line by the time we finally got there, and that line was going sllllloooooowww. Perhaps that was because the guy behind the counter had only a passing acquaintance with the concept of enunciation, and thus had to repeat himself 2 or 3 times everytime he said something. I, for one, couldn't understand half of what he said.

Once we had the truck in our posession, it was time to go to my brother's house. The side of the truck promised it was a "Gentle-Ride Van". Apparently, "Gentle-Ride" is uhaulese for "Heavily-Vibrating". It's a good thing I keep up with my tooth brushing and flossing, because any loose teeth would have come out during the trip. My initial thought was that I had left the parking brake on - the truck's accelleration of 0 to 60 in 2 minutes also gave me that impression - but that proved to not be the case.

Also, the brakes were a bit sensitive. At slow speeds, such as inching up to be the next one out of the parking lot, every tap of the brake caused the truck to stop dead in its tracks with a mighty lurch. I probably looked like an idiot.

And, on top of all that, the inside door handle had broken off at some point before I had made my acquaintance with the truck. In order to get out, I would have to roll down the window and open the door from the outside.

Once we got to my brother's, we had to back into his curvy driveway, which took a few tries. Of course, the truck did a lot of lurching around up and down as I tried to maneuver. There was some concern about getting the back pointed towards the garage in such a way that the ramp could be extended without damaging the wall by the driveway. It turned out that we didn't need to worry because the 10-foot trucks don't have ramps.

My nephews came out to check out the big truck, and found it to be the highlight of their day (assuming, of course, that nothing more exciting happened later that afternoon). The younger one hung out in the cab with my dad and happily played with every doo-hicky he could get his hands on. Later, when I started up the truck, the windshield wipers started going and the turn signal indicated a left turn that I had no immediate intention of making.

Once the stuff was in the truck and tied down via an intricate winding of a single rope, we set off in the earthquakemobile. Upon arrival, we pulled into the alley behind the house, slalomming around the neighbors' trashcans. Somehow, we managed to maneuver the table through the narrow back doorway with minimal problems.

Next up was getting the desk through the front door. Because of the direction we came in through the alley, I ended up having to park in front of the house facing oncoming traffic. Sure, we could have driven around the next block over to position ourselves so we could approach the house from the other direction, but convenience trumped obeying traffic laws. It was a quiet day on the road anyway.

As I pulled into the opening along the curb in front of the house and touched the brakes, the truck slammed to a stop with a loud kablam. I thought I might get to meet a neighbor or two when they came running out to see whose car got hit by the dumbass new guy, but nobody came a-runnin'.

The desk proved to be a bit more problematic than the table, as it was about 2 inches wider than the doorway, and it lacked the table-like base that would make angling so much easier. Oh, we managed to get that sucker angled into the house, fret not, but it wasn't pretty. Also, gravity seemed to be more powerful around the new house than it did around my brother's house, making the desk a bit harder to carry for long periods of time.

Finally, we had everything moved, and we could get that gorram truck back to the U-Haul place. I can't say I was sorry to see it go. I did have to wait awhile before I could completely part ways with it, as the girl at the U-Haul place was all by herself and tied up on the phone, giving directions to someone that managed to get lost on their way there. She was finally able to help me, due in part to her ignoring the continually ringing phone, and I was on my way to live my post-U-Haul life.

We vegged out and watched Netflix DVDs for the remainder of the day.