… I start in with the boss from the beginning. I walk down the street as I talk.

I told him I was confused. I thought I was hiring a moving company but instead I got a rock band on the way back from a 8AM breakfast gig at Arlene’s Grocery. I told him that having a van was also ‘less convenient’ than a actual truck.

He told me he told me in our earlier conversations that he mentioned he was going to send an ’18 foot Sprinter’. In his defense, the make of the van was ‘Sprinter’. In my defense, how the hell am I supposed to know what a ‘Sprinter’ is. I just assume truck.

I tell him that we lost someone along the way. Dude had to go to another ‘gig’. The boss didn’t seem too thrilled about that. I told him that just hired movers off the street to help my movers move with the moving. He told me he was going to call his guys and call me back.

I head back and see the van is being unloaded really fast. We’d definitely have time to head back to the old apartment to get the rest of the stuff. So far everything that has taken place is in an hour and forty minutes.

Irishman is stoic. As if he’s been through moving wars endless times and this one by comparison is going fairly well. But Spiky is furious. The boss was upset with him. Losing a guy, hiring additional movers, two trips. He looked at me as if I tattled on him. I felt for him somewhat. After all, the bleach probably ruined (or improved?) his vintage WASP t-shirt.

Everything finally gets moved into the apartment and I pay my savior crew. The boss calls me back and we start haggling over the price. He tells me I wildly underestimated the amount of stuff I had. I told him he wildly underestimated the amount of movers he promised me.

Mid-argument the Gff interrupts and starts talking to me. She tells me the van guys need to go back for the rest of the stuff. I tell her to give me a second to finish the call. She keeps talking to me as I’m listening to the boss explain to me how all this is my fault. She tells me she’s going to go back with the movers. I snap at the gff and tell her to just go.

From my third story window, I watch he climb into an empty van with two angry movers. One is a stoic tough read. The other is furious that I ‘told on him’. The van drives away and my imagination runs wild.

Twenty five minutes go by and I’m still waiting on my new stoop for my gff to hopefully return unharmed. I get paranoid and call a friend with a pitbull to swing by apartment to make sure they’re there and everything is ok.

Finally, they come pulling up the street with the rest of the stuff. They move it inside without much problem or conversation. I close out conversation with the boss who reduced my rate. I apologized for underestimating boxes. He apologized for the double booked guy. I paid. Tipped and off the movers went to their next job which could be equally challenging.

I was in awe of the occupation. The door closed. The Gff and me both sweaty and exhausted. We were in our new home. We agreed that one day this would be a funny story to tell one day — but it wasn’t funny yet. Way too soon.

She headed into one room to unpack boxes and I headed into the other with an exacto knife to surgically cut open my mattress and to see what the blobby blooby blister bump was all about…

The End!

(much more has happened since… I’ll continue to post bout this place but right now I have to head out with the dogs because they’re drilling outside my window. they’ve been drilling for days…)

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