On moving day, my eyes cracked open at 6 am, and in that moment I realized I wouldn’t be able to rent the U-Haul because my driver’s license expired three days earlier. It was a divine realization I’d have appreciated a few days earlier to help me better prepare, but still it gave me enough time to mitigate the disaster since the new homeowners move in the next day.
Sometimes you have to concede, and let a man come to the rescue, so I woke Johnny up and told him, “Movers are arriving in a few hours, and I can’t rent a truck for them to load!”
He decided to call in sick and we headed to U-Haul. His nerves about driving the massive truck disappeared, and he drove that thing like Sturgill Simpson before his big break.
After we got home, I only had an hour to pack up the remaining boxes, which meant things were chucked in with no organizational scheme, and taped up after a very short visual inspection that the majority of items wouldn’t end up broken.
At 10 am, a Nissan Versa pulled up; a woman and her small husband walked up to me with a dolly in tow. I was confused, since they weren’t the image I cooked up when I hired them, and the concern escalated after a seven year old climbed out of the back seat. I took a deep breath, and all my stress seemed to transfer to Johnny who came up behind me and asked, “Did you research these movers at all, or just answer an ad on marketplace?”
Another car pulled up, and a slightly larger man joined the unusual moving crew, and I understood their incredibly cheap hourly rate. The savings went unnoticed because it actually takes people twice as long to move if they weren’t high school football players on a Monster energy drink buzz.
After they loaded up the truck, Johnny drove us to the storage unit, and the Nissan Versa moving crew followed. I lifted the garage door on the unit and shrieked at how tiny the space looked compared to the truck.
The storage center manager sold me on the space by saying, “It fits three rooms. You just have to put your stuff in like you’re playing Tetris, and stack up high. That roof is fifteen feet tall!”
Challenge accepted.
I realized I was about to loose that challenge after a mover said, “We can cram all this stuff in there, stacking it up, but it will fall on top of who ever moves this stuff out.” Then she added confidently, “It will crush them.”
I ran up to the front office, and after catching my breath, explained the situation. The manager put out her cigarette, and told me it was my lucky day, a giant unit became available 30 minutes earlier.
The Mormon Tabernacle’s Hallelujah blasted into my brain, and I closed my mouth so it wouldn’t leak out and jinx my incredible luck; I wouldn’t have to leave most of our belongs on the street corner with a sign that says “Free,” that I doubt even the enormous population of Sacramento homeless would want to drag over to the under freeway tent cities.
Three hours later the house was mostly empty. Johnny and I returned the U-Haul, and went to eat Chinese food across the street. For the first time, I was self conscious of wearing my tiny pajamas because I didn’t have time to change. The temperature was over a hundred degrees, and the sweat soaked clothes were freezing in the air conditioned restaurant.
“I look like a lunatic.” I said.
“I look like shit too,” Johnny replied.
“I never said I looked like shit.” I laughed.
After lunch, I cleaned the house. The biggest mess was in the freezer where a Taco Bell Skittles Slurpee spilled down the wall and needed to be scraped away. Luckily I had ten finger nails to work through. Scraping at the frozen syrup till each nail went from stiff to bendy.
I didn’t have any boxes left, so all the miscellaneous items made up a sea on the living room floor. I carried them to my car, bit by bit, and then swept and mopped listening to WTF podcast interviews from people I didn’t think I’d care to know about. But as I washed dirty handprints off the wall, I was happy to learn that at one time even Hugh Grant was a normal person.
I closed the front door after the last swipe of the mop, and drove away with my car exploding and reeking of Pine-Sol from the dirty mop. I looked like the least effective cleaning lady, who finds all her clients on Marketplace.
As part of the plan, I drove to my parents house. I was run down, and thought I should take some time off from house hunting. The string of unsuccessful offers was a sign from God, I needed to wait for the market to cool, and five to seven days seems sufficient. Living in Tahoe is nothing to complain about, but there is a reason people do not live with their parents.
I forgot how my dad goes from a head-in-the-clouds-genius-type to eye-bulging-smoke-shooting-from-his-ears-maniac in an instant, but I was reminded when I helped him unload groceries from his car. I opened the door and a gallon of milk fell to the pavement and burst, my dad screamed, “FUUUUUUUUUCK.” And I did what any almost forty year old kid does, I ran inside and hid until he had a moment to reflect on his reaction to spilled milk.
My mom’s living proof that you can take the girl out of the country, but cant take the country out of the girl, and now it’s even more pronounced, since she’s recently shortened her common descriptor “Big Ol’” to “Big O.”
My parents are having their house remodeled, so we’ve got a crew of people in the backyard everyday, and my fluffy, cuddly, lovable puppy barks at them nonstop. One of the guys tried to pet Max, and I anxiously stood there, as Max was jumping around and barking louder, never warming up to the outstretched hand.
I felt like saying, “It’s so weird, he usually only barks at rapists and psychopaths.”
Which leaves any man unsettled, considering the unknown within them. Maybe he watches weird porn. I’m not judging, it’s the dog, and I’ve seen Max eat cat shit, so it’s hardly an insult to be called a freak by a freak.
After my brother came to visit, and the kids, cat, puppy and I had to share a bedroom for three nights during a brutal California heat wave, I was back on Redfin five hours a day, dedicated to finding our new house. The market cooled as much as I cared to wait out.
My realtor said she went back and counted, it took ten offers before I finally had one accepted. It’s an empty house, so we can do a quick close, and we’ll be in August 5th, a week before the kids start school.
The universe tapered my excitement. On the same day of my offer being accepted, I got a text from Johnny that he was in the emergency room.
I was getting an overdue oil change from driving up and down the mountain to shuffle kids, and look at houses, when I heard from him. If I checked Yelp reviews, the oil change place might have had a comment like this, “Pack luggage, this oil change is going to take a while.”
The owner, walked around the corner from the garage bay, and curled his finger for me to get up and walk over. It seemed serious. In Tahoe you’re allowed to bring your dog with you everywhere you go, so I tugged at the leash, and Max and I walked over.
“Whoever did your last oil change tightened this gasket too tight, and it cracked.”
“FUUUUUUCK,” is my conditioned reaction, but I was able to mute it slightly, and instead said, “Just forget it, I’ll leave now. Put everything back, and I’ll go somewhere else.”
“Don’t panic.” He said, genuinely concerned. “We’ll fix it since it’s our fault. Does your dog want a treat?”
Then he gave Max a treat and pet him on the head, and I said, “I’m surprised he’s not barking at you.”
I rushed home when the car was done, and packed an overnight bag, that ended up being three sweatshirts because I had imagined myself sleeping on the floor of a cold hospital that night. Another two hours of Marc Maron, and I was in the Sacramento ER. The diagnosis for his main symptom, “feeling like I’m dying” was a kidney stone. He was given the medical equivalent of a pat on the head, a bottle of seriously strong pain killers, to combat the child bearing equivalent of pain.
When the ER visit was wrapping up, I answered calls from every blood relative asking about Johnny. “He’s got a Big O Kidney Stone. 8 millimeters!” I found myself parroting my mom’s voice from our morning coffees.
Everyone sent their condolences, with a unique list of advice. Johnny and I went back to his place, ate food and passed out catching up on our TV shows. Under the terrible circumstances, I felt the comfort of what my life is usually like. The next morning I was back in Tahoe counting down to the August 5th closing date.
I have two weeks to go, and then I get to move my stuff out of storage and to our new house. I haven’t been able to give much thought to the upcoming move, but I’m getting more used to my parents, and they are getting more used to me.
When I’m stressed out, I need to be under a weighted blanket inside of an igloo in an isolated part of Alaska, and instead I’m surrounded by a probing crew, highlighting everything I am trying to compartmentalize.
I get reprieve going on afternoon walks with the dog and my son whose looking like he recently was rescued from The Coral Island, barefoot, shirtless, tan and covered in mosquito bites. The setting sun, had the bugs ravenous, and as we smacked them on our arms and neck, he made the equivalent of an eight year old’s, “FUUUUUUCK.” And through gritted teeth screamed, “I want to murder all the mosquitos.”
I felt just like Mufasa schooling Simba, “The mosquito is important, even though in this moment it seems like a blood sucking predator.”
He wasn’t as touched by the moment, disagreed, and yelled “They all need to die.”
Max barked in agreement.
