Thursday, August 11, 2005

Moving Sucks: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the U-haul.

Moving to Chicago was just another example of how nothing in my life ever works out the way that it should. Nothing. Ever.

The plan was my sister came in Monday night to help me pack up and move Tuesday morning, and then she was going to fly out of Chicago early on Wednesday. As it is now Thursday you can imagine this did not go as planned.

First I'm a shitty packer, I suck at it. So I was barely packed when she showed up. So it took us most of the night and all of the next morning to load the U-haul. Around 11:30am we were done loading so I went to go drop off some stuff and get some McDonalds before we left on our 8 hour trek.

While I was waiting for my much abused boyfriend to bring food out to the car I smelled smoke. And then I SAW smoke coming from the blinker thingy. (Which I later learned is called a Multi-Function switch)

Le sigh, we returned to my mostly empty apartment and after much deliberation I decided that I would not have my little sister driving a car that could possibly catch fire at any time for 8 hours, much to her chagrin.

So we said goodbye to the poor boyfriend and took my car and my U-haul and dropped the car off at the shop. They had implied on the phone that they could fix it that night, but when I dropped it off they said something to the effect of, so are you going to come back in 2 days and get it? I nearly lost it. But they said they would call after they had looked at it and let me know what the situation was. Great, more waiting.

I should mention that we were also accompanied by 2 very upset cats this entire time. So we took the 2 very upset cats and most of the contents of my Explorer and put them in the U-haul. And then we checked in to our 70's tastic Holiday Inn on the top of a hill with a narrow winding drive (YAY U-HAUL!). The much abused boyfriend was forced to help locate aformentioned hotel among other things. I drove the U-haul around all evening for food and shopping, and it Suuuuuuuucked. Especially since we were on one of those divided highways so we kept having to go one way, turn around, come back the other way over and over. If ever I questioned my desire to leave Pittsburgh before this, the question was answered.

The Mechanics called and said they'd have my car fixed the next morning. We went, waited around a lot and eventually, picked it up, shoved completely distraught cats into carriers and went to get gas. We hop into our respective gas guzzling vehicles and start up. The U-Haul goas VROOOM and the Explorer went Click Click Click. Oh my fucking god. I know many times in your life you have asked yourself if employees of gas stations can jump battery's on cars, I now know the answer to this, No. We had to use the U-haul to jump the Explorer, which was just a leeeeetle silly to say the least.

Finally we were off, and to make my final moments in Pittsburgh resemble my entire life there, I got off on the highway going the wrong way and we had to turn around. 8 hours later we arrived in Chicago without too much major damage. I am now here, I can only find one of my cats, but at this point I'm not that picky.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

you really only need one cat anyway.

Anonymous said...

This was really funny. So are you gonna make your boyfriend drive to Chi every weekend? I suppose he's begging for more abuse.

Shinobi said...

Believe it or not, my boyfriend doesn't have a driver's lisence. But he has my permission to be abused by other women in my absence so he wont be too lonely.

prairie biker said...

Hey Shinobi-

Welcome to the prairie biker state.

heh.

I think I'm gonna recommend a name change to the legislature.

Glad you made it here safely.

Anonymous said...

that was funny as fuck! I was looking for the phone no for U-haul near me(lakeview) and I end up reading this(not too my chagrin!) Anyways if u wants write me cause that made me :) ronnie_regan@excite.com