Jubbers's Tales o' the Move

[Jubbers]

We got a bottom-floor apartment in a two-story, two-apartment house. Our upstairs neighbor is a mostly home-bound man who has a maid come over to assist him sometimes. He also drives a black Camaro. Due to the last-minute nature of our move (and the time of year), all of the U-Haul trucks in our area (within an hour radius) were rented out (college students!). The other rental truck options and professional mover options were either also unavailable or so ridiculously expensive so as to be impossible for us to contemplate. So, with incredible reluctance, we turned to my family for help. My father owns an appliance repair business, and he thus has a large delivery truck for picking up appliances for repair from the area Home Depots, Lowe's, etc. My father, due to his really really bad health, is not allowed to do things like lift, so I really hadn't wanted to involve him.

Goiter and I made a trip to St. Louis to pay the deposit/first-month's-rent/etc. We loaded up the car beforehand. When we reached our new place, there were four police cars and the medical examiner's van parked in front, and the sidewalks were filled with people, some of them sobbing very heavily. We could only piece things together then (we thought a child had accidentally died). We have since found out (after hearing misinformation a couple of times) that our upstairs neighbor's daughter had recently moved into the building catty-corner from ours, along with her husband and their newborn baby boy. She had been in a car accident of some kind the week before, with a slight concussion, but it seemed like everything was ok - she had had the appropriate scans and such. The morning we were there, however, she had died of a brain aneurism. Our upstairs neighbor told us that people will probably be coming in and out of his place at all hours the next few days, and some will even be flying in from as far away as Australia.

The next day, back in little ol' Mexico, Mo, we had my dad park the truck (and then head off to work so he wouldn't help) while my mother, youngest brother, and one of my brothers-in-law helped us load it up. It was relatively painless, though for some reason, though everyone else was voting to load the furniture in first, then the boxes, we loaded the boxes first, due to my mother.

Goiter and I then cleaned the place and handed over the keys. We went to my parents' house to spend the night, intending to drive the truck to St. Louis in the morning, unload, and then head to a Goodwill or some similar place to get a couch (a necessary item!) and a small desk for myself. This did not happen. The moving van's brake line broke. We were told it would be fixed by noon, so Goiter, Jubboiter, and I (and my grandma, who shouldn't have come - she drives like you imagine old people to drive, and she tells the same stories over and over again, and dispenses child-raising advice [which she herself ignores completely] repeatedly as well) went on and drove to our new place. We unloaded our vehicles, and went and got a new TV (thank you Goiter's mom!) and a couple of rugs (hardwood floors). No van. My mother arrived a few hours later - still no van. At this point, it was very late, so we sent grandma back home, and my mother returned home, and we were left in our very empty place. Jubboiter slept in her portable crib, and Goiter and I slept on the hard hard hardwood floors.

Moving van arrived at 8ish this morning. Unloaded. Naturally there are things we cannot find that should be in specific boxes or with specific items. Bathroom stuff missing from the bathroom box. One of our bookshelves is now missing the pegs that hold the shelf up. Jubboiter's wooden train track (she's very obsessed with Thomas) was dumped by someone into my closet-box (full of papers and miscellaneous objects) - I've gone through the whole box, and can find all but one piece. Aargh. Goiter and I did find some furniture today, but since we did not have the delivery van available to us (my parents had to leave as soon as unloading finished, since my father had a doctor's appointment to get to), we have to pick up a U-Haul Cargo Van (that IS available in THIS particular area) at 10 to pick it up.

And through all of this, Jubboiter has been wailing and crying. She doesn't know why our old place filled with boxes, and why we then left it and went to an empty place, which was then filled with boxes.

There's other things, I'm sure. But I'm tired, it's late, and this post is too Goiter-like already in its length. Thanks for allowing venting to occur.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

*ahem*

Boy, this sure is a long post.

[Djack Zteelecock]

How long is it?

[Dalty]

Why not both.

[Dalty]

I still haven't quite got the hang of this....

[Mal Shot First]

Why were people rummaging through your stuff in the first place? It's not like they had to go through the cargo space to get to the brake line.

[Dalty]

Nobody can resist a rummage.

[neglet]

At least you can bribe Jubboiter with a new train car if need be. (It's how we finally toilet-trained our offspring.) imagine driving four hours in a car with two cats who had spent the entirety of their decade-plus lives in one place, and had never spent longer than five minutes in a car, on the way to the vet. Imagine how these two cats, after having been traumatized by movers coming to the house for two consecutive days, hid in a closet and avoided the litterbox before you shoved them in a carrier and crammed them in a car stuffed full with your junk. Now imagine that the smelliest one, so upset by these events, dropped a load in her carrier only half an hour into the trip, so you had to stop at a rest stop, try to clean her and her carrier while sitting on your lap up in the driver's seat, then try to get her back in the carrier when all she wanted to do was hide under the accelerator.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

Something tells me this tale won't elicit much sympathy from Jubbers. She's not a fan of cats. She's also not a fan of dogs. How it is she's a fan of me, I'll never know.

[Jubbers]

I'll have to picture two of something else that pees, like rabbits. If I imagine cats, imaginary me dies horribly within 15 minutes of being in the presence of two urinating cats in the confines of a small car.

[neglet]

You're not supposed to pity the stinking cats, you're supposed to pity me. I often ask my cat how she can smell so bad and not be dying, and she dropped a load while I was on the highway.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

It's going to be hard for Jubbers to work up pity for someone who chose to be in a vehicle with a cat.

I'm guessing, I mean. I don't speak for Jubbers.

[Jubbers]

He speaks for the trees.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

[scarletregina]

Jubbers, you're not a fan of dogs? Well then, it's a good thing that Buttons is a mystical Japanese spirit animal and not a dog.

(Incidentally, have I mentioned how much I hate it when people name their shibas 'Kitsune?' FFS you might as well just name your shiba 'Shiba.')

[Jubbers]

When I was younger (and before I released him back in the wild to "sow his wild oats"), I named my turtle "Turtle." Pretty bad at names.

Turns out my family doesn't like it when I call Jubboiter "kid" or "the kid" or "kiddo."

I'm not a fan of dogs, but I like pictures of your dog. Buttons (ボタンズ?) is really super cute.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I started the whole "Kid" thing. I was only doing it because Bill Cosby and Arlo Guthrie used to do it. It grew on me.

My family whined about me doing it while I was doing it. When I stopped doing it, they whined about how I had stopped doing it.

[neglet]

We refer to ours as "the Offspring" or just plain "Boy," a la Homer Simpson. Or "the Boy," if we're feeling generous.

[neglet]

And since he's soon to start his junior year at university, we are often very generous.

[Dalty]

Very generous at US education prices!!

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

If my parents had been put in the position of paying for my education, I wouldn't have gotten an education.

Granted, my education hasn't done much for me. I was introduced to HI MY NAME IS GUS, Mal, and Jubbers as a result of it. That's something.

[neglet]

Well, we've been saving for a long time, he's also an only grandchild, and he's at a state school (if admittedly pricey). My parents paid for my college (I worked throughout to help) and my husband worked full-time to pay for his, and we figure it's the single most effective advantage we can give the offspring, letting him graduate without debt.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I'm terrified of debt. I'm terrified of anything related to finance, really. The idea of taking out a loan scares the shit out of me. I'm not even sure if I could do it with a gun pointed to my head.

I once signed up for a Best Buy credit card. My mother encouraged me to do it. It was the only way I could afford to get a computer for myself. Despite being in my twenties, I had no understanding of interest rates or the folly of paying the minimum on each statement. I'm sure it was explained to me in detail, but my head gets all swimmy whenever anybody starts talking money, so I probably blacked out through the important stuff.

That Best Buy credit card was a goddamn albatross around my neck for over three years. Pretty much maxed it out to get my laptop. Paid on it each month. Started noticing that the balance was going up instead of down despite my paying on it monthly. Called Best Buy about it, was scolded like a child for my lack of understanding, and was left feeling like the biggest idiot in the world.

Goddamn Best Buy card. Thinking about it still gives me the shivers.

I've had a series of other credit cards since my early twenties, but I've only ever used them once or twice a year, and I always pay them off immediately. The only reason I even do that is because my mother once told me that if a person doesn't use a credit card once every six months (or did she say once a year?), the credit card company would deactivate the card. She's probably full of shit. I never checked into it.

Anyway, my only personal experience with debt was the Best Buy credit card. Goddamn thing.

[Dalty]

I got massively into debt following my divorce and was living hand to mouth for a loooooong time so I try and carry debt on my car and my house only, plus save so I can "lend" myself the money for other stuff. But it's taken most of my 20s and 30s to get here. And I should put more into my pension.

[Jubbers]

Had my drug test today for the new job. Had to have the hair sample version done, since, working for a beer company, they are extra extra worried about these sorts of things, and the hair test covers months rather than the immediate present. The lab technicians asked me if anyone had explained what the test entails. I replied that they had not, and I got to listen to the long version of all of the details surrounding hair tests, since the person taking my sample was training another person. They did note, when looking at which company had ordered the test, that enduring the hair test was worth it to work for that specific company, so that's promising.

A hair drug test requires at least 120 hairs. They have to cut the hair very close to the root. What I learned from her talk to the trainee: for short-haired people, where there isn't enough length for a good sample, or for people who would end up with an obvious hole in their hair, or for people who need the sample to come from body hair (drug history for a year, rather than 6 months or so for scalp hair), the standard is to take pubic or underarm hair. Glad I didn't have to do that version. They lifted up most of my hair and took the sample in a thin line stretching left to right across the back of my head. It's not visibly noticeable (at least not yet - I do fear that, as it grows, the new, shorter hair will poke its way through the long hair currently covering it), but I can feel it with my hand - that new-haircut-spikiness running along the back.