Monday, September 5, 2011

When I move, you move (Four hours later.)

As many of you know, I moved to my own place this weekend. This is my first time living on my own without a roommate or boyfriend. It's just me and Dugi now.

I'd been pretty diligent with my moving plans, making sure my electricity would be turned on, doing a lot of research into what moving company I should use, and having Cox turn on my internet.

I decided to hire movers because I had to move over Labor Day weekend, and no one would be around to help me. Also, I hate driving U-Hauls. Anyway, I looked on Yelp to see who was highest rated, and I found a moving company called Gorilla Rose, which had almost all 5-star reviews on Yelp, a nice website, and tons of great customer testimonies. I called them two weeks ago and was pleasantly surprised by the friendliness and flexibility of the owner.

So on Saturday, moving day, I woke up early to get a relaxing facial and drove home relaxed, sure all my moving needs would be taken care of. Somewhere on the drive home I started to have a premonition that this move wouldn't run as smoothly as I'd thought. I have these often, and usually they're right.

Gorilla Rose was scheduled to show up at 10 a.m. At 10:15, I started to get nervous. I decided to call them to confirm that they were still coming. To my dismay, the number had been disconnected, and the only thing that kept me from totally panicking was the fact that I hadn't paid them anything yet, nor did they have my credit card information. I went immediately to Craigslist and began calling numbers until I found a guy named John who, over the din of Swapmeet, told me he could help me out the next morning. Realizing that Craigslist people really aren't reliable either, I called my friend and coworker Kym in a panic, hoping that she'd be able to help me brainstorm what to do. We decided she'd drive to my house and we'd go rent a U-Haul and pick up some day laborers at Star Nursery.

With Kym on the way, my phone rang and, much to my surprise, it was Gorilla Rose, calling to explain that they'd "forgotten to pay the phone bill," which somehow translated to running 2 hours late. It was almost noon at this point, and Brian, the mover, informed me that they hadn't even picked up the truck yet from U-Haul. He did assure me they were on their way. Next time I don't want to do something, am running late, or forget to do my homework, I'm definitely using the "forgot to pay my phone bill" excuse. But only because it makes so much sense.

Ok, so Kym comes to my house, and soon I get a phone call from Brian explaining that he didn't have the money to put down for the truck, so I'd have to call U-Haul and give them my credit card number so he could get it. So I gave my credit card number to them, and realized that the U-Haul Brian had gone to was in deep Henderson, which is in the exact opposite direction of where I needed to move from and to. Why they wouldn't rent a U-Haul near me, I have no idea.

Anyway, two hours later, they show up with the truck. Kym and I look out the window and see what seems to be three Vietnam vets who definitely collect social security stumbling up the sidewalk. "This should be interesting," I said. "I think they're hung over," said Kym.

They did reek of the particular scent of sweat, drugs, and alcohol. The guy with Meth teeth was still tweeking. Whatever. I just wanted to move.

Since I only really had one room to move, the entire operation only lasted an hour. Then I remembered that my couch was supposed to be delivered that day. I called the furniture company and the manager assured me that the delivery truck was on its way. A few hours later, no truck in sight, I called them again, and the manager told me they were about half an hour away. I really didn't understand how one day of deliveries could take so long.

But half an hour later, when two men drove up in a pickup truck, I realized that the furniture store didn't even have a real truck, and they'd been lugging furniture, one piece at a time, all over the Valley.

I live on the bottom floor. There's a stairway that residents on the second floor take up to their units, which is about ten feet from my door. Coming around the corner, the guy walking forwards moved too fast for the guy walking backwards, and he managed to squish Backwards-Walking Guy's hand into the side of the stair railing, also causing a huge tear in the back of my couch. After the day I'd had, I took one look at the tear, told them to position it with that side facing the wall, and called it a day.

And after all that, Kym figured out that the name "Gorilla Rose" is actually the title of a psychedelic rock track, just the kind of track one would use for background music while getting high in the back of a van.