4 days. That’s all we have left. I have a ton of ridiculous moving stories, but no sense of humor left to tell them. This about sums up our week:
Tears:
Caleb’s birthday. Yes, he’s crying because I spent all day taking care of pet paperwork and other moving administrative necessities. I warned him that there was no way around it and we would celebrate for real later, but . . . Camille keeps crying that she misses Josie. I feel like crying because I’m living in the midst of too much stuff and my brain feels as cluttered as our hotel room. Josh brought home our medical records which is another 15lbs to add to our already overweight luggage allowance.
Discomfort:
Carter’s lip swelled up and started taking over his face. I’m on edge that the kids are too loud in the hotel and living like swine. Towels everywhere, bedding tossed on the floor, electronic cables everywhere. I came home from an exasperating appointment and in my short temperedness shrieked that I could hear them down the hallway and that they needed to clean up their mess. I retreated to my own sanctuary of crap and I hear Caleb start singing “It’s a Hard Knock Life . . .” I guess I deserved that (and yes, I laughed. Just call me Miss Hannigan).
Sweat:
Oh, it’s one big slimy, drippy mess here. Back sweat, boob sweat, dripping down my chin sweat . . . just stepping outside I can feel each individual water molecule clinging to my skin. Walking and breathing is a workout all its own as we suck in the heavy air and push our way through the haze.
To sum up, every little thing has taken twice as long and been more complicated than expected. Nothing is going smoothly. It’s all getting done, but taking extra effort and persistence that I’m running out of. For example, today I had to go book the flight for the dog and the cat. We brought them out to the airline cargo terminal about 10 days ago to weigh and measure them and their crates. Today all I was supposed to do was bring paperwork (each piece with it’s own separate tale of woe), have the cargo guy create the airbill, and pay.
I hand over the paperwork and tell him I’m here for the final booking and he says, “We need to have the pets to measure.” I tell him we did that days ago. He doesn’t remember. “Are you sure you came here? I’m here every day. I don’t think so. There are lots of offices. Maybe you are confused.”
Yes I did. There isn’t any way I could have found my way back to that tiny office on the back lot of the cargo terminal if I hadn’t been there before. He said, “You can bring them Saturday.” UM NO. I did this once already, before we shipped our car so we would have room for the giant dog crate. I no longer have room for the dog crate in my car. I describe how they brought the scale outside, how I brought the dog around on his leash, how we put the crate on the scale, how I put the dog in the crate and his guy measured . . .
Blank stare. “I don’t think so. We have to measure.” “Yes, and your guy with the tape measure gave you the numbers for the length, height and width for both animals.” Totally annoyed, I’m hitting redial on Josh’s phone number over and over, hoping he can help jog his memory, but of course he is nowhere that he gets a signal.
The guy is puzzled, not sure what to do. So we sit there, at an impasse. I tell him that he did all the calculations and the fee is to be 145 BD for both pets. Still a blank look. “I don’t remember you.” He then starts to look through his desk and piles of paper on the floor and eventually finds a scrap of printer paper with some numbers scribbled on it: “Oh yes, July 24th? I found it. Now I remember.” And that is how this entire move has gone — something easy aways goes sideways.
After all that, when I hand him my card to pay, he says, “Cash only.” Of course it’s cash only. I guess it would have been too hard to mention that the last time we were there. Or not there. Cause everyone walks around with $400 of cash on hand. So I have to go back. Again. I hope he remembers me next time. (Or I’ll make sure he never forgets me!)