Smooth Move? Yeah...right.

We do a lot of moving in my household. Having college-aged triplets who move in and out and in and out, you'd think I'd have the whole moving gig down to an art, right?

Shows you what you know.


My elder (by one and one-half minutes) daughter graduated from college in May. She now has her first "grown up" job. And that means getting her first "grown up" place to live before winter arrives and the commute from hell jumps up to bite us on the whazoo.

As luck would have it, we find the perfect apartment. It's six minutes from her job, has a quaint charm, is very quiet, and the price is right. We put in a deposit to hold the apartment and arrange to sign the lease on  Friday.

On Tuesday I get a call at work. Sylvia, (the car's name, not my daughter's) has broken down in a mall parking lot where my daughter works her second job. It's 100 degrees without the heat index. I figure Sylvia has overheated so after I get off work, I drive down, stopping to pick up a gallon of antifreeze on my way. I locate the old girl. Raise the hood. Check the fluids. Try the engine. Not happening.

I walk across the parking lot to a muffler shop where a very nice man agrees to look at Sylvia. She won't start for him either. I'm given the sad news that it will cost more to revive Sylvia than she is worth. Now we have to find my daughter a car--and fast.

Thursday we go car shopping. SO not my favorite thing to do. By some miracle, we luck out once again and find a car we both agree on and can sort of afford. We say our goodbyes to Sylvia as she is taken away by Larry the Scrapper Guy. Sniff. Sniff.

I arrange to rent a U-Haul truck Friday. We sign the lease and go pick the truck up. Instead of the modest-sized moving truck I thought I'd reserved, the guy points to a gargantuan-sized truck as being the only one available.

I haul myself up into the cab and feel like I'm in a remake of Smokey and the Bandit. The truck is massive, but trooper that I am (or was) I go ahead and take the truck. After just three attempts, I manage to back it into my front driveway. Two hours later, we have it packed.

Originally, we'd planned to wait until Saturday morning to unload it, but I couldn't wait to rid myself of the behemoth. So I tell the kids we're driving up and unloading it that night.

Did I mention it was a nice comfortable 95 degrees?

You can imagine how popular I was.

I get the truck and its contents to our destination without incident (other than a wee bit of cursing on my part) and we unload it. I return it safely into the hands of the U-Haul guys five minutes before they close.

Mission accomplished. Daughter is moved. Truck is returned in one piece and we all live to bitch about it. 

And me? I come away knowing one thing for certain:  I'm staying put in this ole house--right into retirement and beyond. Believe me. It's safer this way.


~Bullet Hole~