Moving On

As soon as we got back from the beach, we started packing up. We didn't want to hang around that last place any longer than we had to, so we scheduled the movers to come on Thursday, August 25. 


Evidently there was some misunderstanding regarding the schedule for moving day. When we asked the moving boss-man if they’d be able to come one morning and have everything unloaded in the new place that evening, he said it would be no problem. But it was Ramadan, and the moving guys were fasting so they weren’t quite as energetic as usual. And when they said they could come at 8:30 or 9 that morning, what they meant was 10:30 or 11.

Well, they worked four or five good hours before their bodies realized they hadn’t eaten or drunk anything all day. By 5:00 that afternoon, they were pretty much sitting around waiting for sunset, which was not coming until about 6:30. It was obvious to us at this point that there was no way in the world all this furniture and all these boxes were going to be in our new house before midnight. Sometime in that hour, they started calling the truck driver. He said he was an hour away, and would come right after breaking fast. Apparently he took a long time to break fast, because he showed up at our place a little after 9:00. By that time, we had checked Beth and the kids into a nearby hotel. I stayed to help and watch our stuff, since we knew the burglar was still around the building.

As they started loading the truck--about 20 feet of cargo space--it quickly became apparent that all our stuff wasn’t going in that truck on one trip. Not even close. Since our new house is only a mile and a half from our old house, they decided to take a load and come back for the second. Problem was, we didn’t leave the old house for the first time until midnight. Midnight!! Some time around 2:00 a.m., as we were carrying boxes up to the third floor sans elevator, it dawned on me that these moving guys were a good 20 years younger than me. And that we were paying them to carry the boxes up the stairs. So, I spent the last hour or so supervising from the top. My back was fine after about two weeks.

At 3:30 a.m. on Friday morning, we put the last box in the new flat, and I walked out with them as we looked for two taxis. The 7 of them piled into one way-too-small cab and last thing I heard, they were asking the taxi driver where they could get a hot meal. Too bad Waffle House hasn’t opened in this neck of the woods yet.