Moving 2.0

After the more than ample amount of practice the weekend before last, the for-real for-real move of this past weekend was relatively easy and pain-free. "Pain-free" as in no major problems that could not be averted, not as in "free of physical pain." Or "free of mental anguish from the cost of moving." I'm still working on that.

We were able to pick the U-Haul up at 8:30, which was good. I didn't want to have to wait until after 10:30 as we did when we helped Edgar's parents move. At that point it's just already too late. So, anyways, the U-Haul. We drove it over to the storage unit and got everything loaded up. There was a frightening moment at the end because we had it completely filled up, and we still had to make a stop at our in-laws house to pick up our bed, TV, nightstand, and some boxes. It all worked out in the end, but not without a lot of frustration and rearranging.

First speed bump: crazy thieving storage unit. We paid for a full month for the storage unit on September 2nd. Our account was on automatic withdrawal, so we went ahead and let it go through because we assumed (apparently ridiculously incorrectly) that we would then be refunded for the remainder of the month once we vacated the storage unit, as is standard business practice. Apparently NOT for stupid QUALITY SELF STORAGE IN WEST COVINA. SO NOT QUALITY. DO NOT USE THEM. THEY ARE MEAN AND THEY STEAL YOUR MONEY AND WON'T GIVE YOU A REFUND AND THEN TALK TO YOU LIKE A CHILD WHEN YOU ASK THEM WHY NOT. Bitches. According to them it's all our fault because we needed to tell them 2 weeks in advance of the payment coming out that we would be leaving the storage unit this month. Um, ok, so I get that they needed time to remove us from their auto-payments. But why the eff can they not issue us a refund for the three and a half weeks that we're not using the unit? THIEVES!!!! I hate them.

I had to make a concious effort to calm myself down after that. I could tell that Edgar was getting annoyed that I was being pissy, and so to save us all the trouble I forced myself to chill out in the car on the way to his parent's house.

At his parents I had to suffer through the indignity of being a bad pet owner; for the sake of not letting Fiyero escape I had to once again lock him in the bathroom. Every time I would walk by the bathroom door or speak, I would hear this sad, patheitc, "merow!" come from inside the bathroom. And with it's high ceiling and tile, it would echo. I was in hell. He decided to make me suffer too, causing the car ride to Long Beach to be very uncomfortable. Fiyero far outgrew his kitty-carrier a long time ago; he's just ridiculously long. Sometimes when he stretches all the way out, it looks like he's as big as a dog. Anyways. Kitty-carrier-free cat is a roving cat. He started out the trip so well; he sat on the passenger seat and stared at me. As long as I kept petting him with my right hand and driving with my left, he was fine. But about 10 miles in to the trip he decided it was time to sit on my lap. Even that was ok, if not a little uncomfortable. But then he decided that the best place for him was not my lap, but he wasn't sure where to go. So he climbed up on my shoulder. Hind legs on my shoulder, front paws on the seat back, ass in my ear. After standing there for a minute, he tried to walk across the back of my shoulders. But instead of then climbing down on to the seat, he decided to lay down. THE CAT WAS LAYING DOWN ON THE BACK OF MY SHOULDERS WHILE I WAS TRYING TO DRIVE ON THE 605 FREEWAY. Not good. So not good. I was hunched over that steering wheel like an 80 year old Asian lady. We finally hit some traffic where I had to completely stop, so I was able to use both hands to get him off me. I put him back in the passenger seat, but he kept trying to walk onto my lap and get down by my feet with the pedals. Which of course is ridiculously dangerous, so I had to keep throwing him off my lap into the passenger seat. I think he was doing it just to annoy me, because once we were off the freeway he settled down again and was all, "Look at me, I'm so cute sitting here in the passenger seat with my tail curled around me and rubbing my paws. Don't you love me?" Oh, Fiyero.

Speed bump number two: unfortunately when we got to the apartment, the leasing office was closed. They have one person working on Saturday and she was out to lunch. So after loitering outside the building for 45 minutes, we were finally able to get in, sign our lease, and get our keys. The actual moving in was pretty easy. We had a big appliance dolly from UHaul for the big furniture and another smaller dolly that I borrowed from work to move boxes. I think it took around four hours for us to move everything in to the apartment. It probably could have taken less time but at the end we were all being lazy and not really lifting anything without the help of one of the dollies. Oh well, we were still done much faster than we were last week.

Speed bump number three: parking ticket! Oopsy. All of the street parking around our building is metered. The meter on my mother-in-law's car was empty for about 15 minutes, and she got a ticket. We hadn't seen a meter reader the entire day. We had someone downstairs with the UHaul and the cars and a roll of quarters at all times. But for the last 15 minutes before she left, while she was upstairs saying goodbye, the reader magically appeared and gave her a ticket. Figures.

We returned the UHaul after that, not without some drama. Edgar just may have clipped a stopped bus that he was going around on Long Beach Boulevard. Maaaaaaybe. He doesn't know, I couldn't tell, the bus driver didn't run out yelling at him, so it's probably ok. Proooooooobably.

Dinner was quite the adventure. Since we didn't have any food yet, we stopped at a Carl's Jr. to eat. Oh my, Carl's Jr. I was heading to the restroom to wash my hands before we ate, when I was abruptly stopped by a meter on the door, needing to insert a quarter in order to open the door. According to Edgar, this was not a good sign. Apparently the pay locks are on the door to keep homeless junkies from coming in and shooting up in the bathroom (this was all very comforting on my first evening in a new city in a restaurant a few blocks from my new place, as you can imagine). Anyways, I already wasted all of my quarters on the aforementioned parking meters, so the whole hand-washing thing ended up being a non-starter.

We were able to get a lot of our packing done on the first night after we got back from dinner. This is where I sustained by most egregious injury of the weekend. I had climbed up on top of the kitchen counter to put some vases on top of a cabinet, and when I was trying to get back down I slipped and jammed the top of my knee against one of the knobs on the lower cabinets. Within the hour I had a gold-ball sized lump and a huge purple bruise in the same spot. Luckily by now the swelling has gone down and the bruise is getting that yellowish look, so I think I'll get to keep the leg. No permanent damage done. It still hurts though :(

Good news: the cat didn't freak out. He actually didn't even close himself up like a basket case as he did last week while we were unpacking. He was out playing with things, running up and down the stairs to the loft, and generally just having a good time. It was kind of amazing how quickly he adapted. I think he recognized all of our old furniture and realized "Ok, this is home, I'm safe here." Thank goodness.

Sunday was an interesting day. We got up at 7 am. The only reason we got up that early was because out DirecTV installation appointment was scheduled in the 8am-12pm window. We wanted to be able to eat breakfast and shower before he got there. Which turned out to be totally unnecessary since he didn't show up until 12:30. Thanks, DirecTV subcontractor. I could have slept in. (On another note, I was able to walk to a Denny's down the street to get us pancakes for breakfast, which was kind of awesome).

DirecTV guy was there for FIVE HOURS. Normally, installation takes about two hours at the most. They were having problems activating the new receiver that we ordered from them. It took 4 people on the phone and 3 hours to figure out that it was because the NFL Sunday Ticket package on the account was expired, so they couldn't activate anything new. Which is awesome, since we have already told DirecTV about four times since we ordered our service that we wanted the package on our account to be renewed. THANKS FOR WASTING THREE HOURS OF MY LIFE. Then came the lovely fact that the receiver they were trying to activate was broken, and we had to wait for the installer's coworker to bring us a good one. Stellar.

After that fiasco came the Verizon fiasco. I was trying to set up our internet service but the installation wouldn't complete. I called Verizon and they told me after running some tests that there was a problem with the line and they would have to have their central office run some tests and if that didn't work they would have to send a technician out. Which royally pissed me off. Don't send me an e-mail on 9/4/09 saying "Congratulations! Your internet service is ready!" if it is NOT READY. And certainly do not tell me that if you have to send a technician out that you can't tell me today what day it will be and that you can't come after 6pm when I'm home from work. YOU are the ones that fucked up and I will not be taking unpaid time off from work in order for you to fix the problem. I eventually got to speak with a supervisor who told me after I had to do a lot of yelling that they could have some one come out after 6 pm, but I would have to call the next day to reschedule the appointment that he was going to give me to the 6 pm hour. Um, excuse me? You want to schedule me your stupid four hour window appointment for a time that you know I can't do and make me call back to reschedule it for after 6 o'clock? If you can reschedule an appointment to 6 o'clock, you can schedule an appointment for 6 o'clock. And this guy was a supervisor. Whatever. Eventually this culminated in me screaming at the guy to cancel my service. Which he of course stated that he could not do because I would have to speak with the cancellation department and they were closed. FUCK YOU VERIZON.

I don't like being mean. I used to do customer service and I hated it when people would scream and yell at me about something that I could not change. But these people were just screwing with me. If you're a supervisor, you have the power to do things that regular reps can't. Don't tell me that you can't do something. Give me a resolution. I know the tricks that you have up your sleeve and I'm not going to sit there and be walked over.

I ended up hanging up on the guy. I called back today to cancel the service, and I was told that they've escalated the issue and will have a resolution by tomorrow. I still wanted to cancel, but unfortunately, my phone battery died in the middle of the converstaion. Of course. Stellar, once again. I just can't seem to get it together with Verizon! I'm giving them one more chance when I call back this evening. If they have an answer for me, and can send a technician out this Friday when I am off from work, I won't cancel it. Anything else, bye-bye Verizon. I hate them. They make me miserable. I just want the internet at home!! I hate only having access to it from my office! Ugh.