~ moving day ~
today is probably the craziest day of my life. starting from 9:30PM last night, ari, ramanda and i took turns sleeping. we only had one bed, because we have folded and used ramanda’s bed for TV box padding. so he got no where to sleep, but the one bed i still have unpacked. each of us sleep only for about 3 hours in total.
here is the rundown of the timing we have… bear with me here, it’s a bit confusing:
- we need to finish all this move by, at least, 10am, since our flight to Japan is leaving JFK at 12:20pm, and international flights usually require us to be there at least 2 hours early.
- according to the schedule, the container will be at my apartment around 8am, and we’ll have 2 hours to load our stuff.
- ari hired 2 guys from 7-11 to help us with the move, they can only do it from 7am - 9am in the morning, cause they need to go to work by 9. so we thought, we’ll ask them to start bringing our stuff and put them on the sidewalk around 7, and move it to the truck starting at 8… that way, we’ll be finished quickly,, probably by 9 - 9:30pm, which will give us a good enough cushion.
of course things didn’t go our way… it started with the building policy: we found out yesterday that we can only use the elevator to move our stuff between 9am-4pm. but the 7-11 guys had to leave by nine! what are we gonna do? so, they came in, used the elevator to move our boxes and furnitures, which cause the superintendant yelling at me for moving too early… i had 2 choices: tell the 7-11 guys to use the stairs instead (it’s 5-floor walk-up, mind you), or ignore the superintendant — whom technically, i won’t ever meet again…
well, i did both. i felt really bad for the fellow neighbors that we hogged the elevator, and at the same time, i wasn’t charismatic enough to tell the 7-11 guys to use the stairs only… they whined, they take the elevator when i didn’t see them, they put this guilt trip on me that they wouldn’t have come if they knew they’re gonna have to use the stairs… and i don’t blame them for that.
but show must go on, right? i was quite stressed out over the guilt that i think i’d have a permanent wrinkle on my forehead from being all bitchy this morning. but, we managed to get all the stuff down on the sidewalk by 8:45am, including the bed, all the cabinets, shelves and drawers… everything that fit into one whole comtainer.
the weird thing is, the container truck hasn’t arrived. ramanda and ari sat outside on our swivel chair waiting for the truck… and the time is rolling. by 9am, the 7-11 guys are gone to work, leaving me, ari and ramanda… the trucking company finally called with bad news: the driver for our truck was sick, so they needed to find a new driver. instead of leaving Jersey city at 6 in the morning, the truck left at 8… this means, we’d have 2-hour delay… this also means the truck would not going to get here until around 10-10:30pm… shit!
the trash pile was right next to our pile, and the garbage men almost took our stuff instead of the trash. i think he was a bit shocked to see the amount of “trash” he had to pick up when he first arrived. i could see a bit of a relieve after we told him that this pile is ours. i kept calling the car service every fifteen minutes and change the time for the car to pick us up for the airport….
after what feels like a neverending wait in a cold winter day (around 0 degrees Celcius), the truck finally came at 9:15pm. the next problem was, besides we’re totally late, we didn’t have enough manpower to lift the stuff and pack it up to the container in a short time that we needed. it took the 7-11 dudes to move the stuff from apartment to the sidewalk in two hours and the truck bed, which was about my height, had no ramp. so we had to lift all those supa-heavy boxes (books, TV, wooden cabinet…) manually with no ramp! i doubt that ari, ramanda and i can lift the stuff from the sidewalk to the container in half an hour… we probably won’t even be able to do that in three hours!
but we miraculously did… well, with some help. when the driver arrived, he was a bit puzzled, “are you guys are the only ones who are going to pack this stuff?” ari nodded. we told him that he’s about 2-hour late, and our mover have left. he felt bad and started helping us with the boxes… and damn, he’s sooooo strong! we would’ve not be able to do the move at all if it wasn’t for him. ramanda and him were on the street, lifting the boxes up, ari and i were in the container, moving the boxes around. and we did all that in 45 minutes, which was very impressive!
we’re done right on time, since i changed the car service time to come by at 11am. after loading our stuff (which is 4 suitcases) into the car, we finally on our way to JFK airport. there was a construction on the way there, and by that time, we were so sure that we’re not going to make the flight. our flight to Japan is leaving at 12:20, and we arrived at the airport at 11:20… i mean, even for domestic flight, that’s way too tight.
but, again, we made it! for some reason, the counter still allowed us to check-in, and we went through the security fast enough, despites the three of us have laptops that need to be “inspected”. we made it right on time… i’m writing this on the plane on the way to tokyo…
hopefully, nothing will go wrong after that whole thing.