Moving across the country is always a stressful endeavor. Especially when the moving company you hired for the very purpose of making your stress dissipate has fucked things up at every turn. Seriously. They signed a contract specifying pickup of my stuff from Dayton between the 22nd and 23rd and drop off in Baltimore no later than the 24th. I still do not have my stuff. And it was PICKED UP in Dayton on the 24th at 10pm (when they specifically stated they would come between 3pm and 5pm) by ONE GUY whom was responsible for the entire move. The man my mother spoke with initially when she was deciding whether or not to hire this company assured my mother a team of experts would assemble and disassemble everything, and all we would have to do is point. No lifting required. Well... since ONE GUY can't do everything by himself, and they only sent ONE GUY, guess what happened? Yep. My dad disassembled everything and then me, my dad, and one recruited volunteer (to whom I will always be eternally grateful) hauled everything out to the truck while the guy sort of "supervised" us and loaded stuff into the truck. He was pissy and not helpful because he had been called away from vacation when the original drivers had a lover's quarrel and refused to work together anymore (which the moving company neglected to tell us at 3pm when we called, 5pm when we called, 5:30 when we called, and 9pm when we called--each time we were assured everything was fine). But we all rolled with it. Accepting that maybe this was a lesson in patience and the driver assured us that he would deliver to Baltimore last Saturday evening at 8pm.
Well, of course he didn't--and he wouldn't answer his cell and the moving company of course was on vacation for Memorial Day, so we didn't hear from anyone until yesterday morning. The representative said our driver had been called away on a "family emergency," which is odd because I think he just ended up going vacation like he originally intended. I don't begrudge a vacation, but he looked in our faces and lied, and then didn't have the cojones to call us and let us know of his change in plan. He returns tonight, so the absolute earliest he could come is tomorrow night. But I kind of doubt he's coming tomorrow night. And no one at the company has any idea why my family might be upset. Or what we expect them to do. Here's what I think we're going to do 1) Call the Better Business Bureau 2) Call the Attorney General's office and report consumer fraud 3) Sue them for breach of contract 4) Let everyone of you know ALL STAR MOVERS is an evil company. They're liars and incompetent idiots. Tell your friends. A pox, I say, a pox!
I've ranted about the moving company, but that's not the only thing that's been making this adjustment so difficult and scary. As a kid I used to think it would be fun and exciting to jump off the top of the monkey bars, then I would climb up on top of them, look at the grass maybe 6 feet below, and think "what the fuck was I thinking?!". I would stand up there frozen for a while, not knowing whether to bite the bullet and jump to earn my sister's respect (she was always watching and encouraging me to do things that would culminate in me breaking all my appendages) or whether to seek an escape route. That's what Baltimore feels like. I'm at the top of the monkey bars; I've quit my job, moved to a new city, started a new career path, left all my friends, and now I'm in an unfurnished apartment lonely and scared in an unfamiliar town. Do I jump? Is it even possible at this point to tell the movers to get my stuff back to Dayton and beg for my old job and apartment? I've seen Carrie do it in the "Sex and the City Movie" so I'm pretty sure it can be done. Is there anyone to tell that this was just a horrible mistake?
In my right mind, I don't think this is a mistake. I am excited. Orientation was horrible and boring and overwhelming yesterday but I don't know of any orientations that aren't horrible and boring and overwhelming. I cried every day on the first day of school grades kindergarten through senior year in college (and ok, also when I started my job) so the fact that yesterday was my breaking point and I cried in the corner of my empty apartment and felt sorry for myself for a full 5 minutes doesn't actually mean anything unusual. I am bad with change, but I obviously felt like the time was right to make one, so really, can I complain? And I'm sooo scared about making new friends yet a senile old woman came up to me at a coffee shop and chatted with me for like 20 minutes about her daughter's experience at Cambridge in medieval studies, so obviously, even when I don't want to (I had a pretty clear "I'm not interested" look on my face as she approached me) I make friends left and right. Also I had a beer and played trivia last night with my friend from UD's older brother.
I'm scared and feeling vaguely homeless, but I remain undeterred. I will make friends. Everything will work out. I will jump off the monkey bars.
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