And Now – A Rant, Pt. I

The movers came and moved us two months ago. At the time, W said that a couple of things didn’t get moved. Oh well, I thought, that’s okay because we have to go back to take N to summer camp and pick him up again on two consecutive weekends. We’ll get whatever was left behind then.

The first weekend, after dropping N off at the bus for camp on Sunday morning, we headed over to the house. To describe my reaction as shock, disgust, and horror would not be overly dramatic. There were still unpacked items in every closet of every bedroom. The three hallway closets had barely been touched. The pantry in the kitchen was still about half full. A few cabinets and drawers in the kitchen had items in them. The refrigerator had not been emptied. I didn’t even dare look in the basement. I didn’t want to know. Add to this that W at that time was having trouble with one of his legs, using a cane to get around, and not doing very well at that. I had a meltdown, and as I tend to do in such circumstances, I became Supreme Dictator, She With Whom You Must Not Argue. I told W to get whatever he absolutely needed to take home with him that day, and that’s all we were taking at that time. It was obvious to me that there was no way we could haul everything in my little SUV so we would have to rent a truck or at least a cargo van to get everything. I announced that I would take a couple days off the next week to come back down so we could get everything packed and loaded before picking N up from camp. We drove home. We were not happy campers.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I was unable to take time from work that next week so the plan changed. That weekend (this was the weekend BTW when we had the big talk on the drive down), after picking N up from camp on Saturday and celebrating my dad’s birthday that day, we would spend Sunday packing boxes at the house, getting as much ready as we could for a future weekend trip back to load up and haul things up to LNJ. W’s leg was doing some better but not significantly. W tackled the basement while I worked on the main floor. I started at the far end of the house, the bedrooms and worked my way forward. Room by room I boxed things up and brought them out to the family room until the main floor had all been boxed up. In the dining room I had the pile of items to be donated, and those our realtor was going to stop by and pick up for us. In the kitchen I had most everything boxed up or at least set out on the island ready for packing. In the family room I had all the boxes, many boxes, from the remainder of the main floor. With a three hour drive ahead of us we called it quits in the late afternoon, loaded what we could in my car and drove home.

Now, I should have known that the basement was still in disarray. While I went methodically upstairs, room by room, assembling things in a central location I knew that isn’t how W works. That’s one reason we didn’t work in the same area, because it would drive me nuts how he starts one thing, gets distracted, leaves it half done and goes to start something else. I had walked through the basement at one point just to get an idea of the amount of stuff that needed to be hauled out of there. There was a lot. Two storage closets full, plus the office closets and bookcase full of stuff, plus the computer desk, plus a stereo, plus who knows how much else. I shuddered. I focused on the upstairs and tried to ignore the basement. W assured me when we left that he had it all boxed up but a couple of boxes worth of stuff. Against my better judgment I chose to believe him.

Next time on A Rant:
Last weekend and how much fun renting a truck, packing, loading and unloading that truck can be.