Rant – Part II

As promised, I shall continue to rant here trying to let off steam.

Last weekend, we went one last time to LOH to clean out the house, load up all the stuff that was left behind before, and drag it up to LNJ. Now if all that had been left behind were truly just worthless junk then I would not have hesitated to just throw it all out. However, although we filled three trash cans plus had extra bags filled with trash, there were still a significant number of useful items that I wouldn’t want discarded.

W set out to rent a cargo van. That seemed a reasonable option to me although I was just a wee bit concerned it might not be big enough for all we were taking. The rental company doesn’t rent cargo vans one way, and renting a 10 foot truck one way was cheaper than renting a cargo van round trip so we opted for the 10 foot truck. On Saturday morning, as planned, I dropped W off at the truck rental place, ran a couple of errands, snuck in a phone call to BJ, and then met W back at the house. He arrived in a very large truck which I was to find out later was 15 feet not 10. Apparently, even though he reserved a 10 foot truck, they didn’t have any available so the rented him the 15 foot truck for the 10 foot truck price. Okay, sure, we had a lot of stuff to load but not near enough to fill a 15 foot truck!Thoughts immediately sped through my head. Thoughts like how are we going to secure the load so it doesn’t just slide around in the back? Thoughts like how can I trust W to drive a truck that big without causing major damage to himself and others? Thoughts like how the fuck did I get myself into this? I did what any good conflict avoider would do and offered to go get lunch for the two of us while he started loading the truck. I soon returned with wraps from a local place we like.

After lunch, the work began in earnest. As awful as this may sound I started to load my car with the items that I knew I wouldn’t want destroyed if W crashed the rental truck. By mid-afternoon I had pretty well loaded down my car. I told W I had put some things in my car and had it pretty well filled up only to be told that he had one more thing he wanted me to take in my car – his shotgun. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of having a shotgun on the floor of my car, but figured that the risk of being stopped by the police was small enough that I wasn’t going to overthink too much whether or not a shotgun under the seat would be a concealed weapon or whether or not it was legal to transport it wrapped up in a blanket like W had it. I also had the thought flit across my mind that I hadn’t a clue what I’d do with a shotgun if something did happen to W. I’d just as soon have that gun in the back of the truck if he was going to crash somewhere. (Yes, I know it’s ridiculous and morbid of me to dwell on the possibility of him crashing. I know. So sue me.)

Because we had to be back to my parents’ house in time for dinner, we had to quit packing and loading before everything was packed and loaded. We did manage to take apart the computer desk and get it upstairs piece by piece. However, much of the basement stuff was still there, and still not packed. Taking stock of the situation, I could see that Sunday wasn’t going to be an easy day. We discussed the state of things on the way back to my parents’ house, and decided to forego church with them on Sunday morning (yet again) about which I was not happy. However, I didn’t have a good alternative to suggest so that was that. We determined that we would get up Sunday morning, get an early start and be all loaded and ready to go by the time we had to pick N up at a friend’s house where he spent the weekend.

This is getting long again so I guess you’ll have to wait for Rant – Part III to find out how Sunday actually went, and Monday, and Tuesday, and Oh God I hope it doesn’t go on much longer.