Rant – Part III

This rant is dragging on almost as badly as the weekend did. Ha! Welcome to my world.

Sunday morning dawned bright and clear. We made excuses to my parents why we needed to leave early that morning (I couldn’t bring myself to admit to them what a shambles everything is), and again we returned to the dreaded house with the dreaded mess that still needed to be packed and loaded. I had no choice left. The upstairs was pretty well finished except to clean out the refrigerator and load the boxes from the kitchen into the truck. I had to descend into the bowels of hell basement and help with what remained there.

Upon arriving in the basement I took stock of what remained. There were only a few items that remained in the back unfinished area. The two storage closets had been emptied the day before. The office still had two closets with shelves teeming with this, that and assorted other things, a bookcase with more assorted crap items, a CPU, and a few notes and things taped to the wall. The main part of the basement had a shredder, several shelves full of shit whatnot, a printer, two keyboards, another CPU, and three or four half packed boxes. I sighed as I looked around and set to work. I pretty much forced W into my methodical system by continually calling him over to where I was and making him work with me. In this way we got the office completely cleaned out first (including lugging a big old bookcase up the stairs together during which time we were both lucky the other one didn’t get so frustrated and let the other one be killed under the bookcase’s crushing weight), then the back room so that all that was left was the main area.

Oh yes, I almost forgot this part. Sometime during the day W told me he'd packed the shotgun in the back of the truck. I was relieved. It's his gun after all, one that I've asked him numerous times to discard as he doesn't hunt and has no use for it. He is saving it for his son from his first marriage he says. I'd like him to go ahead and give it to his son, but of course W refuses. Why? No clue, but he does.

By this time it was time for me to go pick up N at his friend’s house. However, we clearly weren’t finished, and it wouldn’t be made any easier by having N underfoot. W called over to the friend’s house, found out it would be fine if we ran about an hour late, and we returned to our task. Let me interrupt here to say that I am out of shape, fat, lazy, not the kind of person who exercises regularly. On Sunday, I went up and down the basement stairs so much that (1)my legs are still sore from the experience (2)my bursitis is acting up and (3)I now look like and move at the speed of a little old lady when I walk. By the end of the experience I was almost crawling up those stairs, not an easy feat when carrying a full moving box with you.

Anyway, eventually we finished the basement. Everything had been brought upstairs, and most was loaded. I emptied the refrigerator into a cooler for items that were usable and the trash for items that weren’t usable. Then I went and picked up N so he could come back to the house one last time. I had tears in my eyes when I looked outside and saw him slowly swinging on the swing set. He then came in, walked through the house, opening every closet door, every cabinet, every drawer. I guess he wanted to just double check that we left nothing behind. In the meantime, W finished loading the truck. N wanted to go down the street to say goodbye to a couple of buddies. I told him okay but to come right back.

W closed up the truck and was ready to go. Although we had planned on leaving around 1:00 p.m. it was now almost 3:00 p.m. N was nowhere in sight. I told W to go ahead and leave, and I would track down N. I watched W drive off in that big truck still worried how that trip would go. Then I went and tracked down N who was playing a video game at one of his friend’s house. When I arrived asking for him, he came out and said “Oops, I forgot I was supposed to come right back.” Gotta love 8-year-olds. Or roll your eyes at them. Whatever.

Looming ahead was a three hour drive back to LNJ and the prospect of having to unload that truck once we got there. To say I was less than enthusiastic would be generous.

Oh dear, and now I’ve rambled on so long it looks like we’ll have to continue this in a Part IV. God help us all.