Moving Sucks

Well, this is the second time I've started this, blogspot chose to eat it the last time I did it.

>eyes blogspot threateningly<

So, adventures in moving. Where to start. Perhaps at the beginning. Maybe at the pre-beginning.

As everyone knows, my kids were scheduled to leave on Sunday. Instead of doing that, the ex-husband and his wife decided to get a hotel room here in town and leave "early" Monday morning.

So, Sunday night Chris and I stayed up late figuring that we didn't have anything big to do on Monday. No kids to wake up with, I had the day off, Chris had spent Sunday evening doing up the week's assignments. I think we finally went to bed around 4am.

Well, 8am comes pretty fast when you have only been in bed for four hours and I bitched under my breath as I stumbled out of bed to answer the insistent ringing of the telephone.

Imagine my surprise when it was my ex-husband (can you hear the sarcasm in my voice here?) I answer the phone with a tired hello, and I listen to him rant and rave about how I didn't pack the boys any long pants or their jackets. I feel the need to point out that it is summer, and they won't need long pants or jackets. He says they want to take them camping in the mountains and it will be colder up there. Well, hello? How the hell am I supposed to know that they are going to do this? So, I tell him to bring the kids on by and let them pick their stuff up.

I hang up and by now Chris is up and he's glaring at me. I ask him what's wrong and he insists that nothing is wrong. I know there is, but I also know that when he gets like that the best thing that I can do is leave him alone until he's ready to talk to me about it.

The kids arrive and begin by telling me what fun they had in the hotel room. I tease my ex-husband about the fact that he only had the children on his own for three hours before he called me up complaining that the children wouldn't mind.

Now, let me add in here that during the time it took them to call and the time they actually arrived, Chris and I had begun to play an online game together. I of course, pretty much set the game aside when the kids arrived.

I was in no hurry to see them go. I guess it's a mother thing. Chris however, got upset that I had blown off our game and that I didn't get up to get the kids their stuff. He shut off the game completely and headed off to the bedroom. I followed him and he was clearly angry. With a fresh round of tears and another set of goodbyes, the children were off.

The confrontation between Chris and I started. I think he was an ass while the kids were there, he thought I was selfish by allowing them to come back in the first place. He points out that when we said our goodbyes the night before he was the one who had to comfort me. He is the one who wasn't able to be upset because he felt he had to be strong for both of us. Saying goodbye again wasn't fair. I ask him what I could have done. He points out that my ex-husband should have been told to buy the required items himself, as we have to do when the children need something (trust me, we call the ex-husband for NOTHING). I had to agree, but, at the same time I refuse to give in because I am simply a stubborn bitch like that.

Off in a sulk I go. When I get mad at Chris, I clean house. I do this until about 12pm when the phone rings again. I answer it and lo and behold it is the apartment manager. I am thrilled because she had told us that the apartment would be ready this weekend, so, I am expecting to hear something along the lines of "Well, the apartment will be ready Thursday or Friday so start packing". Instead, I get "The apartment is ready now and if you don't move in today, you will give up the three bedrooms for good, we will take you off the list" So, I tell Chris and while he's not happy, we agree that we can get it done in three days. I go back to the phone, and she says "Oh, and, you have only 24 hours to get moved" I ask her why, she gives me some bullshit song and dance about how the rules have changed. Now, HUD has been doing low-income housing for YEARS and suddenly, we are the first people affected by a new change in rules? Come on, I wasn't fucking born yesterday. She asks if we still want it, I ask her what other options we have; she says we can give up the three bedrooms. Well, you see, that is really not an option for us, we have one girl and two boys and we’ve been on this waiting list for three damn years.

So, Chris heads over to get the keys to the new apartment and I begin to call everyone I know. Family, church friends, other friends. Everyone I can think of. Chris returns without the keys because she has gone to lunch. How convenient for her huh?

Well, people begin to arrive, and we begin to pack. Did I mention that we had no boxes? Yeah, there was that too. Thankfully my sister-in-law brought about a dozen or so boxes.

Chris heads back over to the office and comes back once more without the keys. He says that she won’t give us the keys until 2pm. Not only that, but, when he asked her if that meant we had until 2pm the next day she replied with “No, you have to turn your keys in by 8am or you will be evicted” WHAT THE FUCK? He points out to her that isn’t 24 hours, she says “It’s like 24 hours” Anyone else seeing her logic here because I sure as hell didn’t.

So, we box up what few boxes we have. The plan is to take the boxes into whatever room they belong in and dump them out so we can use them again. Great in theory, not so good in practice. Especially when you are not around to tell people where those things go.

2pm rolls around so this time Chris and I both head over to the office. She didn’t mention that there was a mountain of paperwork to do. At just a few minutes till three we are done, but we don’t get the keys until we do the pre-inspection. Okay fine.

The tiled floors are stained. The downstairs carpets are stained. They didn’t paint a wall. The kitchen drawers still have left over garbage in them from the previous tenants. The doors don’t want to lock properly (she assured us they were “brand new locks” Chris pointed out that they were not brand new locks and she says “well we replaced the ones that were here with ones from another apartment”) The garbage disposal doesn’t work. There are chicken bones under the kitchen sink. The doorways are all dented and there are large dents in the wall. There are no doors on the closets.

Don’t laugh, but this is just the downstairs portion. Upstairs the carpets are in the same condition, the only closet with a door is the one in the master bedroom. The linen closet in the hallway has no door! The light switch in the bathroom is busted. The doors upstairs are all written on. The doorknob on one of the bedrooms won’t work. Best of all, the rooms that the children are going to be in, smell like a litter box. I point it out to her. She tells me it must be the stuff they cleaned the carpet with. I stare in horror at her. I ask her if they are using cat urine to clean carpets with. Yes, I know, it was a snippy response but stop insulting my fucking intelligence. Of course, I make her write all this down on the sheet she has. She keeps saying she is sorry. I am not placated. They pushed us out of our old apartment without even having the new one ready.

I won’t go into all the horrible details of the move. I will highlight a few things for you. Chris threw his knee out early on and refused to take anything for it. We were only halfway done by 11pm when all of our help left. We worked until 7:45 am before we were finally done.

Just a note. Moving SUCKS!