Thanks to Lee, I have reached a point in my life where I can safely say that if you ever move across the country, I'm the kind of girl you want helping you out. Throughout the whole week-long process of packing up Lee's things and driving 1,000 miles to Texas, I exhibited a level of patience I was unaware I even possessed. (As long as you don't count the one time I lost it and threatened his life.) (Technically, I threaten his life pretty often, but I only meant it that time.)
Arguably, that level of patience wouldn't have been necessary in the first place if the Counselor had planned ahead a little better. But I can only assume that he loves me so much that he intentionally engineered things to go the way they did in order to prove to me that I'm capable of accomplishing far more than I ever dreamed possible. He's so generous that way.
Lee finished school with about a week to kill before he graduated. We were supposed to head to Texas after he graduated that Sunday. My thinking was that we'd everything ready ahead of time, pack it all in the car on Monday and then hit the road on Tuesday, giving us a few days to hang out in Texas before I had to fly back to North Carolina the following Sunday. Suspiciously, every time I suggested this timeline to Lee, he would say things like, "We'll see how things go."
When Moving Week (hereafter known as My Time In Purgatory) arrived, Lee had already sold most of his furniture, and his parents hung around on Monday to help us get rid of what was left. They took a lot of stuff to donate, and then we moved his old bed to my apartment so I could get rid of my over-10-year-old mattresses. That part was actually pretty fun, and involved me wrapped like a burrito inside the old mattress in the back of the van, holding the back hatch shut with one hand while hanging on for dear life with the other.
After his parents left, we packed and cleaned. And cleaned and packed. Around 10pm, we had the bathroom and kitchen emptied and clean, but there was still a huge pile of boxes and miscellany sitting in his living room, an aquarium to break down, a closet full of clothes, and a small bookcase with the books still in it. And we had laundry to do. Soooo... we headed back to my place where we did three loads of laundry while we both dozed a little on the couch. At the end of Day 1 of My Time In Purgatory, we went to bed at 2am.
On Tuesday we slept a little later than we intended, but I woke up with high hopes(!) that we could finish up the packing that day and then leave that evening, maybe stopping over near Charlotte to stay with his parents that night. "There is no way," I boldly declared, "that I am going to sleep tonight without putting at least a few miles behind us." Unfortunately, it took awhile before we could get started, because Lee had a few errands he had to run. Errands that couldn't have been taken care of prior to that day. Certainly not during the week before, when were both just sitting around doing nothing. Regardless of who we blame for the sitting around on Tuesday morning (although just to be clear, we blame Lee), I was in pretty good spirits, baking muffins for breakfast and downloading comedy albums* to listen to on the way to Texas.
It was already about 2pm by the time we got back to his apartment to finish up the packing. Lee started breaking down the aquarium while I worked on putting together his newly purchased car-top luggage carrier. I opened the instructions, which told me to first look at the instructions for the strap kit meant to hold the carrier on the top of the car. So I opened those instructions and read them intently, as only a doctoral student can. The more I read, though, the more the sinking feeling in my stomach grew. The strap instructions kept saying things like "Thread gray strap (a) through hole (b) and into mounting bracket." Why, I found myself wondering, wasn't there a helpful parts letter after 'mounting bracket'?? More importantly, why weren't there any mounting brackets? There sure as hell weren't any on Lee's car.
Lee came around the corner as I sat frowning angrily at the instructions. "What's wrong?" he asked. "I think we have a problem," I said, with extra frowning. Long story short, we spent the next hour and a half driving to Sears and back to get the mounting brackets. At this point it was about 5pm.
After all of that work to track down the parts necessary to hold it to the car roof, I assumed that assembly of the carrier itself would be simple. Something like:
1) Put your junk in the bottom half
2) Attach the top half to the bottom half (probably with duct tape)
3) Strap the thing to your car
In reality, there were fucking hinges and locking mechanisms to attach with screwdrivers and wrenches and shit, and at one point I had to close myself inside it and assemble by the light of Lee's old cell phone. It took almost 2 more hours to put the damn thing together, while the pile of Lee's possessions gathered dust.
This is getting kind of long, so I'm going to stop here and finish up later. Go have a snack, maybe work a few shifts at your job - we'll meet back here in a day or two.
*By the way, I highly recommend Patton Oswalt's Werewolves and Lollipops and Feelin' Kinda Patton. Lee and I laughed until we cried... although that might just have been road-trip-related delirium. I can't guarantee how they'll perform when you're well-rested and sitting still.
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