Moving Day

Saturday, August 16th was designated Moving Day in my calendar of events leading up to departure day, August 25th.


Months ago my brother in law Kenny volunteered to help me move things into storage, and I made preparations along the way: reserved a UHaul van and the elevator and loading dock in my building for that day, reserved a larger storage unit at my storage place, began the lengthy and tedious task of packing the entire contents of my condo into boxes - or giving things away.


The day before Moving Day I was supposed to hear from UHaul about where to pick up the van I had reserved. And indeed, I received a text message Friday afternoon, alerting me to my reserved van waiting for me the next day in NE Washington at 6:30 p.m. I was immediately panicked; the move was planned for the morning, not the end of the day! I called the number on my text message, and the man at the UHaul store confirmed the reservation, and said he didn't have any vans available any earlier as I was telling him I needed. As I took a cab home that afternoon (my last day at work) to meet Kenny, who had arrived in Washington via Amtrak, with his son, Nathan, I thought, I will get online and figure out what to do.

When I got home, I logged onto my computer and email, and, lo and behold, found an email that said I had a reserved van at a different location, in Mount Rainier, MD, at 11 a.m. the next day. I was immediately relieved; this was a much better state of affairs, but it was not exactly what I planned either. I had asked my friends Tom and Todd to come help me move on Saturday morning at 10 a.m. I really wanted that van at 8 a.m. The email told me to reply if I had any problems with the reservation, so I did, requesting an earlier pick up.

In the meantime, Kenny and Nathan had arrived at the condo from Union Station via the Metro, and we got ourselves together to get back on the Metro to my friend Becky's, as she was going to host us for dinner that night. In a happy circumstance of making train switches easily (orange line to red line), and making a quick connection to the 32 bus at Tenleytown, we were at her McLean Gardens home at almost the designated 5:30 hour to enjoy a Shabbat dinner of spinach lasagne and red wine with her and her sons Gabriel and Reuben.

By the time we got back home that night, I had received a note back from the UHaul folks that I could pick up my van at the Mount Rainier location at 9 a.m. A much better state of affairs! I figured out the location of the rental store, and used the WMATA website to figure out a way to get there directly via Metro and Metrobus in the morning. I love Washington's transit system, you really can get anywhere you need to go!

So, on Saturday morning at 8 a.m., Kenny and I were on our way via the Orange line to Farragut West, and then got on the G8 bus to Avondale at 8:15, a route that winded through the city and then up Rhode Island Avenue to upper Northeast, past Catholic University to Eastern Avenue in Mount Rainier and Varnum Street, the location of the New Horizon Thrift Shop and UHaul Rental.

The block was dominated by the New Horizon Church, located in what appeared to be a former movie theater, and we found the Thrift Shop and several UHaul vans down the street a bit, across from a 7-11, in what appeared to be a former gas station. It was 9 a.m. on a Saturday, and a sunny and clear day, but I was apprehensive. The UHaul place looked suspiciously underused, and there were only three vans in the parking lot. But, hope springs eternal.

Well, my suspicions were confirmed, as the appointed hour for the reservation came and went and no one showed up at the Thrift Store location to rent us the van. I started calling the UHaul reservation number, to let them know I was waiting for someone to show up; all they could do, the operator said, was try and reach the owner - which of course, I was trying to do too. 9:30, 10:00. I was starting to get desperate. At 9:30 I had called Tom and left him a voicemail that things were being delayed. I did reach Todd, and let him know that it looked like 11 was a more realistic time for him to appear. He was OK with that, and changed his plans for the morning.

At 10:00 we were still waiting, and I was still trying to make phone calls to the UHaul numbers I had (central and Maryland local) to let someone know that things were not going as planned. Shortly after 10, Kenny and I were joined by a family who were trying to drop off a UHaul short haul carrier. The couple and their son had driven up from Baton Rouge, we learned, to move their son into his new apartment as he is to begin graduate studies at the University of Maryland this Fall (in aerospace engineering! We did have some interesting conversation).

Tom called about this time, having received my voicemail, and said he was on his way to the condo. I told him that we were still waiting for the truck, but that it would be great if he and Nathan would move stuff down to the loading dock. He was agreeable, as Tom so often is.

About 15 minutes later, a short black woman, carrying several bags, wandered toward the Thrift Shop. She worked at the Thrift Shop it turned out, and at our urging, was soon on her cell phone, calling Pastor Joe, who was the UHaul guy, to get him over to the store to help us out. I asked her, how long will we be waiting? 10 minutes, 30 minutes? She promised me that he did not live far away; he would be over soon. So the Baton Rouge couple and Kenny and I began our wait for Pastor Joe. We debated for a short bit whether Pastor Joe would be capable of unhitching the carrier from the Louisiana Tahoe SUV. Kenny, being the resourceful guy he is, checked out the carrier, and convinced the man and his son that the three of them could unhitch it - which they did.

Pastor Joe finally did arrive, a slight African American man, looking to be around 28 years old, around 10:40. He took care of the Louisiana folks first, taking their paperwork, so that they were soon ready to go. But they did not; they knew I had already called and reserved another truck in the nearby Hyattsville location, and that Kenny and I did not have a way to get there, and they decided they would hang out and make sure we either got a truck from Joe or they would drive us to Hyattsville. Such nice people reinforce your belief in the power of community.

Joe had to walk over to the church to get a computer that worked, so I walked down the block with him (not planning to let him out of my sight), and let him know as we walked that I had been waiting since 9 a.m. for him to arrive. In a nice calm voice. He said he was sorry, in his own soft voice. But he started to look worried. But I still didn't trust I was going to get a truck.

He unlocked the church front door, and in the lobby, took down my cell phone number, so he could go in the office and use the computer (he told me I could not go in that office) and, it turns out, call me with questions regarding the reservation form. So over the next 20 minutes, he called me intermittently to answer questions regarding my reservation so he could complete the contract. At one point he asked me if I needed to hang up because I was using up my minutes...nice guy that he is. I said, no problem, plenty of minutes!

Tom called around this point, letting me know that he and Nathan were taking a breather, after having moved a bunch of boxes. I let him know that it looked like we were going to have a van shortly. I predicted we'd be back at the condo by noon.

Finally, Joe called to say he was printing out the contract. I told the woman and her son that it looked like I was good to go, and thanked them for staying around to make sure we were taken care of. Joe appeared with the contract a few minutes later, and we walked back to the gas station where Kenny was hanging out waiting for me. By 11:15 I was calling Tom to let him know that we were on our way, and hoped to be at the condo by noon.

And by noon, after a drive through downtown DC to Arlington, listening to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, we were back at the condo, waiting for Nathan and Tom to open the door to the loading dock, where they had stacked all my boxes....the moving was about to begin!