Funk Babblings

As of last Saturday, I am no longer a North Canton resident. I moved in with duriyah, changing my residence by about 130 miles southwest and putting me about half an hour east of Columbus.

The move didn't go entirely smoothly, however. You see, the original intent was to rent a moving truck and get all the furniture moved, then come back in September (after our last-week-of-August vacation) for the rest. I reserved a truck for one-way rental earlier in the week. (And in the process got rather stressed out because of how hard it was to find an available truck for the day I wanted.)

So Saturday morning comes. My helpers arrive, including duriyah and my dad in his work truck. My dad and I go to the address that Budget gave to pick up the big truck. It's in a not-so-good part of Canton (a friend once referred to it as "post-industrial", in the sense that it used to be industrial and then the industry left), and any businesses look deserted. Including the address we're going to. There's a note on the door, "We've moved," with the new address.

OK, so we reprogram the GPS navigator that I'd borrowed from a co-worked who'd volunteered to help. We head out for the second location, not far away. This one also looks deserted, and also has a note on the door. "Sorry, we have no trucks." Then it said to try another location way on the south end of town.

We reprogram the GPS yet again. It takes us to the freeway, then to the last exit in the city. Then it says we're there, as we look around and see lots of offramp businesses but no truck rental. We look around more, and finally see what looks like the shell of an old service station, with a dumpster in front, "FOR LEASE" spray-painted on the windows, some trash inside, and a little Budget Rentals sign on a pole by the road. (There may have been a "beware of the leopard" sign on the door too, but I'm not sure.)

We were not happy campers at this point.

I called duriyah and asked if she and the others back at the house could get out the phone book and try to find a truck we could rent somewhere, but given my experience on the web earlier in the week I wasn't very optimistic.

When we got back to the house they were still calling. At one point there was the option of renting a truck "locally", paying by the mile, and returning it to Canton, for an exhorbitant total cost, but that option was no longer available by the time we'd had some food and felt able to think clearly. So we hung out for a bit, then sent the local helpers home.

I'd gone ahead and packed up most of my belongings, first because they were on or in or in the way of furniture, and second because i might actually want them in the first weeks at my new home. And we did have my dad's capped pickup and my car. So we decided to load those up with whatever boxes would fit, and try the whole thing again in September.

So this week I've been working from my new home, and living out of boxes. I can't quite unpack many of the boxes yet because I don't have the shelves and drawers and such that things go on or in.

But we're heading out on a nice long vacation tomorrow morning. Then in September we can try to again to tackle this move, this time with a big truck. And furniture. (And if anyone wants to help at either end, let us know!)