Year: 2011

Our morning started with a loud shattering noise at 3:30am. Upon investigating, Tom found a shattered light fixture on the floor. Apparently the downstairs hallway light got left on and it got too hot (?) and decided to bust the glass lamp. :## Tom got up around 4 and I tried to fall asleep again but got up about 4:30 because I was thinking of all the stuff we still had to do to get ready for the packers.

We started to get worried about 8:15 when no one had showed up—and hadn’t heard from them. We figured it would be our luck that lines were crossed and they were scheduled for another day. But Tom got a call about 8:45 that they were almost there. About 10 minutes later, our neighbor kid comes over and asks if we’re expecting a big truck and we say we might be (usually on packing day, it’s just the cab and not the whole truck) and he says they turned the wrong way coming in to the subdivision.

So Tom called, and come to find out, they were just going around the block because they couldn’t navigate the turn due to construction vehicles in the way. Okay, fine. So we look down the street and yep, there’s the semi—THE FULL SEMI—at the corner. And there was NO WAY it was getting down our street. Every other house has their driveway ripped up so all those cars are parked on the street—including the house at the corner—so he couldn’t make that turn, either. Well, we hadn’t expected there to be any construction or road blockages, so we hadn’t thought about warning THE ENTIRE STREET that we had a semi coming. And even if we had thought about it, we wouldn’t have expected the semi on the first day when all they do is pack.

After about 15 minutes they got the cars moved and finally made it to our house. The guy said he’d had easier times getting to places in downtown Chicago. 😐 And this is when I noticed that there were only three guys. THREE. Past packing days? We’ve had at least four and sometimes five or six people. So with the late arrival and route problems—and now knowing we had fewer people than necessary—we were worried they wouldn’t be done on time. (Turns out, the guy said that the scheduler had WAY overestimated the past SEVEN assignments whereas they only needed three guys instead of the five they requested. So he just assumed she had messed this one up as well, so he only brought three guys. BIG MISTAKE. BIG.)

So they started. One guy in the kitchen, one guy in the pantry downstairs, and one guy in the living room. We were floating around trying to organize stuff, watch Owen, and answer their questions. The guy in the kitchen was there almost the entire day. The young kid in the basement got caught on his cell phone a few times and we’re pretty sure he got his ass chewed. They were making progress, but it wasn’t as fast as we were used to.

We bought pizza for lunch and they were really appreciative. I wanted to pack Owen’s toys while he was napping, so they got boxes ready for me and I did six boxes—more than I’ve ever packed on a move before—and part of me was ticked because someone should have been doing it instead of me, but part of me was fine because it wasn’t that hard and I didn’t have anything else to do at the moment.

As it was nearing 5:00, we knew they weren’t going to be done. They hadn’t finished the living room (including any of the electronics), the upstairs linen closet, and some other random stuff. Turns out they didn’t have enough boxes to finish anyway (in addition to some boxes accidentally being left off the truck, they didn’t have enough boxes in general). They said they’d be here at 8 tomorrow to finish packing and then start loading. They think they’ll be done by 2. Ha. HA HA. Hahahahahaha. I’ll believe it when I see it. Again, previously, we’ve had up to 4-5 people loading and it took them until 4. There’s no way three people can finish by 2 when they still have packing to do first.

All that said, these guys were as good as any other packers we’ve had. They’re quick—more than once we thought “Oh, let’s keep that out” and it was already packed. If you don’t explicitly tell them NOT to pack something, it’s gone. Now, I know this is how they do it—they just pack anything and everything in their path—but the guy in the kitchen hadn’t touched the drying mat or anything on it (and it had been there ALL day), so I just figured he knew I was still using it and was going to leave it alone. So at dinner, I went to get some things off it…and they were gone. Not the whole mat and all the stuff on it, but random things—a pizza cutter and (this is the strangest thing) the straw part of a sippy cup (and none of the rest of the pieces). So, two things off the mat? HUH? WHAT?!

So now it’s 7 and Tom and I are exhausted…but we have more packing to do (they left a few boxes) and we have to organize what stuff we elected not to pack to see if it will fit in the Uhaul because we can’t suddenly get a bigger Uhaul if we run out of room.

Isn’t this fun?