Verily, moving sucketh.

Even the smoothest of moves is a painful, arduous process that drives men to the brink of madness.

This was not the smoothest of moves.

In the beginning, it was not so bad. One of our helpers didn't show up until and hour and fifteen minutes after we were originally planning on leaving, so we didn't get down to the old house until noon. But, we had more people helping than we thought we would, so I couldn't complain.

It took about 3 hours to get the truck loaded up. This is partially because we were all moving a bit slowly, and also because there was no way to get the truck close to the house. We had to traverse all the way down the walkway, to the curb, then into the truck. Over somewhat icy terrain in parts. I'm surprised no one fell and killed themselves.

I managed to totally kill my back carrying out about the 5th item, to the point where for 30 minutes or so all I could carry was the lightest of the light items. Eventually that went away (though I discovered later it hadn't left for good, merely gone into hiding.)

We ended up having to leave a few things and also leave the house a bit of a mess. I'm sure the landlord will be happy about that. We just don't have any way to get back down there right now to clean and clear out the last couple items. So I guess they get to keep the cleaning deposit and probably charge us a little extra. At this point, I don't care. I'm just glad to be the hell out of there.

About this point my wife has a mental breakdown and starts crying in the middle of McDonalds as we are trying to get some double cheeseburgers for the road. I think it was a combination of frayed nerves, major changes, and not much sleep, plus worrying about finances. Still, it makes me sad to see her upset.

So at this point we get back on the road and make the drive down. So far, nothing major has gone wrong, but things are definitely tense all around, just because we have so much crap and everyone is already exhausted.

We made it to our destination safely, and unloaded the 1/3 of the truck that is staying at the new place. This went off without a hitch. At least, until we tried to drive the truck again.

Ends up the truck was stuck in the wonderfully unplowed streets of our new neighborhood. It took 10 or 15 minutes of "forward - reverse - forward - reverse" to rock it out and continue down the road.

This is where things started to get really interesting. Apparently the storage unit we rented was not designed with 24 foot moving trucks in mind (which is dumb...it's a STORAGE UNIT. People are going to be bringing trucks.) After driving through the gate and attempting to turn a sharp corner we had a tense 15 minutes or so where I thought we were going to end up with the truck essentially wedged diagonally between two wall. Thankfully, we were able to get it back out without breaking anything, but we were still 50 yards from the storage unit.

We were finally able to go around, choosing a longer route, and get much closer, this did involve another sharp turn though. We were able to make the turn with about 1.5 feet of clearance between the front of the truck and a wall, and probably inches of clearance between the truck and a guide post. It was very intense, frightening, and stressful, but we did it.

So we finished the unloading, which took around 75 minutes or so. Then I had to back the truck up, turn it around, and go back out the way we came. Except now it was dark, and things were starting to freeze. We ended up making it just fine, but by the end my nerves were completely shot. I kept envisioning the truck just plowing right into someobody's storage unit.

So, 10 hours after we were originally supposed to start, and 9 hours after we actually did, we finally finish. All that's left is to take the truck back. Easy, right?

Well, I managed to screw that up. Got out of the truck, went to turn in the keys, and realized I'd just locked them in the truck. With the dome light on. It was an after hours drop off, so I just had to write a not to include with the contract, put it in the drop box, and leave. So now I'm not sure what will happen there. Will we have an extra charge for a locksmith and a jumpstart? Probably. If so, it won't go through though because at this point our bank accounts are both 0 or less. So good luck with that, truck rental guys.

*sigh*

It was a long, long day, and at times it felt like something out of Dante's Inferno. I'm glad it's over.