Opened up my eyes

I feel like I just went through a moving blitzkrieg - and survived.

Moving Day completely snuck up on me. Being the classic procrastinator I went out on Wednesday and Thursday nights (the stress of not hearing from my Super didn't help) so by the time Friday night rolled around I was frantically packing as much as I could. My roommates didn't help but that was OK because I wanted to know where everything was. I packed and numbered each box and kept a manifest on my notepad, though by Friday night the once-detailed descriptions read things like "crap" "more crap" and "random crap."

I packed my laptop last of course. Come Saturday morning I enjoyed my last hours of Internet surfing ESPN.com and NYTimes.com. I was going to miss secured Internet. And cable TV. And a home phone. (I despise cell phones. I do own one though.) But in NYC I wouldn't need those at first. And I would not be able to afford them comfortably.

The movers arrived promptly at 8:30 AM. It was a crew of 2. They thanked me for my directions to get around the low railroad bridge. We did a tour of the house - that stays, that goes, etc. and they proceeded to load everything up in 2 hours. It was like my friends had told me. They took two boxes at a time, lifting 80 lbs or so. They ran up and down the stairs. They wrapped my furniture like madmen. I had no idea what to do during the process. I'd prepared too well - there was nothing for me to run around and do.

When the moving company first prepared the estimate, I remember laughing when the sales guy told me 15 boxes. I thought that would be way too many. I ended up with 20 boxes plus a few random items and my furniture. Luckily they brought a medium sized truck so everything fit with room to spare.

I found out later they're not supposed to do this, but the crew also gave me a ride to the apartment. Otherwise I would've had to drive and find parking and that would have been a nightmare. As it was, the movers couldn't park the truck on my street. There were cars parked literally bumper to bumper, even in front of the hydrant. Since I live on a 1-way side street, the truck would have blocked the whole road and they didn't want to risk a ticket. They ended up parking on the ave and running the stuff down 76th. I felt terrible but the two of them were very cool about it. I offered to help and they just laughed. I ended up supervising from my apartment. I offered to buy them lunch and they politely declined.

Since I live on the first floor they didn't have stairs to deal with, but there was a tight corner. They excelled at getting my stuff in without damaging it. It took awhile to figure out how to get the arms off my couch, and we all had a good laugh when they put the arms back on, then tried to put the couch on its back only to have the arms slide right back off. I fretted about my stuff getting stolen off the truck but everything got into my apartment safely.

Well, almost everything. The crew chief ran in about halfway through to let me know that my TV stand had broken while they were taking it off the truck. I came out to have a look. Nothing terrible; one of the legs had broken off. The piece looked real but was made out of particle board.

"Aha!" said the mover. Particle board isn't as strong as regular wood so it can break during moves. "Oh," said I. I know particle board isn't as strong as regular wood. I think that's pretty much a duh. I was still bummed. He gave me two options. They could take the piece back, fix it and deliver it. Or they could send someone out. I chose the latter.

The rest of the move happened without incident. Despite the TV stand incident the move was done in about 2 hours and they did a great job. I was satisfied and gave them each an $80 tip. When they left, I looked at the stacks of boxes in my apartment. I was buried in boxes again. But all I wanted to do was sleep even though it was only 2 PM.

Unfortunately that didn't happen, because no sooner had I plopped down on my couch than my buzzer went off. I thought it was the movers so I just buzzed the door. I looked out of my apartment door but it was an older man. I don't know why, but my first thought was that it might be some guy who would buzz me a lot because he didn't want to bring his keys. Turns out it was the locksmith.

On the way down, my Super called to let me know that I needed to call the locksmith to schedule a time for the locks to be changed. Sigh. It had fallen on me to schedule. But he had come on his own. He was very nice, but very slow. All I wanted to do was sleep, but after 2 hours of working on my door he left to go get a different lock. He came back in 30 minutes and spent another two hours changing it out. Oy. It was 6:30 by the time he was done and I was about to collapse. He told me he needed to come back on Monday to do the backdoor. Fine, whatever, please let me sleep.

The only food I had was some leftover pizza I'd brought with me from Connecticut. That was my dinner. The movers had strategically placed my boxes so I could open up my sofa bed (my boxspring and mattress were up against the wall so I could have more room to unpack). I pulled the sofabed out, threw on a sheet and found my pillow. I turned on my laptop, put in "The Bourne Identity" and fell asleep at 8:30 PM. I dreamed away most of my first night in NYC.