I hurt all over

Moving sucks.  Even when (especially when?) you’re not moving yourself.  We helped Jess move into her new apartment today, and it feels like everything that could go wrong, did.  I know that’s not true – plenty of things went right – but the percentage of bad things was unusually high.

Bad things:

• We met Jess at the truck rental place first thing in the morning.  John was going to drive it for her, so we had to be there when she picked it up.  Since he’s the driver, he’s basically renting it, and when they asked if we wanted extra insurance, we said no.  The lady said that’s fine, here, fill out this form with your policy number and the coverage you have for 6-wheeled commercial vehicles.  Um, what?  We’ve rented a lot of trucks in the past year, and no one has asked us that.  I called USAA, and no, we don’t have coverage for that.  (So every time we’ve rented a truck, like, EVER, we’ve been tempting fate with the no extra coverage thing.  Oops.)  Okay, so Jess had to pay an extra amount for it, but hey – it’s refundable.  Except…it’ll be higher than previously mentioned and not ALL of it is refundable because she’s changing an existing rental.  Excuse me?  Still, not that much higher, and we can deal with it.
• Another family came in, renting a 12′ foot truck (ours was 16′), and they were leaving as we were finalizing the insurance stuff.  As they drove out of the lot, the lady said, “Wait!  They took your truck!”  Yeah, they drove out in the 16′ truck with the ramp we needed.  (They eventually came back and we got our truck.)

The lady joked that all the bad things were happening NOW so we’d be all set the rest of the day.  Way to tempt fate, Rental Truck Lady.

• We loaded up the truck with all of Jess’s stuff without incident, but I’m including it as a bad thing that happened because her furniture is REALLY HEAVY.  It’s like real grown-up furniture weight.

Good things:

• We were able to get all of her furniture out of her house and into the truck!  (We’ve had bad luck with couches – couldn’t get Emily’s out of their townhouse last year, so she sold it to the new owners.)
• By the time John and I (in the truck and our car) caught up with Jess at the new apartment, she’d checked in with the leasing office and gotten her new keys and a parking pass so we could start unloading immediately.

Bad things:

• She overestimated how much of her stuff could fit in the apartment.  She wanted her big leather couch, loveseat, and chair, but we realized that no matter how we arranged the furniture, the couch wasn’t going to make it.  Or the coffee table.  They stayed on the truck.
• The really $&%^# heavy leather couch could have been left behind in the house.

Good things:

• Goodwill was still open, we still had the truck, and they took the couch and the coffee table off our hands!  This is getting to be a habit.
• We were done with the truck early and could fill it up with gas and return it!

Bad thing:

• Our credit cards were declined at the gas station pump.

Good thing:

• Apparently that’s just a really sketchy gas station and Navy Federal locks down cards that get used there.  That seems really weird to me, but I suppose I’m glad they’re looking out for us.  Cards are fine.  Crisis averted.

Bad thing:

• I’m dirty and tired and achy.

Good thing:

• I’m home.  I can shower and go to bed.

Extra good thing:

• Jess lives a mile and a half from us now.  Yippee!