So, I leave at three to spend then next three hours on the trains. grr. I rush to the gate through security (I had forgotten to leave my knife at home. Not a problem. Knives are no big deal at all, I found out!), and head to my gate [B-10].
So, I have a grand total of one dollar in my possession. The cheapest 'real' food is a rather stiff feeling peanut butter and jelly sandwich wrapped in plastic. It costs the mere price of $2.34 plus tax (or some dumbass, exorbitant, not-even amount. Regardless, even after tax, it still couldn't possibly equal a dollar. I had learned this math on my own in earlier experiences. So, I weasel the sandwich out of the helper girl for one [wrinkly] dollar by looking hungry, tired and generally pathetic (it wasn't very difficult). So, I had wrangled 'cheap' food (only 1000% the actual cost). Could things be looking up for our brave adventurer? heh.
It is a prop plane. grrrrrr.
The only fucking child on the fucking plane gets to sit where? Right fucking behind me. GRRRRR. What's the loudest sound, even louder than the fucking props? Derrick, the fucking spawn of Satan located right behind me who is quite apparently in need of a new hearing aid battery judging by the volume with which he speaks. Good lord. His concern for us not moving ("DADDY!!!!! WE'RE STILL NOT MOVING!!!" "yes derrick. please. please be quiet." "BUT DADDY!!! WHY AREN'T WE MOVING?!?!?!?...." "derrick, please. please be quiet.") was almost refreshing - he was more concerned about us being on time than the rest of the fucking planet has been concerned for anything. And with more volume I might add.
Fortunately the vibration of the props quickly exterminated the consciousness of everyone (except for, I hope, the pilot. I'm not sure, though, I was asleep). It was a bothersome sleep, though, because with the general smallness of the plane goes generally small seats - the headrests didn't fully support my head. So, I did that head-balance thing. This was fine, except really tiny planes also happen to really suck at dealing with turbulence. So, my head kept 'losing it's balance' and I'd wake up 'mid-fall' with that flash of panic. Very restful.
So in Cincinnati, things are okay. Patty's stuff is pretty much packed, everything fits in the truck nicely, and we're going to get going on friday afternoon as opposed to Saturday morning like we had planned. (We want to beat the storm.) Everything is packed by 4p (EST) so we get some Skyline and get on the road about five. We still have to stop in Indy to get some stuff out of storage.
I hoped on driving rather quickly to Indianapolis, and I planned to regularly talk with my mom and Jeff A to get weather updates (the Big Storm was closing in, and we were driving right into it). So, I hit the highway, Patty behind me.
What's this? For some unknown fucking reason, the Ryder people have decided that it's just not proper for a person to drive over 65 mpfh (miles per fucking hour). So, instead of hurrying, I go slower than I've ever gone before. We get to Indianapolis with is snowing fairly briskly (We would have /missed/ it had it not been for the damn truck!). We get our shit out of storage and get back on the road.
Aside from the normally 5.5 (max) hour drive taking over eight fucking hours due to the excessively treacherous driving conditions (and slow truck when it wasn't treacherous), we get to Chicago rather uneventfully. Only nearly wrecking a handful of times.
So, now, what the hell do I do with this huge-ass vehicle with all of Patty's possessions? We decided to just try and find a parking space (heheheh). First, of course, we ditch her cats in my apartment so they can eat and pee and play, and then we get back out into the snow. (It's snowing /very/ hard now and it's also extremely windy outside (knock-you-on-your-ass kind of wind). So, we circle the blocks surrounding my building.
I think I see a space big enough, but I'd need to be facing the other way. I pull into an alley and start to back up to turn around. KRUNCH! <whoops> I smacked into a parked car. VROOOM! (Upon doing a drive-by later (sans truck) we see that it was a late 70s POS. I did minimal damage to it. It made a big noise though.)
So, I take the truck up to Evanston (Patty still following, of course). I actually find a space. Well, sort of. I parked it right next to a sign that said something along the lines of "SNOW ROUTE - do not park here if there are 2+ inches of snow!" I figure, if they're going to take the time to get the special HugeAssTowTruck out here to tow this in the next eight hours, I'll just pay the damn fine. So I leave it there. We find Patty a parking space about four blocks from my apt.
We get to bed at just after 2:30a.
We get up at 10a. Wow, is there some snow out there. And it is snowing quite actively. And it's really windy, too. We call our helpers Jeff and Karen A - they plan to meet us at Patty's new apartment - Jeff couldn't possibly get his car out (oh, great - that's a good sign) so they're going to have to take the L.
We go and get to Patty's car, and eventually un-park it. This is accomplished by my manually (ie, feet and hands only) clearing snow and Patty 'rocking' the car forward and back to break through the snow barriers. Did I mention I'm in gym shoes? So, now, I'm fucking caked with ice and snow from the knees down. When I get into the heated car, the majority of this snow and ice melts and pools in my shoes. Ah, the pleasantness.
Now we have to get out of the back streets. Idiocy abounds in the snow, I learned. It took us about 40 minutes to go three blocks to a main road. Most of this time was waiting for people to get the fuck out of the way. So we get to the truck (it was still there).
Now I get to get out of the car and try to unstick the truck. We are now on the street next to the lake (Sheridan for the Chicago-familiar). Remember a couple of paragraphs ago how I mention it was really windy? Well, that was stale air compared to the sub-zero monsoon I was now experiencing. And what's this? All of that water in my pants and shoes is now freezing nearly instantly. My pants are frozen in to pathetic sails that click (literally) against the ground when I walk. My shoes are filled with slush, as my numb feet are able to muster enough heat to prevent solid ice from forming on the inside. The shell of my shoes are frozen solid. Fortunately, the truck is able to blast through the snow/ice barrier (even though the plow had come through and made a neat little wall right next to the truck) after some back-and-forth action.
So, off we go to Patty's new place.
I back the truck up and manage to steer it to slightly protrude its rear into this little loading alcove-ish thing. I actually get the right side of the truck to within 1/8 inch of the wall. Patty agreed - "It was beautiful". This cut down on our direct-wind encounters while unloading.
Jeff and Karen A got there (very pink faced) and helped us out immensely.
The unloading went well with the use of the convenient freight elevator...except for The Couch.
When we first saw the apartment, I admired the interesting staircases - Instead of the standard landing per half-floor, this building had stairs which went up like normal for a half-flight, but where there would normally be a between-floor landing, there were curved stairs. Kind of like a semi-circle cut out of a circular staircase and melded with 'normal' stairs. Cute to look at and walk up (or down) - unique.
So, back to the couch. It didn't fit in the elevator. Not even close. So, Jeff and I resign to having to lug it up the stairs. We hike down the hall with it, and turn to go up the stairs. Shit. Those damn curved parts. If the couch had been 1 inch bigger in any dimension (width, height, length) it wouldn't have been able to make it at all. I think I would have preferred it that way, because it was quite possibly the biggest pain in the ass ever. There was much lurching, crunching fingers between couch and [rough] wall, and cursing. And Jeff bashed me in the head twice with the couch, too. Oh, and on each floor-level landing, there are garbage cans (for convenient depositing). So, on the last step before the landing, Jeff would have to hold the couch by himself, and I would have to take the garbage can, open the door, and place it in the hall. Then, when we were past the landing, I'd cling to the damn thing while Jeff put the can back and ran down a flight and retrieved our various articles of clothing (we were slowly stripping off articles because we were sweaty and hot from being bundled for winter and doing considerable manual labor in a heated stairwell). So we finally get the fucking thing up to the sixth floor.
Eventually everything is moved in. However, two of the pieces of furniture are for my apartment (free from Patty's sister in Indy), so we pitch them back in the truck, secure them and prepare to go deliver the items. So, I get in the truck, ready to pull out and get ready to go.
I notice, there's a newish Altima parked illegally [in front of a Fire Hydrant] to the truck's immediate left. I'll have to turn widely around him (the car's a 'him' for some reason). What a pain. So, I start to pull out, Jeff's directing me from outside. When I try to move, though, the wheels inevitably spin a little (it's rear wheel drive). So, I make it down off the curb (it was like a driveway pull-in thing, I was 'allowed' to be there), but when I try to turn left, the front tires get stuck in the snow, the rear tires spin, thus reducing the friction between the truck and the ground. Especially now that there's no stuff in the back of the truck anymore. Remember the torrential winds? Well, with my loss of traction, and the heavy winds, and the fact the truck is not very aerodynamic, I get blown right into the bumper of Mr. Altima. I can't do anything. I try to back up - I'm pressing into his bumper harder. I try to turn out and right - still harder, and now I've made a scrape-y sound. Damn IllegallyParkedGuy. Oh, well.
We leave the truck there.
We walk eight blocks to the Chinese place closest to my place, order and get the bags of food and drink (Patty bought). We continue the three or so blocks to my apartment.
FUCK! They forgot my Vegetable Fried Rice. SHIT!!! And of course they can't deliver it through the blizzard. So I have to eat the default white rice. yuk.
So, then I sleep. Then wake up and then sleep.
My shoes are actually dry! I left them on the radiator. They're really stiff, though, and smell none-too-good.
We walk the 10ish blocks back to Patty's place. I hop up into the truck (Mr. Altima had, in fact, left - no nasty note or anything). I stick the key into the ignition and turn. Nothing. I make sure it's in park, turn the key. Nothing. FUCK! I start tweaking the various knobs and whatnot, looking for a sign. I twist the knob by which one toggles the loading area dome light. It clicks (this would normally turn the thing off, however, since the battery was stone cold dead, it was already off; not that I could have seen it from the cab) Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I manage to manually extricate Patty's car once again, with her doing the back-and-forth ramming thing. Remember that sopping wet feet turned frozen thing? Take two.
We take Patty's car (after waiting 20 minutes for Mr and Mrs DipShit to get their stupid fucking car out of the way. I could write a novella about these morons and their inability to handle themselves in basic snow situations. They weren't even parked, they were just too dumb to drive it off the damn street without getting stuck because Mr DipShit felt the need to steer a WHOLE LOT - particularly when it was the absolute worst thing to do. I think he got a sexual thrill by getting with boat-sized fucking car stuck in the snow banks.) to my street (she actually parked in the 7-11 and I ran to my car) and got my jumper cables. We went back to the truck. It took about 35 minutes to charge the truck battery to where it could start.
So, after a few more minor pratfalls we get the truck back onto clear streets, deliver my furniture to my apartment and start on the way to the Ryder Truck Place, located conveniently less than a mile away.
It's closed. grr.
Not only is it closed, it's excessively un-plowed. I can't even figure out where the driveway might be. So, I call 1-800-GO-RYDER (it's written on the side of the truck). They tell me to go to the location listed on the rental agreement (They said I /could/ of course go to any Ryder location, but since this place was closed, I should go to the one on the paper). So, we head off to one four miles (or so) away. Grr.
On the way, I come upon a CTA bus that's a little too much toward the opposite lane. Everyone else (in normal-sized vehicles) is squeezing through. I figure, I can squeeze through, too.
I slightly clip the bus's mirror with my left mirror.
Then, about two seconds later I smash my right mirror into the driver-side mirror of a van in the parking lane. I don't look back (not that I could if I wanted to at this point).
We eventually get there. Oh, and there's a big, neon "OPEN" sign in the window. Finally this nightmare will be over. I pull over into the Bus Stop in front of the place and click on the hazard lights.
It's closed. grr.
The neon sign is apparently a mistake. Fuck.
The 1-800-GO-RYDER lady had said I could drop the keys in the key drop if it was closed. I find the key drop and drop the keys in. <sigh of relief>
I tromp back towards Patty's car (she's stopped right behind the truck). Interesting thing - I don't have truck keys anymore, and the hazards are there, blinking away at me in a mocking tone. Fuck.
1-800-GO-RYDER.
The [different-from-before] lady explains (really) to me that when the battery dies the lights will turn off. Thanks, dumbass.
Patty fortunately remembers that there's a hatch between the truck bay and the cab. I crawl through and turn them off (feeling somehow a little more vindicated that I won't appear like such a stupid shit to some guy who I'll never meet - Go me).
After that, we went and got Einstein bagels and then went to a hiking-outfitter-store-place and I bought some very nice, insulated, waterproof boots. When I took off my shoes to take off my socks to put on new, dry socks (that I was buying) to try on the boots, my socks dripped puddles on the floor.
THE FUCKING END.
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