Stupid Adventures in Moving

I just drove a truck full of my stuff from my parents’ house in North Carolina to my new apartment in New York. I knew it wouldn’t be fun, but I couldn’t have predicted what a painfully annoying ordeal it turned out to be. Thank god it’s over.

The drive, composed of stretches of Interstates 77, 81, and 78, is about 675 miles, which should take around 11 hours. Everything was progressing swimmingly through NC, Virginia, and in to West Virginia when I hit a 20-mile wall of traffic. It seems there was a car fire earlier that blocked the road. I’m sure if I had left on time I would have missed it. As the game played out, though, I arrived in Brooklyn at midnight, a solid 14 hours after leaving NC. There were also torrential downpours though Pennsylvania.

Gas is expensive: $130 for the trip, and that’s with stumbling upon an unheard of $2.50 per gallon in Virginia.

The toll for a truck through the Lincoln Tunnel is $12; not to mention not being able to take the infinitely-more-convenient Holland Tunnel due to commercial vehicle restrictions.

Parking in Brooklyn is neither fun, nor easy, nor convenient; especially parking a big-ass 15-foot truck.

Unloading a truck in the rain is also not fun.

While trying to return the truck this morning to the depot in Brooklyn I endured extreme grogginess, traffic, congestion around the depot, and long lines, only to be met with “The tank’s not full” from the attendant. I had driven probably 15 miles since filling up. I think I replied with “You’re effing kidding me” before snatching the keys, driving a half mile (literally 30 minutes), and putting ONE AND A HALF GALLONS of gas (out of a 30-gallon tank) in the truck. I was irate, and very late for work.

--

An inspection of my wares revealed that I had lost some wing nuts and washers necessary for attaching legs to my coffee table. I went to the local hardware store and was informed that I need metric wing nuts which they – of course – don’t carry. The salesman suggested a few very out-of-the-way places that might carry metric hardware like that. Since I had originally bought the table from IKEA a couple years ago, I went to the IKEA website hoping to find a place to buy replacement parts. A quick search of the site yielded nothing, so I clicked the Ask Anna link for the IKEA help center, a little ray of automated customer service sunshine!

Me: where can i buy replacement hardware?

Anna: If you are missing anything from your purchase, all you need to do is return to your local IKEA store. Just go to the "Returns and Exchanges" desk with your original purchase receipt and a friendly co-worker will be happy to assist you.

Me: it’s not missing, it's lost.

Anna: It's not always possible for me to fully understand what it is you mean. This is one of those times.

Me: i want to buy some wing nuts.

Anna: Find here a quick guide to help you maximize your IKEA experience.

Me: where's the quick guide?

Anna: I can't really say, to be honest. Maybe you should consult a map.

Anna from IKEA combines the effectiveness of reasoning with a toddler, the satisfaction of having your hand slammed in a door, and the pleasantness of a condescending, jaded telemarketer - and all of this in one little pop-up window!

The good news is that I'm sure I'll get to go through all of this again next year!

I Want One!

Dear Santa,

Yeah.

--

Since mere words fail to capture the sheer magnificence of the above picture, please go to the source for more pictures and read all about it, straight from the man himself. And thanks to the kind folks at SevenPack for pointing this out.

Maybe I should have been a mechanical engineer. Or maybe I just should have been smart.

Worthless

I always suspected this might be the case:

My blog is worth $0.00.
How much is your blog worth?

*sigh*