{"id":676,"date":"2010-08-06T21:16:40","date_gmt":"2010-08-07T02:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/?p=676"},"modified":"2010-08-15T10:52:49","modified_gmt":"2010-08-15T15:52:49","slug":"m2nyi30es-%e2%80%93-before-we-could-even-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/?p=676","title":{"rendered":"M2NYi30ES \u2013 Before we could even start"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The first step of moving, the joyless drudgery of packing, is usually the worst part. \u00a0Although it is not creative or interesting, you still have to think it through and pay attention to what you\u2019re doing or you\u2019ll just have a big mess on your hands. \u00a0Packing also takes place far in advance of the move so that it is impossible to feed off the enthusiasm that one might have for new places and new challenges while you\u2019re doing it.<\/p>\n<p>In this case, we would leave a three-bedroom house with a full basement and move into a 700-square-foot apartment on the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Upper_East_Side\">Upper East Side<\/a> of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Manhattan\">Manhattan<\/a>. \u00a0We figured that only about one-third of our possessions would fit into the apartment, so we had some serious choices to make. \u00a0We had to determine which third of our accumulated stuff would make the move, and what would happen to the other two-thirds. \u00a0These intense negotiations required much forethought, along with a few <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Deal_with_the_Devil\">Faustian bargains<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hobson's_choice\">Hobson\u2019s choices<\/a>, and even a little of the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Judgment_of_Solomon\">wisdom of Solomon<\/a> one hears so much about.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"cvl to clt\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp-img\/memoir\/cvl2clt.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"282\" height=\"389\" align=\"left\" \/>We at least had a free option for storage&#8211;my mother-in-law\u2019s garage in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charlotte,_NC\">Charlotte, NC<\/a>. \u00a0Of course, that was <a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?f=q&amp;source=s_q&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=FfpHRAIdeopS-ymPpFDqLYaziTH8dIvDlvCGkA%3BFc-FGQIdiW4u-ymBGjj8xB9UiDFk0UO_5lBGiA&amp;q=from:+charlottesville,+va+to:+charlotte,+nc&amp;sll=37.0625,-95.677068&amp;sspn=55.455479,76.025391&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=h&amp;z=8&amp;saddr=charlottesville,+va&amp;daddr=charlotte,+nc\">275 miles<\/a> away from Charlottesville. \u00a0So, first we had to figure out what we needed to store, boxed-up non-essentials and furniture mostly, and then get it to Charlotte where it would lie in state, gathering dust, cat hair, and other filth for three years.<\/p>\n<p>This trip to Charlotte was the first indication of just how badly things would go with this move. \u00a0We rented a truck for the trip, loaded it up, and ignorant of the way the stars had aligned against us, we took off.<\/p>\n<p>My wife has a tendency to tailgate. \u00a0I saw her doing it just this morning on the way to work. \u00a0She says she doesn\u2019t tailgate, so I\u2019m guessing it\u2019s a definitional thing for her. \u00a0She doesn\u2019t actually tap the bumper of the car in front of her&#8211;that would be just plain rude&#8211;so she thinks she\u2019s doing fine. \u00a0Well, as she followed me to Charlotte, she was \u201csaving gas,\u201d allowing herself to be sucked along in my draft. \u00a0That worked out OK until we found ourselves in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Danville,_Virginia\">Danville, VA<\/a>, right on the North Carolina border. \u00a0I saw something in the road ahead, something metal and spiky, like those things they use to hold tent poles when they set them up on pavement.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->You already know what happened, but maybe you\u2019re having trouble imagining how bad it was. \u00a0She didn\u2019t wreck the car or even run off the road, which was good, but the tire exploded, and the rim was shot.<\/p>\n<p>Here beginneth the search for the last rim to fit a Geo Prism in Danville, VA. \u00a0We consulted a phone book and then started calling every junk yard and gas station we could find in Danville. \u00a0This was before people generally had cell phones and GPS units, so it was kind of quaint the way we talked on pay phones (remember those?) and got lost exploring the area. \u00a0To add the the fun, Danville is bisected by a river with only a few places to cross. \u00a0We got to know that town&#8211;and its bridges&#8211;pretty well. \u00a0Oh, and I was driving a fully loaded rental truck for the exploration mission.<\/p>\n<p>We finally tracked down that last rim. \u00a0It wasn\u2019t a perfect fit, but the guy at the junk yard thought it probably would work. \u00a0He pointed us toward a tire store, and the guy there even stayed a little late getting the tire on for us. \u00a0I guess we must have looked a little pathetic. \u00a0I know I was feeling that way, more than a little. \u00a0We drove back to the car, sitting forlorn and disabled on the side of the highway, put on the wheel, and began again, four hours late and feeling a little beaten down by the Fates that govern the movers of the world. \u00a0We were still two or three hours from Charlotte, and we still had a truck to unload, but no one had died, and no divorce papers had been filed, so it wasn\u2019t the worst day ever. \u00a0We didn\u2019t know that the worst day ever was lying straight before us.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first step of moving, the joyless drudgery of packing, is usually the worst part. \u00a0Although it is not creative or interesting, you still have to think it through and pay attention to what you\u2019re doing or you\u2019ll just have a big mess on your hands. \u00a0Packing also takes place far in advance of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memoirs","tag-past"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=676"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":712,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions\/712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}