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The story of reaching my new apartment
13 years ago
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I have re-established contact with the modern world! And to think, it only took an entire week after actually getting the modem to hook it up with the internet. Turns out, whoever lived in my apartment previously didn't bother to reconnect the outside cable from whatever they had going on. Alright... this is going to be a long journal. *cracks knuckles in anticipation*
Going back in time to the day before moving...
My apartment is empty, save for pillows and bedding for the night, and my laptop. Without access to the modern world, there was only so much I could do to kill time for the rest of the evening. I also rediscovered why we have desks and chairs and such, because spending the evening sitting/laying on the floor was really uncomfortable. I had to wait for the sun to set before I could just sleep the night away, since I'm used to being able to turn my apartment dark at will (natural lighting is not all that it is cracked up to be) and the windows no longer had coverings. Despite rolling myself up in my thick blankets, I slept poorly, since there's a reason we invented beds as well. I woke up who-knows how many times through the night, and by morning, my hips were sore and I had a small rash.
Friday morning!
I get up at dawn, woken by the encroaching light and hungry cats. After killing time for an hour and a half, I start packing the few things left in the apartment into the uhaul truck. Surprisingly, this took longer than I expected; either I had more things in my apartment than I thought or packing from the previous day took more out of me than I suspected. I set up my car with all of my blankets and pillows in the front seats and the cat supplies (litter box, food) in the back. It took a good 30 minutes to actually get both cats stoned out of their minds, since, well, cats don't like having pills shoved down their throats. Frankly, it was a little worrying, this sedative. I thought that it would knock them out and they would sleep it off, but instead it just took their balance from them and made them lose control of their inner eyelids. Even with their eyes open, that inner-film covered half of their eyes. On one hand, it was disturbing and not a process I really wanted to repeat, but on the other hand, it made it very easy to handle them. After turning in my various apartment keys to the office, I hopped into the uhaul and begun the trip at roughly 9:15am.
I have no entertainment at this point. Unlike my car, I couldn't hook my ipod up to the uhaul and listen to whatever I liked. I had my laptop up in the front seat for entertainment purposes, but I had reserved that for the night later on. I passed most of the morning remarking on all the landmarks I recognized, to myself of course, because I was still on I-35. After I passed Austin, I started seeing how much I could recognize of the route between Austin and Dallas from the large number of times I had made the trip with my father in elementary school. Quite a bit, as it turns out, but it was just unfamiliar enough that the time passed slowly. I couldn't believe how long it took to get to Waco and thought about having to drop my little step-brother off there so many times. I don't think I would've been able to put up with it, and stand by my childhood decision to always stay home every time for that trip.
It was at this point that my mother tried to kill me.
Somewhere along I-35, there is a sharp series of turns, going through some town that looked like it had a bunch of factories and/or metal refineries. I was passing through this town around 10:30am. The sharp turns were still giving me some trouble because the trailer for the car was slightly wider than the actual uhaul. It took several hours, well into the afternoon, before I was really comfortable with the size of the gargantuan vehicle. So, I was making one of these sharp turns when my cell phone vibrates as hard as it can, startling the living hell out of me. Which would be fine if I were in my car or not in the middle of this turn. As it worked out, I jerked the wheel just enough to start that series of tiny events of bad vehicular juju. I managed to get the beginnings of fish-tailing under control before anything really bad happened, but it was still a moment of oh shit I'm not great at controlling this truck and something bad is happening.
Once on the straightaway (and conspicuously with absolutely no one anywhere near me) I check my cell phone to see who had called. Hi mom...
I was nearly at Dallas before I needed to stop for gas. I checked on the cats, who were both still mildly stoned but incredibly happy to see me. They had spent the time underneath the car seats, but I saw evidence of using the litter box as well, so I was reassured that my car wasn't going to be a complete mess once I arrived. Of course, the food bowls had been knocked over and the water sloshed around, but that was ok. After refueling, I was on my way again. It actually took less money than I had thought to refill the tank, but I chalk that up to not actually emptying the tank before putting gas in again. Around $86-88 every time, actually.
I made it all the way through Dallas before I realized that I had accidentally left the gas cap off.
I'm amazing.
So there I am, about halfway between Dallas and Texarkana, when I suddenly run into a huge number of cops. I saw at least a dozen police cars pulling people over, which was confusing because that had to have meant that more than half of the population of the people that lived in that area were cops. I didn't think it was a big deal though, as the speed limit was 75 along that stretch and the uhaul was physically incapable of going faster than that (which meant that I went approximately 75mph for the entire trip. Just kept it floored whenever I could, really). I got over to the left lane to make sure I wouldn't blow by a cop that had pulled someone over (there's some law against that, right?) and so what little traffic could enter the highway from the rare on-ramps could without problems. I pass a bridge and see a cop on the other side immediately turn around and get onto the highway. Now, I know he's coming for me because I'm the only person for half a mile behind or in front of me, but I couldn't think of what I was doing wrong. I get pulled over and come out of the car. (I use this opportunity, with permission, to put the gas cap back on) I explain what I'm doing, etc etc, and get given a warning for driving in the left lane. Which is... wrong, for whatever reason. Ah well. It's just a warning, so after checking on the cats again, I take off.
I pass through Arkansas. For whatever reason, their roads are a lot better kept than Texas', but they're also weird colors for some reason. Seriously, I drove on black road, brown road, and blue road, and there was no sign that there was a reason for the different colors. I stop for gas for the second time maybe a little more than halfway through Arkansas and discover that the cats are both really hot and actually panting. I buy them a huge bag of ice and just set it next to their litter box in the hope that it would cool down the car, and if not, at least they could lay on it to cool off if it occurs to them. At this point I also buy a bag of Doritos, because I'm hungry and haven't had anything to eat since the day before. I can't even finish the bag; apparently I don't really like Doritos all that much anymore. I was sustained during this trip on two bottles of water, half of a bag of Doritos, and a third of a tin of Altoids.
I remember to put the gas cap back on this time.
By the time I reach Tennessee, night has fallen. Memphis was suitably glittery, but I'm not sure how good their city planners are because the roads were really confusing. Without my GPS, I'm certain I would've become lost in a heartbeat. There wasn't much else to remember from Tennessee, because I couldn't really see all that much at night. Really, I just went with the flow of traffic around me and made a game of passing the semis. Did you know that in other states, there are separate speed limits for commercial trucks and everyone else? I didn't, and it amused me to pass semis so frequently. At this point, I'm no longer repeatedly singing 'Joy to the World' with inventive lyrics to amuse myself, and am listening to stand-up comedy courtesy of my laptop.
I think I stopped for gas sometime in Tennessee, but I honestly can't remember all that well if I did. The only reason I think I did is because I remember thinking that I stopped for gas once in each state I went through. If I did, that's when I removed the bag of ice from the car, mostly melted and soaking my backseat, and found that the cats were doing just fine now.
Kentucky is a blur. It's past midnight now, and all of the other traffic on the road is gone save for the lone semi every other dozen miles. It's a pitch-black cloudy night in the middle of huge (I think) hills and a lot of towering trees (I think). I'm operating on the thirty or so feet that my headlights illuminate. This actually keeps me awake and keyed up, because it seemed like a difficult portion of a video game. I had gotten used to the controls, you see, so it was time for the game to up the difficulty level. I was having fun trying to drive at 75mph when I couldn't see the road ahead of me. I have faith in my reflexes and the knowledge that highways with speed limits of 75mph don't make sudden sharp turns out of nowhere.
About 3am, the battery on my laptop dies just as it attempts to start a George Lopéz stand-up, which I'm thankful for, but I no longer have that as entertainment. Soon thereafter I revert to singing stupid songs to keep myself awake and focused and entertained with much less success than I was having before. I only veer off the road three times in Kentucky, each time warned by the rumble strips on the shoulder.
I hit Cincinnati at dawn. I don't know if it was because of the morning sun or if it was just because it was 5am and the first thing I could actually see outside of the uhaul, but Cincinnati was beautiful. It was a while before I wasn't driving into the sun, but Ohio passed pretty uneventfully for me. After the last time I hit a rumble strip, my body evidentially decided that I was indeed staying awake the whole night and I felt wide-awake again. It was in the midst of some very large hills that I stopped for gas for the last time, checking up on the cats. This time though, I get maybe five miles away before I pull over to the side of the road. I had to check to see whether N was still actually in the car or not, as I hadn't seen him when I closed the door; I thought that maybe he had gotten out of the car when I stopped. As it turns out, he hadn't, so I continued on my way.
All ten miles of West Virginia were beautiful, which turned in Pennsylvania, which was also beautiful. Grass is green, did you know that? I didn't.
Roughly an hour after reaching Pennsylvania, I reached Monroeville and my new apartment complex. It is roughly 10am, and I'm dead tired now. I parked in front of the office and wandered in. I sign every piece of paper they put in front of me because I can't concentrate long enough to actually read the contract and the lease and the whatever else it was. I actually had to have someone show me where my new apartment was because I couldn't understand the directions they gave (which were, in their entirety: circle around this building, take the first right, turn right again, and yours is the first apartment building on the right). I parked my uhaul and immediately brought the cats inside to explore. Wearily, I start unloading the car, then uhaul.
The new apartment was described to me as being on the first floor, which I looked forward to. I haven't lived on the first floor at any of my apartments before now, so I was excited about the prospect of not needing to go up stairs with big furniture. However, I did not count on needing to go down stairs. Technically, my apartment is in the basement of the building, because it was built into a hill. Moreover, I also needed to pull everything up the steps to the building. In short, everything I unpacked, I had to walk up some stairs, unlock a door, walk down stairs, open another door, then through a hallway to my apartment, open another door, then put something down. I didn't rest at any point, just stubbornly brought everything in one at a time. By the time the uhaul was empty, I was moving really slowly when not carrying anything. The only thing I put into its proper place was the bed. Furniture and boxes were strewn randomly in the apartment, pretty much wherever there was room and I needed to put them down.
After I got everything into the apartment... I took a bath. I was sweaty, tired, and felt filthy, but I wasn't anywhere close to done for the day. Soon after, I got back into the uhaul and drove to the uhaul drop-off. The guy there was really friendly and just let me sit and took care of everything, even taking the car off of the trailer. I was exhausted, feeling myself start to drift even as I lay in the back of the uhaul. It was odd to be back in my car again, as my car handles completely differently from what I had just been driving for the last 24.5 hours. I managed to get back to my apartment complex and turned in one of the myriad of move-in forms. I then got directions to the nearest grocery store (the chain here, as it so happens, is called Giant Eagle), which conveniently is next to a Target. I go grocery shopping and visit Target, looking for a lamp. The bedroom of my new apartment has no lights of its own.
Once home again, I start setting things up slowly. By the end of the day, I had gotten about half of the furniture into its final position and maybe two boxes unpacked. It was actually around 9:30pm before I finally got to sleep for the first time in 36 hours.
Going back in time to the day before moving...
My apartment is empty, save for pillows and bedding for the night, and my laptop. Without access to the modern world, there was only so much I could do to kill time for the rest of the evening. I also rediscovered why we have desks and chairs and such, because spending the evening sitting/laying on the floor was really uncomfortable. I had to wait for the sun to set before I could just sleep the night away, since I'm used to being able to turn my apartment dark at will (natural lighting is not all that it is cracked up to be) and the windows no longer had coverings. Despite rolling myself up in my thick blankets, I slept poorly, since there's a reason we invented beds as well. I woke up who-knows how many times through the night, and by morning, my hips were sore and I had a small rash.
Friday morning!
I get up at dawn, woken by the encroaching light and hungry cats. After killing time for an hour and a half, I start packing the few things left in the apartment into the uhaul truck. Surprisingly, this took longer than I expected; either I had more things in my apartment than I thought or packing from the previous day took more out of me than I suspected. I set up my car with all of my blankets and pillows in the front seats and the cat supplies (litter box, food) in the back. It took a good 30 minutes to actually get both cats stoned out of their minds, since, well, cats don't like having pills shoved down their throats. Frankly, it was a little worrying, this sedative. I thought that it would knock them out and they would sleep it off, but instead it just took their balance from them and made them lose control of their inner eyelids. Even with their eyes open, that inner-film covered half of their eyes. On one hand, it was disturbing and not a process I really wanted to repeat, but on the other hand, it made it very easy to handle them. After turning in my various apartment keys to the office, I hopped into the uhaul and begun the trip at roughly 9:15am.
I have no entertainment at this point. Unlike my car, I couldn't hook my ipod up to the uhaul and listen to whatever I liked. I had my laptop up in the front seat for entertainment purposes, but I had reserved that for the night later on. I passed most of the morning remarking on all the landmarks I recognized, to myself of course, because I was still on I-35. After I passed Austin, I started seeing how much I could recognize of the route between Austin and Dallas from the large number of times I had made the trip with my father in elementary school. Quite a bit, as it turns out, but it was just unfamiliar enough that the time passed slowly. I couldn't believe how long it took to get to Waco and thought about having to drop my little step-brother off there so many times. I don't think I would've been able to put up with it, and stand by my childhood decision to always stay home every time for that trip.
It was at this point that my mother tried to kill me.
Somewhere along I-35, there is a sharp series of turns, going through some town that looked like it had a bunch of factories and/or metal refineries. I was passing through this town around 10:30am. The sharp turns were still giving me some trouble because the trailer for the car was slightly wider than the actual uhaul. It took several hours, well into the afternoon, before I was really comfortable with the size of the gargantuan vehicle. So, I was making one of these sharp turns when my cell phone vibrates as hard as it can, startling the living hell out of me. Which would be fine if I were in my car or not in the middle of this turn. As it worked out, I jerked the wheel just enough to start that series of tiny events of bad vehicular juju. I managed to get the beginnings of fish-tailing under control before anything really bad happened, but it was still a moment of oh shit I'm not great at controlling this truck and something bad is happening.
Once on the straightaway (and conspicuously with absolutely no one anywhere near me) I check my cell phone to see who had called. Hi mom...
I was nearly at Dallas before I needed to stop for gas. I checked on the cats, who were both still mildly stoned but incredibly happy to see me. They had spent the time underneath the car seats, but I saw evidence of using the litter box as well, so I was reassured that my car wasn't going to be a complete mess once I arrived. Of course, the food bowls had been knocked over and the water sloshed around, but that was ok. After refueling, I was on my way again. It actually took less money than I had thought to refill the tank, but I chalk that up to not actually emptying the tank before putting gas in again. Around $86-88 every time, actually.
I made it all the way through Dallas before I realized that I had accidentally left the gas cap off.
I'm amazing.
So there I am, about halfway between Dallas and Texarkana, when I suddenly run into a huge number of cops. I saw at least a dozen police cars pulling people over, which was confusing because that had to have meant that more than half of the population of the people that lived in that area were cops. I didn't think it was a big deal though, as the speed limit was 75 along that stretch and the uhaul was physically incapable of going faster than that (which meant that I went approximately 75mph for the entire trip. Just kept it floored whenever I could, really). I got over to the left lane to make sure I wouldn't blow by a cop that had pulled someone over (there's some law against that, right?) and so what little traffic could enter the highway from the rare on-ramps could without problems. I pass a bridge and see a cop on the other side immediately turn around and get onto the highway. Now, I know he's coming for me because I'm the only person for half a mile behind or in front of me, but I couldn't think of what I was doing wrong. I get pulled over and come out of the car. (I use this opportunity, with permission, to put the gas cap back on) I explain what I'm doing, etc etc, and get given a warning for driving in the left lane. Which is... wrong, for whatever reason. Ah well. It's just a warning, so after checking on the cats again, I take off.
I pass through Arkansas. For whatever reason, their roads are a lot better kept than Texas', but they're also weird colors for some reason. Seriously, I drove on black road, brown road, and blue road, and there was no sign that there was a reason for the different colors. I stop for gas for the second time maybe a little more than halfway through Arkansas and discover that the cats are both really hot and actually panting. I buy them a huge bag of ice and just set it next to their litter box in the hope that it would cool down the car, and if not, at least they could lay on it to cool off if it occurs to them. At this point I also buy a bag of Doritos, because I'm hungry and haven't had anything to eat since the day before. I can't even finish the bag; apparently I don't really like Doritos all that much anymore. I was sustained during this trip on two bottles of water, half of a bag of Doritos, and a third of a tin of Altoids.
I remember to put the gas cap back on this time.
By the time I reach Tennessee, night has fallen. Memphis was suitably glittery, but I'm not sure how good their city planners are because the roads were really confusing. Without my GPS, I'm certain I would've become lost in a heartbeat. There wasn't much else to remember from Tennessee, because I couldn't really see all that much at night. Really, I just went with the flow of traffic around me and made a game of passing the semis. Did you know that in other states, there are separate speed limits for commercial trucks and everyone else? I didn't, and it amused me to pass semis so frequently. At this point, I'm no longer repeatedly singing 'Joy to the World' with inventive lyrics to amuse myself, and am listening to stand-up comedy courtesy of my laptop.
I think I stopped for gas sometime in Tennessee, but I honestly can't remember all that well if I did. The only reason I think I did is because I remember thinking that I stopped for gas once in each state I went through. If I did, that's when I removed the bag of ice from the car, mostly melted and soaking my backseat, and found that the cats were doing just fine now.
Kentucky is a blur. It's past midnight now, and all of the other traffic on the road is gone save for the lone semi every other dozen miles. It's a pitch-black cloudy night in the middle of huge (I think) hills and a lot of towering trees (I think). I'm operating on the thirty or so feet that my headlights illuminate. This actually keeps me awake and keyed up, because it seemed like a difficult portion of a video game. I had gotten used to the controls, you see, so it was time for the game to up the difficulty level. I was having fun trying to drive at 75mph when I couldn't see the road ahead of me. I have faith in my reflexes and the knowledge that highways with speed limits of 75mph don't make sudden sharp turns out of nowhere.
About 3am, the battery on my laptop dies just as it attempts to start a George Lopéz stand-up, which I'm thankful for, but I no longer have that as entertainment. Soon thereafter I revert to singing stupid songs to keep myself awake and focused and entertained with much less success than I was having before. I only veer off the road three times in Kentucky, each time warned by the rumble strips on the shoulder.
I hit Cincinnati at dawn. I don't know if it was because of the morning sun or if it was just because it was 5am and the first thing I could actually see outside of the uhaul, but Cincinnati was beautiful. It was a while before I wasn't driving into the sun, but Ohio passed pretty uneventfully for me. After the last time I hit a rumble strip, my body evidentially decided that I was indeed staying awake the whole night and I felt wide-awake again. It was in the midst of some very large hills that I stopped for gas for the last time, checking up on the cats. This time though, I get maybe five miles away before I pull over to the side of the road. I had to check to see whether N was still actually in the car or not, as I hadn't seen him when I closed the door; I thought that maybe he had gotten out of the car when I stopped. As it turns out, he hadn't, so I continued on my way.
All ten miles of West Virginia were beautiful, which turned in Pennsylvania, which was also beautiful. Grass is green, did you know that? I didn't.
Roughly an hour after reaching Pennsylvania, I reached Monroeville and my new apartment complex. It is roughly 10am, and I'm dead tired now. I parked in front of the office and wandered in. I sign every piece of paper they put in front of me because I can't concentrate long enough to actually read the contract and the lease and the whatever else it was. I actually had to have someone show me where my new apartment was because I couldn't understand the directions they gave (which were, in their entirety: circle around this building, take the first right, turn right again, and yours is the first apartment building on the right). I parked my uhaul and immediately brought the cats inside to explore. Wearily, I start unloading the car, then uhaul.
The new apartment was described to me as being on the first floor, which I looked forward to. I haven't lived on the first floor at any of my apartments before now, so I was excited about the prospect of not needing to go up stairs with big furniture. However, I did not count on needing to go down stairs. Technically, my apartment is in the basement of the building, because it was built into a hill. Moreover, I also needed to pull everything up the steps to the building. In short, everything I unpacked, I had to walk up some stairs, unlock a door, walk down stairs, open another door, then through a hallway to my apartment, open another door, then put something down. I didn't rest at any point, just stubbornly brought everything in one at a time. By the time the uhaul was empty, I was moving really slowly when not carrying anything. The only thing I put into its proper place was the bed. Furniture and boxes were strewn randomly in the apartment, pretty much wherever there was room and I needed to put them down.
After I got everything into the apartment... I took a bath. I was sweaty, tired, and felt filthy, but I wasn't anywhere close to done for the day. Soon after, I got back into the uhaul and drove to the uhaul drop-off. The guy there was really friendly and just let me sit and took care of everything, even taking the car off of the trailer. I was exhausted, feeling myself start to drift even as I lay in the back of the uhaul. It was odd to be back in my car again, as my car handles completely differently from what I had just been driving for the last 24.5 hours. I managed to get back to my apartment complex and turned in one of the myriad of move-in forms. I then got directions to the nearest grocery store (the chain here, as it so happens, is called Giant Eagle), which conveniently is next to a Target. I go grocery shopping and visit Target, looking for a lamp. The bedroom of my new apartment has no lights of its own.
Once home again, I start setting things up slowly. By the end of the day, I had gotten about half of the furniture into its final position and maybe two boxes unpacked. It was actually around 9:30pm before I finally got to sleep for the first time in 36 hours.
You totally should of had me to keep you awake on the trip. I guarantee you'l never fall asleep on the road with me.