For those of you just joining the journey Part I can be found here. -J.S.S
After deplaning in lovely South Bend, Indiana, I called my wife to tell her I had arrived. She informed me that I needed to call Judith to let her know I was there and where to pick me up. I got off the phone and it rang before I could dial. It was Judith asking if she should park and come in or if she should just wait outside passenger pick up. I told her not to waste time parking I would see her in a minute. 30 seconds later I rounded a corner and spotted her purple Easter egg of a Ford Aspire through the glass doors 100 yards ahead. The comfort of an American sub-compact would be a roomy delight after a day in tiny, crowded airplanes whose seating, I can only imagine, was designed for kindergarteners, surely not for a man over 6’ and 200 lbs.
I got in the car and we pretty rapidly started talking business. It was after 3 and we had a truck and trailer to pick up before 5. I asked if she knew where the U-Haul place was. She informed me that my beloved wife had informed her that I knew all of that information. I would think I should know what I know, but I surely know enough not to argue with my wife whether present or not. I did have the forethought to have saved the U-Haul rental place’s number in my cell. I made the call.
It should be remembered, that while I have driven around the Michigan/Indiana border area (called Michiana locally which being a native Michigander I find terribly distasteful) I really have little idea where I am going without a local telling me where I was. I had been to Niles enough that I could get around to what I needed by myself, but I had no clue where in South Bend the airport is so no idea where I was at present. The rather polite lady on the other end of the phone gave me an address that meant nothing to me before telling me she was at a storage facility across from Wal-Mart and Lowe’s. I actually knew where that was. Both Judith and her husband had worked at that Lowe’s. Looks like we have smooth sailing ahead.
Wrong; or, to borrow from a Veggie Tales song, I “could not be more wronger.” 5 minutes after talking to the U-Haul lady, she called me back to ask me what I had reserved. For those of you that have not made a U-Haul reservation, you should know that one does not simply rent a truck, or a truck and a trailer, there are add-ons: furniture dollies, appliance dollies, miscellaneous other dollies, and moving blankets. And I had some of all of it in numbers that I could not remember. But was I not talking to a woman that should have a detailed reservation invoice on a computer? She informed me that she was asking because her computer was down and she wanted to make sure she had the right stuff pulled out for us. Fortunately, she only needed rough details so that she could call and get the finer points from another office.
A few more minutes and my phone rang again. It was my mom asking where I was. I had intentionally not said anything about going to Michigan on Facebook or anywhere else to avoid having to turn down any invitations or obligations more than the mammoth obligation I had already made. I, however, had not accounted for my wife posting my airport exploits on her status update. What did I think about my mom coming to Niles for dinner? Well, on one hand, I love my mom, I don’t talk to her often enough and definitely don’t get to see her often enough, so it would be great. On the other hand, I was rapidly developing the feeling that my head had multiple vises on it, squeezing inward from all directions and my eyeballs might shoot out at any moment, something that I attributed to the fact that I had not slept sufficiently and ate not but peanuts though it now neared dinner and waiting another 3 hours to eat so she could make the trip from Detroit was simply not acceptable. Besides, like the Blues Brothers, I was on a mission…from God. Possibly overstating, regardless, much to do, can’t wait to eat, sorry, mom, maybe next time I fly across the country to move someone back across the country from whence I came, I will schedule some time for dinner. I know she understands.
When we arrived at the U-Haul office, they had gotten all of the details and just needed us to finish the process. We were now in Michigan and the first problem was my Texas driver’s license. As I was not local (though I had lived in Michigan most of my life), they needed 3 personal references. I gave them my mom, whom I had just turned down for dinner, and Judith and Brad. Of course, one of my references was waiting in the car outside, one was in Texas, staying at my house and working at a job that I had got him while I flew to Michigan to help his family move down and join him, so the fact that I had just greatly disappointed the third reference didn’t concern me much. Besides, even disappointed, mom would give me a good reference; I think.
Now we had but to pay. Due to the fact that I would be the only person on the sojourn to Texas old enough to legally drive the rented U-Haul, the money to pay for its procurement was deposited into my account. So knowing that the money was there to clear the charge, I handed the lady my debit card, which was rejected. I immediately, as with all banking related problems, called my wife. “WHAAAT?!?” she said. Or maybe she said “What?” but I tend to think it was more like the first version. The money is there, she looked at the account online and verified that we could easily clear the charge required. She said she would call me back after she called the bank. I explained the situation to the nice lady and waited for my wife to call back. When she did call back, it was on conference call with a bank representative. As it turns out we were attempting to go over the determined limit for a charge against our account which needed special permission. She asked for my permission and gave me two questions to verify my identity. I don’t recall the first question or whether or not I got it right; the second question was “what was the driver’s license number used to open the account?” I opened this account when I moved to Texas when I still had a Michigan license which I had to surrender when I got my Texas license. I explained this to the nice bank lady and told her, in short, I have no idea what that number is. She summarily informed me that based on my answers given to the security questions she was rejecting my request to temporarily increase my charge limit.
Now to say that this would be a wasted trip without the procurement of a moving truck would be an extreme understatement. I came here to move someone, and Judith’s Easter egg simply lacked the capacity to handle the load, especially with passengers taking up valuable cargo space. My wife quickly asked the bank lady who sounded like she was about to hang up if there was another way to request a limit increase. She said that if we had an online banking account with them we could submit a request through their site. To me, she sounded like she was talking to people that she didn’t believe were the actual cardholders and I was sure that she was tracing my cell phone and that it was a matter of time before the FBI showed up to haul me away. I carefully watched the street for black SUVs and men in black sunglasses talking into their coat collars. The woman on the phone continued to answer my wife’s questions and walk her through the process and assured us that once the email came through, the request would be fast-tracked.
At some point prior to arriving at the U-Haul facility, Judith was kind enough to stop and pick up some Excedrin for me. With the U-Haul lady giving me dirty looks because of my rejected card (obviously a dead-beat) the bank lady giving me odd tones (obviously a felon committing card fraud) and the sheer prevalence of black SUVs, the Excedrin was not working. It was now very close to the 5:00 PM closing time of the U-Haul place and looks became a bit more agitated. The nice lady continued to say “oh, don’t worry about it” and “we don’t mind waiting” but I knew that she was communicating with the bank lady. She wasn’t waiting for me to work out my banking issue and the payment to clear, she was waiting to be the one to point me out to the FBI when they arrived; “that’s the one right there” she would yell, “cuff him.” Maybe lack of sleep and food makes me paranoid; was that a black Suburban that just turned in?
Eventually we were told that we were cleared. They scanned the card again and it rejected again. 5 more minutes of figuring out the problem and it was approved. I had by this time released Judith from her post waiting as she was supposed to hand off Aeden, her son and my only nephew. I was relieved that I was not going to have to call her back and equally relieved when the U-Haul manager waved off the men getting out of their Suburbans. You don’t get me that easily FBI. As I walked around the truck for the inspection, I marveled at how small it seemed. The first edges of doubt crept in. Could all of the worldly possessions for a 3 person family fit in such a space? When it was booked the possessions were described and we were assured that this was the vehicle we needed. It seemed small though. Until, that is, I started driving it and came to that second frightening moment of doubt. I am dangerously under qualified to be driving a 17 foot box truck, especially with a trailer.
This second doubt would be shown clearly in my ineptitude as I tried advanced movements like backing up. The first doubt I tried to guard privately knowing that if we said upfront that it wouldn’t all fit, we would have more empty space after defeated packing. Besides maybe I was wrong, maybe they didn’t have that much stuff. And, there was the Easter egg that we would be towing behind on the trailer that could be packed with some smaller stuff; chocolates and jellybeans and other assorted treasures that plastic eggs are meant to carry.
I managed to make it to the house without curbing the trailer. I then promptly showed my lack of skill by deciding to try to back in. It didn’t take long before I gave up on that dream, circled the block, curbing the trailer at least once, and pulled directly into the drive. Of course I would eventually have to back it out, but I could worry about that later; it was now 6:00 PM, and I still had not eaten. Had I given my mom the go ahead, she could have made it in time for dinner.
Before leaving to go get dinner, Judith gave me a quick walk through of the house and everything that was going: appliances and furniture and a mountain of boxes.
“Do you think it will all fit?”
Not a snowballs chance in hell.
“Oh, yeah, it will all fit.”
Part III can be found here.
Thoughts from the Fringe 