Chapter Twenty-Eight
Pack It Up
May 16, 2009—Packing Day: Today was not only packing day, but also Jenny's find-and-buy-huge-bulky-things-while-she-has-the-U-Haul day. In other words, the only time that Jenny could conveniently buy a couch, table, or chairs from Craigslist was when she had a huge vehicle in which to transport them, namely, today. She had all the couches and garage sales selected ahead of time, and early Saturday morning we picked up her U-Haul truck and went shopping.
The first garage sale had a dresser that she wanted, but as we pulled up someone else was carrying it away. The second had a couch and chair. She was on the fence about the couch, but just when she decided it would work, someone else said "I'll take it." We eventually succeeded in throwing an assortment of bulky furniture into the truck.
A set of chairs from someone’s garage came with a mud-encrusted, smelly, soccer-ball-sized snapping turtle that had somehow crawled in from outside. If you’ve ever seen a snapping turtle, you know how someone would give them that name—as in “that guy be snapping my fingers off!”
I tried picking it up by grabbing the sides of the shell, but it had very sharp claws that it raked against my fingers. At least I avoided the snappy end. After we confirmed that the smell was coming from the turtle and not the chairs, we loaded up, and headed off.
In the course of a few hours Jenny had acquired a couch, loveseat, table, chairs and bureau for a total expenditure of $175. I guess we’ve successfully passed the tightwad gene on to our daughter.
Now to get all this stuff into the truck. U-Haul has nice tidy diagrams showing how the different sized boxes fit on top of one another and they all fit neatly into the truck, like a Rubik's Cube. We had a good laugh over that, because in the real world, things come in all different shapes and sizes, so fitting them in efficiently can be a struggle. At this point, we weren't sure everything would fit.
We finished for the day, and Jenny put together a scrounge meal in an attempt to use up as much remaining food as possible. I tried valiantly to reduce the supply of booze, but had to admit defeat after a while. The Bailey's Irish Cream was the best.
We were exhausted by evening. Since we had packed all the beds, it meant pulling out and inflating our airbed. As soon as I collapsed onto it, I realized that it was partially deflated. That is, it had a new leak! Not again! I couldn't understand what was causing those pinprick leaks. It took me 30 minutes to find the leak and repair it. We had to wait another 30 minutes for the glue to cure, but we finally passed out, ready for the final packing and the drive to Kansas City tomorrow.