The school’s officials are overwhelmingly concerned for my comfort and safety. They always have been… mostly. Sometimes I do get the impression that that is not the case, but in all honesty I realize that Dean Tu has more to worry about than some screeching foreigner, and Sam has such a plateful of things to handle besides my concerns. If issues pertinent to me are not handled promptly I can either feel neglected and uncared for, or I can take the high road and realize that I am not the top priority on the agenda.
Mostly, I take the high road. Sometimes, such as when rodents promenade on my legs while I slumber, I do become a priority to the school. It is a fair balancing act.
You’ll remember from the previous entry that the day after the Great Rat Romance Sam and I visited Dean Tu. While we sat in his office he made a series of phone calls: to the construction site manager, to the lead building foreman, to… who all he needed to make phone calls to in order to figure out which unit would be ready the soonest, so that I could be moved out of the dorm.
Victor was less of a priority because he does not actually live in his apartment. He has accommodations in the city and only stays on campus on the days he has to teach. Besides, Victor does not have a romantic rat crawling up his leg at night.
By the way: someone joked that the rat must have been male because I do have shapely legs. Surely the rat appreciated the climb? I can laugh about that now but it wasn’t funny at 3AM, when the rat was doing its crawling.
OK, enough of the rat.
On to exciting new things, like moving day. When I got the text message from Sam that Moving Day would be early the next morning I could barely contain my joy. I sent him back such an exuberant message he called instead of responding in kind so that he could hear my joy instead of read it on his phone.
The next morning I got up early and had what turned out to be my last chat with Gabriel. I then visited Snack Street for a breakfast sandwich, and then sent out a message to all of my email friends and contacts to inform them I would not have an internet connection for a while. After that, I disconnected my computer, packed up my bed linens and zipped up the suitcases I had been living out of for the past month.
And then I waited.
The move was supposed to happen early in the morning. The 23rd being a Friday, all of the maintenance crews were in a hurry to get everything done so they could start their weekend.
Still waiting…
Sam sent a message saying the moving crew would come by at 2PM. Some pressing maintenance issue had come up and the ones dedicated to moving me were needed elsewhere. No problem. A return to Snack Street for some lunch and then I spent more quality time with my new best friend, the Kindle. (LOVE my Kindle, by the way!)
Finally, the knock on my door! Finally, Sam manifests himself with a moving crew in tow.
My friends, I have made some moves in my life. I have moved across the States and I have moved from one continent to another. I have moved across town and I have moved next door in the same town. I can honestly tell you that, for all of the moves I have made, I have never moved in quite this way.
It seems all of the trucks were tied up on other projects, but the school was determined that I would be moved today. So they sent 8 people, 4 of which were pulling handcarts. Green, two-wheeled handcarts that are used to collect garbage around campus. They look like a backward wheelbarrow, with the handles in front to pull it with instead of in the back to push it. The compartment is about twice as deep as a wheelbarrow’s. That is what was going to be used to haul all of my earthly belongings across campus and into the new construction area. Once there, the handcarts would be offloaded and my possessions, along with the furniture that came with my old apartment would be placed into my new apartment.
I’ve never been moved in this fashion. Have you?
After I got over the shock/dismay/amusement/disbelief at how this proposed move was going to happen, I started panicking. What? The world’s ugliest couch was moving with me? The smelly wardrobe and the broken coffee table? The shaky dining room table and its four Playskool chairs? What happened to new furniture for the new apartment? Oh, that would come later, Sam told me. After an assessment was done of what would be needed to properly outfit the new quarters.
Like a swarm the movers entered the dorm and started grabbing stuff to put in the carts. My stuff was easy: it would fit inside the carts. Remember: I only own two footlockers worth of goods, a large suitcase and a laptop case. Since living here I’ve acquired an oven, a space heater and a small grill. That is the extent of my worldly goods. The rest belongs to the university. Larger furniture items like the couch, the bookshelves, the untenable wardrobe and my bed would ride on top of the cart. One mover said he needed something to protect the TV with. Another mover pointed to the couch cushions. Good enough: one cushion was thrown at the bottom of one of the carts, the TV placed face down on it and the other cushion was placed on top.
Wait: did they clean the carts of garbage before they put my stuff in there? I didn’t have time to check.
One mover said he needed a cloth to protect… something. I’m not sure what needed to be wrapped up but in a fit of inspiration I climbed up on the desk and took down a drape. After removing the hooks I handed it to the mover. He scrambled into the other room with the cloth clutched in his hand.
By the time I climbed down from the desk the caravan of carts and movers had already loaded up and started their trek across campus. On a Friday afternoon, just as all the students were getting out of class.
Oh, joy! At least it wasn’t raining.
I hustled to catch up with them. I had already been handed the keys to my new kingdom and had to grant the movers access, so they could unload their carts and make the journey again. It took two trips to move me across campus in this fashion.
Upon arrival at the new apartment the moving crew took a cigarette break while I, the laggard, hastened up the five steps to unlock my door. For the last time I enjoyed the echoing chambers, the empty, serene expanse of laminate flooring, the gold and champagne colored drapes at either end of the living area. Just a few puffs from now and there would be arguing and shouting and cursing.
Not from my mouth. From the movers. With no input from me at all they were deciding where to place all of my furniture. “The couch should go here” one woman exclaimed while, across the room a man berated his partner for putting the bookcase in the wrong place. The wardrobe posed the biggest problem: it would not fit into my bedroom. They placed it in the dining room. Why not? It fit there! Who cares whether it is proper to stalk into the dining room after a shower to get your clothes?
On the second trip I overheard one of the movers pulling his cart say to his partner: “This is the first time I’ve ever moved a foreigner!” I felt like replying: “That’s fine, this is the first time I’ve ever been moved by handcart!”
The move took one hour. That includes both trips across campus, the loading and unloading of furniture and my treating everyone to cigarettes and drinks. At 3:23 sharp I closed my door and surveyed my kingdom.
Footprints, dust and dirt everywhere. Sticks of furniture where no furniture belonged. No refrigerator and no stove. I was going to have to get busy if I hoped to get to bed at a decent hour. For the next 4 hours I pushed, pulled, dragged and carried things around. My last official act of the day was to make my bed. At the end of this long but admittedly different moving day, all I could think of was taking a hot shower and falling into my newly made bed.
Bad luck for me: no hot water!
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