Moving Days........

I always hated to move. I would stay in an apartment long after I should have left simply because I hate moving. And when I DID move to different apartments, I always tried to get a ground floor apartment. Why? I didn't have to move heavy things up stairs and it seems that when I walk I sound like "I'm trying to stomp a mime to death" (ex-neighbors words). But as I got older, I got better at moving. All my furniture can be broken down to man portable loads. I know exactly what size boxes I need and how many I need to move. I have packaging for ALL my fragile stuff. One of my buddies from school was the king though. Even after he graduated, everything he owned could fit into his Country Squire LTD station wagon. Everything. ALL his crap. He was like a Bedouin, able to pick up and move within 2 hours. I love helping guys like that move.

You know who I hate to help move? Chicks. (Not you, my loving wife, you are the great exception!) Especially single ones. Why? Because often times they've never had to move themselves. Their daddy moved them, or their brother, or boyfriend, or SOME GULLIBLE GUY who they roped into doing this. Also, because women have heavy stuff. Not just sofas and dressers, but RANDOM things like a 60 lb ironing board or something. Or a microwave made out of granite. Also, women LOVE to live on the upper floors of apartment buildings. The first floor? The easy floor to move stuff to? Pfft. Please. Since she's not the one dragging that 500 pound bureau up 3 flights of stairs what do she care?

And I know I sound angry here. I guess I kinda am. Waaaaaaay back in the day, YEARS before I even started dating Lemur Queen, I was a hot single guy. Well, hot in my mind at least. But I was always on the prowl for the ladies. So, when a girl would ask me to "come over" for a while on a Saturday, after coyly asking if I was free, I would say yes. Because hey, a girl just asked me over! But then I find out that she's moving, and then never talks to me after I help her move. I had friends who enlisted my help to move their girlfriends, only to have those girls BREAK UP with them hours to days after she was moved. Turns out she had wanted to leave him for a while, but didn't want to do the labor of moving by herself, so she stayed with my buddy until the move was done. Crazy thing, is this has happened three times, to two separate friends. I knew one girl (who was really, really hot. But also insane. As in "Daddy Never Loved Me" type stuff. Also, would only wear all white clothing on certain days of the week. But I digress.) who would actually go out on a ton of dates with as many men as she could wrangle so she would have a large pool of willing and able men to help her move. Of course, once this backfired on her. She dated about 5 guys (telling me the whole time WHY she was doing this) for about a month, and then the week before she was to move, she asked them all for help. Well, the guys found out what she was doing, somehow. The day before she was going to move all of them called her, broke off the relationship, and told her she was on her own for her move in day. If my back hadn't been the one to suffer for that, I would have laughed my ass off to hear those phone conversations.





Also, when I was in college, we had this group that helped move in Freshmen. The New Friends, or some crap. After my freshman year I volunteered every time this came up. Why? Two reasons: 1) get to move in one day before EVERYONE into the dorms, thus avoiding clutter and chaos and 2) scope out hot freshman women before the rest of campus. After the first year of doing this, I realized that (2) as a waste of time. I was not George Clooney. I can't pick up girls like that. Only Assholes, Douchebags, and George Clooney can do that. And I, my friends, am no George Clooney. So I made dang skippy my room was all set up, then I'd go see what/who was coming in this year. Every year there were hot girls. Every year. And you know what? They ALWAYS had a ton of crap with them. And they never lived on the first floor. Well, lucky for us....they brought they're Father with them to move said heavy crap! Oh, wait, he has a "bad back" and can't move stuff (how'd he get it into the trailer?). But that's ok, Freshman Barbie has a brother with her. Oh wait.....that's either a really handsy brother.....or.....it's the Boyfriend from Back Home. Boyfriend ain't TOUCHING the heavy crap. He's too busy groping the girl who's going to dump him in a few weeks for a Theatre, English or Religion major. So, I just gave up and started helping the guys move. Why? I'd see the girls in the cafeteria for the meet and greet. And, I'd see what freshman guy had the coolest stuff, so I'd know where I could hang out and play some Playstation. Rock on!

Like Rats on a Ship.

I've heard about rats leaving a doomed ship, but what about when that ship is stocked with cheese and milk and no cats? The rats swarm. Thus it is now in our little coastal town. Memorial day was on us recently, and more long holiday weekends will follow. So a town that typically has about 70k people swells to around 100k on the weekends. You think I'm kidding? Try finding a place to eat out in the summer. Everywhere is packed. Even Wal-Mart. ESPECIALLY Wal-Mart, who am I kidding? And they're filled with this:

I guess what really kills me is the traffic. It gets pretty congested during regular weekdays here. Our roads suck. So throw in thousands of extra vehicles, and it gets BAD. And the majority of those are not from here, so are not used to the streets and traffic patterns, and thus slow things down even more. I know you and "the family" are going to have a nice, relaxing vacation pal, but how about snapping out of your Jimmy Buffet fantasy long enough to find the damn gas pedal and USE IT. I need to get to work.