Experiences like this make me wonder if my parents were related...
I had some inkling of the kind of day I'd have when the "painter" confessed to me what is probably a felony, if not treason, at Starbucks.
I'd stopped at Starbucks early this morning before my big adventure. As I got out of my truck, a guy in a white van comes from out of nowhere and says, "Hey, let me ask you a question. And to prove to you that I'm not lying, I want to show you something."
He showed me his gas gauge, and then gave me a little story about how he needed a little gas money for a trip up to someplace in MD.
It figures, I thought. God is such a kidder. See, I'd just offered up a little prayer for the day. God, I said, Whatever this day brings, I offer it all up to you. Let thy will be done... I could hardly ignore this guy, right? I mean, he wasn't totally crazy--he had a van to drive, after all. Crazy people don't hang on to their vehicles for very long, right? I was thinking What you did to the least of these, you did to me...
About five minutes later, I was getting a story from this guy. "I've made a lot of bad decisions in my life," he said. "I'm a painter..."
And that's when I knew his hard luck story was likely true.
In another life, I was a house painter, too. I worked with some truly gifted painters before, but as members of society, they were all one toke away from the asylum. For example, I worked with a guy named Charlie once. He'd sprayed laquer in unventilated rooms, without a mask, for 30 years. His son Todd had clearly been conceived long after the chemicals had fried Charlie's DNA. Don't get me wrong--they were good at what they did, and would apparently do anything for you. I liked them. But they were without a doubt out of their gourds. Ever see Todd Snider in concert? You'll know what I mean. Because I'm already off topic here, I'll save the story about Charlie's visit to the proctologist for another time. (It's an awesome story--and real, at least as far as Charlie's conception of reality can be trusted, of course...)
Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes, nowhere.
So, this painter guy said he had a buddy who poured all the concrete from here to Vienna (Virginia.) "There are these sewers, see, but they're not for waste, they're for government types to escape town in case of a nuclear war. They're big enough for cars to drive in."
"But they won't escape," he said. "I spread nails all through the sewers. I figure that if they started a nuclear war and I'm going out in a flash, they should, too..."
That's when I decided my grande caramel Americano could wait for me no longer.
Odd, don't you think? I really wonder if there are tunnels. Maybe I'll check it out sometime. Ah, but you see, that's how they do it. They give you crazy, too.
So, back to the other 15 hours of my day...
As I said previously, I thought a great way to raise a little cash is to offer my services as a small-potatos mover. Just tables and chairs, recent purchases on Craigslist, maybe an occasional entertainment center. One of those a night would be very helpful right now.
The first gig was to "move some stuff from a storage unit in Marshall, Virginia."
Did you count the number of mistakes I made right there? Let me help: It's two. But they were the two most critical mistakes. See, alarms went off immediately, but I silenced them. I got buck fever (pun intended). Generally speaking, while I hadn't yet made it a hard-and-fast rule, I don't do business, real estate or otherwise, in areas I'm not familiar with. Furthermore, if I've never even heard of a certain location, chances are it's too far away.
My second mistake was not hanging up when I heard the words "storage unit." Once upon a time, I helped my grandpa clean out the storage unit he owned. One of his customers was basically evicted, leaving him to get rid of the junk. I got some cool, useful stuff for a 16-year-old, like a gigantic, wall-sized mirror (which I quickly broke). But for the most part, it was an agonizingly long day with spiders, grit and gramps, who, for some reason, liked to sprinkle his Grampa Simpson stories with Finnish phrases. I assumed it was to lend authenticity to them. I dunno. Rest in peace, Gramps. I love you.
Needless to say, Marshall, Virginia is out there. Not so far that the currency is different, but close. And, like a good independent businessman, I showed up half-an-hour early. The owner of the unit showed up a good hour after the agreed-upon meeting time. If there's anything good about that, I managed to watch a full episode of Eureka on my iPod while I waited.
When she opened the door to her unit, what I saw made me do something I'd never done before: nanosecond mathematics. My synapses, as you've no doubt gathered by now, ain't hooked up so good. Math has never been a talent of mine. But somehow, in that brief space of time, (in fact, time slowed down perceptibly as the light hit the scene before me), I was able to calculate fuel costs, mileage, and estimated unloading/loading/unloading time. It all happened in less time for a hummingbird's wings to complete one flap.
I'd screwed myself. Without my consent.
I wish I'd taken a picture. I'd been told the storage unit was about 10x10. Uh uh. It was more like 10x15, and it was stacked to the 10ft ceiling with junk. I'm serious--it was junk. No doubt its sentimental value was through the roof, but from my perspective, it was all garbage, and we were going to drive it an hour away and put it into an apartment.
It was: broken furniture, sock puppets, pots big enough to boil a whole chicken (and naturally, she kept the boxes they came in, and filled them with National Geographic magazines so old they didn't even have maps for America yet. There were about fifty plastic storage tubs filled with broken Christmas ornaments, a weight bench (but no weights), and a lawnmower. That last item kills me--she was moving to a tiny apartment, not a house. What on earth was she going to do with a lawnmower??? Where would she put it?
Anyway, it was like a solid cube of the collected memories of an entire life. And I had to move it in my little pickup truck.
It didn't take long to finish the first load. That included a washer/dryer set, and after that, I only had room for the Atari game system and the garbage bags of Hispanic music cassette tapes.
As we drove back to her place, I made an executive decision. I knew right then it was going to be a hell day whether I had to make ten trips (at 40 minutes, one way, each), or I was going to rent a van and take a financial kick in the gigglyberries. I figured my time was worth more to me. I'll take the kick.
So, we unloaded it and I rented a big van. Fortunately, the client's daughter and husband showed up, and he'd had the foresight a while back to buy a truck. But still, after loading up the van, her SUV and his truck, we STILL had leftover crap in there. No matter--they were going to finish it tomorrow, and we drove the convoy home.
There's more to this story, but it's getting late and my wimpy grantwriter forearms took a beating today. Typing is extraordinarily difficult. However, there was a silver lining to the day. After the final load was unloaded into her tiny one-bedroom apartment, the daughter asked how much it came to. I had no choice but to stick to my quote--$65. And, I actually thanked them and told them it was my first foray into this kind of thing. Mom and daughter then produced a wad of cash. If $65 was my fee, then they have me a $45 tip. It didn't cover all of the costs of renting the van, but it was close. After all that, I basically ended up paying them to let me help them move, but it could have been a lot worse. And I did get to come home and have pizza with my wife, who'd spent the day at a real estate conference making a bunch of contacts. She learned a thing or two, too.
Now, I go to snuggle with her.
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