Sometimes life gets in the way. MikeyZ and I were supposed to hop a U-haul and make a cross-country cash-grab, stopping at every ex hippy’s paradise along the way, visiting old friends and greasy spoons too. CMcC was supposed to maybe join us.
Life got in the way. There were babies to feed and jobs to secure and begin, and most of all U-haul screwed us in the form of a 250 percent price increase. It’s seasonal. This is busy season.
I have this memory of barrelling across eastern Canada, my dad at the wheel, me on the navigation tip, belting out Blondie as we rode. There was a flat tire, three days travel, half the time now allotted by U-Haul’s insurance sharks. It may or may not have happened like that, but it’s a fine memory.
I wanted that journey as an adult. I just wanted that self-sufficiency, and to bond and cement relationships that need not end, play my music loud and watch the road unfold, no hurry or worry.
Life got in the way. Turns out it’s cheaper to hire a moving company. They make life easy, load up your junk, haul it over, unload it too, all for a third the price, and that includes coffee runs, gas and insurance.
Saves us a trip back to the people trap. Saves us a bundle, and time too, and a lot of labour.
Except I was looking forward to that labour because it would have been communal, with those old-fashioned friends of a fading era. And I was looking forward to that last trip back to make some visits with folks who I saw too little of this summer, and I'll see even less of them now.
But you gotta move forward, backward never as Kwame Nkrumah said. Life moves forward fast, and it still gets in the way.
[Post-script: the moving company screwed us too. They underestimated the weight of our stuff based on our description of it. Bottom line, the price tripled, so it's about the same as U-haul would have cost.
I may still be back in the Toronto area at Thanksgiving. Our good friend Kerty is getting married. Miia can't take the time off work but I may yet be able to make it.]
-CB
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2 comments:
Hey-that's totally what happened to us on our move!!! We got majorly screwed by the moving company...wonder whether it's the same folks?? I can't remember their name now but Drew will take their name to the grave he was so mad.
Congrats on the move!!
Hey Amanda,
This was a Halifax company, so probably not the same one. I think the whole industry's kind of a rip off.
Thanks for the congrats, we're settling in and we love it here. Come vist.
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