I knew today was going to be a rough one when, at 7:45 in the morning, stuck in traffic next to a construction worker who was enthusiastically waving his little orange cone flashlight at me, my sister Christy said the word Fuck. Christy is the good sister. She doesn't drink, doesn't smoke and rarely curses outside of watching hockey or football when, like most Americans, four letter words become just another normal way of expressing frustration.
"For fuck's sake." She all but yells into the phone. She's not really mad at me but she is yelling into my ear, and I admit that at this point it doesn't matter. Two of my sisters and I decided that at the ages of 23-30 we should move in together. My parents cautioned against it and I happen to know theres a betting pool going on in the state of Colorado as to which of us breaks and kills the others first. The smart money at the moment is on me.
This is the second time in a week I have been yelled at by a nearly hysterical sister for pointing out that they forgot to do something. Last Friday it was my sister Coco who accidentally locked her boyfriend and the Ikea bed he was delivering outside of the apartment in Reseda while she was at work some 70 minutes away in Manhattan Beach. This time it was Christy who forgot to leave a check for the movers. It turned out not to matter as the moving company has recently instituted a cash only policy, but in the throws of brutal rush hour traffic, with mr cone yelling directions at me that we're clearly printed on large signs less than five feet from my windshield I confess I let the stress over take me and did the only thing I could think of. I started to cry.
The next part of the saga was decidedly more awkward as I have never had movers before and may or may not have a small amount of trouble letting other people do work I think I'm capable of. Not that you can prove it. Upon reaching the house in Reseda and standing awkwardly around the living room pretending to arrange DVDs on a shelf while the guys lugged all of the furniture and boxes in from their truck, I started to do the only calming thing I could do in our new internetless house. I started to unpack and decide where I want shit to go. Mock all you want but the weird almost God like power of creating my own organization system in an empty space is soothing as shit. When I'm at my most over stimulated or stressed I always wonder where I rank on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes it makes me feel like if you dropped a box of matches on the floor I'd be able you count them before they hit the ground.
I'm noticing as I unpack a frustrating amount of doubles. Any time you combine several lives together you're going to have multiples of something. We, for instance now have three different versions of the first season of Gilmore Girls. The issue is, that the multiples of our non DVD things are starting to give me a bit of an inferiority complex. We have close to a half dozen cans of tuna but the ones I moved over are neither organic or wild caught. The only rational(ish) solution I can think of is to eat them all before anyone notices. We also have enough refrigerator magnets to cover the fridge that we don't have yet, but the cute novelty ones from the exotic places outshine my frankly more practical colored clips for chip bags. They own things like wine glasses and a whole set of kitchen knives. I own a slightly over weight cat who is struggling with a cat nip addiction. Christy and I both packed the postcards we had on our fridge with the magnets we moved. Christy has postcards from six different countries on four different continents. I have a postcard with a Jane Austin quote provided by my English major best friend. Cool as I may find this, the quote is in English and there are no skyscrapers behind it, so I have to figure it doesn't exactly rank with Hong Kong or Columbia.
It will all of course turn out ok. The movers this morning were tattooed and beautiful, my cat has finally come out from under the bed where she's been hiding for days, leaving only to eat and barf in protest on my shoes. I've managed to scrub the layer of film from christys blender that I'm fairly certain she's never used*, and tomorrow a nice man will come while I am at work to install cable so that for the first time in two years I can flip through TV channels when I'm bored. Keep tuned in though, Colorado folks. We have another person moving in at the end of the month.
*Came home today to discover someone had used the blender as a vase for flowers. It was sitting on the counter next to an actual vase. I am trying not to give up on these people...
**Second update. No one seems to be able to put anything in the kitchen back in the drawer where they found it. I may have a brilliant prank involving the can opener and a block of ice planned. "Where's the can opener?" "Have you checked the freezer?"
We really showed those Cocksuckers, didn't we Grandpa?
"For fuck's sake." She all but yells into the phone. She's not really mad at me but she is yelling into my ear, and I admit that at this point it doesn't matter. Two of my sisters and I decided that at the ages of 23-30 we should move in together. My parents cautioned against it and I happen to know theres a betting pool going on in the state of Colorado as to which of us breaks and kills the others first. The smart money at the moment is on me.
This is the second time in a week I have been yelled at by a nearly hysterical sister for pointing out that they forgot to do something. Last Friday it was my sister Coco who accidentally locked her boyfriend and the Ikea bed he was delivering outside of the apartment in Reseda while she was at work some 70 minutes away in Manhattan Beach. This time it was Christy who forgot to leave a check for the movers. It turned out not to matter as the moving company has recently instituted a cash only policy, but in the throws of brutal rush hour traffic, with mr cone yelling directions at me that we're clearly printed on large signs less than five feet from my windshield I confess I let the stress over take me and did the only thing I could think of. I started to cry.
When in doubt, regress
The next part of the saga was decidedly more awkward as I have never had movers before and may or may not have a small amount of trouble letting other people do work I think I'm capable of. Not that you can prove it. Upon reaching the house in Reseda and standing awkwardly around the living room pretending to arrange DVDs on a shelf while the guys lugged all of the furniture and boxes in from their truck, I started to do the only calming thing I could do in our new internetless house. I started to unpack and decide where I want shit to go. Mock all you want but the weird almost God like power of creating my own organization system in an empty space is soothing as shit. When I'm at my most over stimulated or stressed I always wonder where I rank on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes it makes me feel like if you dropped a box of matches on the floor I'd be able you count them before they hit the ground.
I'm noticing as I unpack a frustrating amount of doubles. Any time you combine several lives together you're going to have multiples of something. We, for instance now have three different versions of the first season of Gilmore Girls. The issue is, that the multiples of our non DVD things are starting to give me a bit of an inferiority complex. We have close to a half dozen cans of tuna but the ones I moved over are neither organic or wild caught. The only rational(ish) solution I can think of is to eat them all before anyone notices. We also have enough refrigerator magnets to cover the fridge that we don't have yet, but the cute novelty ones from the exotic places outshine my frankly more practical colored clips for chip bags. They own things like wine glasses and a whole set of kitchen knives. I own a slightly over weight cat who is struggling with a cat nip addiction. Christy and I both packed the postcards we had on our fridge with the magnets we moved. Christy has postcards from six different countries on four different continents. I have a postcard with a Jane Austin quote provided by my English major best friend. Cool as I may find this, the quote is in English and there are no skyscrapers behind it, so I have to figure it doesn't exactly rank with Hong Kong or Columbia.
I believe that's the Chinese symbol for "Inferiority complex"
It will all of course turn out ok. The movers this morning were tattooed and beautiful, my cat has finally come out from under the bed where she's been hiding for days, leaving only to eat and barf in protest on my shoes. I've managed to scrub the layer of film from christys blender that I'm fairly certain she's never used*, and tomorrow a nice man will come while I am at work to install cable so that for the first time in two years I can flip through TV channels when I'm bored. Keep tuned in though, Colorado folks. We have another person moving in at the end of the month.
*Came home today to discover someone had used the blender as a vase for flowers. It was sitting on the counter next to an actual vase. I am trying not to give up on these people...
**Second update. No one seems to be able to put anything in the kitchen back in the drawer where they found it. I may have a brilliant prank involving the can opener and a block of ice planned. "Where's the can opener?" "Have you checked the freezer?"
