My Wednesday

Wednesday morning, I pulled into a super-scary neighborhood to see five thugs standing next door to the house I was to show. They all sported super-frowny tough-guy looks and two of them had baseball bats. And even better! They were staring at me. Dee and her pals were nowhere to be found, so I skedaddled and called Marty, to give him my address. "These guys look rough," I said, hoping I was downplaying my concern.

I drove around for another 5 minutes, hoping Dee and Co. would show up and the thugs would leave. By the time Dee and I met up the dudes were gone--which was fine by me. Dee's felons were gracious as always. There's a new one, who isn't used to talking with "outside" people just yet and was a bit shy. When we all left this home and caravaned  to the next one, he accidentally mistook my car for Dee's and jumped in. Mortified, he jumped back out and then spent a really embarrassingly long and unnecessary amount of time apologizing for an innocent mistake.

Anyway, at the second house, Jane called. I thought she had taken off that morning, but nope. She hadn't. And could I please drop everything I was doing and come over to help her? An hour later I was on her doorstep, where I chatted up her movers and negotiated peace treaties between her and Mr. Jane over whether or not to take the ancient (and ugly) rug she hated and the ancient vacuum Mr. Jane just loved. There were other loving chats between these two as well, you know, the way couples who have been married 30 years talk on moving day, when stress is forefront and love is not.

I also helped her empty a closet she had missed, vacuumed a room (with the ancient vacuum) and promised her everything she decided to leave behind--except the rug--I would personally take to Goodwill. I also gave her dogs treats, to help calm them down, because they were a bit tired of all the action. Then I took her to Starbucks and ran interference for her and her 80 year old father who stopped over for the third time that day just to say "hi."

Jane and Mr. Jane managed to get on the road around 3:30 (with her dad keeping her there longer, poor guy). Mr. and Mrs. Jane made it to the first stop in their journey Friday night, which was to Vegas to see their daughter, who is in medical school. Jane reported to me on Thursday that all was good with her and Mr. Jane. This was their 20th move, and most of their moves Mr. Jane has been deployed, so he didn't "understand" how things were done, which I think translates to, "why he didn't understand there was no way that rug was getting into that Uhaul."