Moving on Up

So Natalie and I moved into our new apartment this past Labor Day weekend.

As should be expected, all able-bodied friends were out of town or otherwise disposed. So this left the two of us to move. We arrived at the U-Haul place to pick up our truck at noon on Saturday. As we walked in, one of the employees in the parking lot warned us that there was “a long line in there.” We had no idea. The line weaved through piles of boxes and moving supplies—all the way around the room's perimeter. It was about 30 people deep. The people near the front of the line looked haggard and broken—like refugees. Word came back that some of them had been there for upwards of two hours.

So we waited…

Two and a half hours later, we had a truck. Luckily, we found a spot on the street outside of Natalie’s place and began the grueling process of unloading her apartment—a third floor walk-up. Once loaded up, we grabbed a quick bite and headed to the new place. I carefully guided the ten foot truck into the alley behind the building and we began the grueling process of making runs into the new apartment—a third floor walk-up. Once we unloaded the truck, I went to grab my keys, phone, and wallet off of the kitchen counter. Unfortunately, my phone (MiPhone) was nowhere to be found. That’s right; while we were doing runs from the truck to the apartment, someone brazenly walked into the building (through the propped-open door) and up into our apartment. I examined my wallet and found that my driver’s license and gym card had been taken. All of my credit cards were left behind. Bizarre. The crazy thing is that we think we saw the guy. As we were hauling something up, we heard someone coming. Not knowing whether he was a tenant or not, we excused ourselves. He ignored us and ducked into another unit’s corridor where he fake-fielded a cell phone call. This may have given him an opportunity to time how long it took us to do a run from the truck to the apartment—thus telling him how much time he would have to get in and out of our place. Later, we spoke to another one of the buildings tenants who—around the same time—had a guy come walking into her apartment. Scary.

So we continued on—over to my place where we unloaded my stuff into the truck and—later (as the sun set)—loaded it into the new building. We found a spot for the truck on the street and hit the sack.

The next day, when we went to return the truck, we saw even more desperate U-Haul patrons in a line that matched the one from the day before. We felt for them.

On Monday (after picking up a new iPhone [resulting in a new $20 monthly charge for joining the 3G network]), I helped my roommate—who was under the gun after returning from business travel—move his stuff out of our old place (and into Natalie’s old place). Before dinner, a DC police officer stopped by to take a report on the theft.

In the end… our place looks great!