What a weekend!

As you may be aware, this past Sunday was spent by my girlfriend and me moving our furniture out of the apartment. I have been dreading this day for a few weeks now for a few reasons. The first being the daunting task that moving is. Last year we did not finish until nearly midnight and I almost died in the process going up and down three flights of stairs as many times as I did. The second reason is that it means living with her parents is inescapable at this point.

With the Sunday that I knew I would have, I wanted to have a decent Saturday, getting things accomplished without too much hassle.

Yeah. That didn't happen.

Early Saturday morning, I took my car to Pep Boys for some routine work. I needed quite a few things done, the most important of which being new brakes. I got there around 8 AM and most of it was done fairly quickly. I was told by Joe (who is a really nice guy and there every time I bring my car to Pep Boys) that I need new rotors in the front and new drums in the back. The rotors they had in stock but the drums they had to order, and it would take a couple hours to receive them.

No problem. The front brakes were most necessary to stop the violent shaking that occurred when I brake from anything over 30 MPH. I tell him to change those, but that I will bring my car in next Saturday (which is Free Comic Book day, by the way) and have the drums changed then.

This exchanged occurred around 10 AM. Thankfully, I brought my DS and Pokemon Platinum with me, knowing that I would be there for a good three hours.

At around 1 PM, my car is done.

Five hours to fix my car and it isn't even finished. Now, I can't really complain because it's driving much better. And to be honest, they never gave me a time estimate on when it will be completed. I expected three hours, I got five. It is what it is.

At this point I wanted to get home and pack up some more shit and move some boxes to our storage unit. What I came home to was my girlfriend's best friend, high on Ecstasy and drinking straight Bacardi.

At 2 in the afternoon. What the fuck is this?

I just left, knowing that boxes in the storage unit needed to be rearranged. I head over there and spend a couple of hours making room for our furniture. By the time I get back, my girlfriend had kicked her friend in the ass and gotten her to pitch in a little. We start packing up boxes and make a couple trips to both the storage unit and my girlfriend's parents house.

The night goes smoothly and we eventually go to sleep.

Which brings us to Sunday.

For the most part, Sunday wasn't too bad. Everyone got to our place around 10 AM and we packed up the truck with crap going to the storage unit fairly quickly. We get there, unload, and decide to go to lunch. Two of our party decide to go home saying they have some things to do. We tell them we will call when we finish lunch and they say they will meet us back at the apartment.

After lunch, they say something came up and they can't make it back. OK. No problem. Not like we were paying them or anything. Whatever help they gave us was appreciated.

We get back to the apartment and learn that our entertainment center will not pass through the stairwell, forcing us to take it apart and load it piece by piece into the truck. We do that, run into very few other wrinkles and bring everything to the house.

Let me tell you something about Ikea furniture. Getting them apart is one of the simplest things in life. Putting them together is a bitch and a half.

It took us about an hour to get the entertainment center back together, and it only took that long because my girlfriend's uncle was at the house installing cabinets and he had a nail gun with him. If it wasn't for him, that piece of shit would be sitting outside on the curb now.

We get the rest of the furniture in but I needed a couple of pieces to attach. Not having very good light in our room, I ask Uncle for his flashlight. He tells me to be careful because what he has is a flashlight/pepper spray dispenser.

Guess which button I pushed?

Wondering why the light isn't working, I steady it on my hand, hold the button, and get a yellow brown stream of liquid against my hand. Pepper spray splashed on my arms and wafted up to my face, causing an uncomfortable sting. Unfortunately my friends who helped us move were standing in the room and received the same uncomfortable sting. What a way to thank them for their hard work, huh? "I appreciate your help, guys. Have some pepper spray."

That was about the end of the day. Twelve hour after starting, we called it a wrap. My girlfriend and I spent the night in our empty apartment with our cat and had a decent nights sleep in quite a while. Even though we have more work to do, I'm not worrying about it too much. We have the next four days to take care of things.