I am not immune to the recent foreclosure crisis. I had to move about four years ago because the owners of the house I was living in went into foreclosure, and here in 2012 it has happened again. One benefit of having a relatively recent move is that I remembered some things from four years ago that, in theory, would make this week’s move go more smoothly.
After my last move, I spent my first night in my new house sleeping on a beach towel. I own a beach towel? Yes, but it has never seen the beach. I bought it for situations when I need to lie down, say sick with the flu, but I don’t feel like showering, which I would have to do if I crawled under the covers. It came in very handy when the movers were unable to hook up the washer and dryer that first day back in 2008. Since I could not wash my bedclothes, I took my shower and crawled onto my towel which was stretched out on the bare mattress. And there I tossed and turned all night, shivering and trying not to let so much as a toe off that towel and onto the exposed mattress. An unpleasant night indeed.
I was not going to have a repeat of that experience, so one of the first things I had the movers check this time was that the washer and dryer worked properly. And they did. Clever me! I averted disaster.
It was such a long day transporting car load after car load of belongings and arranging them in some semblance of order. I was running on three hours of sleep and it was 3:00 the next morning before I decided I could finally climb into the shower and wash off the grime from the day. I opened the shower door and looked for the lever to switch from bath to shower. Where was the lever? Where was the lever?! I turned on the water hoping that it would somehow provide the answer. No answer. I have been in hotels where the handle was pulled out to switch to shower, so I tried that. It would not budge. I looked and looked; I tried moving, pushing, and pulling anything that appeared that it would do so – to no avail. After about ten minutes, I burst into tears. What else could I do? And these were not pretty little tears. I cried until my entire face was red and my eyes were swollen. Then I washed my hands and arms (as high up as I could go) in the sink, and went back to my bedroom and pulled out the beach towel. There was my nice, clean bed, and I could not get in it. I stretched out the towel at the foot of the bed and climbed onto it. Another restless night, shivering and huddling on the towel, waking every few minutes and looking at the clock.
I hate moving.