Moving Day: the Debacle

Maybe today, finally, I am calmed down enough to tell the story in broad strokes–the tale of how our moving day fell apart and then came together. Sort of.

I will save my most strongly worded language and the most agonizing detail for the site review I will write later today on the moving company’s web site, and perhaps in a letter to the BBB.

Matter of fact, I’ll just keep it short, because my coffee cup is empty and the moon is about to dip below the western horizon, behind Panther Knob, and I want to see that sight through the telescope, since by tomorrow night, the track would have moved enough to miss this twice a conjunction of heaven and our new vantage point from Earth. So out to the porch in my underwear to the telescope to hunker and squint.

So let me sweep the first four human errors under the rug in our dealings with a certain number of hominids and a truck. I’ll just jump right to their Magnum Dopus: they didn’t show up.

The reason: “I’m sorry we can’t reach your house from either end of your road.”

I had told the office person at least a week before that rains had washed out the approach from Terry’s Fork. They tried that way nevertheless, and (DUH) couldn’t reach the house. But the road from Shawsville Pike is way less steep and not in bad shape.

“Why could you not get here from Shawsville Pike” I asked, as the adrenalin surged and my temples throbbed.

“We’re sorry, our trucks (they were bringing two, and five men–despite their name) couldn’t get across the bridge.”

“Wait. You’re telling me you don’t scout the route to your destination for the width and carrying capacity of bridges on the route?”

“No sir, we don’t have that information.”

“You’re a moving company and you don’t have that information!!?”

Deleting a lot of expletives beginning when she told me they would be happy to move us 6 days later instead, I made the remark that I was a forgiving person and a reasonable person, but this was the FIFTH screw-up with this outfit, and I was going to let the public know of my horrible, no good, very bad experience with this Roanoke-based moving company.

And I will do so, hopefully later today, now that I am securely rooted at the new location, no thanks to said company, and cooled off sufficiently to delete subsequent expletives and be as dispassionately accurate, thorough and objective as possible describing the worst single job I have ever experienced by a company that advertises themselves as “professionals.”

I have since found out from several neighbors on Goose Creek that they have driven the largest rental trucks available across that bridge or have had items delivered by similarly large trucks. So we are at a loss to explain why, though we planned everything so carefully, things fell apart.

And to put a happy spin on the story, with the help of our son from Knoxville, my daughter and her husband and two daughters from near Wilmington, and two valiant and uncomplaining neighbors working in the rain all day Saturday, Sunday and half of Monday, with several trips between houses by a U-Haul trailer and a U-Haul 10 foot panel truck (from two disparate locations) we got under roof.

We are still moving in.