Packing Day

Today was packing day and Jenny's find-and-buy-huge-bulky-things-while-I-have-the-U-Haul day. That is, the only time the Jenny could conveniently buy a couch, table, or chairs from Craigslist is when she has a large vehicle to pick them up in. She had all the couches and garage sales picked out ahead of time, and early Saturday morning we picked up her U-Haul truck (somewhat smaller than the one shown here).
Then it was off to the garage sales. Here's Jenny parking it in a tight spot five minutes after she got it. It wasn't pretty.

The first garage sale had a dresser that she wanted, but as we pulled up someone else was carrying it away. The second had a couch and chair. She was on the fence about it, but just when she decided it would work, someone else said "I'll take it."

The next couch from craigslist had many people interested in it. It was 50 minutes away, and the owners wouldn't be home until 12:30. We'd been invited to a Dim Sum meal at a great restaurant with several of Jenny's best friends at 11, so we went there early, and were just finishing up when everyone else arrived.
We also realized that we hadn't gotten the dolly that came with truck, so we picked that up.
Jenny and I then headed off to nab this couch, and located it in a new subdivision in the middle of nowhere.

The couch was a large one with recliners on each end. A matching loveseat was thrown in for free because it was broken. Jenny also got a dining room table with free chairs (because the dogs had chewed on the legs), and bargained the seller down to $115. The couches look great, and I'll post pictures of them in a later post. I'm sitting in the loveseat now, which I fixed by tightening two bolts that had come loose.

Getting it out of the the house and into the U-Haul was a bear, since these things are heavy. It barely fit through the door.

Next we went down into the garage to get the kitchen chairs. There we found a mud encrusted, smelly, basketball-sized snapping turtle that had somehow gained entry or been put there. Picture this one covered in dried mud.



I tried picking it up by grabbing the sides of the shell, but it had very sharp claws that it raked against my fingers. Anyway, we confirmed that the smell was coming from the turtle and not the chairs, loaded up, and headed off to buy a bureau. In the course of a few hours she had a couch, loveseat, table, chairs and bureau for a total expenditure of $175.

Now to get all this stuff into the truck. U-haul has nice tidy diagrams showing how the different sized boxes fit on top of one another and they all fit neatly into the truck, like a Rubic's cube.

In the real world, however, things come in all different shapes and sizes, so fitting them in efficiently can be a struggle. At this point, we weren't sure everything would fit.

Jenny put together a scrounge meal, partly in an attempt to use up as much remaining food as possible. I tried valiently to reduce the supply of booze, but had to admit defeat after a while. The Bailey's Irish Cream was the best.

We were exhausted by evening. Since we had to pack Jenny's bed, it meant pulling out and inflating our airbed. When I finally collapsed onto it, I realized that it was partially deflated. That is, it had a new leak!

I don't understand what is causing these pinprick leaks. Before we use the airbed again, I'm going to buy something to put under it to protect it.

It took me 30 minutes to find the leak, and repair it. Then we had to wait another 30 minutes for the glue to cure, but we finally passed out, ready for the final packing and the drive to Kansas City tomorrow.