Thursday, May 8, 2014

the time a boyfriend helped me move

Shortly after Bill and I met, I decided to move and because Bill was smitten with me (naturally), he offered up his services to help me move.

Now. I had never had a boyfriend to help me move before, so this was exciting. Up until this point, it had always been my dad, my brother and my brother's friends helping me move. They were already on the hook to help me move again this time, so having a boyfriend help was an added bonus.

There are several things to note about this particular move (and you may surmise what you will about how they may or may not have affected the outcome of this moving experience).

1. The weather report was calling for a huge ice storm that week.
2. Bill offered to let me use his dad's truck so I didn't have to rent a U-Haul (score for being thrifty!)
3. Because I had a boyfriend to help, I was under pressure to be on my best behavior.
4. My brother was involved.

Moving was scheduled for Saturday. I had taken Friday off work so I could finish packing and organizing - I was really overwhelmed with this move for some reason and at one point, my mom had called and asked if she and my dad needed to drive up from Charlotte to pack everything up because she was "sick of hearing me cry all the time about moving." Apparently, I had given off the impression that I would pack a box, then sit and cry (ok, so that may have been what actually happened in the weeks leading up to this move). So as you can imagine, I needed that day off work to finish what I had started. Well. That day, it snowed and iced. All.Damn.Day.

I woke up Saturday morning to an ice-capade. What a nightmare. I immediately called my mom (hello! mom in another city to the rescue!)  in hysterics that I was never going to get moved. She alerted my dad that I was already freaking out, and he in turn called my brother and told him to stop by Lowe's to get ice melt on his way to my house. The tree house I was living in had like 15 stairs, so with ice melt on them, there should be no issue getting me moved. If only we had known the ice melted stairs would be the least of our problems on this day. At this point, Lee was doing as he was told and brought some ice melt for my stairs. The friends start showing up, and the boys got to work. By this time, the ice had started melting so everything was wet. Soaking, sopping wet, including the back of Bill's dad's truck. Obviously I hadn't thought about a tarp or anything, and didn't want to ruin any of my blankets, so if anything got wet in the truck, well, that was just what was going to have to happen. (Until my mattress got muddy. Then I realized the err of my ways).

I think the pressure of having a boyfriend helping me move (i mean hello, a boyfriend helping you move is serious! It's like putting a ring on it!) was just too much for both my brother and me to handle. I had to play it cool so Bill would think that if I was this easy going and laid back about moving, then I must be that way about everything else in life and he should definitely lock it down quickly. And Lee had to play it cool because if he went crazy, Bill would judge me for having a crazy brother and would never see me again. And Lee had already been told by my mom not to screw this up for me. Haha.

So anyway, after the second trip in the truck, and a tree house still full of furniture to be moved, my brother decided to ask the most obvious question that I am sure he and all of his friends were wondering: "Meredith, why didn't you rent a UHaul? This is so stupid. It's going to take us 15 trips to get everything moved if we are only using this truck. I am renting you a UHaul." Except I didn't want a UHaul to be rented. I wanted to use Bill's dad's truck. Duh.

Lee had made up his mind my moving process was not going well, or quickly - and it wasn't -  and he was going to take charge. But I didn't want Lee to take charge! I needed to be in charge so Bill would see how great I was at being in charge and coordinating and organizing! So I did what anyone (ok maybe just any Robertson) would do. I flipped my %$#@. I screamed, I cried, and of course I called my mom.

And then I went and locked myself in my car. Nobody could be mean to my feelings if I was locked away in a car. According to Bill, I sat there heaving and crying and he didn't know what in the world was going on. So he went inside. Where he and all the boys stayed,  eating the pizza I had been SO KIND to arrange to be delivered as a thank you for helping me move. My brother apparently stood in the doorway talking crap about me and laughing about what a hysterical woman I was. Bill decided he needed to do something. So he brought me two pieces of pizza. I'm sure he thought I would at least say thank you, come get in the car and talk to me. But instead I rolled the window down - mind you tears are still streaming down my face - just enough for him to slide the pizza in and then I rolled it back up and off he went, back to the treehouse full of boys.

He says the sight he saw when he looked back at me is a sight he won't soon forget: me crying hysterically with a phone in one hand talking to my mom and a piece of pizza in the other.

I honestly don't know what is so memorable about that sight. Hasn't everyone freaked out and eaten pizza at the same time while their brother stood inside talking crap about his sister to her new boyfriend who had offered to help her move?