Saturday, May 30, 2009

Stealth Moving

I bought my ticket for Thursday, May 28th, Dulles to Doha to Sana'a. I had a week to prepare, which i thought would take approximately one hour. How hard is it to pack for a summer in Yemen? A few loose shirts, some sunscreen, some deodorant. One afternoon, max.

But then I heard that my landlord's "mutually beneficial" summer arrangement was not going to be so mutually beneficial. I thought he meant that his kitchen repairs, during which I would not be charged rent, would take 2 - 3 months. He thought that they would take 2 - 3 weeks and I would pay for the remainder of the summer. This is not mutually beneficial. There are many, many other things I can do with $2500.

I let him know on Thursday that I'd be out in a week. We planned a Big Packing and Moving Day on Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday we rented a studio-sized UHaul and drove it up to the back of my first-floor apartment. My strong father began loading the biggest boxes into the UHaul using a very big, very practical dolly while my mother and I continued to pack or discard those random things that you tend to accumulate no matter how long you've lived in a place: random coasters, shoes that don't really fit, papers from five years ago that have somehow survived two previous moves.

Then there was a knock on the door. We opened it to find the very nice Sunday desk clerk with an apologetic smile. There's a policy against moving out on the weekends.

Us: What?
Her: Yes, there's a policy against moving on Sundays. I'm so sorry.
Us: Well...ok, we can just move tomorrow.
Her: ...but it's Memorial day which means that there won't be anyone at the desk, so you can't move out then, either.
Us: But we rented this truck and if we don't turn it in Monday by 3 PM, we'll get charged for an extra day.
Her: Well, um...did you schedule the move out with the front desk?
Us: ...no. Were we supposed to?
Her: Your landlord didn't tell you that?
Us: No...
Her: Oh, dear. Yes, you're supposed to schedule it so that they can put the padding up in the elevator.
Us: Oh! Well we're not using the elevator!
Her: Hmm, well, I'm not looking, but some people here care a lot about the rules, so ... just be careful. There's a fine if you move out on weekends or when there's no one at the desk.
Us: So we should move the truck?
Her: Well, I don't think the truck matters, but you shouldn't use the dolly. So, don't move boxes or furniture.
Us: What about suitcases and bags?
Her: That's ok, just no boxes or furniture.

Se we walked down to Astor Mediterranean and got some kebab. It was unacceptable to keep the truck longer than a day. And it was a stupid rule that we didn't mind breaking, but for the fine. We'd have to wait at least until the front desk lady left that night since she'd already warned us. What time during Memorial Day weekend was the quietest? Sunday night? Monday morning? So we came up with a plan: early morning, Memorial Day, we'd drive the truck up, pack it up as quickly as possible, and take off before anyone was awake. Meanwhile, on Sunday night we nonchalantly took out some pieces of furniture and bags of pillows, 30 minutes apart, just as casually as you'd please so no one would suspect, but this eventually seemed fruitless, painfully slow, and ultimately silly.

At 7 am the next day, four of us arrived with two thermoses of coffee, a little orange juice, a baguette, some butter and jam. The boys tackled the heaviest things first and wheeled them down the hall, down the stairs, through two heavy doors, up the stairs, across the parking lot, and into the UHaul. One of these doors sets off an alarm if it's open longer than 15 seconds. The other is at the bottom of a u-shaped staircase. They did it in absolute silence...well, practically. It wasn't until about 8:45 that we saw someone else up and around, packing their kids into the SUV for a beach trip. By then, we'd loaded up the vital things, the things for which we really needed the truck, so if anyone caught us we could feign ignorance, drive off, and come back later with the Corolla.

We finished just as the morning started to get going, around 9:45. As the garbage truck backed into the alley, we pulled out of it. The holiday morning crowds were just getting out of bed and out to Starbucks. Victory!

Unloading was not nearly so hard. We were done by noon, returned the truck, and never really told the superintendent that we were, or had, moved out. I'll leave that to my landlord, who should have told me about the no moving policy in the first place.