Today: Moving stuff. On my owwwn.
Storage facilities are strange places. It’s hard to not wonder about what people are storing there, and how many of your fellow clients are involved in organized crime. Or have been on an episode of Hoarders. Or both.
In my professional life, we’ve been dealing with a complete fiasco, relocating our storage units from one facility to another. Now I’m not one to complain (Opposites Day!), but the company we had been working with for the past few years has officially turned awful. I won’t name names, but they used to be called something that rhymes with Schmore-to-Door. And then they were bought by a company that rhymes with U-Shmaul.
Long story short, without our approval, U-Shamaul delivered our pods, locks broken, to the parking lot behind our new facility. Which is located in one of Boston’s less refined neighborhoods, if you will. The new facility called me yesterday and was like, “You might want to come down here.” On crime TV shows, when you get that call, it means the Feds have just arrived and they’re on to you. In real life, it means you need to move thousands of pounds of crap from your old pods, into your new units, while wearing a dress. In 85 degree weather. If yesterday was a musical, it would be called Les Miserables: 2010. And I would play a modern day Cosette, emotionally beaten down by the commercial storage industry.
Four and half hours of unplanned womanual labor later, I was filthy, tired, sweaty and running low on both blood sugar and the will to live. I couldn’t help but admire, however, how well organized our new storage units are, and what an improvement this new place is. It’s almost pleasant there. Almost. Unlike our old place, which smelled only of desperation and old cardboard, this new place smells like a combination of my grandparents’ attic, the cottage our Great Aunt used to rent in Brewster, and the residence hall we stayed in at The Pomfret School for soccer camp in high school. Yes, almost pleasant.
Also On Tap for Today:
- It’s a piglet in red wellies!
- Jeanne finally received her hot sauce 🙂
- Cruisin’ Boston Harbor with Nick
What’s the strangest thing you keep in storage? Or your parents’ basement?
Comments (3)
Stephanie
July 23, 2010 at 7:33 pm
Wow, that sucks that they just dropped all your stuff off like that. Do you have a lot of stuff in storage? Luckily, I have a basement at my apartment that I can store stuff in, but still, I am trying to get rid of things.
Oh, and just noticed your “Races on Tap” on the side. I also ran the New Charles River Run! Well, “ran” isn’t the right description. “Combination jog/walk” would be a better description.
So, cool. I would like to get faster at running…work in progress.
pandabox33
July 24, 2010 at 9:30 am
Oh Cosette ! What an ordeal. Think of it as total body workout. 🙂
I have nothing in storage. Too much trouble. But once upon a time…in my young years…my parents kept my old photoromans (don’t know the english term but it looks like this : http://www.samais.com/photoroman/une-etoile-sur-la-terre-extrait_12.html). And it was Italian translated in French. I bought them at the gas station and I had piles of them.
Jul
July 24, 2010 at 12:17 pm
I think I started to sweat in sympathy reading about your ordeal. That sounded rough!
I don’t think I keep much of anything interesting in storage, but I still haven’t forgiven my parents for downsizing to a condo and thus eliminating my free stateside storage unit. Who wants to lug yearbooks and high school pottery projects from country to country?