April 29, 2005
This move didn't go very well for me. Don't get me wrong; I'm glad I'm here and I like my job. It was just the process of getting here that sucked.
As always happens when I move, I rented a U-Haul truck. I'm pretty careful about driving them around, since you could fit about half a dozen of my Honda in the cargo area. This time I wasn't careful enough. I clipped a truck turning from Penn Circle onto Highland Avenue without knowing it. A City cop tracked me down (I was kinda hard to miss, what with the big orange truck and all) and told me to go back and exchange information.
Except the guy hadn't stuck around. I wandered around the Home Despot parking lot, and looked in the Goodyear lot across the street and couldn't find him or his truck. I wound up driving my car over to the Zone 4 station and leaving my contact information. I haven't heard anything since then, so I guess the U-Haul insurance I bought took care of it. Best $40 I ever spent, if that's the case.
(I'll have you all know that, contrary to what people may say about my driving ability, this is the first accident I've been involved in that was my fault.)
The drive to Centreville was uneventful, except for the part where the truck lost the ability to climb hills or exceed 50 MPH. That was fun, I tell you. The guy at the U-Haul place in Manassas was all over the need to examine the engine: "It could need work, or it may just be a piece of shit." Slow down there, buddy; no need to get technical.
On the minor-annoyances front, I managed to not notice the large notice on the side of the truck warning about the overhang over the driver's door. Stepping up into a large metal object is only a good idea if you're Mario or Luigi. I also managed to spend $103 on gas as I was returning it, requiring two credit-card authorizations. Do you have any idea how long it takes to pump that much gas?
I also managed to make Htet Htet and Cory late for an appointment by driving from Centreville to Manassas in the middle of rush hour, turning what would have been a 45-minute round trip into a 90-minute excursion. The fact that the Pittsburgh U-Haul gus wrote the wrong mileage down for my truck, thus making it appear to lose a few thousand miles, didn't help any. Though the same guy did make me chuckle when he asked, "can I keep a copy of your papers? I need to make sure someone in Pittsburgh has a bad day."
And that was just the moving part of the program. WHen you change states there's a bunch of other stuff you have to do. Which, looking at how long this has gotten, will be in its own entry.
Coming soon: How the DMV and my stupidity tag-teamed to ruin my Saturday.
