Pack Rats

It was one of those days.

Last Friday, I was supposed to see some folks in New York. They wanted a couple of boxes, so I went to get them over in our warehouse and when I climbed out of the van, I unknowingly jettisoned my cellphone in the parking lot and drove off. One of the guys picked it up and carried it back in the office right around the time the customer called to reschedule his appointment because his wife was sick. So I drove an hour and 40 minutes to deliver five boxes to a guy and reschedule the appointment for today. I asked him if I could just come and see everything BUT the room she was in. He said no.

Now I know why.

I went today, it was a lovely day to drive out, and an hour and 45 minutes later I was questioning my career path. Why? I'll let my notes to the corporate agent explain.

All upstairs bedrooms were impassable; two rooms consist of a giant heap of
plastic trash bags full of yarn and various craft materials, sometimes with
furniture and other items underneath. I could not survey one closet in one of
the bedrooms because approximately 2000# of stuff barred the door, but I figured
a number of cartons for that space. The bedroom has a 2 ft aisle that enables
one to get into the bed but the rest of the room has about a 40 cu. ft pile of
plastic bags. There was a whole corner of that room I could not see because I
couldn't climb over the piles. Third bedroom was also impassable. The basement
had five large areas of stuff, there is an office and workshop in the basement
and another workshop in the garage, lots of tools. Attic storage above
garage was guesstimated because it was a pulldown stair and shipper's wife was
not able to climb above the second step. Sun porch is impassable. Two sheds
aren't too bad but they are both full. Garage is full. Some of the bedrooms will
need 10-20 boxes packed just to be able to get inside the room and see the
furniture underneath. Customers hoard recyclable glass. I gently suggested
they recycle it before they go.

I also gently explained to them, wearing my firefighter hat for a minute, that if they have a fire when they are sleeping, they will probably die. Okay, so I didn't say it like that. But I got the message across.

I stopped for some lunch afterward and, of course, because I'm wearing a very nice blouse that hasn't been out of the closet yet this spring, I dribbled duck sauce all over myself and necessitated a trip across the parking lot to Walleyworld for a Tide stain-stick thingy.

Can't Wal-Mart have a bathroom somewhere in the store (I'd even hike to the back) that is just for grownups? I've not yet mastered the toilet-yoga that enables me to do what I have to do without baptizing my nethers with automatically flushing PUBLIC TOILET WATER eight times, and this time I got to listen to the dulcet tones of a four year old boy named Dustin SCREAMING HIS FOOL HEAD OFF because his mother had the audacity to claim that he, in her words, 'messed hisself' and he said NO HE DIDN'T despite the distinct odor and appearance of errant poop on his clothes. The rest of my visit there did little to convince me that 89% of human reproduction is a good idea. I finally found my Tide thingy and beat feet to the car, where I spent ten minutes scrubbing peachy stains off my bosom. It mostly worked.

Apparently the Dodge Caravan is not designed to be driven at 70 MPH with the windows down. Unless you want to spend the better part of the drive lightly coated in dismembered bug particles. I have to do one more survey after hours because its a rush job, but at least its close to home.

I think I'll change my shirt first.



Darn it! My sister in law is screaming up the charts over at Humor Blogs. Are we going to let her get away with it?