Life in the moving lane isn't pretty; never has been - never will be. Moving seems to bring out the absolute WORSE in people. That is unless you are fortunate enough to have a moving company, cleaning company, painting company do all for you while you hire a therapist to coach you and the rest of your family through the ordeal!
I thought my own mother was a major hoarder until I finally hired a team of excavators and tore through my oldest daughters room to "purge" the old in order to make room for the more over-priced crap *stuff* I would fill her room with in the new house.
OH.... MA..... GOD!!!!
Nothing prepared me for the stuff that child can hoard at a ripe old age of..... twelve!
I think there is definitely a problem when I child has issues with throwing away candy they obtained from Halloween.... 2 freaking years ago! How do I know it was from 2 years ago? Cause it was the candy WE handed out - THAT'S how I know!
Yes, we mothers have an uncanny ability to remember what we handed out for Halloween like, when our kids were 1! So two years ago is like yesterday to us.
And please explain to me why this same daughter wants to hold onto homework from a math class she completely loathed in 5th grade. She's going into the 7th, so that's another blast-from-the-past of two years ago.
All the while I'm trying to purge and clean her room for the move, she's screaming... literally screaming at me NOT to touch anything.
"Oh excuse me! I didn't know these 'things' were destined for the Smithsonian Institution!"
And exactly HOW long did she plan on holding on to that small box of garbage in the back of her closet that I have been screaming back at her to throw away for a year!
You get the picture.
Now Nia and Toni share a room, and everything in their room has been packed up and put away for the move. That is except for their mattresses, and few toys, and a small collection of clothes they will need during this most neck choking pleasant transition our lives.
Will someone please tell me how two little girls; ages 5 and 9, can completely destroy a room with just a few Barbies, a few clothes/shoes, and some sleeping material.
Well, in my world - if there is a stinking way, those two will find it!
With as little as those two have in their possessions, they managed to completely clutter a room to the point that no one could get through the door, and it looked as if it filled the bedroom halfway up the walls.
I got desperate on this issue. Between the hoarding and the chaos, EVERYTHING got packed up except for bare minimum and I moved all their mattresses into my bedroom and freaking dared them to touch anything in my room!
So far.... so good.
You noticed I'm talking much about my oldest son here as God blessed him with the "Thou shalt keep thy things clean or thy mother will enter thy insane asylum because she can't handle all four children being pigs.", gene.
That poor boy has been running around doing packing, moving, and cleaning along with the hubs and I, while those girls run around beating the crap out of each and fighting over whose piece of broken jewelry they found in the corner of a closet belongs to who!
It's enough to put me IN that insane asylum!
Did I mention that my oldest daughter had her phone lost/stolen less than a week after we bought it for her? No? You know this could only happen in my house you know.
She lost it, and I have spent three hours on Saturday and seven hours today (on top of all the lovely activities I am already involved in), haggling with the "warranty" company that "promised" (Bawhahahhahahaha), to replace said lost/stolen phone.
Well, it didn't exactly go as promised cause the AT&T guy that set up the phone for the hubs entered practically EVERY-BLOODY-THING wrong on the account. This involved me spending two weeks of this past month with an AT&T rep getting a $519 bill down to $190 cause "Mr. Ford" at Planet Wireless Services completely screwed up the hubs existing plan and charged full price for a phone that was suppose to be on a $9.99 Family Talk Plan.
I got the bill straightened out, but then came time to file the claim with the warranty company the hubs signed on with when he got the phone. "Mr. Ford" managed to mess that up as well by NOT entering the credit card info correctly. He *forgot* some numbers (????). When it came time to auto-charge the card for the warranty, it was denied of course. Well that completely screwed two days of my life for his "forgetfulness".
It took four sales reps (including "Mr. Ford"), two very loud and very firm phone conversations from me IN the middle of a store full of customers, nine hours, two days, a half bottle of Pinot Nior somewhere in there, a few attempts at snorting chocolate cause I couldn't eat it fast enough, but finally they decided to honor the claim.
Oh, I forgot to mention that the warranty company wanted a claim filed with the police department for a lost phone. I cannot tell you how many cops were laughing at me at the police department because this warranty company insisted I get a report for a *Lost* phone.
I'm so glad I'm moving now.
By the way; Terry, the manager of Planet Wireless Services, an authorized AT&T retailer (I say with deep sarcasm), was of NO HELP WHAT-SO-EVER.
As I sat there for seven hours today with Megan, a sales rep, he never once offered to help, offer a suggestion, apologize for his STUPID employees incompetence, or tell me where the bathroom was after five cups of coffee finally hit the bladder with a loud ka-THUNK!
Megan started sharing her lunch and snacks as the day went on. She handled it all with a cool calmness and let me do the wigging out for both of us. She was truly a gem through it all. When I went on my rant with the warranty company, she was cheering me on in front of her manager in her quiet demeanor. God I wish I could be her!
It was HER that told Terry that he owned ME something for all my trouble. It was HER who forced the manager to fork over the enrollment fee that I got double billed for. It was HER that forced the manager to give me a free case for the phone that will now be MINE and NOT Nadia's because I have learned my lesson about letting my 12 year old daughter have her own "super cool" purple phone.
I get the super cool purple phone now and she is gonna get a cheap Go Phone where she can pay as she goes and lose if she wants, and I won't ever have to go through this again.
Notice I'm doing a lot of yelling here because you know my history with cell phone companies, LOL! They just drive me nuts, and right now is not a good time to drive me nuttier than I already am.
Well, I still have a few kitchen cabinet doors that need a final coat put on them. Tomorrow I'll be sanitizing and vacuuming till what brain cells I have left fall out of my ears, and my sinuses are extra full of dust bunnies leaving me to sneeze what brains I will have left after all this.
Next time we meet, it will be from the greater state of Ala-BAM-a.
