April 16, 2003

• Moving.

  
  

  After moving 30 times in 40 years, I can truly say - there is nothing worse than moving with a toddler and a 7 week old babe. Add to this potent mixture, the kind of dark 'bad luck' cloud that follows me around (think: Pigpen's dirt cloud, but make my cloud the kind of miasmic force that sucks all the smiles out of people around you and drives you to the vodka bottle at 10am), and a hub who just doesn't get it - and you have the latest life experience of the Stressmagnet.

  
  

  Vignettes from possibly the worst day in my life...

  
  

  Scene #1:

  
  

  Fucketty.

  
  

  So hub decides two weeks before the move that it is all too hard, and coping with packing up his beloved 20 year old Michael Jackson jacket coupled with the youngest Magnet's screaming colic from 5pm - 10pm is not something he wants to experience. But he cleverly hides this under the guise of 'working late' - so I attempt to pack up the entire 3 bedroom house on my own, while juggling wet and pooey nappies and muttering 'that's beautiful' to my toddler's latest attempt to draw a cow. I take revenge by donating said jacket and all other remnants of his 'chick magnet' days to the Salvation Army. Hopefully some other poor sod will have better luck than he had - cos he ain't magnetising any poontang in our house lately.

  
  

  Scene #2

  
  

  The financial arrangements are tricky. We must receive the cheque for our house at the exact same time that we relay said cheque to the person whose house we've bought. We are assured by Hatchetface, Snidemouth and Foghorn (our attornies) that this sort of thing goes on all the time - not to worry. I worry. I worry HEAPS, but am patted fondly on the head by soon-to-be-castrated husband and told to 'be optimistic'. I resist urge to chew his hand off and make him wear it as a hat.

  
  

  Scene #3

  
  

  The movers arrive. I haven't cleaned out the fridge, there are bits and pieces of crap all over the place and the garbage remains festering in the corner of the kitchen. I am throwing out jars of moldy pesto and 3 year old frozen puff pastry and trying to remember how you pack a carton of eggs. (Answer: You don't. You cram them into the garbage and hope someone else picks up the dripping bundle.)

  
  

  Scene #4

  
  

  The movers move us, quickly, efficiently - so efficiently that I am reduced to frantically chucking stuff in boxes as they are being carted out the door. (The baby's bottles? They are in the box marked 'Tools and Chainsaws'). Boxes are being taped up completely unlabelled, and I am writing things like 'Fishing Shit' on them in crayon.

  
  

  Scene #5

  
  

  A phone call from Hatchetface. A one in a million catastrophe has occurred. The taxation office, (to whom we must pay a whopping $16k for the privilege of selling our home) has been flooded and will be accepting no monies. There will be no houses settled in the entire state. Ergo, there will be no cheques exchanged. Further ergo, we have NO FUCKING PLACE TO LIVE. The christian fundamentalist person who owns the home we are about to move into, refuses to let us move in, without a cheque in his hand. Because we might steal his house. Or something. He won't even let us store anything in his garage. I guess he won't know where we live. Or something. The people who are moving into our old place, are on the way. And besides, we've just loaded the beds and the fridge onto the  truck, so unless camping on hardwood floors and eating dust and lint sounds like good parenting practice - we are screwed. The movers have just about got us all ready to go.

  
  

  Scene #6

  
  

  Hub springs into action, busily dialling phone numbers and making lots of air. This gives him an excuse NOT to continue packing. The movers stand around, and spark up a Bob Marley joint. Courtesy of PhoneBoy, who waves merrily at me while his phone is attached to his ear. Uh. Oh.

  
  

  They stand around for 4 hours, toking and smiling, nodding and patting me on the back when I contemplate where I am going to put my babies to sleep that night. My children are hungry, we are now 4 hours behind schedule and the cooler is full of food that requires some sort of cooking. I go out to the corner store and spend my last 5 bucks on a cheese sandwich for the toddler and some juice.

  
  

  Scene #7

  
  

  Mr. Person-Who-Shall-Have-a-Biblical-Plague-of-Boils-Visited-Upon-His-Penis, in christian-like fashion, allows us to  stay in 'our' house if we pay him $100 bucks a night. Up front.

  
  

  Um - did I mention thatwe have no money until  the cheque clears?

  
  

  So I write a rubber cheque. Crossing my fingers that the same God who looks after Mr. BoilPrick will not be looking my way as I use an old invalid cheque book. Hey - screw him. What kind of born-again christian takes advantage of a woman recovering from a nasty c-section with a 3 year old and a 7 week old? Not my God, that's for sure.

  
  

  Scene#8

  
  

  The movers finish unloading at 10pm that night. I have not fed my toddler anything more than crackers and juice in 6 hours. The youngest is sitting in nappies so sodden with whizz that she leaves her own personal patch of swamp everywhere she sits.

  
  

  Scene #9

  
  

  We have no phone. The phone company, despite being booked 4 weeks in advance, has not connected our phone. That's the kind of service that makes telcos here in Oz a bad word. I say a lot of bad words as I contemplate the following:

  
  

  We have no food, no money, no beds in any state of slumber readiness, no way to phone for food and oh yes- no fucking money.

  
  

  Scene #10

  
  

  Here we are in Numptyville, where there has been entirely too much cousin marrying going on, and no one seems to understand that the fence that we paid for, is required in order to let a toddler and Houdini-the-dog out for fresh air. 'Jethro' the fence guy seems more prone to smoking doobies behind the gumtree and scratching his nuts, than putting up a fence. Someone call his wife Lurleen and tell her to come and take him away before I smash him over the head with a banjo and make him squeal like a piggy.

  
  

  Scene #11

  
  

  A week later. The phone has been connected only minutes ago. The cheques all got exchanged, and we are now fully in possession of our own home. It looks like a refugee camp, however - with boxes and mattresses all over the place. It took me six days to find my children's shoes. I still have not found the coffee maker, I suspect it is in a box labelled 'Chainsaws'. I am wearing a University of Toronto sweatshirt in 90 degree heat, with a pair of my hub's soccer shorts. My child is wearing a caftan picked up 20 years ago as a souvenir of Goa. The baby has a case of nappy-rash that should be reported to the World Health Organisation, a direct result of the day she sat in her own pee for 6 hours.

  
  

  Next time, my children will be sedated. Next time I will be sedated. Next time, I will take a vacation in Bali and let someone else do all the worrying and handle all the catastrophes.

  
  

  Wait, maybe there won't be a 'next time'. I can always learn to play the banjo.

  • 1:15 am
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