This past weekend I had only one day off. That day also happened to be the day I was moving into my new apartment. Lucky me.

Because the only truck owning friend I had was out of town, I had the fortunate “choice” to get a U-haul truck. One thing (that I am ashamed to admit) is that I have a terribly phobia of using the phone. Dialing phone numbers sets my to trembles. I don’t know why…that’s just the way it is. So, as one might imagine, I was relieved to discover that u-haul has a reservation maker online. I made mine for 9am for a total of 5 hours. Later that night I received the confirmation phone call (where they butchered my name as per usual), which confirmed my pickup the for Sunday.

My new apartment has central air; my old does not. I was happy to be moving. I had been packing for months. Everything was prepared. So when Sunday came, my boyfriend and I walked the 3 blocks to the Lombardy St. U-haul center we had made the reservations at. We waited 15 minutes in line for a slow employee to ring up the one customer in front of me, only for her to tell us that “Oh, you can’t pick up your truck here. You have a reservation to pick it up at the Boulevard U-haul center.“
“No, I’m pretty positive we made for here.“
“They should have called you and let you know the nearest location with an available truck.“
“They only confirmed that I was picking it up today…is there any way we can transfer that reservation to here?“
“mmmm…...nooo.“

So after walking back home to pick up my car, we drove to the Boulevard U-haul. As we walked into the tiny office, we interrupted a woman on a rant about how she had been going back and forth between U-hauls this morning. She was furious that she had to drive all the way to this center, when she lived in Southside. THEN…oh boy…The employee showed her truck. She exploded. Apparently she had ordered a 10’; they gave her a 14’. At the time this didn’t make sense to me as to why she would be so upset. Its wasn’t as if she couldn’t fit all her stuff in; they obviously weren’t going to make her pay the difference for the truck and probably would compensate her for part of the gas. She was getting the best of them (or so I thought). Her tirade went for 45 minutes. It just doesn’t make sense to me people that get angry at employees. Her day was ruined, so she felt it was her duty to ruin the employee’s day, my day, and another customer that came in after me. (Plus, she probably had the ugliest jeans I have ever seen on.) So for 45 minutes this woman ranted, plus an extra 20 minutes for them to attach a car pull along to the truck, we waited. We entertained ourselves by learning to juggle twine, playing “guns” with tape dispensers, reading all the pamphlets in the office, and wondering why the other employee (that looked like a goblin) wasn’t helping us.

When the employee eventually came back inside, he told us our reservation was for 12.
“No we made it for nine. We also made it for the Lombardy U-haul.“
He just gave it to us at that point.

So, finally we got our U-haul. Then I understood why she was complaining about getting a 14’. Driving large trucks is terrifying. I drove 20 mph the entire time, frustrating cars behind me. No way was I going to risk getting in an accident after I had decided not to pay they $28 fee to get insurance. Moving out is exhausting (as one might suspect) and I have decided I am never going to move couches again.

I am also never going to use U-haul again.