Guest Contributor
You know you’ve had one hell of a move when your license plate is being held together by packing tape and the only ‘valuable’ you insisted on taking in the car was a BIG bottle of gin. I wish I was joking.
It all started back in March, that delightful time of year when the posting messages come out. Are we going to Cold Lake, Goose Bay, maybe Gagetown? I have come to call it, ‘pin the tail on the posting’ season. But this year I’ve decided to call it ‘pull the pin on the posting’ season, cause this one’s been a doozie. It’s like we entered the Bermuda Triangle of posting seasons.
We started out with a notice that Halifax, Nova Scotia will be our next pit stop on the military race track. Now as any good military spouse will tell you, there’s always got to be a ‘catch’, a little curveball fate likes to throw into the mix just to keep you on your toes. This posting, hubby was going to be on a six week course out of the country for all of June into July – prime time in posting season. Not the ideal situation, but manageable. Oh how wrong I was.
With our house still on the market hubby departed with a kiss on the cheek at the start of June. Well he tried to depart but base transport got his request wrong which meant me making the four hour round trip to the airport so he could depart. This should have been the omen of what was to come. Or maybe arriving home from the panicked departure to dog vomit on the couch was the omen, or waking up the next morning with my back seized up so tight I couldn’t get our of bed was the omen, or that I had to call my mom and get her to drive five hours to come and take care of me, the sick puppy and show the unsold house for a week was it! Or perhaps it was the next bit of news: both cars needed major repairs in a two week span? I kept thinking ‘it’ll be fine, it’s just a little glitch before the move, it’s totally normal’…and then, the act of God happened.
For the first time in 10 years of moving we actually had a pre-pack day booked and that’s exactly when Mother Nature decided to hit us with the curveball, and the fastball, and the slider all at once. With summer storms a plenty it wasn’t surprising that we had some ominous looking skies while the pre-pack was underway. What was surprising was the tornado warning that forced me, the packers and the puppy into the box filled basement while all hell broke loose outside. Ten minutes of ‘Oz’ worthy wind later we emerged from the basement to find a third of the shingles gone from our sold in three days roof, all the empty boxes the packers put in the garage soaked with water, the entire neighborhoods garbage strewn in the streets and our sold sign, gone. I will admit that my third unanswered message on hubby’s cell phone may have sounded a bit on the over exaggerated/hysterical side “for the love of all things holy the roof is gone, pick up your damn phone!”. When hubby finally did call from the work BBQ he was at (don’t even get me started), I told him to bring some ruby slippers home cause ‘Dorothy and Toto need help!’. No power for three days leading up to your pack/load can be a bit of a hassle…no power, no roof, no working air-conditioning in the car you’re about to drive cross-country in July with a 10 month old, just neutered, still hyper pug…um…lets just say hassle was not the word I was using most.
This was the most expensive move so far and we still hadn’t got out of the damn driveway yet! I believe the piece-de-resistance was when my cell phone decided now was the time to go berserk. Yes, the only cell phone we have, the one that the lawyers, the realtors, the movers, the military are relying on to contact us, has gone full blown crazy coo-coo! Every time I try to type a letter it jumps to the camera, at one point I had twelve pictures of the floor in our hotel room. So as I sit typing this to you from hotel number four, I am hopeful that we’re finally out of the ‘Bermuda Posting Triangle’ cause hubby’s starting to twitch every time I ask ‘when can you retire?’.
By Laura Earl
