Darkside Stroll

This was my first morning in our new home. We managed to avoid renting a storage space, for which I am very happy. The downside is that our bedroom is a maze of towering boxes for the time being.

My alarm clock went off at 6 this morning, and I was immediately aware of how quiet the beeping was in this new place. The carpet muffles the sound. Pretty amazing how you notice the little things like that. In the old place, the alarm beeping would ricochet off the hardwood floor straight into my head like a laser.

Anyway, the stories of moving day must be recorded lest they be forgotten for all time. And I also feel like making a list. Activate bullet-points!

• Wife packed up my wallet, cell phone, and car keys, which traveled to our new home a day early, leaving me naked and defenseless.
• Gave our washing machine to the neighbor. Had to move it out of our basement and then carry it back down into his basement.
  
• Also, he agreed to take our couch. Unfortunately, he wanted that in his basement as well. Which, after 15 minutes of rotating, proved fruitless. So we left the couch upside down in his kitchen.
• I succumbed to heat exhaustion shortly thereafter. Couldn't make my body do the things that needed doing, like moving boxes.
• Drove to new location and immediately ran into a bad situation when the moving truck got parked over a large hole in the ground.
• Shortly thereafter, Brent falls into the hole while stepping out of the truck, in what looked like some horrible ankle-wrenching maneuver.
• My wife's father throws a big rock into the hole to make sure no one else steps in it.
• Bee attack! It turns out that the big hole is actually home to several million bees intent on killing us all. John and Brent immediately succumb to bee-stings and everyone runs back into the house. The bees now control much of the airspace in the front yard, which unfortunately contains our U-haul as well as personal effects.
• A solid hour of insect-o-human warfare takes place. The bees and their hive are sprayed with poison, doused with gasoline (and resultant inferno), and then drowned with the garden hose.
• More poison is sprayed, but none of this has any effect. The bees have not gone anywhere. Someone throws an empty can of bug spray at the hive. It lays next to the rock, and the bees swarm over it-- they are clearly taunting us.
• The humans regain control of the moving truck and take it to the other side of the house.
• We move everything inside.

There's now a small lake in the yard, with a boulder and empty bug-spray can sitting in the middle. The smell of scorched grass permeates the scene. It's like the morning after some hellish battle was fought.

They say war is hell, but moving sucks.