The Straight Gouge
I'm holding it together pretty well. Maybe you don't know this about me, but I'm kind of a worrier...I have a hard time believing that things are going to work out for the best. A pessimist, let's just be honest here. It's a bit of hard work being such a drudge, I assure you.
My husband, on the other hand, while not exactly being a bright-eyed optimist, believes that things will always work out. He never worries. I swear to you...the house could be burning down and he'd just shrug and say "Don't worry, it will all work out".
Needless to say, this difference between our levels of worry has caused a few terse arguments over the past weeks. I refuse to relax and believe that Navy bureaucrats somewhere are doing their jobs correctly and getting all of our necessary paperwork into place. How many times, dealing with the Navy over these years has a piece of paperwork "magically" gone missing, information not entered correctly, etc?
Me, I'm always waiting for that piece of paper to go missing. Hans, he has faith in the system.
The thing that sucks the most is that he is almost ALWAYS right...98.9% of the time, even if something goes a little awry, we get it back on track immediately and it works out.
I mean, I don't want him to be wrong, exactly, I just want him to be a little more sympathetic to my worrying.
It happened today. The paperwork for our temp storage move didn't get entered correctly and wasn't showing up in the system. This is the move for the things that will stay in storage while we're gone. Most importantly, all 3,682 of Hans' books that are in storage. I think he would miss all those Marvel comics.
Trying not to panic, I called personal property, the Navy people who arrange our moves and of course, find out the above information and boy, they don't think they can get a storage move scheduled on SUCH SHORT NOTICE, blah, blah, blah. Even though we'd had it scheduled since JUNE 18. Just saying. Not my fault, super-cheerful government employee--why can't YOU be furloughed? I say, if the government furloughed all its bitchy, unhelpful employees and only kept on the ones that give top-notch service...
Anyway, Hans has faith and I lack it.
After a morning of sweating over the storage goods and how it would affect THE PLAN (tm), I received a call from a helpful employee at personal property who had been alerted to perhaps a "tone" in my voice by the Unhelpful Employee (consider me surprised that she didn't just throw my file in a basket but actually talked to her supervisor--maybe she'll escape my imaginary furlough). Helpful Supervisor got on the horn and got it all fixed.
Hans--2,635, Rachel--2 (there have been about two instances when I rightfully worried over something and what I feared worst happened).
What do we take away from this?
That I eat Nutty Bars and drink Coke when I get stressed.
And that I need to trust more.
And maybe ALL government drones aren't bad.
(Just so you know, I was very polite but firm. I did not yell or curse, though I felt like it).
And now that I've told you all this, please be informed of THE PLAN (tm):
--July 24, 25 - movers come into my house (ladies, I'm told--joy--no sweaty men, maybe it could actually be "fun") and box up 95% of our stuff
--July 26 - truck driver comes, bogging up the entire street and loads all the boxes into crates which are sealed and driven to the nearest port, where they will be loaded onto a motorless raft and left to drift in the slowest current to Japan. I expect to see my HHG in December of 2014 (there, I go, being a pessimist again!!).
--July 26--Also, at the SAME TIME as the 95% of stuff is getting loaded, the completely separate moving company that is putting 4% of our stuff into storage will be stopping by to pack and pick up our storage goods. Keeping everything separated should be interesting.
--We proceed to "camp out" in the house on air mattresses with the 1% remaining of our possessions.
--7/31--The last moving company comes with a few boxes and takes away whatever is left, ie; towels, sheets and blankets, extra clothes, pots and pans. This stuff actually gets boxed and put on a PLANE, so it will be in Japan by the time we get there. Whee!
7/31--We check into a nice hotel with a pool.
8/2--Hans flies to Norfolk. Pick up rental car at airport.
8/3--We check out of the hotel, head directly to CarMax, sell the van, pile into the rental vehicle and as soon as we have our check in hand, head to Newport.
After that, the plan gets a little fuzzy. We'll see what happens.
I'll bet something is going to go wrong...
My husband, on the other hand, while not exactly being a bright-eyed optimist, believes that things will always work out. He never worries. I swear to you...the house could be burning down and he'd just shrug and say "Don't worry, it will all work out".
Needless to say, this difference between our levels of worry has caused a few terse arguments over the past weeks. I refuse to relax and believe that Navy bureaucrats somewhere are doing their jobs correctly and getting all of our necessary paperwork into place. How many times, dealing with the Navy over these years has a piece of paperwork "magically" gone missing, information not entered correctly, etc?
Me, I'm always waiting for that piece of paper to go missing. Hans, he has faith in the system.
The thing that sucks the most is that he is almost ALWAYS right...98.9% of the time, even if something goes a little awry, we get it back on track immediately and it works out.
I mean, I don't want him to be wrong, exactly, I just want him to be a little more sympathetic to my worrying.
It happened today. The paperwork for our temp storage move didn't get entered correctly and wasn't showing up in the system. This is the move for the things that will stay in storage while we're gone. Most importantly, all 3,682 of Hans' books that are in storage. I think he would miss all those Marvel comics.
Trying not to panic, I called personal property, the Navy people who arrange our moves and of course, find out the above information and boy, they don't think they can get a storage move scheduled on SUCH SHORT NOTICE, blah, blah, blah. Even though we'd had it scheduled since JUNE 18. Just saying. Not my fault, super-cheerful government employee--why can't YOU be furloughed? I say, if the government furloughed all its bitchy, unhelpful employees and only kept on the ones that give top-notch service...
Anyway, Hans has faith and I lack it.
After a morning of sweating over the storage goods and how it would affect THE PLAN (tm), I received a call from a helpful employee at personal property who had been alerted to perhaps a "tone" in my voice by the Unhelpful Employee (consider me surprised that she didn't just throw my file in a basket but actually talked to her supervisor--maybe she'll escape my imaginary furlough). Helpful Supervisor got on the horn and got it all fixed.
Hans--2,635, Rachel--2 (there have been about two instances when I rightfully worried over something and what I feared worst happened).
What do we take away from this?
That I eat Nutty Bars and drink Coke when I get stressed.
And that I need to trust more.
And maybe ALL government drones aren't bad.
(Just so you know, I was very polite but firm. I did not yell or curse, though I felt like it).
And now that I've told you all this, please be informed of THE PLAN (tm):
--July 24, 25 - movers come into my house (ladies, I'm told--joy--no sweaty men, maybe it could actually be "fun") and box up 95% of our stuff
--July 26 - truck driver comes, bogging up the entire street and loads all the boxes into crates which are sealed and driven to the nearest port, where they will be loaded onto a motorless raft and left to drift in the slowest current to Japan. I expect to see my HHG in December of 2014 (there, I go, being a pessimist again!!).
--July 26--Also, at the SAME TIME as the 95% of stuff is getting loaded, the completely separate moving company that is putting 4% of our stuff into storage will be stopping by to pack and pick up our storage goods. Keeping everything separated should be interesting.
--We proceed to "camp out" in the house on air mattresses with the 1% remaining of our possessions.
--7/31--The last moving company comes with a few boxes and takes away whatever is left, ie; towels, sheets and blankets, extra clothes, pots and pans. This stuff actually gets boxed and put on a PLANE, so it will be in Japan by the time we get there. Whee!
7/31--We check into a nice hotel with a pool.
8/2--Hans flies to Norfolk. Pick up rental car at airport.
8/3--We check out of the hotel, head directly to CarMax, sell the van, pile into the rental vehicle and as soon as we have our check in hand, head to Newport.
After that, the plan gets a little fuzzy. We'll see what happens.
I'll bet something is going to go wrong...
