What was going through my head when I thought I’d have an easy move? I requested that my helper monkeys come at 2:00 on Sunday, thinking that I’d be out of there with one truckload and happily munching on “job well done” pizza by 3:00. In reality, the pizza did not happen until after three truckloads around 6:30. And I still have no idea where my pants are.
I could write an epic tale of every detail of the move, but instead, I’ll tell you about the most epic thing.
My crew of helpers consisted of Birmingham, Flick, Tucker, KT, KrisD and J-dog. (I totally just made up those two last nicknames, I’m not feeling certain about them yet…) KrisD and J-dog are getting married next month and own a truck, and we all had just come back from their bachelor and bachelorette parties on Saturday, so that’s why I put them on all the heavy lifting. Flick, Tucker, and Birmingham also did their share of packing, lifting, and convincing me to toss out crap I don’t need. And I put KT on unscrewing duty because she’s the organized type that I trust to make sure I take home every nail and screw I ever put into the walls.
KT diligently unscrewed everything I screwed: curtain rods, picture hooks, compact florescent light bulbs. I asked her to remove the closet rod, which was actually a bamboo pole left by the previous tenants that was suspended from the ceiling by twine held in with brackets, hanging in the anti-room. Birmingham created it for me back in the days of the broken ankle when I needed a way to access my clothes without going upstairs. It went up quite easily, and held up well, so I continued to use it for my clothes even after I regained the ability to walk.
I was off somewhere organizing something, and much of my stuff was already in the new place when KT started unscrewing the first bracket suspending the rod from the ceiling. And that’s when we all heard her yell. And when we all came running over to see what had happened, there was water cascading from the ceiling. Before I could even figure out what happened, I went running to find the waterlesbian (of all people) because I remember her once telling me that there was only one water shut-off for the entire farm.
And while I’m doing that, Birmingham figured out he could turn the water off with the water heater in the bathroom. Once I’ve found the waterlesbian, and she’s lifted the two termite-infested, and I mean infested plywood sheets that cover a hole in the ground and put a nearby ladder into the hole to turn off the water, Birmingham is running across the property waving his hands in the universal sign for “we fucked up, cease this crazy activity at once.”
But the waterlesbian was already down the hole turning off the water, so Birmingham told me on the DL that we had actually caused the problem, because one of the screws holding in the closet rod was actually screwed into one of the water pipes. When KT unscrewed it, the waters were free to flow again. As I was running across the farm, they had re-screwed in the braket, and turned the water back on via the hot water heater, and the flood had stopped.
But it was kind of too late to call off the waterlesbian, who now wanted to know why she had crawled into a termite-infested hole to turn off all the water on the property. So she came over to find Flick mopping up the soaking wet anti-room and KT trying to dry off herself while looking for a good hiding place for the drill. I explained to the waterlesbian that a screw was holding a bracket in place and it had been screwed directly into the pipes in the ceiling, which are made of plastic, even though having plastic pipes for your main water is a terrible, terrible idea.
“But you put the screw in, right?” she asks, clearly thinking about the security deposit check that she doesn’t want to give to me.
“The bamboo poles were left here by the previous tenant,” I tell her, which is not a lie!
“But you screwed the brakets into the celing?”
“No, I didn’t.” Also not a lie! Birmingham did it!
“Then why were you taking them out?”
“I delegated the unscrewing task to a friend, and I decided I wanted to take the poles down. Who would have known that there was a plastic water pipe in the half and inch away from the ceiling, and that this tiny screw was holding it all together?”
“But didn’t you hang this here?”
Secure in my truthyness, I went for the full lie. “The previous tenants had this hanging here, but I’m the one who used it as a closet when I broke my ankle and couldn’t even get up the stairs of my own home. I have no idea why they put it up there. They left a lot of stuff here when I moved in.”
“They were just assholes.”
“I know. I can’t believe that they just left this cottage in the middle of their lease in February and that you didn’t even get a chance to do a walk-through before I moved in. Almost everything in this cottage that was left in a condition that you don’t like was their fault. Additionally, you really should think about replacing the plastic water pipes. It’s amazing that these pipes held together as long as they did. Imagine if this flood had happened when all my clothes were here.”
“Well, I’m sorry that this happened, but it looks like you’re doing a really good job cleaning. I have your check if you want to come pick it up.”
And I did indeed get the check. When I picked it up, the waterlesbian asked the landlesbian if she wanted to do a final walkthrough. But the landlesbian was engrossed in the news on TV. The waterlesbian asked one more time if she wanted to check on the condition of the cottage, and the landlesbian looked at the two of us and said:
“Fuck the cottage.”
And those were the last words she said to me.
