Day in the Life

My day yesterday:

8:30 am--Get up, make breakfast, get paper-- this is an improvement over last week, when my paper was either not left or stolen
9:30 am-- Get dressed for church. Realize that I really should have shaved, but it's too late for a touch up.
9:40 am-- Get in the car and drive fast. Summer hours start at the church right after Memorial Day, so services start at 10 instead of at 11.
10:05 am-- Arrive at church. Suspiciously few cars parked out front.
10:07 am-- Discover that summer hours have not, in fact, started yet.
10:15 am-- Step into the church office with the pastor and make appointments for our premarital visits.
10:30 am-- Learn that a fellow church member works for a charity that tries to help people make the leap from homelessness and welfare to work. Think of the six large garbage bags of clothing that Ash and I have pulled from our closets, including several suits and some men's dress shirts, some of which didn't even make it out of the wrappers. Drive to old apartment to fetch bags of clothes.
11:00 am-- Church. Ash is to meet me at my old apartment at 11:00, which probably means 11:30. I hope he is really late and that he won't be mad when I'm not there.
11:05 am-- Notice that today is the first Sunday of the month. This means communion will be served. Which means that the service will be especially long.
11:06 am-- Announcement from the pulpit that we'll be honoring the graduates in the congregation today. Crap. This will be a REALLY long service.
12:32 pm-- Church is over.
12:34 pm-- Pull up in front of my old apartment building. Ash is waiting on the sidewalk, talking on the phone. He doesn't look mad, whew.
12:40 pm-- Ash starts loading things into his car, I start consolidating the piles of misc. stuff into one room and throw things into boxes.
12:41 pm - 2:50 pm-- box things up, throw things out, box things up, throw things out.
2:50 p.m.-- Stuff my car with boxes and bags of things to be donated to Goodwill.
3:00 pm-- Drive to closest Goodwill.
3:16 pm-- Man opens loading dock door and informs me in heavily accented voice, "This NOT Goodwill. Furniture Store. Furniture Store. Opening here, not Goodwill." Seriously consider throwing everything into first available dumpster.
3:45 pm-- Arrive at next closest Goodwill. Unload boxes while slackjawed teenager watches and asks desultory questions: "'zat work?" (in reference to a lamp-- he does NOT ask the same of the vacuum or any other appliances), "You donating it all?" (no, I just thought I'd have you take a look at it before I take it back home.)
4:15 pm-- Get McDonald's and stuff it down my throat too fast to taste. It's the first food I've eaten since breakfast almost 8 hours ago.
4:45 pm-- Arrive back at the old apartment. Feel sick from eating too fast.
4:46 pm-- Start loading things into Ash's car for what will hopefully be the final trip.
4:49 pm-- Run into creepy guy across the hall's wife. She is carrying a box that I recognize as one from a pile of boxes that were stolen from the basement after we got them out of my storage unit and did not take them all at the same time last week. The boxes were empty, so I didn't care (though I was irritated). However, they also took the Rubbermaid containers with all of my Christmas decorations. I stop her and ask if she's seen my red Rubbermaid containers anywhere. She says she'll ask her husband. I figure they'll go into their apartment, shut the door and pretend not to be at home.
4:50 pm-- I tell Ash about my suspicions. Later, I discover that he immediately starts to think about whether we could get a search warrant for their apartment.
4:55 pm-- Creepy guy comes to my door, bearing the Rubbermaid container. He apologizes, explaining that he thought that they belonged to the dead guy. I think, but do not say "So it was okay to steal from the dead guy?"
5:00 pm-- Creepy guy reappears with a garbage bag. "Are these yours, too?" The garbage bag contains items that were taken from my carefully packed Rubbermaid containers. Apparently they didn't live up to their high expectations for stolen Christmas decorations and they were going to throw them out. These items include a small box of ceramic snowmen. The box has a mailing label on it with my name and address. Thought they belonged to the dead guy, my foot.
5:01 pm-- Ash and I leave with our carloads of stuff.
6:15 pm-- Arrive back at apartment to clean. I have Ash's cell phone, in case I need to call home.
6:16 pm- 7:30 pm-- Clean. This place is filthy. Make many promises to myself that the next move will be different.
7:31 pm -- realize that I will never be done before it gets dark at this rate. Drop my standards for "clean" drastically. Attempt to call Ash. Get message telling me that the number is unavailable.
7:45 pm, 8:00 pm, 8:10 pm, 8:15 pm-- Attempt to call Ash. Get message telling me that the number is unavailable.
8:20 pm-- Get out flashlight for better visibility trying to clean out kitchen cabinets.
8:45 pm-- Give up. Bob will just have to live with whatever is not "clean enough"
8:45- 9:05 pm-- Carry last items, including cleaning supplies and curtains, to car. Discover that shoe rack will not fit unless it is disassembled. Feel overwhelmed by the idea of digging out my screwdriver and dismantling stupid thing. Throw it on the garbage pile.
9:05 pm-- leave for home. I am so filthy I can smell myself. I have never wanted a shower so badly in my whole life.
9:30 pm-- Realize, 2 blocks from home, that I never turned my headlights on.
9:35 pm-- Pull up in front of apartment. Ash is waiting at the window, frantic with worry. We unload the car. I am sucking wind, my lungs are so irritated by cleaning chemicals.
9:45 pm- 11 pm -- Ash sits on the cell phone with Comcast, trying to get our Internet and phone back up and running. Following a shower, I sprawl on the bed and vegetate. Feel grateful that I do not have to haul any more boxes. Woo hoo!