day 3: bless bill
salt lake city to salt lake city
i’m a complainer.
i don’t go on and on, i don’t harp, and i don’t let my complaining ruin the vibe.
no, i like to complain in a productive, discerning, often humorous and exaggerated way, the kind with laughter and hand gestures, the kind where you might hear me and think “okay but she has a point.” or laugh with me, at least.
and so, i would like a few minutes to complain about today.
early this morning i call the local uhaul because, say it with me now, my trailer lights are not working. again. before the manager even pulls up my account, she tells me they are very busy and very unlikely to be able to help me because my blown fuse is not there problem. then she puts me on hold for 15 minutes. i am so mad i cry a little. she comes back and tells me i can come “in the afternoon.” it’s 7:30am. i am so upset i hang up and fall into a weird stress nap on the couch.
then i call uhaul’s national hitch center, get in touch with a lady who ends up reaching out to the woman i already talked to, on my behalf. i feel a little embarrassed, like i got my mommy to call. “okay, they can get you in at noon,” the national hitch lady says.
“do you think she’s going to be mean to me when i go in?” i ask.
silence. i wait it out.
“i hope not, she seemed nice to me…”
“ugh she better be. okay, i’ll go at noon.”
i go at noon, and it’s worse than the DMV in there. the employees look like they want to murder me and everyone else in there and themselves. when it’s finally my turn at the counter, i introduce myself as “the lady who’s been a pain in the neck this morning.” you know, because i’m a fucking pussy. and also because i want this to go well.
she does not say anything to this except to ask my phone number to look up my account. after a long time clicking stuff on her computer, asking me lots of questions i’ve already answered, and calling other locations, i make one more attempt to bond. i yawn and say “fuck i haven’t even had caffeine yet today.” “it won’t help,” she replies flatly, eyes still locked on her screen. then she sighs and calls her mechanic over, and this is where things start to turn around.
bill limps over, and i can immediately tell this is my guy. he is big and balding and has a crater of a wound between his eyebrows and his breath could singe nose hairs. but he is also kind and gentle and he listens when i talk and, importantly to my fried nervous system, he smiles. finally, someone in this godforsaken hell hole who smiles!
bill says a tesla didn’t show and he’s just going to put a bumper back on a subaru and then he’s going to solve this problem for me. i say thank you so so so much that is so great thank you.
i take a lyft back to chelsee’s, dreaming of the meditating i’m going to do, the book-reading, the deep breathing. all while bill is fixing things, for real this time.
on the way back to chelsee’s, i get a text. she’s home for lunch and “the dogs shredded one of my boxes with craft supplies in it. they got into some dye and it’s all over.”
“what. do you mean? was louie… not in his crate?”
no, apparently my 9-month-old puppy was not in his crate. he had torn through the top of his travel crate, leapt out, and shredded a cardboard box stashed under chelsee’s bed - one with a bottle of black fabric dye that he chewed and chewed and chewed until it leaked out, forming a black lake on her white rug.
standing in chelsee’s room, this is the moment i decide i have to laugh. laugh at my ridiculous, nervous, crafty little fucker of a puppy, at how unapologetically grumpy the uhaul lady was, at how i’d have to call every hotel from here to philadelphia and push my reservations back a day, at how my afternoon would now be spent cleaning up a mess instead of relaxing.
a couple hours later, the mess is as clean as it’s going to get, and bill calls. everything is fixed. i can come back. perfect! amazing!
as soon as my lyft pulls up, i can tell it’s a very good thing i’ve decided to laugh at this fucking day. bill is standing by my car and trailer looking flummoxed. turns out, replacing the hitch wiring did not fix the issue. when he reattached the trailer and drove it 30 feet to the front of the building, the fuse blew. the trailer lights went out. again.
criers, i can’t really describe my feelings as bill tells me this most recent information. i want to scream. i want to throw up. i want to laugh insanely.
before i can pick one, bill says he’s going to just give me a new trailer. mine is old and maybe the wiring is just bad. “but my trailer is… loaded,” i say slowly, “with everything i own.” bill smiles. “i’ll stay late and help you load the new one.”
so we do. we unload the contents of my trailer and load the new one, exchanging ideas about where things could go, how to buffer sharp things with soft things, shoving and sliding and stacking until it’s done. the doors close, the lock clicks, and the new trailer is loaded.
we test the lights one more time and yes, they are working! i drive back to chelsee’s, smiling and laughing to myself the whole way.
tomorrow, i will attempt again to drive to denver. and if my trailer lights aren’t working in the morning, that’s it. i’m moving to salt lake.
until tomorrow, criers! thank you for coming along with me <3
Bill!!
Hair-Raising, Erin. I've just been going thru Health Care Directive on the med-hosp-patient-portal and when I got to the page asking me if I wanted to write down anything about unresolved pains, stresses, and wishes to resolve old ills, and thought, "You're goddamned right, I do," and I did! Now I am depressed, so I looked at emails, read your post, and I feel pretty OK again!
I know I don’t actually know you but I live in Denver if you want to grab a coffee with an internet stranger while you’re here!