June 30 - Continued: We park the truck on the street in front of our new home - the space has been reserved for us by our daughter Amanda. And there are Amanda's hubby JT, his brother Brian, and Amanda's friend and neighbor Jim Manley. With Dave, Riley and now his other son Aiden, we have a nice unloading crew. And it is HOT! This is one of the hottest summers PA has seen in a long time. Someone has stocked the fridge with a lot of bottled water, and we will need it.
I go and unlock the back door to the truck and several items cascade down on top of me. I knew I had overloaded the truck, but things has shifted a lot during transit, and now the back contents were all ready to just drop off into the street. We drag the ramp out and position it, and carefully start the process of removing things one at a time. I take one look up into that cavern and cringe - what have I done? Two pros loaded this thing up, but none of us is looking like a pro right now, and I can't even start to think how we're going to get all of this unpacked. But the young guys take over, and things start to happen. The A/C has been running in the house, so it's nice and cool inside, but the doors are wide open, with people going in and out like little ants going in and out of the ant-hill. I try not to think about where everything is going - "Yeah! Put that in the 2nd bedroom! Put that one in the kitchen! Put that stuff in the front room!" Etc. etc. And piece by piece, the truck starts to empty.
But we have such a long way to go. And my wonderful wife is in her hotel room, 20 miles away, where I cannot consult with her as to where everything will go. I shudder to think what will happen when she comes up tomorrow and sees the results of my "supervision." I'm trying as hard as I can to make sure there is a little room left to maneuver through the house, but there is so much stuff, so many boxes. Not a lot of furniture. But then we get to the dining room table. This bad boy is solid rock maple, and it has pull-out extensions, and it weighs about 200 pounds. AND - we cannot get it into the house through the front door. Try as we may, this sucker is not going in, right-side up, up-side down, sideways, on end, at an angle...there is no way it's going to grace our dining room space.
Well, maybe through the back door (someone mutters half-heartedly). Oh, boy! The back door is up 4 steps onto a deck, through a screen door into a laundry room, hence through a wooden door into the miniscule kitchen. If it wouldn't go through the front door...I stopped thinking and let the stronger guys muscle the monster table through a small alleyway between the houses and around to the back steps. Then I got out of the way and let the guys brain-storm how this was going to happen. I cannot describe the way they managed to squeeze that thing into the kitchen, but a Rubic's Cube would be easier to figure out. After about 10 gallons of sweat and assorted curses and shouts, it's in the house! Jen was talking about selling it once we got up here to PA, and now I', wondering how we will ever get this thing back out the door if and when it sells. My choice would be to sell it to the landlord, and leave it here when we move again.
Our daughter Annie seems very knowledgeable about this house, and when I decide that some of the stuff should probably go down in the basement, she cringes. Uh-oh! Bad sign. But she shows me the door leading down into that dark place, we find a few switches to turn on some lights, and down we go. What the heck is this place? Oh, yeah, the house is at least 100 years old. She had told us before we came uyp that it was a "dry" basement. Okay. Well, it IS dry...the floor is earth, dirt, clay, whatever. No concrete down here. If you've seen some of the early horror movies, this place could have been used in the filming. It is dank, dark, and low...if I wasn't 5'6", I would have to duck to get around. And in some places, I still do. Cobwebs all over the place. And wires! As I check out this cave, it is obvious that the last tenant liked to wire things - there are wires, and switches, all over the place. Some lights are the old-fashioned ceramic socket type, and have a pull chain. Others have little toggle switches mounted next to them. Others are plugged into power strips. This place would have been condemned by the building inspector in Florida. As we continue to explore, we find an old wooden door, and Annie says that it leads outside, so we open it and find a set of steps up to what my wife says are called Bilco doors. As we start to open them, Annie tries to stand up and whacks her head on a steel frame over the doors - that was so hard it could be concussion time! She's seeing stars and the tears are coming. I feel her pain. But we finally get the doors open and I tell her to leave them open so this dungeon can air out a little. I don't plan to come back down here too often, but it would be nice is there was a bit of fresh air present when I do.
Four hours later, and the truck is EMPTY!!! And all of us are about ready to keel over and die! It's been a very hot day - sweltering, actually - and all of us are tired, half-dehydrated, sore and hungry. Someone suggests Joe's Place, and we lock up the house and the truck and head to the restaurant. I couldn't eat if you force-fed me, but I manage to put away a small burger, while my daughter Annie eats most of a 2-foot-long sub! I promise everyone that a real dinner is on me and Jen after we get settled in, and everyone is happy. Everyone else heads home while Annie and I head back to the hotel in the truck. It has been on helluva day in Palmerton, and I am so glad it's almost over. I get back to Jen, hook the car carrier back on the truck, and head inside to take a good hot shower and die for the night. Tomorrow we will return the truck to Penske and then head back to Palmerton and our new home. And I am scared to death to guess what Jen will think when she walks through the front door for the first time. I did the best I could, but I know the place will look like a 1st-class disaster to her. For the moment, however, all I want to do is collapse. And I do.
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