If you asked me a week ago or three years ago or ten, how much does it cost to hire movers, I’d have said a thousand probably, five thousand, at least, if you’re moving out of state. For most of my life, it might as well have been a million dollars. It didn’t matter. I sure as shit didn’t have a thousand or five to hire someone to move my shit.
Everyone knows moving is cheaper to do yourself. Just like everything else. Everyone knows this. It’s basic poverty math. You hope a few friends volunteer. You hope they show up. You try to move a few loads in your car—the paintings and the longhorns and the TV at least.
I’m good at moving, not so great at asking friends for favors, even if I’ve shown up for them. But I’m not going to pay a million dollars for movers. That was never an option. What I often did instead, back in DC, is pick up a Uhaul, drive by a 7-Eleven, negotiate a good rate, and those guys would have everything in the van in an hour and unloaded at the next house in less.
I was saving money, even though Uhaul always says the van’s $19.99 an hour but in the end it costs you $80. And you have to fill the tank, another $50. The day laborers cost $100 for two guys, plus a cooler of ice with water and some gatorade, another $30. Another $30 for pizza… What are we at? Less than a million or three thousand, that’s for sure.
There are just things I never shopped for because they were things I couldn’t afford. Who needs to know the price. Triple A was one of those things. Do you know what Triple A costs? I’d have told you $300 a month. Fantasy money. I found out a couple years ago it costs $50, for a goddamn year. I didn’t look it up. I saw it in a Twitter joke. I didn’t have to call my sister to come help push my car down Route 50 in Tyson’s Corner when the engine blew. Didn’t need the two lesbians in a U-Haul to run over and help, but thank fuck they did because one of them noticed my sister was riding the goddamn brake, afraid we were pushing it too fast.
I rented a house yesterday. First house we looked at, shown to us by another lesbian from Amarillo. (I’m so proud of us. We got out. We came to what Amarilloans call “The People’s Democratic Republic of Austin.” We are finding one another and making Toot N’ Totum jokes that no one else gets. It’s already rare to see another lesbian in the wild. In the South, you’re required to do a sort of head nod, compare forearm tattoos, and arm wrestle or something. In Austin, you just ask where someone’s from and it’s always some town like Midland or Abilene or godforbid Waco or Tyler. The only response any of us have is, “Fuck, dude.”
We’ve already got a realtor and a manager at Uhaul. We should start a moving company. It’s gotta be good money around here, considering we all have to move constantly, every time they jack our rent up by 25% because they changed the font on the sign and hung some string lights in the courtyard. And charging three thousand dollars a move is just easy money.
I don’t have time to move. I have a book overdue and I’m running into things I put off until the book was finished, because I was supposed to be finished in March. My cousin offered to help but I thought, fuck it. I’ll just put it on a credit card. I’ve got a Texas Highways piece coming up, one of those things I should’ve had time for once the book was finished. I’ll pay it off when I get that check.
I thought I could still keep the price down. I selected one bedroom apartment on the estimate menu. But to be safe, I chose the option to move half my shit myself. So, half a one bedroom. And I hit send. It came back with $200.
There was no fucking way. You ever lowered a fucking couch off a balcony to a very short marine down on the lawn, waiting to catch it. (They’re all short. But this guy was especially small.) I changed the menu option to “move all of my shit.”
$200.
Okay well, that’s definitely a scam. I checked another company, and another. When I moved from South Austin to slightly less South Austin a few years ago, I rented a Uhaul, and hired a Task Rabbit dude who showed up in flip flops and weighed less than my couch. He cost $60 and I still tipped him a $20 because it was hotter than hell, but it would’ve been nice if he’d carried even one of the heavier boxes. My friend Ty helped me with the couch.
I’m not falling for a scam. I called a person at a moving company, a local company. There was a hidden fee! I was right. She said it’s customary to tip the guys. She didn’t say how much. I’m guessing, in poverty math, $2800.
The point is, Woody’s about to have a huge ass yard. And maybe another fancy bed. I can afford it, after I turn in the Texas Highways piece, or finish this goddamn book.
Speaking of which, I know I haven’t been active in the comments. I do read them. I am grateful/amused/horrified/etc. If I owe you a text or an email, get in line. Send it again. I don’t know what to tell you. I have no capacity for anything but the book, but I have to deal with this moving shit too. I realize that may sound shitty. I’m aware that a lot of people are tired of my disappearing shit. I can’t explain why texting especially is different but it is. I can’t do it. I lose whatever I was thinking about. I lose the cadence. And then I lose another day. So I just don’t. I could write a whole thing about that. But I’m supposed be writing a goddamn book. I apologize or you’re welcome. Here’s a picture of Woody.
One time I complained about not having a certain kitchen tool, I forget what, like a spatula or something? I complained for like 10 years and then I broke down and bought one. For $2. That's all it would have cost me and it was ten fucking years of bitching. It never hurts to check it out.
ah!! I'm so happy to hear you're in a HOUSE, I hope you will have a WASHING MACHINE AND DRYER, those life-changing things. Selfishly hoping you're in my part of town bc if I saw you walking Woody I would low-key flip.