Dislocated

 

 

Moving is hard.  It’s downright evil, really.  It is, after all, on par with losing your job or divorce as one of life’s major stressors, and I truly believe something that was conceived in the fiery pits of hell.  It’s wicked birth heralded by a hearty cackle from its malevolent creator, and quickly followed by a grand celebration that culminated with the impaling of a thousand cartoon puppies.

I have moved a lot in my life, so I am kind of an authority on the subject.  We moved pretty regularly while I was growing up, and I hit my peak moving years during college, when I changed my address every single year for five years straight.  This is why, once I moved into my condo in Los Angles (which was my third residence after arriving there – in only three months) I stayed in the same place for over fourteen years.  By that point I was well beyond sick of moving.  The mere thought of it brought on cold sweats and turned my stomach to knots.  Being asked to help friends move sent me into a semi-catatonic state where I was either compelled to continuously slam my forehead into the nearest hard vertical surface, or swat at invisible bugs while shrieking like a Billy goat.  I had more than reached my fill.  That is, until I decided to move in with my former fiancée.  In that situation I was strangely excited about moving.  Yes, I had completely lost my mind.  Since then I have moved two more times, all three of them over the exceptionally short span of eighteen months.

The one thing I’ve learned over the course of all these moves is that the biggest difference between now, and when I moved when I was younger, is that I didn’t have nearly as much stuff back then.  But put me in the same place for close to a decade and a half, and allow my sentimental side to lay claim to everything the light touches, I’m going to inevitably save anything that means even a little bit to me.  Every birthday card from back home, every knick-knack that a colleague gifted me from a trip abroad, any variety of SWAG (that’s Stuff We All Get) from any number of wrap parties, premieres, publicity events, or a half a dozen Comicons, I kept it all.  I also bought furniture.  First came the full living room set, then the dining room set, then a huge desk, after that some bookshelves and a refrigerator, and to top it all off was the crown jewel of my home furnishing acquisitions, a California king bedroom set.  Yes, I owned a lot.  A fact confirmed to me by one of my movers, who told me quite innocently as I was vacating the condo I had occupied for a total of 5,352 days, “You have a lot of stuff for one person.” Well, shit!  You think?  I can’t help myself, Frank from Miracle Moving.  I can’t help myself at all.

When I decided to move out of my last place, my first inclination was not to take a meandering road trip across the country.  I was just going to get a smaller and more reasonably priced apartment.  Even then, the seeds of my inevitable downsizing were being sown.  It’s also where my snowball began a-rollin’.  I haven’t been back home to see my family and friends in close to two years.  It’s hard to take an extended trip to New York when you don’t accrue vacation time, and can’t work while you’re away (all the while paying Los Angeles-sized rent, which has gone insane over the past few years).    Then I thought about putting all my stuff in storage and going home for an extended visit – my snowball grew.  Not even a day later I was considering driving there.  My stuff would be in storage after all, so why pay for a plane ticket?  I had the time, and a road trip equals adventure, right, and possible catharsis?  Now my snowball was swelling to epic proportions.  Then I remembered all the friends and family scattered throughout the country to whom I owe visits, and all the places I’ve wanted to check out to see if they might appeal to me.  By this point my snowball was roughly the size of that boulder at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the trip on which I’m about to embark started to take it’s shape.  The mere idea of it felt like someone was shining a brilliant, healing light into the dark alleyways of my soul, and I quickly understood that I needed to pull the trigger in order to reclaim some of my own sanity.  In that moment I also understood that I desperately needed to own less stuff.

From the start I knew it was going to be hard.  I romanticize stupid things, like a comfy office chair or a quirky area rug, or any variety of other crap I don’t really need.  I think to myself, “Well, I got this when things were good between me and [name redacted].  Therefore it means something, and I can’t get rid of it.”  Or, “I got this when I was working on [project redacted].  It reminds me of that time, so I’m keeping it.”  I know!  So finally, after years of gentle suggestions from those closest to me, I broke down and made a list of the things with which I was finally ready to part.  Here are the Big Ten:

1. My old desktop computer (which I used for a grand total of about thirty hours last year).
2. My second computer monitor (which was attached to the above desktop computer).
3. My second monitor arm (are you sensing a trend?).
4. My second printer (to be fair it is a photo printer, my primary one isn’t, but it’s still essentially brand new and has been sitting unused in a box for the last 18 months).
5. My fancy and quite bulky keyboard tray (which I haven’t used once in four and a half years).
6. My pristine living room set (I might have owned it for close to a decade, but it still looks brand    new – does that shock you?).
7. My near pristine dining room set
8. My stainless steel refrigerator (um… yes.  Yes, it did).
9. My D.J. equipment and lights (which I haven’t used in over five years, or used professionally in over a decade, but I still like having it all handy.  I have this unrealistic belief that a friend, or someone I know – hell, it could even be a perfect stranger – might suggest we throw a party so good that it will be talked about for decades to come.  Who would not want to be a part of that?)
10. My California king bedroom set (which, even though it had a few blemishes − mostly caused by past movers, I might add − was in excellent condition).

Notice this list does not include any of the cards, mementos, knick-knacks or other ephemera that I’ve been collecting since high school; for some reason I still can’t bring myself to send it all to that big dump in the sky.  However, many of the items I was getting rid of were more than bulky, which would make moving into a reasonably sized storage space (and one smaller than the ten by ten space I crammed most of my belongings into when I moved into my fiancée’s apartment) as easy as assuming I still have the card you gave me for Christmas in 2003.  I know, I sound like some kind of a crazy hoarder, but I’m not.  Most of this stuff is very organized and occupies maybe a dozen bankers’ boxes.  And I do take it out and thumb through it every once in a while.  Just during this move I came across my old college I.D.  Looking upon the baby face of that absurdly inexperienced and dreadfully terrified eighteen year-old was enough to make me yearn for the simplicity of that time.  You see keeping it all does serve a purpose.  Not a good one, mind you, but my feelings of nostalgia are a mighty powerful beast.

After my decision was made I realized I had forty-one days in which to get everything done.  Forty-one days in which to sell, donate or trash everything I wanted to get rid of, as well as pack and move into storage what I was keeping.  Forty-one days to make all the purchases and plans for my trip before hitting the road.  It was Monday, December 4^th, and I had to be out of my place by Sunday, January 14^th, so I had about six weeks total.  By this point my snowball was nearly double the size of Jupiter, and somehow I wasn’t the least bit concerned it might crush me.  I certainly should have been.  I only had 984 hours.  Take away the time for sleeping, eating, for work, and goodbyes, as well as for the holidays, and I had roughly 27 minutes in which to get everything done.  Not nearly enough time.

Immediately I started posting ads on Craig’s List, Let Go and Offer Up for the items I was going to sell.  Since I was going to be dealing with an unreliable public, I expected there would be the inevitable wasting of some of my much-needed time, but I was not expecting the two-and-a-half-ring circus that unfolded.  Oh yes, line up ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, because today under the Big Top, for your viewing (and reading) enjoyment, the center ring will be jam packed with scam artists, flakes, dullards (even a home invader) of the most spectacular kind.

 

 

THE SCAM ARTISTS

Seconds after posting the ad to Craig’s List I started getting them.  I knew I would.  I’ve dealt with Craig’s List before, and have learned to have fun with the avalanche of scam emails one gets when using the site.  By this point, I’ve almost come to enjoy the entertainment they provide.  Of the hundreds I got over the course of those few weeks, I submit to you my three favorites, and how, if I had the time, I might have responded.

 

1. A New Friend

Well, hey there new friend from across the ocean,

Whatever you need!  Why yes, that’s exactly what I’ll do, happily and whilst whistling a cheery tune.  I’ll unquestionably send you my name and mailing address.  Are you sure you don’t need anything else, maybe my age, Social Security number, bank account information and PIN number while we’re at it?  One question, though, are you sure you don’t actually want to see the item you’re buying?  You know, just a thought, for your piece of mind, but it’s totally cool if not.  Anyway, I’m standing by, literally holding my breath while waiting for your check to arrive, because I absolutely trust you, my new buddy from another country.

Sincerely,

Scott

 

2. Isn’t It Irrelevant?

One of the first emails I got after posting my bedroom set was this benign looking reply.

So I emailed “David” back, and got the following response (which I would see numerous variations over the course of those weeks).

Hi David,

Hmmm… I’m sitting here wondering if you even read my ad, because all the information you’re asking for is in there.  Well, except for the part about whether or not I’m the first owner, but I didn’t really think that was something that would be pertinent to our discussion.  It’s not a car, man.  It’s a California king bedroom set.  It’s not like it gets around.  It’s not a bedroom set of the night.  So I guess the only negative thing you should know about it is that it’s pretty stationary.  Does that help?

Incredulously yours,

Scott

 

3. You Big Dumb-Dumb!

Hi Anthony,

Let me be honest, because I’m a little confused here.  What prompt response?  I’ve scoured my Sent Items folder and can’t see where I’ve ever responded to you.  It also should have shown up with your reply, right?  Or maybe I’m just really dumb and don’t understand how this whole email thing works.  I guess that’s possible, if some force beyond my comprehension has suddenly and significantly diminished my cognitive reasoning skills.  Maybe that’s it.  Maybe that’s why I’m still talking to you.

Oh well, I guess we’ll never know.

Admiring your tenacity,

Scott

 

THE FLAKES

This particular group doesn’t always entertain me quite as much as the last, and even though I dealt with your run-of-the-mill flakes pretty much every day during the course of those six weeks, man did this group produce a few absolute gems by the end.

 

1. The Nature of the Game

Now, these are a few fairly standard examples of dealing with online flakes, and follow the typical order of events:

1. Receive the email/message in which buyer seems very interested.
2. Respond to it.
3. Be met with deafening silence.
4. Stay calm while letting go what modest amount of excitement you had for the possibility of finally selling your item.
5. Break down into a state of hyper-resentment while wishing you had the time to message “Reed” or “Anthony” or “J” back constantly with messages like:
   1. “Hello!  Where’d you go?  Hello!!!!  Is this thing on?”
   2. “Don’t you want to buy my living room set?  It said it wants to come live with you.  Don’t tell it I told you!”
   3. “Why aren’t you messaging me back?  Are you in some kind of danger?  If so, respond ‘slide-whistle.‘”
   4. “If you buy my HP desktop today, I’ll throw in a H.P.  You know, a Happy Person.  Ba-dum-dum.
   5. “I will respond to the people I email about an item for sale after they take the time to write me back.  I will respond to the people I email about an item for sale after they take the time to write me back.  I will respond to the people I email about an item for sale after they take the time to write me back.
   6. “Who hurt you?  Was it Craig’s List?”
   7. “I decided to keep my curtains.  Now you can’t have them!”
   8. “If you want to buy my living room set, respond with “#RelaxInStyyyle.”
   9. “Did you hear the one about the asshole?”
   10. “Do you like Piña Coladas, and getting caught in the rain, if you’re not into yoga, if you have half a brain, if you like making love at midnight in the dunes of the cape, then I’m the love that you’ve looked for, write to me and escape.”

 

I guess some people just lose interest mid-stream, others, I ‘m convinced, are lonely and just like the attention.  Would it be nice if any one of them had the common courtesy of a response telling me they no longer wanted to buy what I was selling?  Yeah, that would be swell, but we all well know that when dealing with people online it’s a bad idea to have expectations.

 

2. The I-Spy Champion of 2017 (a.k.a. If He Only Liked to Read)

He could’ve asked me if it was a sandwich.  Would that have surprised me more?  No, probably not.

 

3. The Super-Croissant

Oh, poor, inept Jason, who has sadly lost all motor control, or has a demon-possessed hand.  I wish you could have responded to me.  You might have purchased a nice California king bedroom set.  I might have helped you find a quality neurosurgeon, or maybe an exorcist.

 

4. The United States of Cristen

Well, okay!  Is it just me, or does anyone else get the impression that Cristen might be little bit spilt personality?  Like Cristen has been her persona since birth, but in college suddenly Grace appeared.  And Grace is a little nutty.  Grace likes to buy things online that Cristen has already purchased, to totally mess with Cristen’s head, and her pretty powerful shopping addiction.  Cristen, for the most part, has got it all under control, but sometimes Grace takes over while Cristen sleeps and buys the exact same item, so the next morning poor Cristen wakes up to find two of said item sitting ominously where, the night before, there was just one.  However, in the case of my seldom-used printer, Cristen regained control just in time and foiled Grace mid-stream.  Go Cristen!

 

THE HOME INVADER

After almost two weeks of not selling a thing, after innumerable emails from flakes and grifters, I started to panic.  My time was dwindling fast, and by that point I was moving in less than a month.  The holidays were also quickly approaching.  It was at that point I met Gerric, who was neither flake nor grifter, but as our interaction unfolded, I began to fear was something much more sinister.

The question, understandably, gave me pause.  We hadn’t even settled on a pickup time, and already Gerric wanted my address.  Since I tend to be very distrustful of people in these situations, because I’ve done my research, I was not about to give him any bit of information until we had at least settled on some kind of arrangement.  I’ve read too many app reviews and articles where the dangers of using these resources are laid out with terrifying clarity.  Things like muggings, armed robbery, and even murder aren’t exactly uncommon, and I didn’t want to become yet another poor sap who loses his shirt, or even life, while trying to sell some crap that wouldn’t even net me enough cash for an uncomfortable night at a run-down motel.  Maybe I was being a paranoid, but I would say that I was being a very healthy amount of prudently cautious.

By this point I was also sure I knew what Gerric was up to.  He was, with great stealth, trying to throw reasons that on the surface looked innocent enough, but hid sinister motives underneath, all in order to get me to divulge my exact location (I know Valley Village is in Waze because I’ve lived there for years and have searched for it myself).  He didn’t know I wasn’t in a single-family house, after all, and on the app through which we were communicating were pictures and descriptions of all the other items I was trying to sell, which Gerric could have easily swiped through.  He essentially had an almost complete inventory of my apartment.

The red flags deepened a shade when he didn’t succeed in getting what he seemed to want.  Alluding that he might not want to buy my computer was, to my mind, another manipulation.  This did nothing but reinforce my belief he was out to rob me, and to be honest, I was kind of relieved he was no longer interested in my item for sale.  Except later that evening Gerric reappeared.  So did my skepticism.

I wasn’t in a meeting.  I wasn’t even someplace else.  I was home, knee deep in the delights of packing, but the images of being robbed were still swirling through my head.  I wasn’t about to let my guard down now.  For him to contact me out of the blue seemed like a ploy to catch me off balance and unprepared for the arrival of a shifty Napolean-like master of household conquest, but I wasn’t going to fall for it.  I would show him.  I was going to be the one to keep him off-balance.

Now I was sure beyond the shadow of a doubt that something shady was afoot.  If a person has the address of a place, how can they not see the entrance?  An address usually works hand in hand with a front door, right?  At each stage of our interaction I tried to give Gerric the benefit of the doubt, but his inconsistencies kept reinforcing my gut feeling that he was planning something.  If I had my doubts before, I was absolutely sure of it now, and I was resolute that I was not going to be the person falling for it. Gerric was not going to be the hooligan who outsmarted me.  No sir!  Not now, not ever!

I thought for a moment, and cautiously walked outside, staying within a few feet of the entrance of my building, and looking around to see if I could spot him.  No one was there.

The images that came flooding into my head at this point were palpable and terrifying.  I saw myself foolishly venturing away from my building, into the darkness of that eerie and windy night, and then proceeding down the street, with each step moving closer to the ominous intersection where Gerric was supposedly waiting.  Then suddenly and without warning, a band of thugs would jump out of some unforeseen crevice and begin to beat me senseless, robbing me of my phone, wallet, dignity, and belief that I am a semi-intelligent human being.

Quickly and immediately I locked myself securely back inside, and messaged Gerric back.

Then nothing.  I waited for five minutes just inside the glass door, before taking a seat on the couch in the lobby, where I waited another five minutes.  I was convinced that Gerric and his gang were outside, just beyond my line of sight, ready to pounce.  Finally, I decided to call it.  I stood up, ready to head back up to my apartment, when a jolly looking man in his thirties came wobbling into my building.  It was only around 55 degrees outside, where the Santa Ana winds were fiercely blowing, and he wasn’t wearing a jacket, just a t-shirt.  I met him at the door, and upon opening it he said in the friendliest way imaginable, “Are you Scott?”  I told him I was.  He introduced himself as Gerric, and shook my hand genuinely.  I felt like a jackass.

As Gerric tested the computer from the couch in the lobby of my building (where I had placed my second monitor, and a spare keyboard and mouse on a T.V. tray safely and publicly in front of the lobby security camera) he told me that he had gotten turned around and had gone to the wrong building.  He went on to explain he had five kids, and was buying the computer for his youngest two, ages five and seven, for Christmas.  The more he talked the more idiotic I felt.  This man never intended to do me any harm.  He was just buying a Christmas gift for his two kids.  Even if the situation had become one where Gerric attempted to mug me, he would have done it ever so gently, wearing a warm, friendly smile.  I’m pretty sure he’d have thanked me afterwards, too.  Oh Gerric, what a spectacular twit you made out of me.

__________

Over the course of those weeks, many of the people who bought my stuff ended up being a pleasure.  Scott, who bought my second printer, was a total standup guy who works in a food bank.  His printer of the exact same model had just broken, and he wanted to replace it.  He didn’t even negotiate with me on my asking price, and was at my house to pick it up within a couple of hours after his first message to me.  Another joy was Kristina, who bought my second monitor arm.  Like Scott, she was at my place within a few hours to pick it up, and only negotiated a slightly better deal than the one I had advertised.  Wendy, who bought my dining room set, was also a delight.  After negotiating a fair deal, we made arrangements for her boyfriend, Chris, to pick it up just a few days later.  On the morning of Saturday, December 30^th he showed up as arranged (and turned out to be a really nice guy to boot) driving a rented pickup truck, armed with a couple of furniture pads and moving straps, and took it away.  I thought he could have used a box truck and a few more furniture pads, but we’ve already established I might be more than a little bit anal-retentive.

Watching Chris drive away with my dining room set was the first time I felt a pang of regret for what I was doing.  That furniture had been host to many a memorable evening over the course of many years, and it was hard for me to watch it disappear around a corner, and out of my life forever.  I couldn’t help but think about the first time I used it to throw a dinner party (which was very successful, I might add – I’m occasionally a pretty good cook), the first time it hosted a brainstorming session for a project I was working on, or the first time I shared it with the girl who would eventually become my fiancée while we drank bad wine and played an awkward two person game of Cards Against Humanity (where I realized my feelings for her were becoming much deeper than just friends).  So many good times had been spent at its perch, and now it was gone.  I had promised myself that I wasn’t going to mourn its loss, like I was presently doing with too many things in my life, but as always, that’s much easier said than done.

 

THE DULLARDS

Let me state right up front that I am not calling anyone stupid (except maybe myself – but that goes without saying). The following instances are examples of questionable decision-making by what, I’m sure, are otherwise very intelligent people.

 

1. The Low Baller

Um… I don’t think restating the price you are willing to pay over and over again is a good negotiation tactic, Dayanna, or Bessi, or whatever the hell your name is.  If it were, imagine what car dealerships or auction houses would deteriorate into: grown adults more resembling petulant children in full-on meltdown mode.  Come to think of it, maybe my inner malcontented anarchist would like to see that.  Maybe next time I’m in the checkout line at Ralph’s and the poor cashier rings up my bag of Kettle Chips, I am just going to keep repeating, “Two dollars,” like that kid in Better Off Dead and see what happens.  Maybe Dayanna is on to something here!

 

2. Appliance Truck vs. Truck…

 

Above is a slight caveat from the ad I posted on Let Go.  I was protecting myself.  The condo I was renting had nice new laminate floors, and I didn’t want to lose my security deposit because of stranger’s attempting to move a refrigerator by hand.  Simple enough.

One of the responses I received:

 

All seems like it’s going to come off without a hitch, right?

Now you might be wondering, did they show up with the appliance hand truck?  Of course they didn’t.  In the end I had to rent one from U-Haul, which, I might add, did its job perfectly.  On top of that it was two days after our initial meeting (at which they inspected the fridge and gave me $100 so I wouldn’t sell it to someone else – calling it a “security deposit”) when they finally showed up to take the appliance away.  It was that night I finally got a look at the truck in which they were intending to move it.  You’d think if you were spending $200 on something you’d want to arrange a proper way of transporting it, but the truck they showed up with, supplied by their friend who was also part of the “muscle,” had a rack mounted in its stubby little bed, making my refrigerator an impossible fit.

As everyone stood around trying to find a way to beat the laws of spatial dynamics, I innocently asked Stacy’s boyfriend how they were planning to move the fridge into their place once they got it there, wondering why they had not opted for an appliance hand truck themselves.  “We’ll carry it,” Stacy’s boyfriend told me matter-of-factly.  I was skeptical, but said nothing.  I was too horrified by flashes of my refrigerator tumbling down a flight of stairs, jammed in a doorway, or simply crushing one of these rather not large men to find the words to try and dissuade them.

After what seemed like an eternity of three grown adults silently staring at a truck and refrigerator, they decided they were going to lay the appliance on its side at an angle beside the rack.  That is, until I explained to them that refrigerators should be transported upright.  Miraculously, they took my advice, and after multiple attempts to make it work standing up, no matter how they tried to position it, it quickly became clear that there was no way the refrigerator was going to fit in the stubby bed of Stacy’s boyfriend’s friend’s truck.  It was then, just as all hope was lost, they had their eureka moment, and did this.

I tried to caution against it.  I asked them what kind of weight the gate was rated to support.  They told me it was fine, but I wouldn’t relent.  They tried to reassure me that it would be tied to the rack, which was bolted to the bed of the truck, but not once did they even attempt to wrap any of the straps underneath it.  I tried to point this oversight out, but no matter what I said to Stacy, her boyfriend, or his friend, none of them seem concerned in the slightest about the inevitability at hand, so finally I just had to let it go.

These images were the last I captured as my refrigerator left me forever, on its way to almost certain catastrophe.

 

3. The Ballad of Jay

Jay was the worst person I dealt with during my sale.  He may be the worst person ever.  I wish so much that I could share with you our exact conversation, but of all the people I traded messages with during that time, Jay’s are the only ones that I can’t seem to access anymore (I suspect he’s since deleted them).

So you understand the level to which I dislike Jay, and to put it as succinctly as I can, I will say this: Jay was a total and absolute apocalyptic nightmare of a human being.  He first contacted me on Thursday, December 7^th, about a week after I listed my living room set (for which I was asking $1000, hoping to get $750), and didn’t stop messaging me for almost a month, finally and mercifully exiting my life (hopefully) forever on Monday, January 1^st.  No one has ever driven me to such depths of rage.  No one has ever brought me so close to the brink of homicide as a viable life choice.  No one has ever…

Here are some of his messages to me, culled from email alerts Offer Up sent (in chronological order).

Jay: I would like to buy your Living Room Set for sale for $500.00.

Jay: I can’t afford that boss. (He liked to call me boss.)

Jay: If you throw in the dining room set you’re selling (which I had listed at $750, hoping to get $500) I’ll do them both for $1000.

Jay: Okay, I want it (the living room set only).

Jay: If I pay $700 does it include the rug? (I had a world map rug that was clearly stated in my ad as not being part of the items for sale. I loved that rug, and was planning on keeping it. It made me feel like a Bond villain, for pity’s sake.)

Jay: I don’t want it anymore.

Jay: Can I get it by Friday?

Jay: Is that the cheapest?

Jay: Can you do $640, boss? (Two days after we’d agreed to $700.)

Jay: Okay, I’ll do it (for $700).

Jay: Can you meet earlier?

Jay: Sorry, my dad’s not back yet with the truck. Can we meet later?

Jay: Can you do $500, boss?

Jay: No I still want it.

Jay: Outside

That last message brings up to Sunday, December 31^st, the day I tragically met Jay in person for the first time when, entering my lobby, I discovered a wiry and wild haired man wearing a dopey smile already standing inside my building.  Someone had opened the door for him, which distressed me more than a little bit, because I didn’t trust Jay at all.  Next to him was a woman he introduced as his girlfriend (who didn’t utter a single word than entire time she was in my presence).  Then, after the formalities were complete we went up to my apartment (where I had turned on every single light, a television and radio, and shut every door, to make it look like numerous people were home) so Jay could inspect the furniture I was selling him.  It was then he finally agreed to the sale.

He had come under the pretense of cementing the deal we had negotiated for almost a month, and hauling the items away, but when I asked Jay about the truck he had assured me he would be bringing, he informed me that it was with his father, in Long Beach, and over an hour away.  Then, widening his dopey smile (Jay seemed to think he was much more charming than he actually was), he handed me seven crisp $100 bills, and admitted he had only come to pay me for the furniture.  I was shocked.  After all that back and forth, after weeks of his insane negotiation tactics, he was just giving me the money, all of it, and taking nothing with him.  If only I was a less scrupulous person.  I dreamed of just disappearing with the money.  I imagined him returning to my apartment to find it completely empty, like that entire office in The Game, but I knew I could never bring myself to do it.  And I hated myself for it.

Over and over Jay assured me he would be back the next afternoon, New Year’s Day, with the truck and people to finally help him move the living room set out of my apartment.  I was more than skeptical, but at least now I was sure I had sold my living room set.

The next afternoon, not even close to on time, Jay messaged me: “Downstairs.”  I walked outside expecting to find some reasonable apparatus in which to move a complete living room set (a full-sized couch, a love seat, an overstuffed chair with large ottoman, a huge coffee table and two end tables), along with some furniture pads, a few dollies, and maybe even Jay.  I found none of it.  Instead I found Jay’s father, mother and uncle (who constantly referred to him as “the dope” – I wasn’t the only one who recognized it, apparently) and I shit you not, a Toyota Sienna minivan.  That was the truck.  And to make matters worse, after telling them I had somewhere to be a short time later that afternoon, they assured me they could move it all in one trip.  Naturally, I was slightly doubtful.

In the transporting of my former furniture from my apartment to their minivan, a journey of ten yards down a hallway, two floors via an elevator, and about thirty yards through a parking garage, Jay’s father, mother and uncle destroyed the living room set for which I had so lovingly cared for close to a decade.  There were no furniture pads to protect the light brown/off-white set.  No, there was nothing of the sort.  Unwrapped tables crashed to the ground on more than one occasion, chipping their finishes.  Off-white couches were dragged across dirty public floors with reckless abandon.  At one point Jay’s father did peel off his sweatshirt, exposing his ample gelatinous midsection, in an effort to cover a small swatch of the couch as we placed it on one of the furniture dollies I had borrowed from work for just such an eventuality.  Immediately I found an old towel and he mercifully returned his sweatshirt to where it was needed most.  I was thankful.  My neighbors, I’m sure, were too.

I was accommodating and polite as I watched these savages destroy my furniture (all the while reminding myself it wasn’t mine any longer), but I finally reached my breaking point when, in an effort not to have to lift anything, they got the couch jammed so tightly in the doorway of my building’s only elevator that it could no longer be moved.  That was the moment that I finally lost it, and started directing the three of them like a drill Sargent.  After we luckily managed to extricate the couch (the entire time all I could think of was that scene in Friends – Pivot! – and the sight of it sliced down the middle later in the episode), and get everything else out to their truck, I quieted down, stood back, and watched as they built this.

I didn’t think they were going to be able to do it.  I was convinced it was impossible.  They only had two furniture straps with them for God’s sake, but after almost 45 minutes they seemed happy with the placement and stability of the furniture, which by now had roughly doubled the size of their Toyota Sienna.  (Keep in mind three people also had to fit inside.)

I watched as they pulled away, following the same route as my dining room set and refrigerator had before, and with each speed bump they traversed the entire minivan, and everything in it, rocking precariously back and forth.  To this day I wonder whether or not they made it to where they were going, which they told me was up a steep hill somewhere near Griffith Park.  Or if, during the early days of January 2018, the streets of Los Angeles were positively littered with the obliterated remains of my once treasured belongings.

 

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In the end I sold almost everything.  Sadly, I didn’t unload my second computer monitor.  I even dropped the price down to $25, but had no takers.  Maybe I should have told Francisco it was a television.  Hindsight, right – it’s always perfect.  I didn’t sell my D.J. equipment either.  I had called Guitar Center early in my process of looking for places to hawk my stuff, and they told me they bought the kind of used equipment I was selling. But when I showed up there weeks later I found the information was dead wrong – they, in fact, no longer buy the kind of gear I own, and hadn’t for years.  It would have taken too much time to pull everything apart and try to sell each item individually on one of the apps or websites I was using, so I decided to just take it to the 5’ by 10’ storage space I had rented just a few days earlier.  Everything I intended on keeping would have fit inside had things gone according to plan, and I had sold each and every single item I meant to, but you know what they say about the best laid plans.  And my D.J. equipment was only a tiny wrench; not selling my bedroom set was its enormous twin that reduced the whole works to shambles.  By the time I realized it was a lost cause, I had spent close to $25 trying to boost its placement on Let Go and Offer Up, and the tactic had worked.  I got almost 650 views on Offer Up alone, but they had never amounted to any serious offers.  It finally occurred to me that its size was likely the reason.  It takes a large room to hold furniture that big, and my potential buyers just didn’t have the space.  Did I at this point?  It didn’t matter, really, because I knew I wasn’t going to give it away.  It was only a few years old, and when I return to L.A. I will need some furniture, after all.

In the days leading up to my final push to get everything out of my place, I arranged with a friend to help me move the bedroom set into storage the day before I had to hand in my keys, a Saturday.  The decision came with the unfortunate consequence of having to donate or trash a few things that I wasn’t originally planning on getting rid of, but I had no choice, really.  I was not going to move into a larger storage space.  No, the intention here was to downsize, and I was going to stay the course.  At all costs, I was going to stick to the plan.  When, that Saturday morning, my friend texted me with the news that he had come down with a nasty flu and wasn’t going to be able to help me, I stayed the course.  When I couldn’t find anyone to replace him, since everyone seemed to be previously engaged with parties or kids or work, I stayed the course.  When I backed my car into a telephone pole in the U-Haul parking lot because some unpleasant individual wasn’t going to budge in an effort to score a parking spot, I stayed the course.  In the end I just decided to move the bedroom set myself, using the furniture dollies and pads I had borrowed from work, and gravity as my helpers.

Mercifully, in the end, there were two bright spots to that horrible day: the sight of me rolling my king sized mattress down the hallways of my building, and through the parking garage, clumsily trying to steady one end on a furniture dolly as I pushed it forward, and my friend Anna, who, like an angel of mercy, showed up to help me at just the right moment.  In the end we somehow managed to get my bedroom set jammed into my storage space along with almost everything else I planned on keeping, but just barely.

I spent that final Sunday in my apartment giving things away on Let Go.  It was very efficient, really. I typed “free”, and someone was at my place, usually within an hour, to cart away the item(s) for which I no longer had space.  All the while I worked my way from room to room cleaning, patching and painting nail holes, and loading the items I would be bringing with me to my friend Blake’s place (and eventually on my trip) into my car.  A few weeks earlier Blake had generously and compassionately agreed to let me crash with him for awhile, because in all the madness of my computerized yard sale and subsequent move, I had gotten next to no planning done for my trip.

After everything was done, after dumping my cherished office chair and a few other items by the side of the road, after my landlords joined me for the final walk-through of my apartment and I handed in my keys, after loading everything into Blake’s house and setting up my air mattress, I took a much-needed shower before finally crawling into bed.  I was exhausted.  As I lay there in the dark, during those last few moments before I found sleep, I remember thinking to myself, that after all that, after all the messages, and meetings, and stress, after all I did to the contrary, there was no doubt about it – I still own too much stuff.