UHAUL - For Moving - NOT!

Date: September 28, 2005
     
      Yeah, if they can bother to find you the truck, trailer, tow rig you requested a week ago. So who cares if you have people lined up to load and drive? Who cares if you are sitting in your home surrounded by dismantled bookcases and over 100 boxes and still packing? Who cares if you gave them a week to find said truck and have seen one?
      UHAUL doesn't.
      Another UHAUL store has one truck that is two-way only - means we have to drive it back. I don't think so.
      I did get a call, I guess from reservations, the day before due date. They promised someone would call me by 7PM.
      Nada.
      I tried calling back - 6:55PM, but they had fled the scene. They are supposed to be open until 7PM.
      So I got up, groggy, this morning, and called Grimmer.
      "We don't have anything."
      So I called reservations (which picks up the reservation when the target station can't supply) and I am sitting on HOLD - for a good 20 minutes so far - with a broken speaker phone. (I dropped it once too often. Killed it.)
      They came on, mumbled at me, put me back on hold.
      Hold of course brags constantly how good they are, how they make moving easy. The web meanwhile is full of stories about how bad they have become.
      Then they disconnected me.
      Without getting back to me.
      So I went back on hold. (I at least have redial.)
      Which prattled on and on about how good they were.
      And how they have the right equipment.
      It is now 7:55AM.
      No truck.
      My contractor - who will drive it - said call when I find it.
      He's working.
      His wife is coming with comps on the house. Give me an idea for the setting price. Must sell. It will pay off the other one, set me up to do my new business. eBook publishing. (Looking for authors.)
      I should write a book on moving.
      A woman came on. She wanted a reservation number - the guy never got the number back to me.
      She didn't want to look up by name, she wanted the phone number.
      Then SHE put me back on hold.
      It was still prattling, and talking about how all they needed was a credit card number. Sure.
      Some better customer service might be a better idea.
      If they give me their web address again, I may kill something.
      (Puts you in the same position - they take $5 - then screw around finding a trailer, truck, whatever.)
      It is now after 8AM.
      I am sitting barefoot in a nightgown by an open sliding door, as I wait for garbage pick-up. I filled all three cans. I actually did yard work out front. Some yard work.
      I actually was on hold 5 minutes (she timed it) when she came back and said I could have a 17' truck (we ordered a 26' super mover, would settle for a 24') and a trailer (which would leave the van in my driveway). We are planning on towing the van behind the moving van. Instead of behind my truck. It will be bad enough that I have to rent a truck and trailer (auto tow - full sized - like the one with the flat tire last week) and somehow put the disabled VW bug onboard.
      Or.
      I can wait, and SOMEWHERE, driving distance unknown but in the "area", which could be Oakland, Sunnyvale, San Jose, whatever, they will find a truck, guaranteed.
      Good thing I have more packing to do and ordered the truck EARLY. We planned to drive down Sat. I can't see loading at NIGHT.
      My driver, Andy, my contractor, is flying home so two-way is out.
      I am driving back, because I am leaving the animals here. For now, while they repair the fence on the dog run side of the yard in San Diego. You have to have good fences because of the wildlife. Rattlesnakes. Coyotes. Owls. Eagles. Bobcats. And a few other things. Skunks. Rats. Mice. Lizards. I have an exterminator working. On the rats.
      Things still run over the back deck.
      I am also leaving the G5 tower up and running on DSL - until I KNOW for a fact that SBC got the phone line working. It was dead last week and they said it appeared to be outside the house.
      How do you lose a phone line outside a house that has been only just recently working? One way is rats and mice and squirrels. They eat phone line.
      So, I need a dial tone before I can switch DSL. So I sill be on dial up for a few days or weeks - depending on their carrying-on.
      Oh yeah. All the UHAUL calls are to my cell phone.
      Which means I run around with it clamped to my bra-strap so it's handy.
      Gotta love it.
      I am thinking I may pump up the van tires, drive it down, fly back with Andy.