Made It!

Just a quick post to say that Dad, the cat, the dog, and I finally, finally, FINALLY made it to UniversityLand today. The road trip, although ridiculously long, was at least pretty for most of the way and I'll probably try to write more about it at some point, although it's 1:30 in the morning and if I wrote a description of the past two days right now it would just say something like, "There were trees and rivers and a bunch more trees and this gas station full of truly inbred-looking people and farms and a whole bunch more trees and wow, there really are a lot of Civil War battle sites around here, I'm kind of ashamed at how little I can remember of my Civil War history."

Tomorrow I get to move into my apartment. There was a, uh, situation earlier when I called the apartment complex to find out what time I can come over to sign the lease and get the key tomorrow and the leasing agent told me the earliest the apartment would be ready was 4:30. So I tried to strike a balance between "throwing a raging fit" and "making them like me enough that they don't want to evict me the first time my dog decides to bark" and I nicely explained that with a move-in date of August 9th I should be able to actually MOVE IN on August 9th. She tried to tell me that "it's just company policy that nobody ever moves into an apartment until 4 or 5 in the afternoon" which is obviously complete and utter bullshit she made up on the spot because come on, how does that policy make any sense at all whatsoever?! So I told her if that was really the case that nobody had explained the "policy" to me and that I scheduled everything on the assumption that I would have the apartment all day long and therefore I wanted my rent for the month prorated to reflect a move-in date of the 10th instead of the 9th, and that she was going to have to figure out a way to solve the following problems:
-Cable installer is showing up to the apartment sometime between 11 and 2
-A Fed Ex package is due to be delivered to the apartment in the early afternoon
-A storage pod full of everything I own is being delivered to the apartment tomorrow morning (hopefully) because in the real world, "August 9th" begins at 12:01 a.m. and business-wise it generally begins at 9 a.m., maybe 10 a.m. at the latest, so it's not my fault for not just automatically realizing that in the world of my new apartment complex "move-in day" is actually "move-in night".

I think she realized about that time that I knew the so-called policy was a load of crap, so she told me "Well, they still need to shampoo the carpet and fumigate, but I'll call the contractors and see if they can come in the morning instead." And then she called me back and said, "You can move in at 12," and I said, "I'll be there at 11, that's the latest time I'll accept," and she said, "Well, they might have to be cleaning the carpet around your stuff if the cleaning guy gets behind on his schedule. We have a lot of people moving in and out right now," and I said, "Well, you know I'm coming at 11:00 so you just make sure he cleans my apartment first thing in the morning," and she said, "Well, okay, I'll try," and that was that.
I was reasonably satisfied with that solution. I was even more satisfied an hour later, however, when the apartment manager called me and said, "It turns out your original apartment won't actually be ready for move-in tomorrow [Gee, ya think?!?!], but you can move into another unit that has just been newly renovated and has all new appliances." So it's the same price as I would have paid in the other unit (it's the exact same floorplan) but it has all new appliances! Score! The only downsides to the apartment switch are that I had to call all of the utility and insurance companies and change my address, and that the new apartment is most likely a true third floor apartment--as in the short dog and I have to walk up two flights of stairs, and we have to move all my damn furniture up two flights of stairs. The other apartment, while also on the third floor, was in a building situated on a hill so if you went up the back way you only had to actually climb one flight of stairs. But oh well. It's still third floor (which is what I wanted, mainly because I think it will be safer and quieter) and it's possible that this building is actually in a better spot in the complex than the other one.

I'll try to give you a report on the apartment status tomorrow, assuming I'm lucky enough to actually end up with working internet (a long shot, knowing my luck with things of that nature) and that I survive moving my furniture up two flights of stairs in the record-breaking heat this part of the country is having right now. I have quite the knack for always moving during the hottest week of the whole year.