the truck. a 14-footer, but no lillies on the side-- this is a man's truck!

this was supposed to be my big photo moment but i don't pay attention or have a trucker hat

...checking the mirrors...

tim (left). i may be at a stop or in motion. whatever it is, i'm straining to see something

the covetted "hand over hand" turning picture

Ladies and gentlemen, I have moved (again). In my year at Wilkes-Barre without student status, I've made very few new friends. I have surely not generated "moving" relationships. You need to be a special kind of friend to be moving stuff. The friend must be willing, and I have to trust that he/she won't break my stuff. I could also just hire someone too. I was set to do that, but then the Warnecke brothers came in to save the day.

Industrious guys, the Warnecke's hail from Long Island, NY. Charlie, the elder, just finished up school, graduating with some sort of scientific degree. I know he had biology labs and chemistry, so do with that what you will. Tim just finished up his first year in psychology, with a possible addition of political science (because any chance to spend time in that department should not be ignored). Tim also looks like the older brother because he has face-hair. The two guys have always been a good time to hang out with, and they sealed their status as moving friends with this trip.

The stage was set Thursday morning. I had already driven the UHaul once, with few problems, and little speed. Once I docked outside the building (that's a size joke, I know trucks aren't boats), it was just a matter of packing. Champion at making things fit in moving situations, Charlie took over packing the truck. It went well until we moved the truck. When we pulled out for a trip to the King's College theatre warehouse to drop off a couch, we lost some feet on my credenza (a fancy way of saying "the thing that the TV sits on"). Passing the blame back and forth is easy, but I think we can all agree that it was a combination of my driving and having the mattress on top of it (and the fact that this solid-as-a-rock piece of furniture is held up by crappy plastic legs and long, skinny screws).

That was our first fallen soldier. We didn't discover that until I backed into the warehouse though, quite literally. Luckily I bought the insurance and I only hit with the trailer-hitch-thing. After we unloaded the couch, it was time to move into the new place! Excitement filled the air of the cab, mixed with dusty air conditioning, and hits of the 80's, 90's, and today. As I drove down Washington Street, towards the new movie theater project that will be done in March of 2006 (May at the latest), I noticed something awry. Police lights were flashing in the distance, and an officer was casually swinging his arm across himself and to the right. A detour.

"Looks like kids are getting out early," Charlie piped up.

"Who closes a damned city street so kids can get on a bus?" I started. "I'm moving this thing at like 5 miles an hour. You're tellin' me no kid can jump out of the damned way? If a kid gets hit at 5 miles per hour by a UHaul, they got what was coming to them... Freakin' kids and their freakin' buses. It's Thursday, May 18-- no holidays, what the hell?!"

Charlie and Tim laughed, because most people take pleasure on figurative road blocks in my life-- ironically this was a literal one too. The skies were cloudy, and we drove back to the old apartment, expecting no parking space. Then I got a parking space. On the way there, around the YMCA and Wilkes University, we all saw a woman poking her child, in a stroller, with a stick. I chose to ignore it, but my mind was spinning. Thank goodness Charlie saw it too or I may have passed out and slammed into Boscov's.

We threw more crap into the truck-- little things that were too annoying to put with big things. The second swing around went alright. We started moving things in, while crotchety old ladies heckled us from the lobby. That's not a joke either. They really heckled us. It was an eye-opener. The TV was one of the last things to come in, and that was all on Charlie. Lucky for him, we stopped off at the basement first, where the maintenance man gave us an unnecessary tutorial on how to use the elevator, as Charlie's arms slowly turned to rubber.

When everything was moved in, it was time to reward the movers, get the UHaul back, and let Charlie change his pants, since Tim ripped them. Then it started to pour. Who needs dry roads when you have a UHaul? After pretending I was going to run into one woman's car, criticizing a UHaul peer on the street (on a corner, no less) with a lily on the side, gassing up, and chasing down a few school busses, we got the UHaul back. Everything went well. We got some food and let Charlie and Tim off the hook. Mom and I returned to the apartment to unpack stuff. Oh yeah, mom was there. It's not that I forgot about her, but she stayed in the old apartment to clean up while we moved stuff. She had fun too.

After the moving, stories were recounted for Greg, who came up for the King's Alumni party on Saturday night. He had a good time, and on the walk out to Charlie's on Friday we got thrown out of Public Square by the police. If you know Greg, that may or may not be a shock, but he was well-behaved. The officer informed us that the Public Square apparently closes after dark? I think he was full of shit. I mean, they'd call it Daylight Public Square if that was true, right? Or they'd take the 'Public' out altogether.