THE 40 FOOT CONTAINER

Do we move everything we own or none of it? Do we par down and only bring things that are irreplaceable, like heirlooms? Does Maurice need all his tools?? Do I need all my white pottery??

We went back and forth and forth and back on these questions. Rent a U-Haul and drive it to San Diego and than have it transferred to a moving company in San Diego to be driven down? Have it moved from Toronto. EXPENSIVE!! We considered every possibility over the 3 ½ years until we decided. Well, it was Maurice who decided. He wanted to put our things, on a ship, in a container. This way it is only loaded once and not moved from truck to truck. Once in the container our stuff will not be disturbed until it reaches us, or Mexican customs decides to tear through it all.

World Class Transport was the company he found. They pack you up (if you want insurance it is the only way, which is fine by me!) they load up the container and off they go. When they gave us an estimate through the internet, they were not sure from the form we had filled out if we would need more than a 20 foot container. The problem is there is only 20 or 40 feet. I told Hercules, honest to God, the guys name is Hercules, he needed to come and see our stuff instead of trying to figure out what to do with our things on the day they moved us and we could not fit everything into the 20 foot container. Hercules and his partner Dimitri arrive at our house after we had been stood up three times but this company. Can you see the confidence flying out the window? Hercules and Dimitri themselves drove the 5 hours from Montreal to our house since “they could not rely on anyone”, referring to the guy who stood us up. We tour the house, the basement, the workshop, the garden shed, under the boat port. Why under the boat port?? Because Maurice made a 30 x 40 canopy, out of PVC pipe (septic pipe) that we set up for parties in our yard. He wants this in Mexico. He envisions the workers dining under it, or some such thing, so if we “are doing this container thing” he wants his pipe, ropes, and tarpaulin that creates this “tent”.

So Hercules and Dimitri, write and talk and calculate deciding we will need more than a 20 foot container. The cost is not much different they explain. If they had a 24 foot one they say that would probably be perfect. They don’t. What they can do iS create a false end for the 40 foot container and after it is loaded they will seal it off to make sure everything is secure and stays in place. Hercules also says casually that people normally have more than they think. I tell him he has seen everything we own. This is it.

Negotiate and we have a deal. Our house closes on December 4th, which is a Friday. They said it will take two or three days to pack and load the truck. We decide that Tuesday they should start the packing, which give us three full days and we can go into Friday, if we need to. Maurice thinks Monday would be better....we decide on Tuesday.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT???? On Monday I get a phone call at work at 11am and it is Hercules. “Hey Shelby! Where are you guys? The movers have been there since 9am.” I say, no, they are to come on Tuesday. He says, no Maurice wanted Monday. He wants someone to let them in. Of course, if we were ready, we could have had our neighbor Kate let them in. We are not ready!!! The place is a mess and we have to be organized for them to pack us up. The issue is this. Some of our stuff will be used right away when it gets there. These are the things we will use in the bodega. All the rest will be in storage for probably a year. We have been sorting dishes, crystal, clothes, towels, everything, into groups...we were not ready!! “Sorry Hercules, they can not get in. They have them come back tomorrow”..he says we will have to pay them for Monday..I think WHO CARES! This is the LEAST of my worries...thus begins our 4 nights of zero sleep. When I say zero, pretty seriously I mean zero.

I am going to fast forward to Thursday…
past Monday night when I start getting really sick;
past Tuesday when three workers were not enough;
past Wednesday when they brought two more guys to help pack;
past the boxes that I found where they just threw things inside, unwrapped, antique things, irreplaceable things;
past my trying-to-be-polite-ranting;
past my drive into Toronto cause I needed to go to CHFI to get my office things to move and I am so sick I can hardly talk (Maurice‘s dream was total laryngitis);
past my friends, Susana, Jeannine and Karen getting me boxes, feeding me tea, loading my car and putting much of my office in the garbage cause I just could not deal with it;
past all this to Thursday when they start to load the container.

Maurice has 46 boxes of things, weighed, boxed and measured in his workshop to be loaded. This is where he has spent all of his time. Making boxes from wood, itemizing each box etc. The “why” of this organization on his part will come later. Anyway at noon they tell us the semi driver who dropped off the container (and TOTALLY destroyed the new owners driveway and yard tryng to back it up our 200 yard curved driveway ) is picking up the container at 4 pm because if it does not leave at 4 it will not make the train to Halifax where it gets on the ship. It is impossible to finish in 4 hours. Maurice has not even begun to organize his office, which he allowed no one into. I AM FREAKING OUT! I MEAN FREAKING OUT!!! No sleep since Sunday, I am unbelievably sick, and the place is a mess. THERE IS NO WAY they are going to be pulling out of driveway at 4...but they do. They do not care that we still have things to put inside. They do not care that I have not vacuumed yet so I can not load and move our vacuum...WHY?? CAUSE THE FRICKING CONTAINER IS FULL!!! FULL!! TO THE BRIM. It is packed tightly. We did not even take our riding lawn mower, which we had planned and it is full. OH MY GOD!!! What are we going to do with all this stuff in Mexico!!! Where are we going to store it for a year!!!

That question still remains. We rented a storage unit. A 10 x 10...that will be a huge help!!!! NOT!

We are procrastinators. We had a wonderful last couple of weeks in Toronto. We had a memorable, albeit sad, early Christmas with the kids and grandkids. We spent a weekend with friends, we dined and said our goodbyes. It’s not like we just sat around doing nothing! We had 3 ½ years to get ready for this week and believe it or not I really thought we were!! I truly did!! We had taken car loads upon car loads full of stuff to Goodwill. We had an auction. We had a yard sale. I took boxes and bags of clothes to Maurice’s kids and family. I took boxes and bags of things to Wisconsin for my family. We went to the dump endless times. We put stuff on the road in front of our house and guessed how long it would take for someone to stop and pick it up. It was always picked up.

We just did not realize what is is like to move 17 years of your life in 4 days. Devastating is an understatement.

On that Thursday, when the container was gone and the new owners were already delivering things to make their move easier, we still had an office to deal with. There was also crap left from the movers, packing materials etc. It was 6 o’clock and MY vision of having a nice dinner with our neighbors, Rick and Kate, followed by a hot tub and a good nights sleep at our hotel that was waiting for us downtown Toronto was absolutely not going to happen. What did happen, was these same neighbors saved us. Rick kicked me out of Maurice’s office so he and Maurice could deal with it without having to listen to me and my raspy, infected sceamming! We moved everything we had not dealt with into their basement. In May, when we return for Vanessa, Maurice’s oldest daughter’s, wedding we will put some of these things in an auction. Some will be driven to Wisconsin and the rest will be sold - hopefully - at Kate and Rick’s rummage sale.

So at 9 pm we are eating our last meal in our kitchen. Pizza, with our friends who saved us. As we pulled out of our driveway, me for the last time, to make the 90 minute drive into Toronto, we planned our Friday. Maurice and I would go to the 9am closing of our house to sign the papers after which Maurice would drop me at work and head back to our house to FINISH PACKING UP!!!!! Seriously. To finish packing up and to make one last trip to the dump!

Pretty much everything we own, except of course the stuff in Kate and Rick’s basement, as well as all the stuff we had previously put in Rudi and Edwina’s basement for that same auction, is now somewhere on the Atlantic. It has been through Kingston in the Bahamas’ and is now heading towards Vera Cruz, Mexico. At this point it will either clear customs, or be taken apart, inspected and held up. We got all our paperwork, signed, stamped and approved by the Mexican Consul in Toronto. This occurs AFTER your entire packing list, the 429 items on our list (the most the movers have ever had they said) have been translated into Spanish, including serial numbers and models for anything electronic, or electric for that matter, and submitted for approval.

If it clears, or when it clears, it will than be trucked across Mexico to the Sea of Cortez and than put on a ferry to Cabo. Then it is put on another truck to be delivered to us. Stay tuned for the chapter that will read, “Now what do we do with all this shit!”

This is the story of why I have no sequins for New Year’s Eve.