Tales of the Road

 

Spawn has returned to the coast, leaving Oklahoma in the dust. For good, this time. But getting here was no easy task. After a brief, but uneventful flight out of Tulsa to Dallas, she waited around for her three hour layover to end, boarded her flight to Portland, then had to turn around due to an equipment malfunction on the aircraft.

When she called to fill me in on the change of arrival, I was already on my way to the airport, a mere 3 hours drive away. There was no way I was going to turn around, so I decided to chill at a rest area for a bit, people watch, text friends and family, and do other strange things to pass the time. But I’ve seen enough horror movies and crime dramas to know what goes on at rest areas after dark, so I headed toward the airport. I’d checked the map, and there were lots of places to kill some time. Places like… IKEA.

Confession time! Not long ago, darling Spawn shared a book with me called Horrorstor. The very brief-but-concise synopsis said, “What if IKEA was haunted.” Folks… lemme tell you, I did not open a single cabinet in that store, except that one really cool model with the strange carvings and handles that were icy cold… ok, not really, but I swear I heard some strange, distant shrieking. Anyway, I managed to get the hell out of there for under $60, which is quite a feat if you know me at all. There were book cases that kept calling my name… in a thin, ghostly, whispery wail.

I have got to change my reading lineup.

With five hours left to kill and no energy to walk around, I parked in a shopping mall lot, and watched the show. Friends, I saw people who have absolutely NO business being behind the wheel of a car, behind the wheel of a car in a parking lot attempting to place said car, in which they had no business being behind the wheel of, between two white lines, and doing so without removing any paint from adjacent vehicles. Watching that was was scarier than being in IKEA.

Finally, it was time and I headed toward the...oops, no, I went the wrong way. But lo! Yonder there be a fine constable in his worthy vehicle, so I quickly, but safely, pulled into the parking lot to ask directions, only to discover I shouldn’t have done that as it was not a public kind of place. I made my way back to a semi-familiar intersection, found yet another place to park and consult my magic map, aka my phone. It told me I was an idiot and I needed to turn right and continue going that way until I ran into the airport and follow the signs to arrivals. It was busy and finding each other was a challenge. No time to chat, they hustle your ass outta passenger pickup with much gusto and alacrity. And yelling. Not me, the traffic security folks were yelling. At me. And everyone else.

It was a very long day for both of us, and by the end of it, I was done driving. For about a week, because the following Monday, Tammie and I packed a bag and headed inland. We had stuff to find, gather, and rescue from her mother’s house, which was FINALLY vacated by the squatters.

Just let me say something about that. We TRIED to get them out of the place back in 2020, but due to the lock down, ousting them was nothing happening. Then there were the changes made (temporarily) that stated no one could be evicted even for non-payment of rent for another period of time. After that, it was ok to start proceedings, but… the attorneys handling evictions were not taking on any more clients as they were up to their eyeballs with work. Letters were written to the squatters, and ignored. The local law enforcement was called in, but they couldn’t do anything without the paperwork, which we didn’t have because we couldn’t find an attorney… Oh, it was not a fun time. In the middle of all this there were deaths in the family, other unpleasantness happening, and the squatters still squatted. Fortunately, the reprehensible bastards finally got tired of things like phone calls, letters, etc, found a new place to “live” and moved out. What they left behind was nothing short of a corner of hell. Dog shit all over the floor (and the walls), broken stuff, vandalized things, and just general mayhem that cost a great deal of money to clean up.

But there were things that the family wanted, genealogy info, keepsakes (the few that hadn’t been ruined by filthy squatters), and some furniture that had actually been spared most of the hideousness. We worked in fetid air that smelled of feces and chemicals (cleaners and air “fresheners” used by the company hired to clean the place). We collected as much memorabilia as we possibly could, finding unexpected treasures tucked away from the reach of horrible people.

I had rented a moving truck for the occasion and when I went to pick it up, the nightmare from the house sort of followed me. Their wi-fi kept blipping out, and when I told them I needed a furniture dolly or hand truck, I was shown a small box truck, which would not do for Madame Secretary. The lady went back and got an appliance dolly, with the strap and larger wheels and I said that’s exactly what I need.

Que the bastard. He came in, yelled at the woman who helped me, went back and got the smaller hand truck. I said, no, that’s not what I want, I need the larger one. He argued with me, after all, the peen knows all, right? Wrong, but I was done arguing with someone who couldn’t listen, so I left without said moving aid, climbed into the moving truck, and headed to the house.

Those moving trucks… this one… um… it was like being strapped to a bouncy house that was attached to the back of a kangaroo on meth. So. Much. Bouncing. And rattling. And what the hell was THAT noise?

Back at the house, we got it loaded. Madame Secretary is an unwieldy beast, but despite no dolly for safe moving, we got her out of the house and into the cargo area. The rest of it was pretty easy, although easy is relative by that point. We were exhausted. Wrangling Madame Secretary took a lot out of all of us.

Then it was the long, bouncy, drive home, unloading, then the next day, it was another long, bouncy, drive to drop it off, because, of course, we couldn’t just take it to the closest U-Haul place and drop it off. Oh, no. We had to take it 2.5 hours away. And at one point, I managed to lose a credit card, but I didn’t know until we got to the destination, so it had been hanging out at the gas station for quite a while before I noticed it’s absence. Queue panicked phone calls and the card was canceled with no bad charges put on it.

Being home feels good, and I’m happy to say my urge to travel has been somewhat quelled for a bit.

Madame Secretary, has been cleaned up and will soon be settled into her new spot, where she will display my “writer’s altar” of old books, new books, and school stuff of long ago. She will hold treasures of paper and pens, notebooks filled with ideas, or potential (empty but waiting notebooks), and all the bits and bobs of life that writers collect. Souvenirs of childhood; relics, and artifacts that touch a part of our souls when we see them and remember, now have a place to live where they will no longer fear being forgotten.