Get ‘Em Out By Friday
First of all, it snowed several inches last night and this morning. Yesterday afternoon, I could handle, and it seemed almost quaint. How very Vermont, I thought. How … special, that just before we leave, it’s snowing! Just the kick in the ass we needed! See you later, Vermont! I love you!
Then, this morning, I woke up (at 5 a.m., thank you Sam, and also, what the hell? FIVE AM IS TOO EARLY) and it was an effing WINTER WONDERLAND out there. Sam’s little face was pressed against the window marveling at it. Tons and tons of heavy, wet snow — like, actual accumulation. Enough, if you can believe it, that schools were delayed and/or canceled all over and my friend Kate lost power (still doesn’t have it, in fact) and got more than a foot of snow.
A few days ago, I was wearing a T-shirt and capris. I mean, what IS this? I went to Syracuse, for chrissake! I know spring snow! It snowed the day before my college graduation! And yet six inches to a foot three days before May, really? REALLY, VERMONT?
I mean, come on, if you’re trying to push me out, this is the way to go. Fine, I’ll leave, if you’re going to be a cold, wet crankypants about it. FINE. Massachusetts is warmer, anyway, AND it’s a coastal state! Up yours, Vermont!
(I’m sorry, Vermont! I’m just kidding! I love yoooooooouuuu!)
So! In Mashed Potato Watch, in case you weren’t following along on Twitter, we had a plumber come. A plumber who was almost cocky in the beginning and found the whole thing mildly amusing when he squeezed our supposedly-tiny job in between several OTHER jobs and was all, this shouldn’t take but a moment folks! Oh, mashed potatoes! How adorable, he almost tittered.
An hour and a half and not one, but two different snakes later, he was singing a different tune. I heard him on the phone with his colleagues, “Well it ain’t working, because there’s a whole goddamn box of mashed potatoes down there.” Pause pause pause. “Yes, I TRIED that … No. No. I don’t think you heard me: A WHOLE BOX OF INSTANT MASHED POTATOES … Fine. Fine yes fine. I’ll get the bigger snake. This is ridiculous… FINE. Fine. I’m TRYING. FINE.”
And so on. For more than three hours, to the tune of $300. At one point Adam asked him to put it on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the worst. “Well, we just moved from 7 to 8,” was his reply. By hour three? He said we were at a NINE POINT FIVE. We were one half-point away from him having to bring in some kind of JET thing into the house — something he’d never had to use in a kitchen and, he explained, something we most definitely do not want.
“The pressure has to go somewhere, and if it doesn’t push out the clog, it usually ends up all over the walls and stuff. It just shoots everywhere, and we have to line the house with plastic. Like a giant fire hose of nasty plumbing stuff, you know?”
Oh boy, did I know. Or rather, I did not want to know. And when he left, it seemed I wouldn’t have to know, for things were moving freely.
But you know what? IT SEEMS I AM GOING TO HAVE TO KNOW. Because hours after he left, we cleaned up after dinner and VOILA! THE SINK DID NOT DRAIN. And then Adam got all excited, like HE is a plumber (“I watched what he did, and I can totally do it, Jonna”), and he put our snake down there, and a few hours (!) into it, he came over with a snake that smelled like … well, vomit, actually, and waved it in my face excitedly, “LOOK I GOT POTATOES! POTATOES ARE ON THIS THING! I GOT POTATOES!” And behold, yes, there were chunks of mashed potato at the end of the 30-foot snake he was noodling around with there, and … oh whatever.
It was to no avail. The plumber is coming back tomorrow, and people, I am never eating mashed potatoes again. Or any potato product. French fries, you’re dead to me.
(I’m also going to whisper that after the plumber left, Adam used the garbage disposal. “What’d you put in there?” I asked, tentatively. And it turned out, he’d put in some PORK LOIN down there, and now I’m like, FOR GOD’S SAKE, YOU ARE BANNED FROM THE GARBAGE DISPOSAL. BECAUSE SERIOUSLY, ADAM, PORK LOIN, ARE YOU SERIOUS OH MY GOD.)
***
The movers arrive Tuesday. Tuesday! Tentatively, that is. I mean, they’re coming tomorrow to do an estimate and … yeah. Our lease is signed, sealed, delivered, deposits made and now it’s all like, DUDE. We’re moving! How did this happen? I’m currently making the final plans with local friends (MEG WE NEED TO PICK A TIME), and I’ve got big girl evening plans at a big girl place with big girl drinks with my friend Kate, and what kills me is that it will be the first and likely last time we do this, and what took us so long? BAH.
The house is packed, mostly (see also: silverware, no coffee spoon and oh, it’s probably for the best because we can’t wash anything anyway) and yet, it doesn’t seem real. But you know, having done this twice before, I know that nothing seems real until you get there, and the first few weeks are almost vacation-like, as you wait for your two weeks to be up before returning to your real life. Your real life, which is still going on in the state you just left. And then one day, without even realizing it, you notice that this is your real life, and it’s pretty good.
Wow, that was … deep, right? OMFG, please punch me in the face.
It’s weird, in a way, to think we might not ever do this again. Nice, and a little comforting, now that the emotional rawness of it all has worn off. Missing my friends is the last remaining heartache, and that won’t ever go away, honestly, but we’ll email and talk, and I’ll see them again. I will! (SNIFFLE)
Finally, I spent some quality time reading my own archives recently — it always happens when a family member or longtime friend is combing through them. I wonder what’s in there, and what I was like back then. And wow, was I insufferable and depressed and HELLO INTROSPECTIVE. HELLO JONNA, PLEASE GROW UP AND THANK YOU.
I’m sorry, Dad. Also, to the rest of you out there, reading through your own archives is a spectacularly bad idea, because all you want to do is hit DELETE DELETE ANNOYING DELETE, SHUT UP WHINY GIRL, DELETE.
I hope you guys have a great Thursday! Obviously I won’t be around much the next few days, because, um, moving. You know. (OMFG)
*Genesis, from 1972.
23 comments April 28th, 2010