KBTV

KBTV::The Move

Larry, Harry, Sandy and Russell. I was introduced to my movers one by one, as they sleepily lumbered through the front door. They wore bright blue “PRS Moving and Storage” golf shirts and spoke perfect English. Larry was missing two teeth, Harry was a school teacher (off for the summer), Sandy doesn’t eat red meat and Russell is the boss. I immediately set to bonding with Russell by telling him that his first is my middle name. “It’s Kate RUSSEL Bohner,” I explained breaking into a big toothy smile while sticking my hand out.

“Your parents put Russell as your middle name and you’re a girl?” Russell muttered in the middle of a revealing yawn – large pink tonsils and what looked like wisdom teeth still in tact.

“Yes,” I whisper. “Kinda weird, huh?” I place my unshaken hand back in the pocket of my hot pink hospital scrubs.

“Whatever,” he continued pulling out his paperwork. “You a nurse?”

“No,” I said with my best please-like-me beam. “I’m a videoblogger.”

“Huh. Sign here.”

Okay, apparently the game was on – real time – and I was ready to rumble. The next 10 hours were a blur – shouting to anyone who would answer, sucking down Mountain Dews, stomping up and down stairs, munching on Twizzlers, sweatin’ like a jailbird on the chain gang, and all the decisions…decisions, decisions, decisions.

Okay, leave it in garage. No, put it out to go to the other house. Nope, that piece goes to the Kennedys in Boca. Yep, that’s the second delivery. Neither, that’s the entertainment center. The one downstairs. Uh-huh, the printer goes North, I mean South. Yes, the new house…with the computer stuff. Yep, the stuff in the boxes marked “Fragile” (God, I hope so)!

Anyway, you get the picture.

Sometime in the middle of the day, we started talking about lunch. I think it was right after the bed broke. Apparently the movers who had driven my Ralph Lauren bed for 24 hours straight up from New York in an 18-wheeler had broken it first. My movers today – the gentlemen in the blue shirts – apparently just allowed it to fall apart, again, but they explained to me that they didn’t really break it – like break it for the first time. That was already broken, which is why “it came apart like a stack of toothpicks.” You know what? I believe them. The bed was in the guest room. No one had ever slept in the guest room. The one time my mom and Lynn visited, I slept on the couch downstairs in front of the TV.

Anyway, it was time to order lunch. I pull out a menu for Bru’s room, the burger joint just down the road. Sandy looks hesitant – fearful, almost nervous. I ask him what’s wrong? Had he had a bad experience at Bru’s before?

“No ma’am. I was just hoping you could get me seafood or something. You see, I don’t eat red meat.”

I don’t know why I thought that being a mover and being a vegetarian were two mutually exclusive things, but I guess I did.

I sank down on the chair next to the counter and immediately burst into tears. About 20 minutes later, I was up front in the cab of the truck with Sandy and Russell lumbering down to The Whale’s Rib – a crab shack just on the line between Palm Beach and Broward county.

To be continued…

posted by INSIDE FAU @ 7:30 PM