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Mall Day
Yesterday we didn’t have anything scheduled to do. This hasn’t happened in a while so I decided to live on the edge and ask Bug what she wanted to do. Go to the mall! she exclaimed excitedly, like going to the mall is equal with Disneyland or something.
What is she a teenager already? What kind of kid wants to go to the mall when they are four? She’s crazy. Thankfully, I realize that going to the mall does not require spending money so I was open to the idea. Sure, we could walk around and look at things, maybe spring for lunch at the forbidden McDonalds and if I’m feeling super generous, I’ll let her ride the carousel for a buck. Not a bad day’s entertainment really.
Then we found out that Toby was shooting some store fronts at the mall too. Hot dog! We could have a Take Your Daughter to Work Day. We hardly ever get to follow Toby around on his shoots because they are usually in super luxury homes with rugs you can’t walk on and breakable objects every where. Besides we don’t like to get in his way. At least I don’t.
However, Toby was happy to have us come with him. Mall shoots can be tricky for him. Even though he wears a big press pass, has a super official looking camera and all the security guards on his side, he still worries that the shopping mall customers are going to get weirded out by him taking pictures of them. He doesn’t actually take photos of the customers. He photoshops them out on the computer afterwards but there will always be some woman who thinks he’s taking a photo of her and it causes problems. So having your wife and kid along can cut down on the weirdo perviness factor.
Also, he just loves his little princess. She has him wrapped around her little finger. You think I spoil her? Well Toby is even worse.
He bought her a stupid ten dollar balloon. TEN DOLLARS! I know! What a rip off. It better light up, glow in the dark and serve you a hamburger in my opinion. Well, it does light up. And it is super big and supposedly un-poppable which is a total lie since the outer clear balloon popped and scared the crap out of us as soon as we got into my steaming hot car to go home.
Ugh. I hate that balloon. It’s so big and constantly in my face. She has bopped me in the head on purpose and not on purpose about a thousand times. I feel like having a punching match with that balloon. I might have to take an exacto knife to it in the night and say the fairies stole it.
But it made her happy and it made Toby happy and it was strangely photogenic in the mall which made me happy. Which is sort of the same way I feel about that silly pink puffy skirt that she’s been wearing for a month straight now.
I hate it and I desperately want to wash it but it does look cute in photos, I have to admit. It also gets us special treatment. You should hear the things people say to her when we’re out and about. Her pinkness this and her highness that and, oh look at the pretty princess etc etc etc…No wonder she doesn’t want to wear anything else. She’s getting used to this and she really does believe she is a princess. Which makes me the evil non-stepmother who makes her wear ugly non-pink clothes, clean her room and who also won’t buy her expensive balloons that don’t even come with a coupon for a free hamburger!
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In other news, I’ve been writing away over on my review blog and I’ve been terrible about touting my posts here. Please go check them out because seriously, I get to give $100 away a week! This week I’m writing about my early bird secrets! Do you have any? Comment and win some mulah!
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A Jaunty Jeep Jaunt
I sold my big huge Steelcase desk on Etsy the other day and had it shipped to Stockton. Stockton is about 400 miles away. Shipping a hundred pounds of steel is no small feat. Thankfully, the buyer was super nice and happy to pay the exorbitant amount that shipping costs. Still, I was totally overwhelmed. How was I going to get this big honking thing from my house to the Greyhound station?!!
First we had to find a Greyhound station. This scared me because in my personal experience Greyhound stations are always in the bad part of town. I used to ride one from Hayward to Santa Cruz back when I was in college and it was creepy. Drug dealers, prostitutes, homeless people yelling at you, drug addicts…they all seemed to hang out at the Greyhound stations. But that was 1992 and Hayward was the prostitution capital of California back then. I hear it’s really fixed up now.
After I figured out where the Greyhound station was I had to get my desk out of my garage. And guess what? My garage door is broken. We don’t use the garage much because Toby’s old Volkswagen Super Beetle is housed there and it’s dying a horrible sad death because Toby works all the time now and has no time for oil changes or fixing all four flat tires. I don’t know what he plans on doing with his old car but it has sentimental value so we keep it around. Also, I’ve forgotten the combination to the lock on the broken garage door.
Then I had to find a truck to transport the desk to the Greyhound station. Toby’s van was out since he needs it every day for work. I was hoping a neighbor could help me but we couldn’t match up our schedules no matter how hard I tried. It doesn’t help that I’m constantly out of town.
I hemmed and hawed over the whole issue for days. Frankly, it put me in a bad mood. I hate having things like this hanging over my head and I’ve already had one bad experience with Etsy when I didn’t ship something fast enough so this was stressing me out. I decided it was time to call my brother.
You know what’s so great about my brother? He’ll drop everything and come rescue me. It doesn’t matter if what I’m asking him is completely inconvenient and impossible. He always finds a way.
I thought he’d drive his big old red truck but that truck isn’t insured right now and it doesn’t have registration. Also, his fuel pump went out. This is par for the course for my brother though. He’s a mechanic who likes to collect automobiles with challenges. Next he was going to drive my sister-in-law CC‘s new jeep but it was missing a part. So what does he do? He finds the part and puts the jeep back together. He borrowed a trailer from a friend and was off to my house four hours later.
I was prepared for the whole thing to fall through. There were so many obstacles. Not to mention, my life seems to be a comedy of errors these days. I tried to keep calm and carry on. Amazingly my brother and CC showed up and helped me get the desk out of my garage. (Toby remembered the combination!) Then we were off to the Greyhound station in a mad rush to make it before the bus left at 5pm. But there was traffic of course. Traffic traffic traffic.
I was so worried that we’d miss the bus and then have to do the whole thing all over again. It turns out my worries were needless though because Greyhound is pretty accommodating. If I missed that bus they’d just put it on the next. In fact, they’ll keep your furniture around for days for you. However, the desk had to be packed in cardboard because it’s in parts and the sharp edges would be a danger to other luggage during the trip. And of course the guy who packs things was not there.
So we left my desk at the Greyhound station and I came back the next morning by myself to take care of the matter. The next morning the very nice packing man was there but he charged $80 to pack it which was about $70 more than I had. I don’t know why I thought he could do it for ten bucks. I guess I’m just really dumb when it comes to shipping giant metal desks.
I made a phone call to the buyer and negotiated a bit with the packing guy. We figured out it would be cheaper if the desk was put together. My only problem was I had no way to put the desk together. I wish I kept a toolbox in my trunk but I don’t. I should also mention that I had Bug in tow. She has been extremely whiny and high-maintenance lately AND I was supposed to be at my mom’s by noon to have lunch with my Grandpa who thinks I’m mad at him if I don’t visit him regularly. Whatever, though, right? This kind of stress is just normal.
I didn’t know what to do. If I couldn’t get the desk put together would I have to call my brother and pick it back up again? The packing guy said I could borrow his screwdriver but the thought of wielding a 100 pound desk around an unfamiliar space while keeping a whiny four-year-old occupied seemed incredibly daunting. I was starting to think I should just cut my losses and leave the desk to rot at Greyhound. I’d refund the money to the buyer and just walk away…but that wasn’t a very good solution either because I love my old desk. I want it to go to a happy home!
I think the packing guy felt sorry for me because after a few minutes of me fretting he offered to put the desk together for me and pack it for only $55. Of course I only had $10 but that was quickly solved by a quick trip to an automatic teller machine in the lobby. I took out $60 and gave him the extra $5 for a tip. I wish I could have given him a twenty but I’m already losing money on this transaction and I couldn’t justify taking more money out of my already anorexic bank account.
And then I walked away. Part of me is still worrying about that silly desk. What if a screw was missing? I thought I had them all in a baggie taped inside the drawer but I didn’t take the time to double check. I just hope it gets to the buyer in one piece and I can finally take a great big sigh of relief.
BUT what I really wanted to blog about was the ride in the jeep to the Greyhound station! I was going to scrap this whole long complaining post but Bethany (my personal editor and friend) read it and told me it was worth keeping. So what I really wanted to say is: Riding in a Jeep with no windows is quite exhilarating and windy!
And hats are good!
