It began when the movers arrived on Wednesday to spend two days packing up our stuff. "Can you leave the mattresses out so we can sleep here tonight?" I asked. "No," I was told. "We're packing everything today." After I'd recovered from my panic attack - which always happens if things don't go exactly the way I'd planned - I found a hotel we could stay in. Not the same one as we'd booked for the next night as they were full. "Pack everything, I've booked a hotel," I told the movers. "Didn't you get the call?" they asked. "We're not packing everything today now. Do you want us to leave the mattresses out?"
Hahahaaa...Pete and I went to the hotel anyway. Where was Hannah? Oh, she'd conveniently found meetings in Houston she had to fly to while the madness went down in Maryland.
Different movers arrived the next day and filled their van. "We'll deliver this to Houston on Wednesday," they told me. "Um...we're not going to be there until a week on Sunday," I told them. "You'd better speak to the office," they said. "Bye!"
Hahahaaa...we were in a different hotel that evening. Hannah snuck into the room at around midnight and started snoring. It must have been a hard few days for her down in Texas.
The following morning we scrubbed the Maryland house from top to bottom, repainted a wall that had half its paint stripped by Pete's "easy-peel" decorative stickers, let a carpet cleaner in to do his stuff, then left the keys inside and pulled the door behind us. "Did we remember to flush the toilets?" I asked Hannah. Whatever. The new owners might have a surprise when they move in in three weeks.
Last night we were at the Muckers, who plied us with therapeutic cocktails and let us lie around on their sofas and watch TV. That's what friends are for.
This morning we got up and drove seven hours south to Myrtle Beach. This is our family holiday, planned long before Hannah got all ambitious and landed the new job down in oil capital. Pete slept for a big chunk of the journey, worn out by constantly having to calm Daddy down.
But now we're here, and it's warm and sunny and there's mini golf and five pools, one of which has a bar. I am a man of simple needs, and I believe I get to sleep in the bed here for more than one night in a row before I have to get in a car again, drive to an airport, fly to Texas, and find all our belongings have been piled up outside our new house for the past week.
Yeah, I don't really mind staying in hotels, says Pete.
Finally in Myrtle Beach, floating down the lazy river.
Hot tubbing (cocktails optional).
Maybe Pete is getting a little too comfortable with this hotel living, but what can he do? He takes after his dad.
