Part two...

After spending several hours trying not to completely stress over what was going on with Uhaul, I grabbed some orange juice and sat outside watching the sun rise. Trying very hard to relax.

8:35am: I finally say #&@% you to Uhaul and call several truck rental places in the London area, deciding that my friend John can drive the truck to Windsor and return it from Jeremy's grandparents' place after the move. Unbelievably, there was a small local company that had two trucks available for only $84 per day, 200 free km and only 10 cents per each additional kilometer. After doing a happy dance around Ledawit's kitchen, I ran upstairs to tell her the good news.

Little did I know that it would be the last time I got to see her little son before moving away. That's another story though...

9:30am: pick John up at his place and head up to the truck rental place

10:15am: finally leave London (more than 2 hours after we'd been scheduled to pick up the Uhaul truck. They still have not called us back)

1:00pm: arrive in Windsor after a looooong drive and pitstop at McDonald's (first time eating there in a really really long time)

3:30pm: Uhaul calls us. "Hello, I'm looking for Miss Peterson - please tell her we have a truck available for her at the Dougall pickup office".
I'll have to leave Jeremy's response for your imagination.

8:00pm: FINALLY get the hell outta Windsor! I drove away with the sunset behind me and no feelings of sadness. I had a few good times there, but definitely won't be going back.

9:45pm: Yet another goodbye at Ledawit's place. Jeremy and I had originally planned on being there Sunday night, but decided against this since we wouldn't be getting there until way after midnight. So I picked up my overnight bag and hugged my friend goodbye. I didn't cry too much until I started driving through the city where I'd hoped to live again some day.

12:30am: FINALLY arrive at Jeremy's grandparents' place. When I arrived, I felt like crying with relief - or exhaustion. His grandparents had stayed up way past their normal bedtimes to help us out with the unloading and between them and John and Jeremy the truck was unloaded before I even got there. I remember thinking that everybody looked very subdued and felt very bad for poor John who was now going to have to drive the truck all the way back to London. I didn't even notice the dent.

Yep, the dent.

Apparently after getting the truck filled up, John misjudged the distance between a concrete pole and the side of the truck and well... it got dented, broke the gas cap, and a nice smudge of red paint along the side. I was so tired and relieved to be finished with the day that I didn't even get upset.

I blame this on Uhaul too since he probably wouldn't have banged into anything if we weren't all so exhausted - due to the extra 3 and a half hours that our little situation added to the day.

(we later found out that the estimated cost of repairs is around $980)

I don't remember falling asleep that night.

I usually hate stating the obvious, but that was really the move from hell. It took 3 days before I started feeling normal again. After 4 days I realized I had developed some kind of throat infection (definitely a result of the stress) so I still have a souvenir from that terrible day. Here's hoping that we can look back and laugh sometime.

And that Uhaul goes bankrupt.