The Upstate Life

Monday, October 18, 2004

It's Official, I'm A Maryland Resident Edition

I had the day off Friday but I still had an incredibly long list of things to get accomplished nonetheless. That morning, the roommate and I did the run through of the apartment prior to our move-in on Sunday. I have to admit, the place looked in pristine shape. The wood floors were freshly waxed, walls had new coats of paint on them, the kitchen cabinets were refurbished, the works basically. It's definitely nice to be able to move into an apartment that's actually clean, a nice change of pace from past residences. They replaced the stove with a brand new unit but left the dishwasher untouched, which was kind of a disappointment. We were banking on a new one since the thing looks like it's at least 30 years old. I know it has a Fallout Shelter sticker on it somewhere. The manager said that it works fine but if we have any problems they'll be more than happy to check it out. I should've played the "I see insulation sticking out from the side" card like C and F did at their place and got it replaced. Oh well, we'll see how long it lasts.

After the inspection, if it was off to one of the most dreaded places in the state of Maryland, and I don't mean The Golden Bull. It was time for another great experience at the MVA. I postponed obtaining my MD license until I was going to move to Bethesda since I didn't want my other address on there, mostly because that location was valid for practically 4 months. Once again, a fun, long wait was ahead. When I got my ticket number, they were at #193. Mine said #265. Fuck me. Two and a half hours later and one apartment lease read cover to cover, my number was finally and thankfully called. The lady that at the desk had to be one of the most depressing, soulless clerks I've ever dealt with. I can't even recall making any sort of eye contact with the lady. All her spoken "commands" made her sound like she was completely ecstatic to be behind that desk that separated her from those dirty common folk such as TUL. Because of her poor customer service, when she instructed me to get up for my picture, she really didn't say where to point my head. By that time, it was too late to actually find the lens with the time she allotted, so now my head shot looks like I'm staring up at the sky like a frickin goon. At least I look my age in this photo and not 16 like in the NY license. Speaking of which, I tried to exchange my expired NY license in hopes of keeping my valid one along with my new Maryland license. Unfortunately, the clerk noticed that the one I gave her was expired for almost two years, so I quickly had to hand over the real deal. I then asked if I could get back the expired one, but she hastily responded that I had to surrender both. Effin terrific. Now all TUL has is the new Maryland license with that crab in the corner alongside a picture of me staring at the ceiling. Unreal.

Saturday a bunch of us went to Homecoming for the day. We left around 11 and finally found a place to park around 12:30. Much fun was had, ridiculous amounts of alcohol were consumed, and overall it was a great time. We didn't actually go to the game (nor do I want to talk about it), but tailgated in Lot 9 and ran into a ton of people I haven't seen or talked to in awhile. We headed over to our friend's brother's Knox Box to watch the rest of the devastating game and eat a much-needed dinner from Seven Seas, the only decent Chinese delivery in all of College Park. Despite my desire to go to Cornerstone later that night for some shoulder-to-shoulder capacity drinking, we called it a night around 9:30 and headed home. I had to get up really early the next morning anyways for a fun-filled day of moving.

I picked up the moving truck Sunday morning at 10am, hoping I would be able to return it before 4 so I wouldn't get stuck with it overnight. My roommate got two of his cousins to help which was def awesome since they were some pretty big dudes. You really couldn't tell that my roommate is related to them due to their massively opposite appearances. We surprisingly made excellent timing when all was said and done. Between loading the truck from stuff in storage to moving everything into the apartment, I was able to return the truck a little after 3pm. I grabbed some much-needed sustenance, aka Chipotle, since I didn't eat a thing all day. If there were such a thing as having a negative amount of calories due to all the lifting, I certainly remedied it by devouring the most delicious steak fajita burrito that day. Not to be outdone, I also consumed two 32oz Powerade bottles that night as well.

I spent all of Sunday night unpacking clothes and fixing things like my shitty Ikea shelves that wobble even with the screws tightened to their cheap limit. I think all of the furniture suffered some light damage (a few nicks and scratches on my drawers and nightstand), but what I can't fathom is the fact that one of the couch cushions is MIA. It literally boggles my mind that something that large and noticeable somehow ended up missing throughout the moving period. My only guess as to where it could be is my neighbor's storage unit back at the self-storage facility. We stacked everything in that cube pretty high so that we could fit as much as possible in there. There was a slight opening at the top on the right side of the unit, big enough for a cushion to fit through and fall over, so I'm really hoping it's in this guy's unit or else I'm stuck with a sectional sofa with the corner piece missing. Not cool.

Posted by Brett at 3:54 PM |