The Chronicles Of Nay

Happy Friday! How did your week end up? Mine ended pretty well. I was able to spend time with some friends. I have watched a few more movies. Started watching some of the newer ones too! The temperature has been crazy the last few days. high 80’s and low 90’s with a heat index of 10 degrees. The humidity is what is crazy!

So I have a lot of people in my life that are in the process of moving to and fro. I saw this Meme and it made me think about the time that the Russian mafia moved me to Texas.

So a little backstory for the new people. I moved to fort Worth the summer of 2009 after I had graduated college. I moved here to teach. I had no family in Fort Worth. Really the only person who I “knew” if you will was the recruiter. So once I had picked out a house and I was in the process of closing and all of that we decided it was just going to be easier for me to hire movers. I started getting online and finding different companies and getting their rates. It felt like a math problem because this company did a flat rate plus so much per mile. This company did only by the mile. This company did only by the weight. This company did this much weight for this many miles plus every additional mile. It was a math problem! So I picked one and decided to go with Mayflower because they are the most trusted moving company or their slogan lead me to believe. I sent them half my money like they requested and the other half was to be paid at delivery. They were to weigh the truck pick up my belongings drive directly to a weigh station weigh the truck again and drive to Texas drop off my things and then weigh the truck again. I feel like that was a lot of weighing but either way it came out to I should have been able to see exactly how much weight they put on and took off of the truck. It made sense at the time and it made sense to my dad which was really what was important. So fast forward a week and they show up in Texas with my stuff. They call me and tell me my bill is $2,000. That was what they had estimated for me so I had already given them $1,000 . I had $1,000 cash in my hand. I confirm the address and wait for them to show up. There was all kinds of drama around my closing and it was just frustrating. I wasn’t actually able to get in the house at the moment because of the closing drama so I was already on edge. so there we sit in the car, it is Gav, my mom, my Grandma, me and the realtor because he is letting us in the garage to put all my stuff. sitting outside the house. So the truck that shows up at my house is not a Mayflower truck but just simply a white truck, blank with no markings whatsoever. 2 muscular Russian guys jump out of the truck. Before they start to unload he says that’ll be $2,000 and I said here is $1,000  I already paid $1000. He said not to me, it’s $2,000. I asked him how it could be that much and he told me that I had added weight to the truck. We didn’t add weight I was told based on box size how much I should expect to pay. The problem was I owned a lot of books. so the size of the boxes might have been medium but they were heavy. I told the guy giving me the estimate that and he assured me that it didn’t matter that the size was what was important. I asked to see the weigh slips because that’s what I was told to do when I originally made the purchase. After investigation I realize they did not weigh the truck before they put my stuff in and they didn’t weigh it till outside of Albuquerque. So I couldn’t guarantee that the truck was empty when they put my stuff in it nor that they didn’t add stuff to it before they weighed on the way to the house. I only had a number of outside of Albuquerque. So I was disputing the weight and he said that my stuff was the only stuff he picked up and I said sure you can tell me that but you were supposed to weigh directly after you picked up my stuff he tried to argue that Albuquerque was the closest way station. My father having been a truck driver we all knew that that was not the case. For my non New Mexico readers Albuquerque is about a 3 hour drive from Farmington. He passed many weigh stations from my parents house when he loaded up to Albuquerque! So those of you that know me know I am not very good with confrontation. My family used to tease me when I was a kid that I was like Rex from Toy story! So I start to get flustered with this guy. I told him that I was only supposed to give him $1000. So at this point my mom steps in because I am just getting flustered, and I just keep repeating “I only have $1000 for you.” The realtor is a very kind older gentleman that is sitting in the garage sweating practically to death because its August in Texas! The Russian guy finally hands my mom a phone and says “here talk to my dispatcher.” My mom gets on the phone and a woman with an accent just as thick as the driver starts shouting numbers at my mom. She asks the lady how she knows that she is actually a dispatcher. Now both the driver and the “dispatcher are yelling at my mom”. She asks the driver how do I know that this isn’t just your wife shouting numbers at me. At this point I am pacing behind my mom and my grandma is praying in Spanish in the car, the realtor keeps trying to calm me down telling me “it will be ok we will fix it, it’s fine.” Finally the Russian guys gets upset and start to unload my stuff. He tells me to follow him to the weigh station. At this point though the truck is empty and I have had some time to regroup.  He gives me a fresh weigh slip and I gave him the $1000 I had in hand and told him “look, that is what I was quoted, that is what I have. You can take that and leave or go back to my house and pack my stuff back up. And take it back to New Mexico or wherever you were going to take it. I have no more energy to fight with you or anyone else today!” He grabbed my $1000, huffed off to the truck, got in it and drove away never to be heard from again.

I will say that for a couple weeks after I would still expect to see the Russian mafia outside my house coming at me for another $1000. Haha Let’s be honest they were probably not actually the Russian Mafia but there was for sure something sketchy going on. However I will say if I ever move again I will for sure hire movers. Even with the drama it was so much easier! So tell me what is your worst moving experience? Anyone else get moved by the Russian Mafia?