Moving Day

The last Sunday of March G moved from the apartment he and his girlfriend had near Wilshire and Western and asked me to help out. Apparently they are going their separate ways or something like that. I don’t really know. The think is his girlfriend moved out somewhere near Western while he is going near Venice.

His girlfriend moved out about 3 weeks or so. And in the apartment there was only his stuff and the kitchen furniture. Since he thought he didn’t have lots of stuff to move, only me, him and another guy were going to do the whole moving thing. Sounded easy, right? Boy, it was a lot of hard work.

For starters his friend didn’t show up as planned in the morning because he got drunk the previous night. So there was only two of us…with no truck because that guy was the one was supposed to get it. Great.

I arrived to his apartment at around 10 am and found a mess inside his apartment.

“Now you really live like a bachelor who has no prospects in life” I said when I came in and he laughed.

He said he had been doing some cleaning before leaving. So I asked him where he was going to put all of his stuff. He said we still needed to go to get the boxes at Ralph’s or another place. But first we needed to walk to his girlfriend apartment to get the car.

His girlfriend moved into a 2 bedroom apartment she shares with no other than AM. Yes, the hot Colombian girl who slept in my arms last summer when we all went to the colombian festival in Pico Rivera. I still remember the argument we had later that day. If you want to read the whole story, look for one of my May 2009 posts named “AM and the colombian festival” or something like that.

It had been almost a year since the last time I saw her. Got to their place. He and his girlfriend went into her room leaving me in the almost empty living room. There was a stereo tuned to “Latino 96.3” or some other regetton shit station and a big sofa, but that was it.

It was about 11:30am and the blinds were closed and it was hot. I walked to the kitchen looking for a glass of water. Instead, the first thing I found were dirty dishes in the sink. For some reason I can’t stand the sight of dirty dishes just standing there. So I started doing them. But since I was doing the dishes, I thought it would only be fair to listen to a station I enjoy. So I changed it to KROQ and started doing the dishes again. There weren’t many of them. When I was almost done I hear someone behind me.

“Hey”

“Hey“, I answered without turning back

“Que haces?(what are you doing)” She said with her accent.

“Estoy lavando los trastes(I’m doing the dishes)” I answered and then turned to her.

I found her dark eyes and her pink skin. She was still in her pink pajamas. She looked so pretty and innocent. Too bad she made a really bad first impression on me. The night I met her, she was drunk stupid, sleeping in the back seat of G’s girlfriend car. That’s why I treat her somewhat bad.

I know that if I start to be “charming”, she will like me (although I think she does now) and I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay away from her. After all, she does look like the kind of girl I tend to go for. About 5’4”, 135 lbs, fair skin, with dark eyes and hair.

Although AM looks like the girl of my dreams, I know she is not. Her personality is very friendly, however, something tells me she is hiding something. She does look like the kind of girl who likes money and puts it over other stuff.

That’s why I tend to talk as little as possible to her.

“Yo los iba a lavar(I was going to do them)”

“Si, pero yo ya te gane(Yes, but I beat you to them)” Still looking into her eyes.

She laughed and thanked me.

I saw an empty can of soda at the counter, took it and asked her where the trash can was. She says, they recycle. So I just poured some water and rinsed it out and put it back where it was. She thanked me again, but this time I added

“Gracias nada, van a ser 50 dolares” (thanks nothing, it is going to be 50 dollars)

She laughs again and says, “Que te los pague Jenny”, and left to her room.

I turned back to the sink to clean it. I always though an apartment shared by two girls would be spotless. At least that’s the experience I have from work. I get to go into people’s houses and see who cleans what, and who lives like a pig.

Not a minute had passed and G came out and told me, “Ok ama de casa. Vamonos”

We headed to the store and bought the boxes. Fortunately they still had some left. By this time he had called his friend and told him he would be showing up at 1pm. But in reality he only showed up at 3pm because he was getting the truck from another friend.

In the meanwhile me and G started to pack all of his shit. For a small apartment and only two people, he had LOTS of shit. It was mostly VHS movies, bunch of school papers and metallica cassesttes from when G was in high school. I asked him if he was really going to take those to his new place. At first he said no, but then changed his mind. And then he once changed his mind. So before he could change it again, i grabbed the boxes and went down to the trash can and threw everything there.

We were not even half way done when G’s friend showed up. He came and saw all the mess. And then said he needed to go somewhere else to do something and that he would be back in a bit. Left without being in the apartment for 5 minutes.

Now that really pissed me off. It looked as if it was me the one who was in a rush to move out of the apartment and not G. He seemed really calmed and confident we would be able to get everything done that day.

Not only this fucker got drunk the previous night and showed up at 3pm to help, but the stupid idiot shows up in a minivan thinking everything would fit in there. He had no dolly to move stuff around (and we were in a 4th floor) and was so confident a full size refrigerator was going to be easy to move.

That’s when I really had it. After the fucker left, I took the phone and called a friend from work. He has a pick up truck and a dolly. He owes me a couple of favors, so he agreed to come and help us in a Sunday with no previous notice.

I told G that we needed to put all of the boxes in his car and move them to his new place. Since the refrigerator and kitchen table were going to his g/f place, we would have to come back for them later when my friend showed up in the pick up truck.

We took the kitchen table apart and moved the boxes out when G’s friend showed up again. To my surprise it had been less than half an hour. They decided to put the boxes and some small stuff in the minivan and took them to G’s place. I waited there for my friend. They came back when my friend had showed up and we were taking the refrigerator down. Since it was a really big refrigerator it didn’t fit in the elevator. So we had to take the stairs.

I was just glad I was doing this with a dolly and with someone who does this for a living and not with two idiots and no dolly.

So we headed to G’s girlfriend place with only the refrigerator because magically the kitchen table was able to fit in the minivan. It wasn’t really a big table and the whole base could be taken apart in 5 small light parts.

She was waiting for us outside the apartment building. G and his friend took the kitchen table in first. Then me and my friend took the refrigerator down from the truck. When we got it down, I pulled it up the curb by myself. I turned around and saw G’s girlfriend looking at me. She smiled and said “Estas fuerte Juan” (you’re strong Juan).

Although this wasn’t the heaviest refrigerator we have moved, it wasn’t the lightest either.

Jenny’s apartment is in the first floor, however, to get there, you need to go up about 7 or so steps. Me, the refrigerator and my friend from work were at the bottom and others were up. That’s when G’s friend (the idiot with the minivan) yelled at us. “Si pueden o quieren que los ayude?” ( Can you do it, or you do need help?) in a mocking way.

And I yelled back “Este trabajo es para hombres, no para ninos” (This is a job for men, not kids). Everyone burst into laughter and the guy shut up and looked at the floor.

Then I heard G’s girlfriend say “Eso Juan” and smiled at me. Aparently she doesn’t like that guy much either.

We got up the stairs and headed to the apartment. Everyone stayed out or at least that’s how it looked from my point of view since I had been pulling the refrigerator with the dolly since we got it down the truck. And couldn’t really see who was and who was not around.

When we got into the apartment, my friend asked, “Donde esta la colombiana estupidita?”(so, where is the stupid colombian girl?) He asked because I told him all about the incident from the Colombian festival and had told him she was going to live there.

I answered “Lo mas seguro es que se este escondiendo” (most likely, she is hidding somewhere)

Then we cracked a couple of jokes from work. Like the morning when Jose (a worker from one of the building management companies we deal with) had showed up to work to kick my butt, but ended running away because P scared him away before he ran into me.

After setting the refrigerator in place, I pulled it against the wall. That’s when I noticed my friend wasn’t there anymore, and in his place, there was G’s girlfriend looking at me. I was still laughing and saying some stuff from work.

She looked at me and asked “Juan, por que eres tan grocero?” (Juan, why do you swear a lot?) and smile at me.

This caught me with my guard down completely. I answered, “Asi soy yo” (that’s the way I am)

Looked to my left, and there was AM looking at me. I looked into her eyes, and said “Que?” (What). She laughed for some reason. I took my stuff from inside the refrigerator, and left without saying anything. Headed back to G’s place to get my motorcycle and left to my home very tired.