After quake, an annoying day

After last night's 7.0 shake we were hoping for a nice peaceful day. Yeah, no.

The movers, a group of thoroughly decent Island guys, were unfazed by the quake. The aptly named Tree, who must be 6' 10", slept through it. (Slept like a log, perhaps?) The others just asked, casual as you like, whether it had been a big one. So much for bonding over the near disaster.

Another unpleasant visitation

So the packing began. I picked up this inflatable sled only to come across this Huntsman Spider. When I asked the lads whether it bit, they told me it was Australian. Enough said. I wanted to crush it, of course. But the lads said I shouldn't, that it was good for eating other nasty bugs. But seriously, it's called a Huntsman for a reason, you want me to save it? We haven't seen a bad-ass creature in all our time here - until the day after a quake. What's next? Locusts?

The spider thus spared, the day moved on. We waved goodbye to the first truckload of our stuff. It was time for lunch. So I grabbed my car keys and ... my wallet. Where's my wallet? Yes, that's right. On its way to North Carolina in my trouser pocket. This did not markedly improve the quality of my day.

It wasn't the guys' fault. They just packed what they were told. As I've said, they were a hard-working, respectful bunch. When I walked into the garage, where they were working with the radio on, Tree shot over to pull the plug out of the wall.

"What's up, Tree?" I asked, which is kind of funny.

"Bad lyrics, sir."

Then, at 3:45, Amy and I were leaving to hand over my car to the unintelligible Scot (see post below). We had a couple of spare keys. I tried them out to see if they were for my car. They weren't and, as an added bonus, they enabled the anti-theft device in the car we had 15 minutes to get to the buyer. Yes, for the first time in two years, my car would not start. Had we not been so stressed out we would have laughed. But we didn't. Not even a little chuckle.

I ran in to call the Ford dealer, but my little McGyver figured it out. Of course she did.

So we drove and met the buyer on time, right? Well we did, but could we sell the car? No we could not. Bureaucratic red tape (a redundancy?) impeded all progress and the sale will have to wait for another day. Luckily the Scot was understanding. It is seriously time for this day to be over.