A NEW BEGINNING...CHAPTER ONE

Alright ... let's see if this works...

I'm writing this from my brand new office in my brand new apartment and will upload it as soon as I get to work. I can tell you one thing...writing this in WordPad and not the little white Diaryland box...well... that just sucks wet moose balls. I gots too much R-O-O-M in WordPad. It's too big and spacious. It's ... it's...it's so non-restricting.

So anyway...we're all moved out of the house and in the apartment. The apartment's nice. You know...if you don't mind some dingy, worn carpet by the front door. Other than that, it's nice.

Oh...and if you don't mind flooding the utility room every time you attempt to wash some clothes. Other than that, it's perfect.

Oh ... and if you don't mind showering in a bucket. Other than that, it's A-OK.

The neighbors seem to be really nice. Let's do a quick rundown:

There's an old man next door to us with a fake leg. I'm guessing he lost the leg in some bizarre auto accident that he was responsible for while driving drunk about 30 years ago. The auto accident killed a family visiting America from Haiti, including a grandmother and three small children. The community was in an uproar over Old Drunk Floyd (as his friends called him) and sentenced him to 30 years in prison. So Old Drunk Floyd hobbled off to prison in 1970 with his brand new wooden leg. While in prison, he was sodomized on a regular basis because he was pretty much defenseless there, since he was a kind and gentle soul who made one fatal mistake in his life that cost him his freedom. He was try to fend off attackers, swinging his wooden leg wildly at them like a club, but eventually he'd lose his balance, tumble to the floor and would be sodomized by men named Old Drunk Luke and Old Drunk Stan. This went on for 30 years until he was free to go after paying his debt to society. He hobbled back out of prison older and wiser and equipped with a spanking new artificial anus courtesy of the Alabama Penal System. He got a job as a dishwasher in a local cafeteria, but was slow on the job and was finally regrettably let go. He now stuffs envelopes at home for a living and has the apartment manager stop by three times a week to take the envelopes to the post office for him. But she doesn't really have a vested interest in the whole envelope stuffing thing, so she usually just tosses the bag in a nearby dumpster, thus giving the man false hope that one day, one of his stuffed envelopes will come back to him.

Orrrrr...maybe he lost the leg to cancer. Hell if I know.

Then there's the two yuppie couples across from us. Seem to be nice people. I said "How ya doin'?" to them and both the guys said "Fine. You?" to me back. I then answered with "Fine" while their wives looked at me suspiciously like I was some kinda space alien moving in.

Orrrrr...maybe they were just disgusted by the massive amounts of perspiration pouring from my body at the time. I'll admit ... I was a basic human sprinkler system at the time.

Then, there's the peculiar thugs catty-cornered from us.

When we first brought some boxes here last Wednesday, the thugs were all hanging around outside, tugging on their thug crotches with little poofy pig tails on top of their heads. I immediately shielded my son's eyes from them as I thought that if he dared catch a glimpse of them, he'd end up living a life of shallow crime.

Then...on Saturday...I saw these guys again.

This time, they were dressed to go play golf.

They had on those golfing hats, they had poofy pants tucked into knee-high socks and some of the most gaudiest, un-thuglike clothes a man could possibly wear. They looked like a black version of that picture of the Three Stooges going golfing that if I were hooked to the internet right now I'd do a search for it and post it here to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

So...they're an enigma. Not Anenigma. An enigma. There's a difference.

Anyway, we're all moved in....the washer's not working properly, somebody's coming to fix that today. That's the one thing I love about apartment living ... something's broke? You just call the maintenance department and they come fix it for free.

Awesome. This would have cost me $300 at home. Plus there's always the chance that I could have been sodomized by a horny washer repairman afterwards which is about as appealing as it sounds.

Ohhhh...here's a good story about the move.

Saturday morning we go to pick up our U-Haul truck at 7:30 a.m. because that's what time they opened and we had people coming over at 9:30 to help us move.

We get to the place and they're not open. Well ... as you may have guessed ... this sucks wet moose balls. So we wait for ten minutes before I get frustrated and leave.

We go to another place that rents U-Hauls. They don't open until 8:00. This naturally sucks wet moose balls. So in my infinite wisdom, I go back to the place where I have reserved the truck.

It's now 7:55. And the guy is just getting there to open the place up.

We get out of the truck and walk walk walk right into the joint.

"Kin Ah he'p ya's?" the redneck says.

"Yes, my good man. My wife, son and I are here to pick up one of those fabulous U-Haul trucks that I've reserved for our move across town today. Here's my confirmation number. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like the keys to our reserved 17' truck with a furniture dolly."

"Ah ain't got no 17' truck," he says.

My heart fell.

"Well then ... never fear, my good man. I'll just take another truck."

"Ah ain't got no trucks heeyah. They's all rented out."

Holy ant shit.

"But I reserved a truck," I protested.

"Lemme check mah records," the guy said shuffling some papers. "Yep. You reserved a truck alright. I jes' forgot to hold you one."

Suddenly, this was turning into the Seinfeld episode where Jerry had reserved a rental car and there were none to rent when he went to pick it up.

So I asked the guy what was he going to do.

"Wail....I cain't jes' shit you out one," he pondered.

No. He was right. He couldn't just shit a U-haul truck out of his ass. For that, you'd need one helluva artificial anus. Maybe I could give Old Drunk Floyd a call.

He called some lady 90 miles north of here and had her start calling around to find a place to get me a truck. He did manage to squeeze out a forced apology and said it was all his fault and that for some reason, he forgot to save me a truck.

Well, a fat lot of good that does me, Captain Redneck. Maybe I could tie every possession of mine to your scrawny, pony-tailed back and you could carry it across town to my apartment. That might fucking work, you worthless piece of rental truck forgetting shit.

At 8:30, he instructed us to go home and wait for his call. He said that even though it would be tough to find a rental truck today...the last Saturday of June when every single g-damned person in the universe is moving something ... he would call us eventually with a truck.

So we drive home and I'm pissed out of my gourd. I'm calling this guy every single name in the book to my wife and son. Susie finally asked me to stop when I got to "Whoring motherless slab of lice-infested cock wart".

Which was probably a good thing, because as you might imagine...I was running out of names.

We get home and decide to start calling other rental places to see if we could manage to round up a truck to move us.

After calling about ten places, my wife calls another place and I hear her say "Who's this? Mike? Mike Who? Hey Mike...this is Susie! HEYYYY!! How are you?? Do you have a truck we can rent? You do?? Great!!"

As it turns out, a guy from our church works at a truck rental place.

But all he had was a 24' truck while we had specifically ordered a 17' truck. Alas, he told Susie that because of the inconvenience of having to give us a bigger truck, he would "work out a deal" for us.

(Please insert sound of tiny violins playing our sad, sad song here)

Susie and her brother get over there (the good brother...the asshole brother hadn't made it to the house), and Mike gives Susie the keys to a new 24' truck with a hydraulic lift.

And doesn't charge us a penny for it.

Now then...I don't know how to say the word "Awesome" in any more languages than English and Redneck, so you'll just have to settle for those.

Awesome.

Fuckin' A.

They bring the truck back, tell me it's free for the day and it's yet another example of God treating me nicely.

Or just plain dumb luck.

Whatever.

We get the stuff moved in with the help of my posse and her brothers, including BIL who was actually a decent person for the majority of the day.

As we're unloading the last two pieces of furniture off the truck at 3:00, my cell phone rings.

"Hey, Uncle Bob. This is Cletus over at U-Haul. Ah think Ah may have tracked you down a truck."

I politely asked Cletus over at U-Haul if he could gently ease that truck up his ass because I had found another truck for free.

I could hear Cletus over the phone line removing his Cletus mask and revealing himself to be Satan. He cursed me several times and hung up the phone.

All moved in.

Yesterday, we went to clean out the house and hand the keys over to the new owner.

A knock on the door as we're finishing up.

NAN.

She tells us that she met the woman and the woman seemed very nice.

We told her that we already knew this. She IS a very nice woman.

She told us that she told the woman to keep her kid away from her dogs because her dogs would bite the kid.

This did not deter the woman. The woman said that was fine and she'd explain to her son that he couldn't pet the dogs.

This upset NAN because she is trying to be as negative as possible with this woman and wants to make this woman's life a living hell because she's black and moving next door to her.

Apparently, the new owner brought some boxes over and left them on the back patio since she didn't have a key to get in.

NAN said "I'm going to warn her that your back yard floods when it rains and all her stuff will get ruined if she leaves it out there."

That was the part where I had to walk away from NAN before I crushed her skull like a grape.

Basically, she's trying to be the Unwelcome Wagon. While this is the greatest thing to ever happen to the new owner, NAN is trying to put the biggest negative spin on it that she can. This makes us look bad because...no...we didn't tell her that if it rains hard for six hours straight, water will begin to stand on the back patio. That's not something you tell someone when you're trying to SELL a house. We weren't told that. We found out the first time it rained for six hours straight. Our realtor told us not to disclose that to any potential buyer. It's just something you don't do.

Leave it to NAN to say something about it.

Like Susie said...it's too late now. The house no longer belongs to us. It's basically a big person's game of "Black Jack No Trade Back".

So the new owner shows up and is all excited.

NAN's still in the house.

I'm sweating bullets.

NAN asks how to say the new owners name.

It's Electia.

NAN asks her three or four times to keep saying it....further embarrassing the woman that she has a unique name that isn't pure white bread like NAN.

NAN stands around for a while, talking to the woman. She didn't mention the flooding patio part which was none of her f'n business to begin with. Finally, I stepped in and said "We've got somewhere to go and have to get back to the apartment to the dog...so NAN....if you don't mind...."

She hissed, recoiled and then slithered away back to her house....never to grace my presence again.

It was kinda like the last episode of MASH where the characters slowly left one at a time and you knew you'd never see them again.

At least...not until AfterMASH.

But there's not going to be an AfterMASH series here. NAN walked out of our lives and we'll never have to deal with her again.

Susie ran around the house, showing Electia all the different things that she wanted to tell her about. The paint we left behind, the things we didn't have time to fix, etc.

Electia just grinned the whole time. She was so glad to be there.

We then handed her the keys, she and Susie hugged, I waved and we said goodbye to the house.

Hell.

I didn't even look in the rear view mirror.

Our home for 13 years is now a memory.

Thank God.