Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

If I ever decide to buy a house from across state lines, somebody please kill me. Seriously. Or you could just beat me with a large dirty brick until my brain leaks out my ears and then pile all our worldly posessions on top of me. Make sure you clean out my checking acccount first. That would yield almost the same results as I have right now, with less effort.

We're moving using one of these. Notice how the pictures don't show the length of the thing? I mean, they give you the dimensions, but you think "Oh, six feet long? Eight feet high? No problem!" However, when they delivered it on Tuesday, it was quite short in person. I had some serious doubts about how much of our stuff would fit in there. But my brother came over and rocked out, cramming our shit in there like a pack-master. I was still worried about fitting the remaining stuff that was scattered around the house, so I took the clothes/soft things and stuffed them in the cracks between boxes. Our crap is wedged in there so tight, my brother joked that when we finally get around to unloading, we'll open the door and there will be a slight tremble from within and then poof, everything will explode outward in a cartoony avalanche of household goods.

But, fine, whatever, we got most of it loaded. Ryan was flying in Wednesday night, so I thought we could finish up the packing/loading Thursday. He called me Wednesday before he got on the plane and said he'd heard from the realtor and mortgage people and they said everything was 100% go for the March 28th closing date they promised us six weeks ago. He boarded the plane happy, Piper and I picked him up at the airport, and we went to bed Wednesday night a snuggling little family, feeling quite secure that this was our last night in Michigan. We awoke Thursday tired but pleased that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Our plan was to finish loading the stuff, go pick up our rental car at 4:30 and take off between 7 and 9 pm Thursday night. It's a 10-12 hour drive, so we should've arrived in plenty of time to drop off the rental and go to our closing at 4:00. By 5pm Friday, we were supposed to be unlocking the the door to our new house.

Except for the part where Ryan got a phone call at 2:00 pm yesterday and was told "the lawyers need 72 hours to look over the paperwork" and the VERY SOONEST we can close is some time Tuesday.

Panic erupted. We were mere hours from transporting a minivan full of cats, crap, and baby due South with nowhere to go once we got to Charlotte. Ryan used up two of his three available days off to come here and drive us down. We paid $230 to fly him here, for fuck's sake, plus almost $300 for the rental car. The movers were scheduled to pick up our stuff on Friday and drop it off at the new house on Tuesday.

After more than an hour of freakouts, back-and-forthing, and debating, Ryan's dad offered to drive us down some time this weekend. Ryan's roommate said we could put the cats in his basement for a couple days and crash there until we can get into our house. So we canceled our rental van and will be going on Saturday night instead, and I just hope to God the cats don't trash the basement and that "the lawyers" don't decide they need until Thursday or Friday of next week to do whatever the hell it is they're doing.

In the meantime, I have to make the stuff I left out stretch to cover nearly a week. I've arranged for our belongings to be delivered to the new house Wednesday or Thursday, but the lone suitcase of clothing I left out contains three outfits for each of us - outfits I picked out for the 70-80 degree weather in Charlotte, not the two inches of snow we got here last night. I'm already out of clean socks; I can't find my hairbrush; this morning, the baby pooped all over the one long-sleeved shirt I have for her; Ryan brought just one change of warm clothes, since he had shorts and t-shirts he had left here. Oh, and for some reason, Piper is trashing her clothes worse than usual. Which means my clothes are trashed worse than usual, because whenever her face and shirt are smeared with gooey chunks of graham cracker, drool, and floor lint, my face and shirt wind up smeared with it too.

Aaaaaand I woke up really late this morning and I have a ton of things to do, which means our plans for the three of us to take a family day and go to the museum will probably have to be shelved.

So, like I said, just beat me with a dirty brick next time.