The Move from Hell

When it came time for us to try to move our furniture from our rented condo in Lakeway, TX, to Monterrey, I had rushed to Lubbock to be with my hospitalized mother, and my husband stayed put here because his sister had been hospitalized at the same time. In the meantime I had made four appointments for estimates for an international move, so a friend who also happens to work with my husband went to take charge. It's a good thing he is a triathlon competitor, too, because he needed every physical and mental resource to survive. If my husband or I had gone, some kind of crime might have been committed.

A local firm showed up and stated they would only place the furniture on the border; a woman who was driving in from Houston, representing a second firm, apparently was unable to read a map, estimate time and speed, or ask for directions because although she made it to the Austin airport, that was as far as she got before calling our friend to say that "it just couldn't be done". "It" in this case meant arriving in Lakeway because she had to be back in Houston that same evening. The skin crawls just to imagine where our furniture might wind up under the tender care of someone who couldn't get from Houston to Lakeway under her own steam.

Someone did show up, gave us an estimate (it was horribly expensive) to get our belongings to Monterrey, Nuevo León, México, and this was stated in writing. There is no mystery about what is happening in the United States these days in the area of customer service. Companies seem to think it is okay to send out representatives into the unsuspecting world when said employees are not sure exactly where they are themselves; our hero did understand we were moving to another country, and yes, his company has partners here in Mexico. He thought we could save import duties on our stuff if we just went to a Mexican consulate here in Monterrey to validate our time spent in the U.S.

As far as I know, although at this point I'm not sure of anything, Mexico does not have diplomatic missions to itself. I would have paid good money (although after the move estimate, I couldn't afford it) to have been present in order to suggest that our hero make sure he has all the necessary documents he needs from the United States embassy in Austin. It would have been even more exciting to see him attempt to get the embassy's address. Our hero surely lacked the almost divine inspiration of the Houston lady, and it is doubtful he would have leaped into his car and headed toward Austin, hoping to find the embassy by mental telepathy alone.

Today's excitement came about because my husband and our friend (it's Ironman Hernán) got into a knock-down-drag-out with our moving hero, who wanted to let us know that it was going to cost an additional king's ransom to move the furniture from the border to our home in Monterrey. It was like Saturday night in Belfast, although via telephone. Having signed the contract to move our furniture here for a stated amount, there was no turning back for our international mover, so aside from the import duties, his proverbial goose is done to a nice turn. He accepted the inevitable and signed another statement that obligates him to reimburse us after we have paid the Mexican movers.

None of these people is perverse or ill-willed, but they do seem to be almost mythically uninformed. The moving representative said that the trouble and expense involved in storing our stuff till now has been "unimaginable"--his word. It is of course unimaginable only to someone totally unaware of what his job involves or how to go about whatever it is he has to do. And this, folks, is an associate company of Mayflower movers!

The news two days ago said that the approval rating of the U.S. Congress was at an all-time low; when commentators would ask strategists and Congressmen from both parties why they couldn't hunker down and do something for the country, you couldn't hear the answers because they began shouting at each other--in other words, reinacting the behavior the news commentators were criticizing. Take the moving company representatives and multiply them by a factor of X, and you have Congress!

For those of you who still read, try "The Post-American World" by the brilliant Fareed Zakaria. You won't know whether to laugh and say "I told you so!", or cry, but out of the ashes comes inspiration: Why shouldn't the U.S. State Department open diplomatic missions to all major U.S. cities and consulates in the smaller towns? All those educated unemployed could join the diplomatic corps and serve without leaving the United States.

Dreams

Last night I dreamed I was in the presence of a number of gigantic cupcakes, and I ate two. It was terrible because I woke up feeling guilty at having fallen off the excess-food-wagon almost from the outset. But, man, were they ever good! Thank gosh it was only a dream. I think my superego needs readjusting...