Monday, December 11, 2006
Southern Tour — Day 3, Sokoban

We started off the day with a big breakfast at Perkins. Then we drove our Miata out to Berck’s dad’s new house. He and Berck’s grandmother bought it so he can take care of her. It’s a huge house. Next we took grandmother home to Aunt Robin’s house (all three of them are staying there presently) and went to rent a truck.

Berck’s dad went to U-Haul, despite Berck telling him he’d be sorry. He had called to reserve a truck an hour ahead of time. We got to the place, which had more U-Haul trucks than I’ve ever seen at one time before. It being a weekday, there were plenty to go around. The clerks told us we could have the truck until 6 o’clock. Berck’s dad said he would go ahead and get it for 24 hours, since it would be the same price anyway. They said he could only have that truck until 6. Why? Because it was reserved for the next day. We walked out in disgust. This is how U-Haul always is and why Berck and I go out of our way to use Penske or Budget.

The storage place where Berck’s dad has his stuff has a truck you can rent, and it was for the same price as well. The girl who waited on us was very helpful, giving us a half day instead of a full day’s price. It turned out that we only needed 2 and a half hours to load up most of a storage space, drive it to the new house (which is way out on the southeast side of Memphis), unload it, and bring it back. She didn’t even fuss at us when we told her we forgot to fill up the tank before we brought the truck back.

We moved the contents of the one storage space because it had the tools in it, the tools Berck needed to work on the car. So we drove back out to the house, stopping at Sam’s to get some good oil and Advanced Auto to get a jack, jack stands, oil filters, cheap oil, and antifreeze and Auto Zone to buy some latex gloves.

While Berck started taking apart the car, his dad and I started unpacking the kitchen boxes and finding places to put things. We got most of them done by the time it was time to leave.

Berck had called the Mazda dealer in Birmingham where we orders all of his parts and discovered that they should all get here tomorrow (and they had a special on free shipping). He also called Flyin’ Miata in Grand Junction, Colorado to get their advice on our predicament. They said that it was quite possible that he had a warped head (but we already knew that), and he could probably take it to a machine shop, and they would grind it down to make it fit again. If we’ve got a cracked head, I don’t know what we’ll do.

The three of us then went out to eat at a very yummy Chinese restaurant. Currently, Berck and his dad are at the flight simulator training headquarters for FedEx, where they have two hours booked in an Airbus sim.

We were supposed to be attending a bris for Berck’s cousin Michael’s new son in the morning, but the pediatrician said, because he has a rash, it should be postponed. I didn’t know the timing on these things was negotiable. Berck’s dad seems to think the pediatrician is an idiot. Aunt Robin is bummed, because she had planned a big event afterward.

And I am heading to bed, because I worked hard today and am very tired.