Intact, Incense

Yesterday morning my relocube, a large metal storage unit containing most of my earthly possessions, was delivered to my parking spot near the apartment building I now live in. The driver, a man with pale skin, a white beard, twinkly eyes and a laid back manner, was the same person who had brought my studio relocube a few weeks earlier. Seeing him again was like seeing an old friend. As had happened previously, not only did he spend several minutes with me discussing the optimum positioning of my cube for easiest unloading, he also lingered for some small talk after he had used his forklift to deposit the cube in the perfect spot. Despite his full day of deliveries and pickups, this man did not act as if he were in a hurry. He seemed quite relaxed, unlike most delivery people I had encountered on the East Coast.

Then I got on Craigslist to find some movers to unload the cube. By mid-afternoon the crew showed up; the first guy to arrive, a 36-year old fellow with craggy good looks, a pack of cigarettes in the sleeve of his shirt and a prosthetic leg from a drunk-driving accident in his teens, apologized for his somewhat disheveled appearance, saying that he hadn't been planning to work that day. It didn't bother me that he showed up in jeans and a t-shirt (he's moving stuff, after all), but as he worked up a sweat carting boxes up to my apartment it became clear that he probably hadn't showered in the preceding few days. His exertions released an increasingly foul odor in my apartment. I turned the ceiling fan on the highest speed and opened all the windows, hoping that would help. This man was also ingratiatingly and somewhat aggressively polite, insisting on calling me Ma'am at every opportunity despite my protestations.

"Whatever you say, Ma'am"
"No problem, Ma'am"
"Where should I put this, Ma'am?"
"We'll take care of everything, Ma'am"
"Thank you, Ma'am"
"Ma'am, do you mind if I take this call?"

After being Ma'am-ed to death over the course of nearly three hours I wanted to strangle him...except that would have meant touching him.

Since then I've unpacked about two-thirds of the boxes and so far all of my belongings are intact, even if the containers they were in got somewhat bit bent out of shape. It's been a month since I've seen all of my stuff and in the meantime I had forgotten exactly what I had put in the relocube. Imagine my delight and relief a few minutes ago when I opened a box and discovered some cones of frangipani incense I purchased in Thailand a few years ago.

Things are starting to smell a lot better around here.