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It seemed like the day after we signed our American lives away, we woke up in a King of Beers Super Bowl commercial.
All of a sudden, the snow that was still falling well into April was graceful and beautiful instead of insanely annoying.
Bob, no joke, gave up his slow roll instantaneously and began to prance on all of our walks like a Clydesdale. (mixed with Corgi) It was a gait I had never seen before.
And every Robert Frost-esque road we followed in the moving process seemed to be leading seamlessly to happily ever after. Everything that had to do with the move now seemed way too easy. Even for me. It was like the wide-mouth can of life had popped its top and all of the blessings were flowing free.
I have to say that I am an expert mover. Since I have moved more times then years I have been alive, I'm privy to pretty much all of the do's and don'ts involved in any move. Finally, in my mid-30's this information would prove to be useful.
To start the process of moving our stuff, we learned that you have three options getting your personal belongings over to the Bahamas. Our cheapest option is to ship items by boat which takes 6-8 weeks. Since we will need things in that 6-8 weeks time to still live in New York and then Bahamas, there is an air option to take everything that can't come in a suitcase, a week before we board our flights. This option takes a week to 10 days, and is expensive, so our main goal is to avoid this need completely. That means that whatever doesn't go on a boat to disappear for two months, has to be taken in one of the few suitcases allowed by commercial airlines. Easier said then done. In addition to calculating the weight, and size when trying to realize how important your things are to you, you have to also calculate the duty you will have to pay on them to bring them to the Bahamas. Yes, those champagne glasses that my Grandmother gave us as a gift for our wedding that have been used 200 times will cost us a duty tax, even though they are used AND a gift. We will literally have a customs official unpacking our crate in Bahamian customs assessing a duty tax (35% plus 7% stamp fee) on every single item we already own. When they are done, we pay them the duty to retrieve our things. So naturally, we agreed to bring as little as possible. In order to obtain a quote from a referred relocation company, we had to go through every item we own and assess whether we were going to bring it, sell it, or trash it. I had to compile a comprehensive list of all items that we are going to bring and what size box they would be packed in. We had to pack the entire place in our head and cross our fingers that we were correct to get an accurate quote. Of course everything gets officially weighed to get a final cost when ready to ship.
We had braced ourselves for our landlord's response when after several years, we needed to break our lease in a short amount of time, and were begging his pity for having to move on such short notice. We were a bit shocked when his response was simply to ask just how soon we could be out. Ouch. Within hours of giving our notice his real estate agent called me to set up a time to show it to an interested client the very next day. And since I've seen Million Dollar Listing a time or two, I know how to show an apartment. The first client that saw the place wanted to rent it and we were all of a sudden negotiating a move date. Boom.
The next step was to try to sell our furniture since we couldn't afford to bring it with us. The homes in the Bahamas come furnished so it wasn't going to be an issue to part with everything we had and it didn't make sense to pay for a storage unit to house it all while we were gone. I took pictures of everything that we needed to sell and figured I'd start with a simple colored flyer that I would post on local streets and drop off at local real estate agents in Long Beach.
It was a Thursday by the time the rain had stopped enough for me to leave the fliers in neighboring mailboxes, not wanting my masterpieces to be ruined. I only had enough time that evening to stop by one realtor on my way to the grocery store and I figured it would be the one who rented our place, in case the incoming Doctor liked the sound of a furnished apartment. Rhonda wasn't available and the one woman who picked up her head gave me an icy reception until I mentioned the word "sale". All of a sudden, one-by-one like whack-a-mole, the women in the office started poking their heads out of their cubicles and all of them asked me for a flyer. I was soon out of every flyer I had left and the volume reached ear piercing levels when one of them asked why we were moving and selling everything. I was suddenly stuck in a hen house being bombed with questions. By the time I left, I had been sent an invitation by one of the realtors to join a facebook group for a neighboring town in Oceanside. I accepted the invitation when I got home, ready to post my flyer, and was surprised that my acceptance needed to be approved. Huh? How could I not foresee the intensity that was about to be bestowed upon me? I was "approved" that evening and simply posted a jpg of the flyer I had made, asking people to stop by that Saturday afternoon, giving all needed times and information. By the time Travis got home, I had over 150 messages in my inbox and was freaking out about how that number was growing by the second. I wouldn't go near the computer as I didn't dare open Facebook, as if all electronics were now possessed. Travis took a position with the laptop on the floor and studiously tried to answer as many as he could but he was obviously no match for these Long Island housewives. Within minutes people were fighting in the comment section over their perceived new ownership of particular items that were pictured in the flyer and we were being called out for bad business because we were unintentionally responding to people's inquiries out of order. That night I just kept dreaming of being chased by hundreds of short ladies with expensive handbags. It was awful.
When Saturday came, we didn't know what to expect. We half expected to be playing cards in beach chairs because everything had been sold out from under us to ravenous women. We also had company arriving any moment who were staying with us for the weekend, and we were a bit afraid that we might have to sell the guest bed they intended to sleep on that evening. It was a day of anything goes and my nerves required a beer. We posted our last sign and got ready for the sale that was supposed to start at 12:00p. At 12:01pm there was a minivan casing our drive and by 12:06p, we had made our first sale. By 12:07p, three of our neighbors asked us where we had advertised. We began to feel the power of social media. Thanks to this FB group, throughout the weekend, we had a steady stream of people coming and going. We didn't sell everything but we made a decent dent and have continued to sell items ala carte on that site.
The packing has been a breeze and we seem to have more boxes then stuff and I find myself wondering if I can sell unused boxes on that FB site as well. All of the furniture that is for sale had to be cleaned out and "take it away" ready, so every drawer and closet has already been gone through and packed up, which is always half the battle.
The table and bar stools are gone, but we're thankful to still have a couch and snack trays. We now start every evening by eating dinner and watching a taped episode of Caribbean Life where couples from snowy areas of the US finally break free, and move to the Caribbean. Still miles to go before we sleep, but soon enough, that'll be us in that Corona Commercial.
Next post: #12- In The Year Of Our Lord... Apr 17
