My love language is money.
We all know I applied to the PA Bureau of Unclaimed Property to get some money owed to my grandfather.
The day I was supposed to leave, I got an email saying I was about to get almost $400.
The day I got home (yesterday), that check was waiting for me.
The morning I did leave, I saw a face-up penny on the floor at the airport.
When Gram died in 1999, “Penny on the Floor” by The Clarks was popular on WDVE. “A woman like you comes around just once a life.”
I found two more face-up pennies in Pittsburgh.
Wish my eyes would let me see the years. But still. Signs, signs, everywhere there’s signs.
Fortunately amid all this, I had made over $200 through selling shit online. Now that’s $600 in credits, woo.
At the storage unit, they do not have so much as a trash can. At least Public Storage has a dumpster, which I used liberally. (And I took my cardboard to a recycling dumpster nearby.)
Greengate Self Storage had no such thing. So I had to call for Junk Removal.
I had a number in my head of $400. They wouldn’t give me an estimate till someone was on site. I thought great, they will have me over a barrel and my desperate ass will say yes.
Well, they came and quoted me almost $500. But I had it so organized that they said is $400 ok?
Boo. Fuckin. Yah.
I did tip the guys, of course. They took the trash (so much trash), the broken-down cardboard boxes (my mad organizational skills) and, sadly, the furniture.
But not as sadly, the boxes with fuckin MOUSE NESTS. Which I had also put off to the side so they knew.
Still up for the trip, right? Not anymore.
The storage payment hit on the day that I chose NOT to go to the unit so I could work and then drive to bum fuckin Egypt to see my cousin for 40 minutes or so.
At least driving two and a half hours to Disney to hang for 40 minutes or so put me in Disney. This was a miserable drive to sit in an Eat & Park where three times they refused to serve me.
Which … honestly I still win.
Marriott screwed me. I had booked my final night in town relatively cheap. But i canceled and extended my Monroeville stay. My credit card bill got hit for $540. For a goddamn Springhill. And i had a better use for that $600.
The big expense was shipping home what I salvaged.
I got to the UPS store of my choosing … and the store number is the same as my HOUSE number. 7300.
This whole trip was an experience in numerology.
57s everywhere, mom’s birthday.
619s everywhere, Grammy’s favorite number.
The gate code is mom’s favorite number.
Even the unit number was the building where I worked in Delray.
Which … more irony … I worked at 110 East Atlantic.
I drove past my Bloomfield apartment.
Which I forgot was on fucking ATLANTIC AVENUE.
Even drove past the Shadyside apartment too. I think that address was the same as my birthday.
Anyway the number I had in mind for shipping … just under $1,000 … was about half the quoted cost. Oops.
But they let me stay there past closing time, taking stuff out that I was willing to part with.
The new total, all I asked was help me lose the comma.
Which … the gal gave me the AAA discount (which I pay for but she didn’t ask) …
And I got to my original number, $969.
I’m not going to talk flight change costs because JAYZUS FECKIN CHRIST.
Or food and gas. And parking! Though I guess I should be happy I didn’t pay to park in the Strip since I went all the way there and found myself ALONE there.
I had told Kelly I was going to meet someone there.
She said either they aren’t going to show, or they’ll show and leave early.
I said nope, I am going to be EARLY. But then I sat in traffic and I was ON TIME.
And if she was right, there may be no coming back from it this time.
She was right.
I am sure I am being petty. But I need some more time to be mad.
I was driving around with Gram’s mirror — which I found online for like $2,500. But I didn’t want to pay what UPS quoted.
So my plan was originally to take it to a couple other places and then go visit their gravesite.
(The one I hadn’t gotten a gravestone for. But I found graveyard flowers in the unit, so that was going to work just fine.)
Well.
Already in the city and not happy about it in the least, I drove around a lot.
Rejected a phone call.
Said goodbye to my beloved mirror in the Marriott stairwell, along with rejected Christmas decorations and a gift I’d bought in FL for a birthday.
Seven nights for $1,000. One night for $540. The fuck.
I am not mad and if there’s blame, it’s all around and I will take my share of it.
But I lived (mostly) by my rule of do not accommodate people who will not accommodate you. So, successful trip.
Thanks to Frank for dropping off Sherry at a super convenient place for me every day, to take her out to the storage unit.
Thanks to Sherry for busting her butt … and busting my balls … to get me out of this storage unit.
Though I do wish she let me take more care with my items. But I did that at the hotel. And said proper goodbyes.
Thanks to Sue at the car rental place, who gave me life advice on the way in and CONGRATULATED me on the way out for doing what I did.
Thanks to Kristen and all her colleagues at the Monroeville UPS store. So many hugs. All the hugs. The very needed hugs.
And I saw my favorite pint-sized person briefly. Which is going to have to be enough for a long time.
And while I am bummed that I had to pay another $100 to the storage place … I got Mom’s $25 deposit back today. From 20 years ago.
So … $400 from Grampy.
$25 from Mom.
And could have had $2,500 from Gram.
But I’ve already made my peace with how I prioritized my day. Paying $600 to ship it to FL then maybe having to pay to ship it to a buyer? Didn’t make sense.
Especially after that surprise from Springhill. When I should have just stayed downtown so it wouldn’t be such a PITA to drive to the airport just to go watch someone eat for 20 minutes.
The takeaway from my final day there is real simple.
Everything is a tradeoff. Everything.
You can’t have it all, though I do order two meals and two drinks wherever possible.
When it comes to time, it was either honor my grandparents or make an effort to spend time with the living.
Mom called him Herbert.
And Papa Bear.
I chose the living. And unlike the dead, the living still have the capacity to frustrate you.
Speaking of the dead … I asked for (and got) so many signs.
Pretty clouds from Momma when I asked questions.
The rain starting and stopping at very opportune times.
Like when the Junk guys came early, i told Momma, “Just 10 more minutes, mom!”
They went to the wrong entrance and I got … 10 extra minutes.
The rain also held out … for those 10 minutes. Then it poured till the guys left.
That was all her. She loved the rain and washed the old away.
A rainbow when we were done with everything.
And three turkey vultures waiting for us at the storage unit when we went for our last run.
Turkey vultures?
I ask for birds in threes, when I want to see Mom, Gram and Grampy together.
I saw three turkey vultures next to the unit. And Sherry gasped, as she never knew what signs to look for till I pointed them out.
I was telling my Nicole about them. She said oh yeah turkey vultures probably don’t live there, but they found decomposition and are clearing it out. They are ecologically important.
She thought about it and said, they do what YOU were doing all week.
Wow. Turkey vultures. And three of them.
I also saw a bunch of baby deer, which was wild. But there were five of them.
The tarot cards said I was surrounded by maternal energy.
I guarantee you Old Gram was there, when I found Suzy.
I know for a fact that Aunt Lenna was there. I drove by her old house at least a half dozen times on Lincoln Highway.
But I know Grampy was around too.
Especially after I said to myself, “I hope I find The Plaza restaurant that he loved.”
And I was nowhere NEAR Ardmore Boulevard, which I had forgotten it was even on.
But since I had that last unexpected free day, I took Ardmore because I knew it would get me to Mosside, where my hotel was.
I didn’t take a photo since it has a new name. But I absolutely saw him smoking outside in my head.
Also saw him smoking outside the house … AT our house.
I ran up to Sherry’s house on my last day to drop off a couple things I couldn’t bear to leave at the Marriott.
We lived across the street. I may type more about it someday, as it deserves its own post. But I have had this blog so long, I may have written about it already.
But would you really arrest a girl for trespassing who’s just standing there crying in your driveway, remembering when it was Mom’s curtains and Grampy’s cigarettes, and not yours?
Mom had better taste. And I had a storage shed full of barely used, or not yet used, items to prove it.
Still, other than the stressful second Saturday … and my best employee QUITTING first thing Monday morning … it was a trip worth the 20-year wait.
I am sneaking up again soon.
And not telling a goddamn person but my travel companions.