When I reserved my truck from U-Haul�s online reservation site, I received both a confirmation email and a confirmation phone call from the Chicago rental center where I would (most likely) be picking up the truck. It was explained to me that I�d be called the day prior and informed which specific rental center I�d be picking up from. All of my paperwork said 9:00 a.m.
On Wednesday the 24th, the day before I was to pick up the truck, I did not receive a call. At 3:00 p.m. I phoned the central call center and inquired as to what I should do. I was told to wait until 5:00, and, if I still had not received a call, phone the local center. I was given a toll-free number to call the Chicago center directly. At 5:05 I called the number. I was on hold for 15 minutes, and then transferred. The phone rang. And rang. And rang. My friend Sean suggested that I was on a dead circuit, so I hung up and phoned again. I was on hold for 45 minutes. I hung up and called Central Control again. I explained, in detail, what had transpired up to that point. I was immediately connected to the same number, and was on hold for another 30 minutes. At this point I hung up the phone, got in the car, and drove to the local call center, where I was informed that they had not located a truck for me yet, but would call when they did. I asked when this might be, and was told probably 3 or 4 in the afternoon. I said I had a confirmed reservation for 9 a.m. and received a blank stare in return. I went home to finish packing and hoped for the best.
Thursday morning I slept in till 10:00, then finished up the last of the packing with the help of my saintly boyfriend, who�d flown in late the night before. At 3:00, when I still had not received a call from U-Haul, I phoned them again. The woman who answered told me there were no trucks. I told her I had a confirmed reservation, and had to be in Los Angeles by Monday morning or risk lost wages. She said that there were trucks, but only one-way trucks. She said that she would put me on the list for a truck for Friday. I explained again about getting to Los Angeles by Monday, and asked to speak to her manager. Conveniently, the manager had �just stepped out.� I asked her to have the manager call me immediately on her return, left two phone numbers that I could be reached at, and hung up.
Then I fetched the phone book and phoned Budget Truck Rentals. Their quote to me had been $2500 vs. U-Haul�s $1100, hence my going with U-Haul in the first place. I spoke with a lovely woman named Debbie at Budget, who found a truck for me in the suburbs of Chicago, available immediately, for $1500. I proceeded to kiss her feet (metaphorically), hop in the car, and get to the suburbs as fast as rush hour traffic would allow. My saintly father, who was paying for the truck, assured me that there was plenty of money for the increase in price, and even increased his credit line in case I had any emergencies.
So. It was, at this point, 7:00 on Thursday evening, by which time we�d planned on being gone or close to.
He and I proceeded to load the truck with absolutely no help. It took about 5 hours, with water and pizza breaks. My apartment was a third floor walk-up. The front stairs were curved and creaked loudly, and the back stairs were part of a shaky built-on wooden porch (the building is brick) with very bad lighting. We took the back stairs, which wasn�t too bad until it got fully dark outside. My boyfriend, the saint, did all of the heavy lifting on his own, with very little help from me. He arranged everything in the truck so magnificently that, at the end of the trip, only one thing had shifted, and not very much.
At 12:30 a.m. we said goodbye to my roommate and got in the truck. Our plan was to drive as far as possible, despite the pain and exhaustion, so that we would not have Chicago rush hour traffic again in the morning. (Also, my bed was dissembled and packed into the locked truck.) We made it to DeKalb, about an hour west of Chicago, and checked into a Super 8 motel. What follows is a blow-by-blow of our trip, based on notes taken as we traveled. Many of the times noted are estimations.
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