I guess I should preface this by saying that I’m writing this on Monday night, the move is not yet complete, and I’m still in Austin, which was not the way things were supposed to happen. More on that later.

Crazy shit that happens to you while helping your sister and her family move from Little Rock to Austin. Let us commence:

The cabbie that takes you from the Little Rock airport to your sister’s house only has one good arm. His cell phone rings. You think, “no way he’s going to reach into his pocket and pull out that phone to answer it, his only good arm is driving the car.” The cabbie proceeds to let go of the wheel – mind you, at highway speed – fish the phone from his pocket, answer it, and hold a conversation with a prospective client. He drives a little with his elbow to humor you, then returns navigation of the cab to pure chance or Acts of God.

You get to your sister’s house which currently does not contain your sister, your niece, or your nephew. They have since left to Dallas to stay with the in-laws before driving down to Austin. That leaves you with the T, your brother in law. That also you leaves you with the moving guys, a ragtag bunch of tattooed toothless dudes. One of them likes talking to your more than moving anything. You find that odd. He later finds a patch of grass to lie on while the other moves continue to move stuff.

One of the moving guys catches wind you’re going to be a lawyer. Towards the end of the evening, he furtively calls you aside while the other guys are busy loading stuff onto the truck, and asks, “Hey man, I heard you a lawyer, I got a question. I got this felony on my record that I can’t get rid of man. How can I get it off?” A flurry of legally proper and appropriate responses come to mind, but all you can think is, “What did you do?” Thankfully, you weasel out of the question but coming up with some mumbo jumbo that you aren’t a criminal attorney. Some awkward silence follows and you say, “Yeah, um, I’m gonna go over here and help load that thing onto the truck.”

The big truck leaves and you and T are left with a smaller van containing the bare essentials. (The big truck is scheduled to arrive Tuesday).

You spend eight hours in the small van with your brother in law talking his head off about anything you can think of to keep him awake. You offer to take the wheel but he kindly refuses. You talk to him about girls, cars, jobs, your parents, your sister, his kids, Dallas (where he’s from) and whatever else comes to mind. Sometime towards the end of the ride he says, “Man, I didn’t know you could talk that much.”

The best part is that his every response to any female-related comment you make is: “You need to date around more.” This coming from a guy that married the first woman he seriously dated.

The next day you take your bike to a local Austin trial that you haven’t ridden in about three years. It’s a difficult trail, but you’ve got your new bike and you think you’ve got the cajones to make it through. After slamming your shin against a log once, crashing into the rocks twice, and getting racked by your bike seat, you slowly pedal out of the trail battered and bleeding. It was a brutal and humbling experience. When you get home, your family points at your shin as if you don’t know it has a bloody welt the size of a quarter.

Later that afternoon you visit your newlywed friends and hope to iron your dress shirt for a wedding you have that evening. You hang out, go to Target, veg out, and leave. Only when you’re five minutes from your sister’s house on the other side of town do you realize that you didn’t iron your shirt and you left it at your friends’ place. You have a wedding in an hour, a suit, and no shirt. And no wedding card. You haul ass to the nearest Target and buy a white dress shirt and an iron. You race home, iron the shirt on the kitchen countertop, change into the suit, and remember you forgot to buy a card. The wedding is now in fifteen minutes, you have a suit and a shirt, but no card and only a vague idea of where the wedding is. You race back to Target (this is now your third time in a Target in three hours), buy a card, and tear off down 620 passing four (4) sheriffs. None of them pull you over. God must have his finger on your car.

You get to the wedding in the nick of time to watch the bride give her vows. The wedding is a good time and you catch up with old friends.

The next morning, you hang out some more with your newlywed friends and then an old college friend, after which you plan to head home to Houston. But on the way back to your sister’s house something fun and exciting happens. The “D4” light on your ’95 Honda starts flashing and the speedometer goes wild. One second you’re going zero, the next you’re going 60, the next 50, and then zero again. No rhyme or reason. A few days earlier, the ABS light came on. Your car is, how shall we say it, fucked.

You get home and show your dad this new fun and exciting development. His solution: get it towed to the nearest Honda shop, wait till tomorrow for the quote, and if it’s more than the value of the car, buy a new one. Dads always have the best solutions. You figure the towing idea is probably a good first step, so you make it happen.

The tow truck shows up and loads your car. Just before he’s about to go, his engine cuts. No explanation. Just stops. He looks at the truck. “That’s not good.” You inquire if maybe he ran out of gas? No, he just filled up.

While you and the tow truck guy wait for his other tow truck buddies to give him a jump, and the irony slowly kills you, you and tow truck guy talk about the various cars that he most often is called to tow Hondas? Not so much. Toyotas? Nope. How about Saabs? Not really. Surely Jaguar. Of course. Mercedes? Not usually. BMW? Mostly the post-2003 models. And what car did your brother-in-law just leave the house to buy? A 2004 BMW 330i. Oy. At least it has a warranty.

Your parents are kind enough to help you buy a new car if it comes to that. You hope it doesn’t only because they want to get another Accord. Meanwhile, you’re still trying to avoid that “conservative suburban family man” thing because, well, you’re not. You’re young and you’re wild and you’re an animal. At least that’s the vibe you’re going for. The Mazda 3 hatchback is looking pretty sweet and you test drive one and fall in love. It has a peppy engine, sporty looks, and an auto tranny that has a manual option a-la the Porsche Tiptronic. Lots of fun in the twisties, and the car has plenty of space in the back for your music and biking gear. The only other contender is the Subaru WRX, but again, mom and pops are urging for a simple and no-personality Accord. This will only lead to argument.

(I know I know, life sucks so much to have parents want to help you buy a car, but when you’ve been driving an Accord with -40 horsepower and less personality for five years, you kind of want something more exciting to wake up to. Humor me here.)

Tomorrow, the movers show up with an 18-wheeler containing the contents of your sister’s house. You can’t wait to haul beds and dressers up the staircase and build assorted pieces of furniture. That Texas heat will be your nemesis.

Oh yeah, and you’ll be missing a day of work. For shame.