The Husband and I think we have identified something about how we experience time; once you decide to do something in the future, such as emigrating, your time experience slows to a creep. The last time I felt so anxious for a day to come, I was aged ten years and waiting for Christmas, and The Husband has had the same experience.
Part of what slows out days is that we still haven't sold our current home, a two-bedroom, one-bath condo in a fashionable suburb in an East Coast metropolitan area. We've planned to sell the property in May 2022 and are taking steps to ready it for sale, but as I have written previously, we still have lots of stuff to clear out, and the details of what we are trying to do still have not run smoothly.
The latest example this weekend was the new appliances. In late November 2021, we purchased them from a significant home renovation/construction and decoration retailer at a Thanksgiving Sale price. Our understanding when we left the store was that we had thirty days to decide whether or not to buy a warranty on them (we did) but that we would not take installed delivery of them until sometime in early April, closer to when we plan to sell the property. We would return to the store a few weeks before we wanted delivery to pay for the installation of the new ones and the hauling away of the old and to finalize the date.
Well, the warranty purchase went incredibly smoothly. An email containing a link arrived from the retailer. Following the link brought us to a webpage where the warranty's terms and costs were explained, and we made the purchase online. Bit Bam Boom. Done. We expected paying for the installation and haul away and arranging a date would go as smoothly, but they didn't. Instead, as I headed to bed Friday night, I found a robocall on my voice mail stating that our delivery would arrive the following day, Saturday. Further, the recording said if this wasn't acceptable, I needed to call the store at the following number.
The following day, as soon as the store opened, I started dialing. Thirty minutes later, when I never had anyone answer my call, I gave up and called a number that turned out to be a national customer service center. After thirty minutes on hold there, I reached someone who found my purchase quickly in the system, said he was able to cancel my delivery, and told me a store manager would call me to sort out the installation date. Fantastic. A bit of a hassle but worth it for the solved problem.
Until late Saturday, when I received another robocall, informing me the delivery was coming the following day, Sunday, instead. Too late to call back then, so, on Sunday morning, as soon as the customer service center opened, I returned to the phone. After waiting on hold for forty-five minutes, I demanded and was given the number to the delivery service directly and was able to cancel our delivery myself. Later that day, a manager from the store did call, and we set a date for delivery as April second, and we still had to go to the store to pay for and arrange the installation.
So, all's well that ends well - so far at least. But after hours on the phone and heightened stress as we envisioned almost $5000 worth of appliances languishing on our condo's loading dock, sorting the problem came at a price. It furthered our impression that simply getting ready to leave is turning into a fraught, complicated, and slow process. The Husband predicts that time will start to race forward once we sell the condo, and I guess I agree with him. At least for now.
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