Movin’ on up

I moved this weekend. I don’t have to tell you how bad that sucked. Moving is the one thing literally everyone hates. The packing, the lifting, the carrying, the screaming, the arranging, the re-organizing, the sobbing. And the real bitch of it is you have to get someone to help you. And then you owe them big-time. You can get your new roommate to help you, but then you’ve created twice as much work for yourselves because you have to move their stuff too. I’ve moved many, many times (only once lived in a building more than one year) and have never found a way around the total suckiness. You can hire movers, but I don’t think I have to tell you thats out of the budget.

So yeah, it sucked. Whatever, thats boring. I’ll tell you whats not boring though: our new neighbors. They poked their heads out the door and offered us a cold beer as we were moving our stuff. It was pretty refreshing. The thing is though, accepting a beer means you’re accepting a hang as well. So we kicked it for 10 or 15 minutes with this family full of Irish Catholic drunks*. Right off the bat they could tell that I too was Irish, so I think they felt like they were safe among their own kind**. We were about 3 minutes into this hang when the first n-bomb was dropped. Turns out these people are straight-up racist. It was wild. Within 10 minutes of knowing us they had managed to insult just about every group of people on the planet.

*I know they were Irish because they mentioned it at least 10 times in our conversation. Presumably this was to justify their obvious alcohol problems.

**At one point I told them my family came from county Clare and asked where their family came from. They had no idea what I was talking about. The subject was quickly changed.

They were also adamant about us coming over to their apartment for dinner or beers. I think this is because we’re white guys from the midwest. They seemed pretty happy about that. Turns out they also hate tofu eaters, so us being from Kansas City was just what the doctor ordered. The phrase “our doors are always open…..for guys like you” was used more than once. This family occupies 4 apartments in the building, and apparently they grill and drink outside all the time. My roommate was pretty creeped out by our new neighbors (friends), but blatant racism aside, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t planning on having a few beers and brats with this crew. What can I say, the price is right.