Around 6.15 last night my girlfriend was headed to a friend’s house to wait for her movers to show up (the friend had already left the state). I naively asked if she wanted me to go with her. We got there soon after, but I don’t remember looking at the clock until 6.45. From then til 7.30, we sat waiting for the movers. Finally, I persuaded my girlfriend to call her friend and ask her to call the movers and find out where they were. It was beginning to lightning and the wind was picking up. They arrived soon after but couldn’t pull into the driveway. While figuring out a place to park the van, the rain started. Not quiet, drizzly rain, but sheets of pounding, grey rain. We stood on the porch and watched the moving van drive down the street.

A couple of minutes later, my girlfriend’s phone rang and I answered. The movers had called the friend and asked her to call us and tell us that they were just waiting for the rain to calm down a little before backing the van into the driveway.

The rain let up and they came back. Naturally, the friend didn’t have an inventory list, so the movers made their own. This took about thirty minutes. They actually started moving at 8.30pm. They didn’t think it was going to be a bad move and we didn’t have any idea what moving a house that size was like. So we just hung out figuring we’d be out of there in an hour or so.

Around 9.30 we realized our mistake and started calling take-out places to see if we could get some food. Everything that we’d prefer was closing before we could get there.

At 10.30 we were beyond famished. I left to grab some snacks at the drugstore. It was closed. Gas station. It was closed. Turn around, other gas stations closed. I finally found a supermarket that was open. I grabbed some crackers and peanuts and water and left, still sure that we’d be on our way home momentarily.

When we finally got home we felt so gross that my girlfriend couldn’t eat anything. I had some toast and crackers.

Even so, we had to shower before we ate anything because the friend’s house was filthy like I’ve never seen. Evidently, she and her unemployed boyfriend had a huge dog who stayed in the house all the time. Giant balls of filthy dog hair blew around like tumbleweeds. The movers were covered in it because it stuck to their sweat. Squished on the wall was a spider. Stuck to the spider was a bunch of dog hair. I’ve never seen anything like it. And we know they had a vacuum; we saw it. Even if there were no dog hair the house would be disgustingly dirty, but you couldn’t even imagine no dog hair since it was so prevalent.

One of the reasons the friend wanted someone there when the movers came was to leave a check for the house-cleaners who were coming today. The check was for $75. I predicted the first words from the house-cleaner will be “Oh, hell no.” $75 wouldn’t pay me to clean one room of that house.

While there my girlfriend reminded me of the story of some of their friends who’d gone over there after a Christmas party. Two of them had stopped and gotten some french fries. While sitting in the house, they noticed their fries had become covered in dog hair.

That’s nasty.