A TSUNAMI IS UNLEASHED IN OUR DRIVEWAY, HOUSTON 2002

As it came to pass, the year 2002, brought us another move. This time from Edinburgh, Scotland to Houston, USA. It was not unexpected, nor was it unwelcome. In many ways, we had spent more of our married life together, in the USA. So, in a way, it was like homecoming. It just so happened, that the company had decided to move their head office to Houston. Along with that, they decided that ol’ JimboRed, needed to move his ass there, also. Deysi was up for it. She was used, to me dragging them, away from wherever they felt comfortable at the time. Of course, by now, Ron was fully into her Post Graduate Degree at the University of Edinburgh. It appeared that, once again we would have to abandon her. She tried to appear sad, but failed.

As usual, when I moved, chaos reigned. My work never stopped. My travels around the world, like a blue ass fly, did not cease. And as a consequence, 100% of the burden fell on Deysi’s shoulders. I mean everything! She interviewed movers, notified all of the appropriate authorities, regarding our rental, utilities, school, and on and on. About the only thing I accomplished was to make a detailed and itemized list of our possessions. I left out the cat, because I figured, this is where we would part. Yup, you guessed it. I think Deysi, put it like this. “if the cat doesn’t go, neither do I.” Or, “the cat is higher on my list than you Jimbo”. “If it doesn’t go, you needn’t bother packing either”. So once again, this pain in the butt, was readied for travel.

Well, once we had “priorities” straightened out. The work began. Amazing, but for all of our travel, we had still managed to accumulate an impressive pile of goods. It took a “man and a boy”, a week to wrap it, box it, and load it. All under the watchful eye of Deysi. She had ridden in this “rodeo”, many times, and knew exactly what she wanted. I, of course, was everywhere, except at home helping. You can imagine, that I did receive, my share of verbal abuse, for my lack of help. In the middle of all of this, Deysi had to find a place for Ron to stay, after we left. It needed things like, curfew, security, den mother, and church, in order to qualify. Ron, just rolled her eyes, and looked heavenward.

Ange, was somewhat easier. Although she had made many friends in Scotland, I believe that she was ready for a move. All I had to promise her, was a new car on our arrival. She was 17, and already we had run out of gifts, to bribe her with. What next, I thought, “an airplane, or boat or apartment at Disneyland”.Soon we were ready. Deysi had managed to get the chaos organized. The only thing different, this time around was, that we were able to make one “house hunting” trip, prior to moving. Deysi chose the Woodlands, Texas as the place we wanted to be. It was outside of the city, close to the airport, and at the end of a, little used, tollroad, 18 minutes from the office.

Within a few days, she had located us a house, arranged a mortgage and got on with the business of moving. The house she chose was a newer, colonial style, two story brick. Our new home, had a large swimming pool. Palm trees surrounded it. Inside was a huge open plan family room, kitchen, eating area. Off to one side was a formal living room, as well as a formal dining room. The main floor also contained the master bedroom suite, with doors opening onto the pool deck and hot tub. Upstair were three additional bedrooms, a tv/movie room and a couple of bathrooms. This home was spectacular. The price was less than half, of an equivalent one, in Scotland.

Ange found a school, and immediately knew she would need a new car. The students parking lot was full of BMW’s, Merc’s, sport cars, and other high end toys. The home we had picked, was far enough away, to made it necessary, for her to have transportation. My heart was set on a smaller type, character type, foreign car, something like a ten year old Datsun or Subaru. However, once Ange spotted all of the new vehicles in the student parking, I had, already, lost my dream. The best I could do was to convince her that a brand new Honda Civic was a good car. She only half believed me, but gave in and reluctantly accepted it. Geezus.

A little bit of a sidebar now. Some of you might now be wondering, why Ange got the new car, and Ron got to walk, when, she wouldn’t drive a used Toyota. Well the difference is this. The new Honda, in Texas cost $20,000. The second hand Toyota, in Edinburg, cost 20,000 pound sterling. That was roughly $45,000 US dollars, at that time. “Aaaaahhhh”, you might say, “JimboRed you are not so mean. You may have a point, after all!”

Moving day comes and I am in Norway. The movers pull a big ass, shipping container, into the parking area in our complex. Then they proceed to fill his 40 foot, (2500 cubic foot), container, from top to bottom. Deysi’s possessions took every square inch. There was not a centimetre to spare. It was jammed. That done, along came a truck to haul it to the Port. At the port, it was put onto an ocean going, container ship. And finally, adios amigo.

The relocation took place during summer break, so the trauma of having to live in a hotel and shuttle the girls to school was avoided. We hung around Edinburgh for a couple of weeks, toured in London, and made a trip or two to Houston. Then we were finally off to Texas to start work and await our goods. It was a chaotic time. Ron was left in Scotland. She now had a summer job in a law office. If I remember, she went in after hours and filed the hundreds of folders and documents, that had been looked at each day. I don’t quite, remember how the cat got there, but somehow it arrived. There was no “cat prison” for it on this trip.

The time passed, while we awaited our belongings. We stayed in a Hotel in the Woodlands, Texas. It was near our new home and Ange’s school. Shortly after our arrival, Ange had her new car. it was not the Corvette or BMW of her dreams, but she decided, it would just have to do. If that was “all we could afford”. She carried her pain, in silence. All is well, I am working, Desyi is organizing and making the house ready. After about two weeks we are notified of the impending arrival of our goods. At about the same time, I am also notified of a quarterly management meeting in London, for sometime around the scheduled arrival of our goods. What could possibly go wrong.

You have probably guessed by now, that both of these events, coincided almost to the day. It was a train wreck approaching. Once again, Deysi is going to be left on her own to deal with a major move into the new home. I, as usual would be off like a “butterfly”, flitting around the world. In Deysi’s mind, I had this all planned. The day before, I am to leave Houston, I receive a call that our container load of goods would be delivered to us in two days. As much as, I proclaim my innocence, with the timing of these events, I am getting no sympathy. I have to leave, but her parting words echo in my mind. “You will pay for this Jimbo”. She means it.

On my part, I go with my stomach in knots, ridden with guilt and feeling a bit sorry for myself. In London, we convene our meeting. Not much has changed. The usual suspects are given their verbal beating. A couple of the innocents “are hanged” and a couple of the guilty are “promoted”. The world is at peace. I remember the second morning of our meeting. I am, about, half-engaged in what is going on. The other half is distracted, trying to figure out the punishment I would suffer when I return home. Suddenly, our meeting is interrupted, and I am called out for an emergency. My blood runs cold!

Deysi is on the phone. I ask what is wrong. In her bravest voice, but with a slight quaver, she says, “our container arrived from Scotland. They put it in the driveway. When they opened the doors, it was full of water. It was like a flood came out!” At this point, I know she is close to “losing” it. She continues, “everything is soaking wet with sea water!” “All of my stuff is ruined!” Then she wants to know, “what you are going to do about it?” One of the few times, I was, ever, without a response, was that very moment. I felt like fainting. Or maybe crying. Somehow I knew it was all my fault, and I was in for an ass-kicking.

Deysi, goes on to tell me, that, everything we own is destroyed and piled up in our driveway and garage. I am dumbstruck! I can’t think of anything to say, but I know she is about to “lose it”, big. However, JimboRed’s icy, calm nerves kick in at this point. I am, now, completely in control. This calms Deysi, also. She sees me so strong, that she can’t help but toughen up. (What Deysi says is).What, actually, happened, is that jimboRed had a blank moment, and then the cursing, screaming, sobbing and slamming things around, started. He is like, “Lord what did I ever do, to deserve this?” A voice from the sky booms out, “LET ME MAKE A LIST FOR YOU!” “He crumples up on the floor, in a fetal position, and lies there, a quivering mass of flesh. Hearing his distress, I now take over”.

The one decision we do make, very early, is that I need to get my ass home. The second thing is that we need to get pictures of this catastrophe. Deysi springs into action, buys about 10 rolls of film, and snaps a 3 inch thick, pile of photos. We have a significant amount of the Atlantic Ocean, now in our driveway. In the midst of it sits our goods. The camera sounds like a machine gun, as Deysi, shoots roll after roll. In the meantime, I am furiously trying to get out of England and back to Houston. The movers put as much as they can in the garage, cover the rest and take their container from our yard. They promise to be back. I think they were just about as shocked as Deysi when they opened the doors to that tsunami.

As promised, the movers returned to try and make a bad situation better. However, there was no righting this wrong. There was not one piece that did not get soaked by water from the Atlantic Ocean. It is not completely clear, exactly how our container was filled with water. But it appears, that when stacking the containers, at the port, or on the ship, the one on top of ours was misaligned. The feet, on the bottom of the container missed, the landing spots, and punched 4 great holes in the top of our container. It was then transported, misaligned, with these gaping holes being washed over by sea water, every time a wave was hit. Over the course of a 10 day voyage, with the water, washing over our container, 24 hours per day, it gradually filled up.

Sure enough, about the same time that I make it home, the movers’ remedial crew and their insurance adjuster arrive. I don’t believe that anyone pictured the extent of the damage. Almost immediately, myself and the adjuster “bond”. NOT! He clearly knows, that his job is to fight us off and not pay one penny for anything, no matter who’s fault. I had been dealing with vendors, suppliers, contractors, for years, by this time. So, he was not getting someone at their first dance. He started out by surveying the damage, sucking his teeth a couple of times, scratching a note or two, and looking wisely over his glasses. I in turn, gave him my best glare, while staring down my nose at him. I did my best not to address him directly. Mostly, I stood there, looking pissed.

After, his prescribed, 15 minutes of grunting and sighing, he makes his way to me. I am sure he felt he was quite officious looking, but little did he know, just how “outgunned” he was. He pumps out his chest and says, “well, it’s going to be hard to put an exact value on anything that has been damaged!” Looking satisfied, he is now prepared for us to fall into his plan. I kinda look sideways at him, and tell him, “well not really! Here is our itemized list of every item in our shipment.” With that I hand him 35 typed out pages of inventory, including dates of purchase and prices. It has a stamp on it, from the movers in Scotland. It has an export stamp, it has a USA import stamp. My god, it looks more official than my passport. Anal, perhaps, but not our 1st move.

He is kind of shocked, well, let’s say he looks as if someone has just nutted him. He starts to flip thru the pages, but doesn’t appear to be reading it. “Now”, says I, “all we need to do, is determine if there is anything that can still be considered as undamaged.” I continue, “do you see anything?” At this point, he is looking at a box full of electronics from the UK. A TV, VCR, DVD player, camera, etc. He pulls out the DVD, not even looking at the US adapter on the end of the plug. I had made sure, before we left, that every power cord had an adapter, to plug into a transformer for use in the states. He plugs it into the wall outlet. Nada, nothing, not a sign of life. He picks up another gadget and plugs it in. Nada!

I, briefly, thought about, reminding him that plugging UK appliances (220V) into the US 110V outlets, was not going to work. They would need a transformer. However, he seemed to be having fun so I just let him carry on. In a couple of minutes, he comes over and says, “your electronics are “toast”, they cannot be used. So far he has looked into about two boxes out of 200. He then pronounces that he will need to come and take a full set of pictures, before he can make his final evaluation. Deysi, passes him about 300 photos of each and every piece of damaged goods. It is a major stack of photos. This guy, does not know what to say, at this point he is defeated.

Suddenly, he is on our side. He has more complete documentation than he has ever had. He is suddenly quite happy. In less that two hours, he has wrapped up his end, of a major problem. He gets ready to leave and tells us, “please do not sleep on your mattresses, they have been soaked in sea water.” He continues, “I will instruct them to provide funds immediately for their replacement”. At the time it seemed like a very minor point. However, it proved to be a very valuable lesson, in getting the process moving. That, and one other small detail. It just so happened, during the same period of time, I was in a major negotiation for a significant International relocation contract. Our company, moved upwards of 500 people, each year from “armpit UK” to “Timbuktu”, and back. It was big money.

Also, one of the groups, I was in discussion with, just happened to be these very movers. I spoke with one of their top executive, shortly after learning of our disaster. He assured me that everything would be taken care of. Based on the leverage, I held, I felt confidant that we would end up ok. One last point. Shortly after the adjuster left, we received a call from an agent with the insurers. She tells us to go find the same mattresses and tell her the price. I explain that, these mattresses were purchased overseas, and would not be found in the USA. But, I added, “Deysi, has found some that she thinks are suitable.” “Can we go buy them now?”

She said that she would need approval, for any alternate mattress. Also she was going to need quotes for the price. She then added that this would likely take 2 or 3 weeks. I was starting to get “steamed”. I then told her, “don’t worry about it. We will just sleep on the wet ones until you decide what you want us to do”. It is strange, but there was a long silence on the phone. Then she says, let me call you back. In a very short time, she has called and told Deysi, to purchase whatever mattresses she thought were comparable and to send her the bill. What we learned was that NO ONE involved in the moving business, wanted anyone sleeping on a contaminated mattress. After all, who knows what dreaded disease could be caught!

Mention the word mattress, and everyone moved. Some went for cover, and some tried to help. In any event, the insurers, prompted by the movers (still hoping to win our contract) settled the damages within days. With a big check, Deysi was then on a major shopping journey. She had funds to replace anything she wanted, deep clean anything that could still be used, and to discard anything that had grown too old. Poor thing. She also suffered the endless hours of shopping, in silence.

We are now at the end of another long and torturous story. Again, it seems kind of unreal, but believe me, what I have recounted is only a small percent of what actually took place. Deysi, eventually forgave me for causing the great flood, that ruined her treasures. One point I might add is that, although everything was paid for, without argument. There were things like, the girl’s “art” from schools, souvenirs, thousands of photos, home videos and other hand made crafts, that could never be replaced by money. Still, it might have been the only time in our life, that I thought we had, at least, come close to beating an insurance company, at their own game.