Helping a Friend in Need

I have always been willing to help friends in need, all the time. It is like the Toy Story song You've Got a Friend in Me. It is a part of my soul. I think this is why I find myself in hour long conversations with the homeless and also those hours upon hours of phone calls being the friend that one can vent to, cry to, and sometimes I give great advice and other times I give shitty advice. What I know is that I am there for my friends. New friends, old friends, acquaintances. I feel that their stories are stories that I can empathize with and look at my life and reflect upon that notion.

Well today was one of those days when I was a damn good friend. I hardly know any people in Austin, but the ones I do, I feel close to. The friend I helped out today I met in Austin. However our common ground is Nevada. We have a lot of similarities and somehow during our undergrad years we never met one another but our circles definitely mingled. Some of my closest friends from Reno are friends with this particular person. That connection alone makes us great friends. It is a Nevada thing. I don't know how to describe it. I would do anything for Nevadans abroad. Being a Nevadan out of Nevada is hard work.

Anyway the reason why I am such a damn good friend is because I moved this persons apartment to storage. My friend is doing research out of the United States and their lease ends tomorrow. So I took care of the moving the rest of their stuff to storage. However the adventure doing this became unpredictable.

While living in Austin, I have taken a more green life by not having a car. In order to move stuff from the apartment to storage I borrowed my friend's car that I was helping. This car is a manual. I know how to drive a manual but I am not very good at it. I picked the vehicle up yesterday and as I was driving from North Austin to South Austin I hit rush hour traffic on the 35. I thought I was going to breakdown and cry because I fear traffic in Reno and now I am faced driving a manual vehicle in rush hour traffic in Austin. I swear the traffic here is like that in SoCal. I survived.

I then drove to the storage unit and filled out the lease. My friend will be able to take it over upon their arrival back to the States. I just needed to sign papers my friend took care of the payment and everything.

So today I woke-up, ate breakfast and went to Summermoon to drink coffee and write my earlier blogpost before heading over to the apartment to meet the movers. I got to the apartment, checked the mail. Re-read the e-mail I got from my friend and found the card that is going to be used to pay for the movers. I then directed the movers to take the rest of the furniture out of the apartment. We then headed to the storage unit. My friend's card wasn't activated, so I paid for the movers (thankfully I have become more frugal with my monies), no big deal. I will get paid back. I then went home to rest.

I then headed back to the apartment after rush hour traffic. Packed some smaller things into the car. Cleaned the apartment and went to the storage unit. I followed a vehicle in because I am that type of American. Impatient. I then unloaded the rest of the stuff. I then tried to leave the storage unit. The gate would not let me out. I was stuck. I called the office, no answer. SHIT ON ME. I waited for forty minutes for someone else to leave the unit so I could exit. During that time I learned that I could not get my friend's car into reverse.

I hate manual. I am never driving stick again. Only in cases of emergencies like this was today. I am not sure if I can count the amount of times that I killed that car in first. It is always that gear. I hate first gear with a passion and even more so when I got stuck behind the gated storage units for forty minutes. However, my friend is out of their apartment. I just have to turn the keys in tomorrow. I think I will be taking the bus (I still gotta fix that damn flat tire on my bike).