A moving story 1

Our move from Provo to L.A. three years ago was a disaster. We loaded our stuff into a U-Haul trailer we pulled behind my Blazer. By the time we'd gone an hour and a half, the Blazer's engine was not sounding good. We barely made it off the freeway into a truck stop in Parowan and a tow truck took us to a mechanic. The mechanic diagnosed the problem as "complete engine failure". The repairs -- which basically meant getting a new engine -- were going to be more than the Blazer was worth, so we sold it to him for $300. Lorein's dad brought their station wagon up to tow us to Vegas where we would get a moving van. The station wagon overheated outside of St. George, though. We somehow made it to Lorein's aunt's house in St. George where we stayed the night and got a U-Haul truck in the morning. But the U-Haul place didn't have the size we wanted, so they "upgraded" us to the 27' truck. It was HUGE! Although I will say it at least held all our stuff quite easily.
Well, as we made this move, we were determined that things would go better. I mean, we were only going from L.A. to Temecula, which is like 75 miles away. We also put into practice all the lessons I have learned from helping people move, the biggest one being HAVE EVERYTHING PACKED UP. I have been to a lot of moves where you show up and the people are still packing. It makes you want to say "I'll come back tomorrow when you're ready." Anyway, we had everything packed and were hoping to get out of L.A. by 11 so we'd miss any semblance of traffic. Some of my friends arrived at 9 to help out and we had the truck loaded by 10:15. After some light refreshments and a final look-around, we headed down to the truck at 10:45. Perfect timing.
Except I got into the truck and the key wouldn't turn. Not that the engine wouldn't start, but the key itself would not budge. I tried everything. I turned the key over. I pushed the brake as hard as I could. I put on my seatbelt. I locked all the doors. I turned the lights on. Nothing worked. I sat there with my head in my hands thinking this could not be happening. Not again. Finally, I had to call the Penske emergency hotline and they sent out a mechanic. The mechanic got there after about an hour and was stumped. He said he'd never seen anything like it. He took nearly the entire dashboard apart. He asked for one of Lorein's bobby pins. He made a lot of exasperated sighs. I realized we were probably going to have to get a new truck and re-load it. I couldn't believe it. But then -- miracle of miracles -- he got the key to turn and the engine started! The mechanic said he had no idea what he did, but I jumped in the truck and never turned the engine off until I dropped the truck off that night. We unloaded our stuff at my parents', a storage facility, and at my grandma's, and got gas all with the engine running (the whole time we were getting gas, I was praying the truck wouldn't explode). When I dropped the truck off, I turned the ignition off and then turned it back on just to see what would happen. It started right up. But at least we made it, and yes, we did spend the rest of the evening in the hot tub.