It's Just Stuff Right?

The Late Night Call

Last Saturday I received a call late at night (while I was on my way home from a boat party - talk about a downer to ruin a good night!) from Public Storage saying that there had been an "incident" down at the facility and that I needed to come in as soon as possible to open my unit. And oh yeah, I was also told to make sure I brought a camera for insurance claims. :-O AHH!

Background

So backing up a bit, let me address why I have a storage unit. When I moved from Arizona back to California I went from a 3-bedroom house to a 1-bedroom apartment. While I didn't exactly take the entire house with me, I took a large majority of it. I actually got rid of a lot of clothes and books and crap when I moved, and then even more once I arrived in San Diego and unpacked .. but still, I had way more stuff than I had room for. Why? Um, I moved into a 500 sq-foot "modern" and "space-efficient" apartment. Do you have any idea how small 500 square feet is??

Moving Truck w/All My Belongings From AZ

Yeah, that's all my stuff.

The movers almost fainted when they saw my apartment!

My apartment has only one closet meaning things like a suitcase and vacuum have to share space with my clothes. Or well, in my case I decided to put my bigger two suitcases in storage and just keep the one I needed most frequently in my trunk. Yep, you got it. I drive around with a suitcase in my trunk! Ghetto!! Its much easier for me to keep it there where I have access to it than to have to drive 15 minutes to my storage unit whenever I need my suitcase to go on a trip. My apartment also has no swinging doors besides the front door. That's how small it is! The doors between the living room and bedroom, and bedroom and bathroom are frosted sliding doors. It looks kind of neat and modern, but honestly its a necessity over anything else.

Sliding Doors

View from bedroom to bathroom & living room

My "Dining Room"

Aka the stools by the kitchen counter

Living Room

I'm seriously the only apartment w/o a flatscreen! There are hook-ups behind the two pictures. The living room is so small you need one!

Bathroom Designed by a Man

Pedestal sink = no storage. There is nothing but a tiny medicine cabinet in the wall! Where are you supposed to put even a hair dryer?

What I Stood to Lose

Anyways, enough about my shoebox apartment. Back to all of my belongings that didn't fit into my apartment - there were a lot of things! And a wide variety of things to. Here is what I have in storage:

• Luggage
• Bookshelves & shelving units
• Wardrobe box of coats
• Wardrobe box of dresses
• Books & Old Textbooks
• Artwork I didn't have enough walls for anymore
• Dishes, small kitchen appliances, glassware, etc
• Blankets & Extra Bedding
• Two big tubs of Christmas decoration and all my childhood ornaments
• Files of work from previous jobs

Last Year When I Moved Into Public Storage

I have suitcases and a few other things in there now. Its almost full to the ceiling!

Okay I suppose in all honesty a lot of that stuff I don't really "need". Especially the wardrobe of coats. Growing up in California and then living in Arizona for 5 years I've had little need for coats in my life. Maybe one coat for chilly days in San Francisco or short trips to the east coast. I don't know why I have so many coats. I have a black pea coat, a black mid-length wool coat, a long grey wool coat, a tan belted wool coat, a few ski jackets.. I think that's it. Can't totally remember right now since I haven't seen that box in a year!! I've somehow collected a new coat every few years or so and since I rarely wear them they don't wear out. I'm also pretty boring when it comes to choosing styles so none of them look really outdated. (At least I hope so! I hope I'm not the girl with the ugly wool coat walking the streets of Manhattan!)

What I Realized

So prior to coming to asses the damage, I started doing a mental inventory of all the things I had in my storage unit. Things like the coats and dresses I would be very disappointed to lose, but didn't have a huge emotional attachment to. Other things like my books and childhood Christmas ornaments would really hurt me to throw out if they were ruined. I kept thinking over and over again about what it was that could have gotten wet in the unit and what I would do with it. Its not like I even have anywhere i could have taken the stuff to dry!

As I obsessed over all my stuff, I thought a few times to myself, wow, what bad luck I have. This sucks! What a crappy call to get late on a Saturday night! And then suddenly, it all fell into perspective. Of all the unexpected calls to get on a Saturday night, this really wasn't one of the worst ones. I could have heard that my apartment burned down, or worse yet that someone I loved was in the hospital or worse. Soon, I realized that if losing every thing in that storage until meant that I wouldn't instead get a call saying someone I love was sick or hurt, I'd take it!

I kept thinking about that the rest of the night, and then the next morning up until I drove there. I think poor David was on crisis support alert for me as we texted that morning, but by then I'd already come to peace with losing my stuff. I really had. I was sad to lose things with sentimental value, but I could deal with it.

At Public Storage

So the next morning I drove over to Public Storage to check things out. When I walked in I was instantly asked to sign something releasing Public Storage from any liability for my things being ruined. WTH? I was shocked for a minute and said how is this NOT your fault?? The lady at the counter told me that someone's storage unit on the second floor was overloaded with textbooks and the floor had collapsed taking a pipe out along the way. This whole incident was the "renters fault"! Or so she said. Um honestly, I can't possibly imagine how stacks of books made a floor collapse, but okay. Fire those structural engineers!

After grudgingly signing the paperwork I went over to look at my unit. The manager was there telling me how most likely it wouldn't be too bad since my unit was all the way down the hall from where most of the flooded water went. So we unlocked the unit and opened it and....

The Damage

As I started to open the door I seriously felt sick. Agreeing in my head that losing my stuff wasn't the worst thing in the world to happen is one thing, but to see all my stuff wet and ruined was another. BUT ... everything was fine! Oh my goodness ... I literally almost started crying. I had to compose myself. I was sooo relieved! I was afraid that from the front we might not see water damage in the back so one of the movers pulled some boxes out so I could see in the back. It was all fine!

Wow, did I feel blessed. I was prepared for the worst and nothing actually really happened. A part of me almost thinks that because I was able to have a good attitude about the whole scare, that I was spared. WHEW!

Deep breaths... deep breaths ...

I'm really not kidding when I say I was close to tears with relief. I can't believe how much these "things" mattered to me, but they did.

So we put everything back inside, I locked the unit back up and drove off. I was the happiest little girl ever! Suddenly all that stuff I was so ready to leave behind .. well it was mine again! Yay! My obscenely large collection of coats was intact! Ha!

So the moral of the story is .. I don't know. I was scared, I was angry, I felt like a victim, I moved past it, I realized what things are more important than physical belongings, and then in the end all of my belongings were fine!!!! For now! jk There better not be a fire down at that building... that's been one of my nightmares for a while now! Knock on wood for me! :o)