Spring Cleaning: Carless Edition

Last Thursday was the first official day of spring, and we've been welcoming the new season with some spring cleaning here at Carless Central! We don't usually operate on such a seasonal schedule, but the issue was pushed this year when my father came to visit from Georgia two weekends ago. The purpose of his trip to OKC was twofold: the main reason, of course, was to see John and me for the first time since we moved here last September. The second reason was to bring a huge load of our remaining furniture and other belongings that were still in Georgia being stored at my parents' house. If you'll remember, we moved here on an airplane, with a couple of stuffed suitcases and two angry cats in tow. We had no furniture, and only as much clothing and bedding as we could carry in our baggage.

Very Impatient Pet

We had already received one carload of belongings when John's dad visited us back in November, and we've been purchasing furniture since we've been here in OKC. We were anxiously awaiting a dresser and two sizeable bookshelves from my parents' house, in addition to the assorted clothing, books, musical instruments and equipment, wall art, etc that we left behind as well. What we were not expecting, however, was the sheer AMOUNT that was coming. For example, I've moved multiple times in the last few years, and because my parents lived nearby while I was living in Georgia, I was able to keep things at their house when I needed to. In that time, I've amassed an absurd amount of clothing, and I didn't realize exactly HOW MUCH until my mother packed all of it to send with my dad.

After a fun weekend spent showing my dad and his best friend around Oklahoma City, we settled in to assess the situation. We had boxes and bags up to our eyeballs, wall to wall, and it was obvious that we were going to have to do a serious amount of unpacking, organizing, cleaning, and, most importantly, DONATING what we didn't need or want anymore. It took several days, but we finally got everything sorted, and then we were faced with the prospect of getting a massive number of bags of clothes and boxes of other items to the Goodwill Donation Center on NW 23rd. Without a car. 

That's a lot of junk.

Ready to go!

Luckily, we are members of TimeCar, and we have access to a Ford Ranger AND a Nissan Frontier for short-term rentals when and if we need them. Our plan was to rent the Ranger from the Deep Deuce TimeCar location, which is a short walk for us, load it up at the apartment and then drive it to the donation center. What actually happened was that by the time we were ready to take this excursion, the Ranger was already rented from the Deep Deuce location. The Frontier was still available at the OCU location, which is about 2 miles away from us - a walkable distance in theory, but this was last Sunday morning, and I don't know if any of you remember, but the weather here was very cold and extremely windy, and we were not in the mood for an arctic adventure. We took Uber to OCU instead, which was super convenient and affordable, as always, and well worth the money not to freeze our butts off OR waste time. 

 

We had a little bit of trouble finding the OCU TimeCar location on campus (just so you know, it's near 27th and Florida), but once we found the truck, we were on our way. We ran a couple of other "car errands," then headed to the apartment, loaded up the truck with all of our items, and happily unloaded it all at the donation center for Goodwill to deal with. In case you're wondering, giving to the donation center is a breeze, at least it was at the location on 23rd. We backed the truck up to the door, the two attendants helped us get everything out, and then we were on our way. After dropping off the truck at OCU, the weather had warmed up just a smidge, enough that we were able to take a nice (but chilly) walk home!

Brrr

Because we are carless, this spring cleaning venture could have been a big pain bordering on impossible, but because we have a membership with TimeCar, we were able to easily get a truck and take care of all of our hauling needs. I know we've bragged about TimeCar a lot, but we always manage to find new, helpful ways to use the service. Maybe you can use it, too. Happy Spring Cleaning!

Timecar saves the day!