Lost in transit

Give Us Your Stuff

Here's a service we don't have in back home in Kazakhstan: movers. Although perhaps now we do. I hear they finally opened sushi restaurants in Almaty so how difficult an undertaking would it be to get some guys with big trucks, shifty eyes and sticky fingers to take other people's stuff? The concept certainly is familiar. The names may differ--movers, Teamsters, La Cosa Nostra--but the idea is universal.

They came in today, thundered through my apartment and left with most of my possessions, which was very little. In the end, the foreman granted me the complete moving experience by trying to rip me off. He claimed I was 102 cubic feet over the limit (the feet again; I can't think in feet, especially if I'm frantically trying detect a swindle!). I pressed for a recount in my presence, which yielded, despite the foreman's fearsome scowling, an overage of not 102 but 50 cubic feet. Still inflated but better than before. I'm sure they also ripped me off on packaging costs, but I let it slide. Being anal saved me $265 dollars. Not bad for an hour's work. I'm not even really angry. After all, these guys have a reputation to uphold.