Moving to Barbados: The Office

This is more of a side story to my last post. I like tangents but this one was too long to include.

I alluded a few times to a suitcase I couldn't part with which was labeled Office.

I was pretty excited about this little gem, but it became the subject of every joke along our journey.

It was comprised of all the basic office items that I thought we would need while 'en route': envelopes and stamps, pens, batteries, chargers, paper, a mini scanner, a mobile printer, and of course a small whiteboard. 

As you can guess it was a little heavy and I was questioned on multiple occasions if this suitcase was really necessary.

We could just as easily locate an office supply store or use the hotel business center right?

Part of my reasons were to avoid this scramble to find a place to print out something or copy an important doc while we spent time on the road and due to covid many business centers were not even open anymore.  

As we hauled everything into the trailer the first night, I Did start to wonder if my Office was going to pay off. It seemed awfully heavy.

Third night at the hotel and my pre-planning finally proved itself worthy. My husband needed to submit something to the insurance company before he left town. It was in the evening so past the opening hours of any office supply store. He jokingly asked if I had a scanner. Um check. He then asked to borrow the printer. Check check. He had to mail in the claim  the old fashioned way so asked if I had an envelope and a pen. Check and check. Finally he had to make another joke- don't I have any stamps? Uh check. 

I had an overwhelming urge at the end of it to do a whole "in yo' face, booyah" move and one of those victory dances that American football players do when they make a touchdown. But it was a tight hotel room and not much room for a dance. And I'm not really an "in yo' face, booyah" kind of person.

The Office, as I began to refer to it since it did start to become an entity to me, also became my albatross in our trek. While still in Virginia, I had to pack up the trailer on my own for our drive down to South Carolina. 

My husband wound up having to travel to Denver to receive his motorcycle and we agreed that it would be better use of time if I went ahead and headed down with the youngest in tow. 

I think the bags had multiplied while we were in the hotel. I did leave them alone a few times. But it took two loads of the baggage trolly to get all of our stuff down to the car. Loading in the rain I had to remember the guidelines set by my husband- heavy stuff in the back of the trailer, lighter stuff towards the door. That meant The Office was in the back. So while it was a pain, it now had more purpose- weight.

My second real victory though came when we got to Florida. This time our rush was to get forms filled for a COVID testing facility we found that could get us results fast. We needed to print out the 4 page doc for each of us. Win.

My third victory was having to print out the dog's paper work. Again, whole dog post coming, but that was a lifesaver. Another Win for The Office.

My final victory was the night before we flew out, I had to print out our COVID test results. A print out was required to show to the gate agent and our results were coming in literally the night before. 

So The Office = 4 Naysayers = 0

In yo' face. Boo-yah.

I always like to wrap up my posts with a little Zen. I do still believe that every challenge I face, or victory, comes with its own bit of a Zen lesson. 

This one was hard because I was just basking so much in the glory of being right for once. However, I think the same lesson applies to it had I been wrong- this is more about letting go of expectations. I had a need, I felt right, so I prepared. That is okay, even if I had been wrong and every place we checked in had a printer in the room. To do things in my own right moment is the best course and spend less time worrying if it will be right/wrong. 

I won this one, but I have so so many more stories where I didn't. But let's focus on this one today. 

Cue touchdown dance music.