A few days ago, I received a call from a lady who is in my church. There was another church member who moved a while back and she was sending a friend for her remaining items. This friend needed help loading the Uhaul truck. Since I am not working now, I decided I could help. I don't know any of these people except the lady who called me.
I was told to meet at the Cottontree Inn at 9 am today and I'd find Jimmy (the friend) with the Uhaul. I went to the hotel and waited and waited. After 30 minutes, I tried to call several people from my church to get more info, but none of them were home. I was driving home when one lady called me. She said, "Oh, I'm sorry, but it was supposed to be at 10 am at the Comfort Inn." So I turned around and drove to the Comfort Inn. She said there was one more guy from my church who was going to help. He's about 70 years old and a widower. Great. I didn't see anyone at Comfort Inn. So I called another church lady and learned it was at the Cottontree after all. Back at the Cottontree I did see the 70 year old man named Willis. We sat in the car waiting for Jimmy for 45 minutes. We checked the Uhaul place and they knew nothing about him. We checked again and they found him, but his truck hadn't been picked up yet and it was at the other Uhaul store in town.
We went back to the Cottontree and asked the girl at the front desk if Jimmy was there. She said yes, room 203. I called room 203 (at 11 am) and woke him up. He came down 15 minutes later, paid his hotel charges and introduced himself to us. He said he got there at 2 am and was very tired (flew from West Virginia to Idaho). He hadn't picked up the Uhaul truck, he didn't know where the storage unit was exactly. He did have a key for a Honda parked outside that belonged to the lady we were moving.
So we went outside and tried the key in the first Honda Accord we could find and it worked. He checked the registration and it was the right car. It had four studded winter tires on it and this is June. We all got in with him and he tried to remember where the storage unit was. We eventually got there because it happened to be one that my uncle uses too. He didn't know the exact number of the unit, but he had a key (or he thought). We tried unit 18 and 20, but the key wouldn't fit in 20 and it wouldn't open the lock on 18. I dug around in the glove box and found another key that fit in unit 17. We surveyed the contents and felt it would probably fit in the 17 foot truck he had rented.
We closed the storage unit and drove across town to the Uhaul place. The lady there was new and it took about 45 minutes for her to operate the computer and print out the paperwork for renting a Uhaul truck and car dolly. Jimmy had to provide two forms of ID, a credit card, several phone numbers, and a drop of blood, sign some papers in triplicate, and then we were out of there.
We stopped at a nearby Sonic Drive-in for lunch, and Jimmy bought. I suggested we should go to the nearby K-Mart for some rope, but he declined.
I looked in the Honda's glove box again and found the receipts for the studded tires purchased at Les Schwab. They will swap the studded tires off for regular tires at no charge. Fortunately, we found the regular tires for that car in the storage shed, along with four more studded tires that were a different size. We dropped the Honda off at the tire store and they changed the tires while we loaded the Uhaul.
Back at the storage shed, we loaded the Uhaul and Jimmy decided we needed some rope. We sent Willis back across town to buy some hemp rope. After we packed all the things and tied them up, we drove back to the tire store and picked up the car. We helped Jimmy load the car onto the dolly, check the lights, and gave him directions to get to Ogden, Utah. He'll spend the next few days driving back to West Virginia.
All in all, I spend 8 hours tracking down the guy, helping him get around town, get the Uhaul truck and dolly, swap the studded tires for regular tires, load the whole truck, load the car, give him directions, etc.
But, I feel pretty good about helping someone I don't even know. Especially when he gave me $50.
