Tragicomedy of errors

So I took an honors Shakespeare course my first semester at BYU. I had to write essays on what comedy and tragedy meant in Shakespearean terms. So I could technically say that our move has been a comedy. It will turn out to have a good ending as Shakespeare would write it. In the middle, however, it's just been a little shaky.
We are now in California, so at least we've made it this far. Our stuff is all on a 28-foot tractor-trailer (hopefully) bound for California. We should be getting it around Wednesday or Thursday in Visalia.
Here's the rundown on move week:
Last Saturday and Sunday I was dead sick. Coughing, wheezing in my upper respiratory area, dead tired, exhausted, etc. I stayed in bed all weekend. No packing.
On Monday of this week, the car shipper picked up both of our vehicles. I managed to raise myself from my sickbed enough to do some packing and organizing, with little breaks. The vehicles then were gone and we were without cars.
Late Monday night, Cami woke up feeling icky and then proceeded to throw up. She continued this throughout late evening Tuesday. I lost another whole day of packing. But I did go into work to do my last book page editing. I caved and rented a car so I'd be able to get there.
Wednesday was really crunch time. The trailer was delivered that afternoon. I tried to do more packing. I also did my last batches of laundry. Wednesday night I started to get panicky.
Thursday was it. Friends came in that morning to help me pack up everything I hadn't gotten to, which was a whole heckuva lot. Sicknesses didn't help, of course. I still was hacking and wheezing, but I had enough energy to drag myself around to pack and give directions.
Marce had his last day of work. He came home around 11 a.m. I sent him to go get the little rental Budget truck we needed solely for its ramp, which turned out not to be a huge help. But the tractor-trailer didn't have a ramp, and it was 4 feet off the ground. Just picture it: huge refrigerator (I love it so I wouldn't possibly leave it behind), washer, dryer. Heavy sleeper sofa.
Shortly after I sent Marce to get the truck, an Alagasco pickup parked on the street in front of my house. It was towing a strange driller truck. I felt a bit panicky. I asked, "So, gas people, whatsa happenin?" Gas leak. Gotta fix it. Yeah, um, not really the ideal time for you to be doing heavy work like this out front of my house. Oh well. Most likely won't be in the way. We'll cross our fingers.
An hour later, it started dumping rain. Stopped in half an hour. I am still inside, wheezing away.
We're packing, men are loading the truck. Are we making progress? Doesn't look like it.
A couple hours later, I am trying to make arrangements for Mac, our cat, to be shipped via Delta's air cargo. I'm on the phone 45 minutes before I get a workable plan figured out.
Two hours later, Mac has escaped the hubbub of the house. He hides under the house in the crawl space.
Two hours after that, Marce tries to get Mac out from under the house. He goes in the crawl space and instructs a horde of about 8 kids to position themselves out in the back yard, ready to grab Mac. Marce gets Mac out in the yard; none of the 8 kids catch him. Mac runs into other people's back yards. Marce, steam pretty much visibly coming out his ears, steps into the house, covered in mud. His old clothes go in the trash bag, and we wonder if we'll have to write off Mac. At 10 p.m. Mac shows back up at the back door, meowing. I quietly try to get him inside. He runs away, never to be seen again before we leave town. Today, I canceled his reservation to be shipped. We're sad, Mac is free, and we save about $350 in shipping and associated costs.
Around 7 p.m. Marce surveys the house. I've been surveying it myself. It doesn't look very empty. We've been working our friends like dogs, and there seems to be no end in sight. Marce starts to panic. I feel for him on the one hand but on the other say, "So now you get why I've been so stressed for a month?" I try to stay strong in his panicky moment. How are we gonna do this? We just HAVE TO, that's how.
We're still in the house just past 10 p.m. We have a bunch of odds and ends still scattered, but the big stuff is all on the tractor-trailer. I've reserved 19 feet of the 28-foot trailer, and it's looking like we might use the whole darn thing. $163 extra per linear foot. Yikes!
We go to our hotel nearby and enjoy amazing showers. We could theoretically get 7 or 8 hours of sleep, but Marce and I probably get about 4 hours all told. Too much still weighs on our minds. We chow down on breakfast and get back to work.
We deliver our old entertainment center (yeah, we're not even taking that or the TV or a sofa) to a friend's house. We return the truck, which was $50 but almost useless. We race back to the house. We are helped tremendously by several loyal friends who see the look of despair and madness on our faces. We box up all the rest of the junk in the house and then leave behind a whole lot of stuff in the barn and a few odds and ends in the house for our friends to pick through and claim as their own.
We race to the hotel. First, I run to the school to get some forms for Marissa for her new school in California. We shower again. I rearrange the suitcases a bit. I try to make sure the huge suitcase is almost entirely clothes so it doesn't go over the 50 pound weight limit. We run by Marce's work for a check. We run in the bank to do three transactions. We hustle to the car rental place to return the car. We scoot out of town and cross our fingers, since it's 12:15 p.m. and our flight leaves at 2:10 p.m. and it's a one-hour drive to the airport. Our good comrade from the ward and neighbor down the street drives us all and our luggage and carry-ons. We make it to the airport at 1:20. We check in (the big bag weighs 59 pounds. Arrgh. $25 extra charge. And no, I don't think I can rearrange it to get 9 pounds out. I'll be happy to fork over 25 bucks.) We go through security. I pay $23 for three sandwiches and a banana to hold us over until we reach Chicago. We have a good flight. In Chicago, we have less than an hour before our next flight leaves, and we all swallow McDonald's burgers and fries in record time. We board our plane and sigh a huge sigh of relief that we are actually about done with this segment of our move.
And here we are at Marce's dad's house. It's Saturday, and we sleep some long naps indeed. I wash the sweat out of our clothes. I shower and even put on makeup and we all enjoy a nice dinner out with Marce's dad's family. Things are looking OK. But now comes the big second part of the move. Stay tuned for Act II. Let's cross our fingers on this one.