Taking care of the last post-wedding details (or living without a car)

Except for the thank-you's, we've now pretty much taken care of all of the post-wedding details. And like many big events, it was a bit of a surprise what one of the last details to take care of was.

For the dinner, we'd rented many things in - and for easier transport they came in roll containers. When the rental was picked up, they were missing one of the roll containers - and even after looking around, no one could find it. When I came back, I'd heard that it appeared as if something was missing when the rental was picked up, but I figured I'd wait for the bill before I'd worry too much about it.

But then I didn't get the bill for rather a long time, so I eventually contacted the rental place (It turns out that someone had been emptying my old postbox in order to forward it to me - only it got accidentally forwarded to the wrong address). And then I discovered a funny charge of 100 euros on the bill - for a missing roll container [See rollcontainers.co.uk for picture - it looked like the smallest one.]. I paid it, but also began a search for the missing roll container. Did it got "borrowed" from the alleyway? Did it get brought to the main house? Or was it buried in one of the buildings? Eventually, the great people from maintenance let me know that they'd found it - folded up in one of the buildings and hidden behind some stuff.

And then began the process of determining how to return a roll container to its home in Amersfoort. I figured it wouldn't be too difficult: the company could simply pick it up in one of its next trips to Amsterdam - but then it turned out that there weren't any next trips to Amsterdam. When I figured that out, I was too late to ask the family moving to Amersfoort to take it with them (which would have been the best idea!). The company wanted the container back (it'd been 8 weeks now already, so I couldn't blame them) but they weren't really ready to drive to Amsterdam to pick it up - it didn't seem so cost-efficient.

So I was stuck with the organisational challenge of returning a rollcontainer when one doesn't have a driver's license. The obvious way is to ask someone who has a vehicle and license to help. But that's still 3 hours of someone's time, plus gas money, and finding a vehicle large enough to hold it. After all the wedding organisation, I wasn't up for the organisation required for this and instead I went for a simpler option: I took it on the train.

And I discovered that if you look like you know what you're doing, people don't look at you all that strange. I didn't ask too many questions but instead bought a train "bike ticket" for the container (it fit nicely in the bike parking spot), and pushed it to its home along the bike paths in Amersfoort. I was exhausted by the end (I've been a bit under the weather and this kind of crazy excursion was pushing the limits), but very happy to have finally taken care of this last annoying detail.

And besides, it makes a great story. Perhaps I should have been more willing to have my picture taken, though....