The motherfucking pool table is finally moved to the motherfucking basement! Finally!!!  The endeavor took a whopping 63 days (timeline below), though it only took 4 days from calling the right people  (Higgins Billiard Supply).


The job — finally finished. It’s about time. I called Higgins Billiard Supply, and the job was done in 3 days. They knew what they were doing, and they did it. No cancellations or dicking around. Compare this to calling J L’s Pool Table Services (Justin Lawrence), where the table was still not moved 33 days after my intial contact (full timeline below). Thus, this post has the tag “Companies That Screwed Me Over” — for J.L.’s Pool Table Services untimely manner in dealing with me. If you need a pool table moved — Call Higgins Billiard Supply instead! Tell them Clint’s Blog sent you there :)


Ball return. I retrieved about 6 blue cubes of pool chalk, as well as a 9-volt battery with built-in water meter (WTF).


Refelting (it’s not actually felt, BTW) in progress. They were impressed that I used the correct term of “spray adhesive”, but I use that stuff all the time to decorate (for example, speakers with neat magazine clippings and such). They also had these $200 suction cup handles that seemed like something Catwoman would use. Those, dollies, and blankets were used to move it.

The pool table had to come out of our main room, down the hall, out the front, across the front of the driveway, down the side yard, stepping down from 2-foot retaining wall, across the back of the house, into the kitchen back door, through the narrow hallway that connects the kitchen do our rec room, and across the rec room. Of course, moving it was only about half the time — the other time was spent re-felting. And they gave me a good deal too — so they definitely get a plug on my blog! That’s Higgins Billiard Supply.


Oranjello liked their tools. He had to spend a lot of the time locked in the bathroom. He actually had at least one opportunity to escape, too — but he didn’t take it. Both the pool table guys were from Woodbridge, so we actually ended up discussing which high schools and middle schools we went to — among other topics such as 2 Girls 1 Cup, crazy people at parties, fisting, and kittens (but not fisting kittens). It’s nice when people have real personalities and are wiling to bring the conversation to any topic at any level. It’s nice when people aren’t stuck up.   Full timeline below, after the jump:

Mood: accomplished, relieved, headachey, hungry
Music: Type O Negative - If You Don’t Kill Me, I’m Going To Have To Kill You (Gimme That)

20080307: First pool table inquiries to pooltabletech@yahoo.com & gametime.amusements@gmail.com - completely ignored.

20080312: uShip job submitted for bids by random movers — this was a mistake because they were not generally pool-table specific person, so it caused me to chase unicorns for awhile

20080313: Dialog starts with with One Nation DC movers — but they don’t even bother to respond to my email once I mention “pool table”.
20080313: uShip bid of $250 from besinc, but they had no online reputation to make it seem worth it.
20080313: Dialog starts with Info Mega Movers — but they don’t bother to respond to my email once I mention “pool table”.

20080312: Dialog starts with Red Ball Moving & Storage — $325 bid, but we’re guessing they have no re-felting option. And they’re not pool table people.
20080314: uShip question from JQueensNYC goes ignored… I have a thing about New Yorkers, and his link didn’t look pool table specific.

20080330: uShip bid of $375 from MaxOnMove — much more expensive ($75 more), still not pool-table-specific.

20080403: J.L.’s Pool Table Service contacts me. $300 to move and only $110 to re-felt whatever color I want. I am told to look up felt, and that in 5 days it would be ordered and they would call me to schedule a job.  They schedule an appointment to come to my house and check out the terrain to make sure it’s possible, decided it was a 3 man job, and then I assume they put in the order for the felt.  But they neer called me 5 days later to make an appointment.

20080422: It’s been 19 days. Way more than 5, though the felt wasn’t ordered until a bit after 4/3.  Still — No calls. I leave a message asking what’s going on. Messasge NOT returned.

20080424: It’s been 21 days. Messager STILL not returned. Call AGAIN.    Finally make contact and establish appointment of 20080430. Some excuse given about a neice having her baby in New York or something.  I believed it.

20080430: They call right before the job to say a man called in sick, and they can’t do it.  They want to reschedule for 20080503, but we wen’t camping instead.  Rescheduled to 20080505.

20080501: I break a marble ashtray inherited from my grandparents by knocking it off furniture that was in a weird place becuase I had moved it for the Friday appointment. Had they come, I’d still have this “heirloom”.  Now we have to smash it up and put it in our rock collection. One by one, everything I inherited is getting destroyed. Contractors don’t realize there are all kinds of unintended consequences when they don’t show up.

20080505: J.L.’s MOM calls me to say he’s getting x-rayed in the hospital from hurting his back really bad moving a pool table. That sucks, but how many hospital trips and sick co-workers am I supposed to put up with? She said he’d call me back later or tomorrow moring, but it wasn’t actually until tomorrow afternoon.

20080505: Within 4 hours of his mom calling me, I was angry, so I made another appointment with a differnet company, Higgins Billiard Supply — close to the same price ($430), same re-felting options. Will come 20080508.

20080506: J.L. finally calls me back in the afternoon to reschedule — but we did not speak.  I’ve already moved furniture 4 times, had to climb over furniture to take the garbage out and burn dvds, AND broken shit.

20080509: Higgins Billiard Supply comes and moves the damn thing with just 2 people, even though it was raiing! Awesome! They were here about 2.5 hours or so.