Incredibly close, yet so very far away

So, how did your move to New York go? you might be wondering, since you're reading my blog about moving to New York. Simply put, not well.
Everything eventually worked out and I'm perfectly fine now, but the day of the move on Saturday was pretty much a disaster. I don't really want to dwell on it, but it is a good story, so here it is.
I had talked to my new roommate, Aubrey, earlier in the week to tell him that I'd be coming down on Saturday. He said he'd be working in the morning but would be home in the early afternoon. Fantastic, said I, see you then. My friend Laurel had very, very graciously offered, without my asking, to drive my belongings and I to the city, so the plans were squared with her.
Activity for the rest of the week continued apace -- the aforementioned selling of furniture and putting of various items in storage. I had been run ragged by Thursday morning but things were winding down, when Aubrey called. He had just found out he was going to be out of town all day on Saturday -- could I come some other time?
This, of course, was not possible. I'd already made arrangements a days before with another person who could only make it on Saturday, and why should I change my plans because he flaked? I rather insistently asked him to come up with an alternative. Could he leave the keys with someone else to let me in?
A few hours later, he called back, having arranged just that. His friend Devon would meet me in front of the building with keys Saturday morning.
We were back in business. Laurel and I completed the laborious project of getting everything I owned and had not stored into her van (even my bike!) on Friday night. We shipped out Saturday morning and made great time into the city, arriving at 11 a.m.
Devon arrived and handed off the keys, of which there were three, each with a different-colored rubber ring around it. The pink one unlocked the front door. After walking up five (ugh) flights of stairs, the orange one unlocked the door lock. I inserted the blue key, the third and final one, into the deadbolt and turned.
Nothing.
So began our day-long purgatory-like odyssey. Laurel tried the key, to no avail, as it only went one-quarter of the way around. I called Aubrey, who didn't answer his phone, soon to be a recurring theme. We went to lunch to wait for him to call back.
After lunch the time was 12:30. We tried the key again, unsuccessfully. I called Aubrey again, unsuccessfully. We went to sit in Morningside Park to wait for his call.
Two p.m. rolled around, still nothing. We went to try the key again, with predictable results. Aubrey's neighbor Carrie walked by and we pounced. Is there a trick to opening these doors? She tried, but nothing. Before she left, she gave me the name of the building manager.
I called, but got some kind of weird voice mail login code system that didn't get me anywhere. Laurel and I decided to walk around Central Park, five blocks away.
After traversing a good part of the park, from the bike trail to the tennis courts to the reservoir, we headed back, and called Aubrey again, no luck. By chance, we ran into Carrie in the hallway, who called the building manager herself. He said he'd be over in five minutes. Hope!
Forty-five minutes later, Laurel and I were still outside Aubrey's door waiting. Observing that this seemed like a Twilight Zone episode (what if Aubrey doesn't actually exist? or if we passed through a time portal to a point where no one lived in this apartment?) we amused ourselves by relating stories we remembered from the show.
I tried calling the manager again. I got him this time, but rather than explain why he was nearly an hour late, he told me there was nothing he could do -- he only had keys to the front door. Of course.
By this point, it was closing in on 5 p.m. and we had no idea if Aubrey was even coming home. I'd left five messages and heard nothing. Laurel and I began considering insane alternatives -- drive back to Easthampton? Camp out in the hallway for the night? Cold call one of the few people I know in the city and ask to stay with them? Nothing seemed right.
We headed back to the van to retrieve my laptop, which had numbers for New York people in it. Before we got there, the phone rang.
Aubrey was very apologetic -- oh, that's horrible, etc. He had been catering a huge birthday party for the five-year-old son of some business hotshot in Connecticut, but would be home "within the hour." We were saved!
An hour passed. Ninety minutes. It was getting dark and starting to rain, our nerves were frayed, whatever reserve of patience I had was nearly gone. After 7 p.m., more than eight hours after we parked in front of my building intending to move in, Aubrey arrived, having been stuck in traffic.
He let us in and agreed to help move my stuff up to the fifth floor (ahem, after all that, he didn't have a choice, as far as I was concerned). For a split second at the door, it looked like his key wasn't going to work either, and I nearly shrieked, but then it turned, and we were in. (I apparently had a bad key, one which he didn't bother to test out before leaving for me.)
I quickly realized that the apartment is a sauna, and we were all drenched with sweat by the time everything was inside. Then Laurel had to drive home to Easthampton, exhausted and frustrated. She ended up being caught in city traffic for hours, I learned later. I will never, ever be able to thank her enough.
So yeah, that's how my move went. Like I said, it's all been fine since then, but that was my "welcome to New York" experience.