Crotchety Storage Lady/Transcript


 * Rebecca Parham: Hello my geeks and peeps, my Explainers 'n' Entertainer's, my little oodelollies! Rebecca Parham here! My mama, Mama Parham, is a big important business woman and she gets asked to speak at conventions and conferences all the time, and one of the things that she has to speak a lot about in her industry is *trumpet solo* storage.
 * A person: "That's boring!"
 * Rebecca Parham: Yes, it is, and my mama knows that. To make her presentations less boring, she's commissioned me, her hip, young, awesome, talented, YouTuber daughter, to narrate and animate a story that she has been telling at these storage conventions for a long time now. What you're about to see is the final product. So without further ado, please enjoy my mom's very weird story about her first experience with self storage. Roll tape!
 * [Buffering]
 * Ann Parham (voiced by Rebecca): I think it was about 1980 when I had my first experience with storage. My husband Mike and I had gotten all of our stuff into this good-sized moving truck and we drove to this place that was literally the only self storage within three towns of us. So Mike drove up the truck, I got out and I walked into the office... if you could even call it that. To be honest, it just kinda looked like they threw a front desk and a fake plant into one of their 10-by-10 units and called it a day. I mean, we're talking majorly primitive here. Anyways, I approached the front desk not to be greeted by a manager, but rather by this:
 * Fifi: riff. riff. riff. riff.
 * Ann Parham: Though to be fair, I've had worse customer service greetings. So there was an open door behind the front counter which apparently led to the manager's apartment, because when I leaned over to look in... Sitting on a sofa about three feet away from a big old console TV was the manager.
 * Fifi: riff.
 * Ann Parham: Uh...
 * Storage Lady: clears throat* *whip crack* "Yeah, what do you need?"
 * Ann Parham: "I have a truck."
 * Fifi: (riff)
 * Ann Parham: "And I need to put my stuff in here." She got up, slowly, cigarette hanging out of her mouth.
 * Storage Lady: Whatcha got out there?
 * Fifi: (riff)
 * Ann Parham: She leaned over the counter, looked through the window at my moving truck and said:
 * Storage Lady: "You're gonna need a 12-by-28. Here."
 * Fifi: (riff)
 * Storage Lady: "Fill that out right there."
 * Fifi: (riff)
 * Storage Lady: "Fifi, shut up." "What, you need a pen?"
 * Ann Parham: "Uh, yeah."
 * Fifi: (riff)
 * Storage Lady: "It's $41.50 a month. You need a lock?"
 * Fifi: (riff)
 * Ann Parham: "Uhh, yea-"
 * Storage Lady: "$5.00. Units the last building on the right."
 * Fifi: (riff)
 * Storage Lady: "Fifi, shut up. It's behind that gate over there but I lock it at exactly 6:00, so you better not be behind it, cuz you ain't getting out 'til morning."
 * Fifi: (riff)
 * Ann Parham: I looked at my wristwatch, and without missing a beat, she said:
 * Storage Lady: "Yeah, you maybe got half a hour."
 * Fifi: (riff)
 * Storage Lady: "You'll need to hurry up. Oh, and your payment's due on the 12th."
 * Ann Parham: "Why on the 12th?"
 * Storage Lady: "Because I said so!"
 * Fifi: (riff)
 * Storage Lady: "So if you don't pay, we sell ya stuff. Got it?"
 * Fifi: (riff)
 * Storage Lady: "Now sign here! Fifi, shut up!"
 * Ann Parham: And that was basically it. I signed her little one-page contract. She made me a copy of it, and I wrote her a check. And at the end, I just kinda said: "Uh..." "Thank you?" and walked out the door.
 * Fifi: (riff)
 * Ann Parham: I got back in the truck, and Mike said:
 * Mike Parham: "Hey, so what'd you get?"
 * Ann Parham: I thought for a moment and said, "I'll tell you later. Let's just go home." And we drove that big ol' truck all the way back home.