Ah yes, I remember now
June 8th, 2008
Even though this is our seventh military move, I always forget how much I hate this part of moving. In the weeks before, I’m all, “La-di-da, having movers come pack us up is sooooo easy and low-stress!” When professional movers pack up your house, they’re like locusts descending on the crops. They come in and pack up everything in their path with remarkable efficiency, and in just a day or two the entire house is in boxes and loaded onto trucks.
The trouble is, sometimes they can be a little too efficient.
Before the movers pack us out, we always set aside the stuff we want to take with us on the road, and make sure they know not to pack it. Most of the time movers know not to pack things like, say, pump bottles of hand soap or the lid to the cats’ litter box. (That actually happened to us once. In Ottawa one of the movers got on a roll and packed up the lid to the plastic container we use as a litter box while traveling. Luckily we discovered it before they loaded the truck.) Sometimes though, stuff does get packed that probably shouldn’t be stuck in a box on a hot, airless truck for several weeks.
So of course I’m looking around the house right now, nine hours before the pack-out starts, and mentally cataloging all the things that maybe we should have set aside to be sure the movers wouldn’t pack them. I’m panicking ever so slightly.
I’ll be okay tomorrow, though. Once the boxes start stacking up, I feel like the baton of responsibility has been passed and there’s nothing more I can do till we arrive at our new home. Then we start unpacking, and ask each other questions like, “What the—is this melted marshmallow on these DVD cases!?”
June 8th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Happy Moving!
June 9th, 2008 at 1:28 am
Oh, this is a familiar feeling for me. I recall when we moved from Australia to Thailand in my mid teens. I had set aside my black school shoes to NOT go into the shipment.
Somehow they made it into a box, and I was shoeless. We didn’t consider this too large a problem. Just buy new shoes when we get there right?
Except that isn’t so easy in a country of people who naturally have much smaller feet than westerners do. The only shoes that would ever fit in that country were Nike’s and one single pair of slip on moccasin things that I wore till they fell apart.
Oh, the fun memories.
June 9th, 2008 at 1:32 am
[...] of hands, please: who wants to listen to me complain and whine like a spoiled brat about how haaaaaard it is to move when someone else is packing up my entire house in two days and [...]
June 9th, 2008 at 9:29 am
We never had to move in the entire 20 years tod was in the Navy (amazing, isn’t it), maybe that is why this last move from Norfolk to PA hit me so hard. I will be praying for you that the movers DO NOT pack marshmallows in with your DVD’s :-)
Lots of love to you!!
June 9th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Right before they put your freezer onto the truck, look in it. Remove the spilled half-bottle of sugary whatever someone was drinking and clean the sticky (but not mildewy) mess. Then, after the freezer gets onto the truck and before they block it in with two dressers, sweetly ask one of the guys to double check that freezer for you. Tell him your friend Karen will feel SO much better - she’s had to buy TWO new refrigerators (one per move; not cheap) and now thinks appliance companies are in cahoots with movers…
June 9th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Oh, I think I’d be far too twitchy to let SOMEONE ELSE pack up my things… Packing for a move is a great time to throw things out, so I pack for weeks and visit the Goodwill quite a few times with donations during that time.
June 9th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
This is probably a bad time to mention how many things were destroyed in our last move from Georgia to Texas (using contracted movers with the military).
Yes, it is?
Ooops…sorry ’bout that.
We dedicated a room to “do not touch this” stuff, but then again, we knew we’d have literally weeks before we found a home and could really settle in with our stuff.
I’m anal retentive, so even as they were packing me I was going out of my mind.
June 9th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
The first they moved us, I chased the truck down and begged him to put the vacuum on…I wanted to keep it out till the last minute, but not try to cram it in the car!
I feel ya, honey! Hang in there!
June 9th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
I remember (in my Army brat childhood) unpacking trash cans with trash in them after the movers were done.
But now, having moved myself, I think I’d take the packed trash. :)
Good luck with the moving — I know it’s rough whether you’re doing the heavy lifting or not.
(But I keep thinking - same side of the country as SAJ! Woohoo!)