MOVING RIGHT ALONG

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Ah, nothing says fun like moving someone else.

I have made many moves of my own stuff, and that was seriously lacking in reward, so it stands to reason that moving someone else has all the chance of a reward to the volcano at a science fair.

But the most recent move that I agreed to assist in was one that I opted to participate in for one very simple reason: my mother told me to.

You see, one of my sisters was moving, and another sister and I somewhat agreed to help with the move a while back. But we did it in one of those, “Hey, we should get together for lunch sometime” ways that, we thought, meant that she would, like, hire people or something.

Apparently, my mother got wind of this, and she made quite sure that we were indeed going to move. Just for good measure, she extended the volunteer status to my brother-in-law. I think she was just trying to send a message with that last one.

So the three of us all piled in the car early one morning to make the three-hour drive to assist with the move. You never know what you’re going to run into when you go to help someone move. I have heard too many horror stories of people showing up to help someone move, only to find out that what some people consider “moving,” other people consider “packing.” The three of us vowed that if we showed up and saw nothing was packed, we would quietly climb back in the car, return home, and avoid my mother forever, lest she send us back to pack.

Fortunately, I can say that my sister scored an A+ when it came to move-preparation. When we rolled into the driveway, we saw a rental van backed up to the carport, and dozens of boxes stacked outside, waiting for us. She had spent the previous week packing up boxes, and then the entire morning moving the boxes outside. That, my friend, is how you prepare for a move. Oh, that and her fridge was full of cold beer.

My brother-in-law and I decided to take the lead (on the move, not the beer). One thing I have learned from many, many moves is that there should be no more than two people overall who bring things into the truck. If you have 84 people helping you move, 82 of them should haul stuff out behind the truck, set it down, and run away, only returning when they have more boxes to set down. Two people with moving experience and organizational vision should then work the moving van-jigsaw puzzle.

Sure enough, using this fool-proof moving strategy, all of my sister’s belongings were neatly and compactly stowed in about an hour. We were all sitting around, marveling at the unmatched efficiency with which we had loaded up every single item in my sister’s house, and done it with out so much as a hitch (except for the smashed porch light, which was not technically a hitch because it was obliterated by a box being carried out, and therefore you couldn’t tell that anything was ever actually there, so that shouldn’t count against us).

So anywho, as we sat there, someone had to go and ruin the moment by chiming in with, “Man, we still have to drive this truck a couple of hours and then unload everything.” Thank you, Capt. Bringdown.

After realizing that we were not even at the halfway point, we all sulked off to our respective vehicles and began the march towards our final destination.

When we got to my sister’s new house, I was relieved to see that there were no stairs to navigate. First floor to first floor only makes a move that much easier. I was not, however, relieved to see that her house, for some strange reason, has ceilings about a foot lower than normal ceilings. While this may have no impact on my elfin sister, it has tremendous impact on me, and even more impact on my brother-in-law, who is about 6’3” and smashed his head against the ceiling fan light on several occasions.

Despite several near-concussions, we eventually got her moved, and even got a lot of her items unpacked. I, of course, made sure that her essentials were functional, hooking up televisions and VCRs. My sisters, meanwhile, wasted time unpacking things like dishes and food and the dog.

When we left my sister’s new place, we were thoroughly exhausted, and probably smelled wonderful, too. But my sister is all moved in, and I’m sure over the next few weeks her place will really start to feel like home. In fact, I’m positive it will. My mother told it to.