Monday, June 12, 2006

Post the 180th

Time flies, time flies, until only flies have time.
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Stupid Dipterans, hogging all the time I don't have left to get things done.
Remember how a couple of weeks ago I was all happy about the new house and was really looking forward to being there and out in the country with all the quiet and the nature and the porches and the room and the farms and whatnot?
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I, in a fit of idiocy heretofore only seen on certain episodes of "Jackass," forgot all about "the moving."
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Let me put my distate in this way: I abhor moving with the power of a thousand bilious sweaty camels, with the white-hot fury of a scorned hotel heiress, with the insane crazy-headedness of a proper Alabama woman who;s packed into a full church when the A/C goes out and she's wearing panyhose AND a jacket and it's August and she's wearing the wrong color bra under her white blouse and didn't shave her legs, and with the intensity of a crazed ascetic hermit who's lived for 20 years on rice and ants to purify his body and discovers that he's STILL got high cholesterol and there's nothing left to CUT OUT.
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It's true, dear friends, it's true. I cannot stand the moving.
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It's not the ADVENTURE part I mind so much, really, it's more the SCHLEPPING part I mind. The packing of stuff you don't really need as much of as you have, the cleaning out of places you'd rather not clean, the organizing of items for which you have little to no use, the sifting through of a few months or years of harvest, and hurriedly trying to separate the wheat from the chaff of your literal existence.
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And even though we have hired a moving company and a cleaning service, there's still the "non-bulky" items to pack and move ourselves and the laundry to finish and the magazines to take to the trash and the cable box to return and the change of address to initiate and the tromping in and out of old houses and new houses trying to make one house fit inside the other in a way that makes perfect sense to you and all the things that have become yours over time.
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When I become queen, all moves will be in body and personal items only....all other materials will be suitable for anyone who chooses to move into your vacated spot, and the spot to which you go is full of things left there for you by the previous inhabitants. A one-size-fits-all world that you can personalize with you own bits of life without having to haul all the stuff that just gets in the way of instant satisfaction and settlement. Don't like the stuff that was left for you? I would create a governmental agency that specializes in interior transformation, but you'd have to pick from the larder of stuff other people didn't want and you'd have to pay a fee for the nicer stuff to support purchase of replacement items when at last the robust furnishings that are standard issue are ready for the burn pile. Want something new? Fine, but you have to give up someting old. Want to decorate? Fine, but paint the walls white when you're done, pull off the slipcovers, and take down that god-awful dining room light fixture before you go. I'd staff this agency with Scandanavian and Japanese people who know about sleek design and making things work in tight spaces and about STORAGE and I would criminalize clutter and I would decree that every Saturday is "hangover amnesty" night so that everyone could get hammered and listen to loud music and not have to cook and not have to watch bedtimes and not have to,
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Oops! Got off topic there for a sec.
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Anyhow - I dislike moving very very very very much.
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How about YOU?

6 comments:

Deb R said...

Oh yeah. Even for people who like a change of scene, I think if they actually enjoy they process of moving, then they are seriously disturbed.

Anonymous said...

You are so right....I LOVE a change of pace, but I prefer not to take all my worldly posessions with me while I do.

rennratt said...

We are planning (loose term, here) to move in about a year. My stomach is already in knots!

Beth said...

I have moved a lot and I REALLY hate it. Husband and I have always moved our own stuff without any help, not even from families ... including the heavy crap. No many company, just a rented U-Haul. Just to think of it makes me tired and cranky!

tiff said...

renn - you have my sympathies. I will be there for you, you KNOW It!

beth - you hero, you, for not having run screaming into the night with THAT kind of history. Yeesh!!

Anonymous said...

Well,chalk one up for the government - here's how you "PCS" in the government world (permanent change of station) - one day some men come and pack up your stuff. you stand around fidgeting nervously, provide the beer for the packing mens and tidy up behind them. that night you stay at a hotel while they take all your stuff somewhere to weigh it. The next day, you go to your new place, and low and behold, there is the moving truck with all your stuff in it. those same men come and unload it into your new house - they will help you unpack it if you want...so you get them to unload the big stuff and then you let them leave and you unpack. no schlepping of any kind.
now, please note, that if you are moving across the pond...it takes longer....and therefor you must live in a furnished apartment for 3 months whilst collecting per diem...also not too bad.

Glad you are in - can't wait to see the new digs...