In writing an article, the number one, single most important, top of the to-do list thing to do is find an angle for the story. Usually it’s the lead sentence that sets up the rest of the piece.
It turns out that the same thing applies when you’re moving: How are you gonna frame this move? Is it going to be with movers, or by yourself? Is it going to be long and elaborate or quick and simple?
We had an image in our heads when deciding to move out of our family home of 27 years. On the left side of the driveway, we anticipated a pod, a long-term moving/storage device. Next to that would be a U-Haul van, to carry the short-term stuff we’d need when we moved in. And, next to that would be a dumpster – see Moving Part 1: Chuck it! We had also mentally set aside an area for stuff to be donated.
In a perfect world, this would have been absolutely ideal. No matter what you picked up in the house, it would go into one of these four receptacles. This? To the pod. That? To the van. This? To the dumpster. That? Goodwill. Piece of cake!
Alas, the world isn’t quite perfect. We got the pod delivered long before the U-Haul. We were moving so quickly, and so brainlessly, we had no clue what would we would need in New Jersey. We were just dashing stuff into the dumpster, into the pickup truck for donations, and into the pod, without any idea what we were doing.
I had the pod about 75% full when my wife called and said she needed some more checks. They’re in a folder in the file cabinet, and she needed ‘em right away.
The file cabinet. Hmmm. That thing was rusted and didn’t work very well. I tossed that out on Sunday. This was Wednesday. Hmmm. The files went into bankers boxes, which I loaded on Monday, before I shoved the dresser and the wardrobe in there. Hmmm.
There’s a slope to the driveway, don’t you see? I kind of used a gravity-assist to move the big heavy furniture into the pod. And I suspended the kayaks by ropes above the furniture. And it all locked those file boxes in place, you see, wayyyyy down there in the front of the pod. Hmmm. Bit of a problem, that.
About an hour after the phone call, and after I had the furniture hauled out, and the kayaks lowered and removed, and the file boxes exposed and open, my wife arrived. Just as she pulled up my aching fingers found the checks – success!
She looked at the mound of furniture and boats and files I had unpacked and asked “why are we taking all this stuff?”
In stuffing it all back in – having snarkily replied “because” – I couldn’t find a place for the wine-bottle rack thing we’d inherited from her brother. It’s a cheapy, with sharp-edged iron straps and oak strips. Very ‘70s. I figured I had to find a place for it, as it held great sentimental value for her. The edges on that thing are sharp, and I nearly lost a finger to it, but it was eventually wedged in there, by gum.
Now, the number one admonition of the pod company was don’t let anything come to rest against the door – tie your furniture forward and make sure nothing comes loose. If it rests against the door, you won’t be able to open it.
That advice? That’s for morons. Duh, thank you mister moving man.
I used that heavy furniture as a bulkhead, holding all our other possessions away from the roll-up door. Brilliant!
The last things to go in were a trio of floor lamps – shoddy and wobbly but useful, we figured, until we could replace them. As those could slide against the door, I took the moron route and tied them in place with a piece of rope.
In the world of pure dumb luck, we were still using our bed, our towels, and some clothes while we waited for the U-Haul. These, plus the clean dishes we’d accidentally left in the dishwasher, turned out to be the very things we needed when we got to NJ. These, and of course the bicycles, because, seriously, you haven’t lived until you’ve pedaled through the snow or the roaring wind of a nor’easter. Anyway, those came with us in the U-Haul.
The pod arrived a week after we did, and the guy sort of tore up my lawn with the truck when he delivered it. It’s okay, we signed a waiver. Oh, that covers him. Rats.
Long story short, you can imagine what came loose and wedged the roll-up door in the closed position. The rope remained tied, but the lamps had wobbled out from under it. I hate those lamps.
It took my wife, the truck driver, and my super-human strength to pry the door open enough so I could use my little-girl-skinny forearms to reach under the door and wiggle the lamp loose enough to release it.
Most embarrassingly, I prodigiously broke wind as I was lifting the door. It was one of those eye-wateringly pungent releases that causes the birds to fly south a little faster and the sky to turn gray for a brief moment. I felt bad for the truck driver (my wife’s used to them by now), but hey, that’s the risk of the job, right? He rather staggered over to the cab of the truck and hastily drove away.
That’s for tearing up my lawn, bucko!
My son and his wife helped us empty the infernal thing. When he got to the beloved wine rack, my wife told him he should just toss it out. “Cheap junk,” she said.
I could only stare at my nearly-missing finger in disbelief.
The pod is out there now, emptily taking up my driveway while we wait for a convenient pickup date.
In the end, we didn’t get the smooth move we’d planned, but we got moved.
The empty pod out there sort of stands as a testament to the extraordinary speed with which we’d moved our family and our stuff, our lives and our livelihoods, across the nation.
Is it the story I’d planned to write? Well, this story sort of wrote itself.
Now, I’ve been unnecessarily hard on the pod company, and I shouldn’t be. We used a company called PODS (portable, on-demand storage), and they have been flexible, professional, and easy to work with throughout. I do highly recommend them, should you find yourself in a similar situation.
And I do highly recommend that you avoid finding yourself in a similar situation!
John D Reinhart 