I'd have a witty title, but I packed it.

So this weekend is the big move. The funny part is that it doesn't matter if you bought your house with a day's notice or a year's notice, it always seems like it was a surprise that it's moving day so soon. People ask me if I'm ready and I tell them "Hell no!" they look at me with shock. I can only assume by this reaction that they have never had to move before. For the uninitiated among you, let me run you through a typical move.

Moving is an intriguing proposition, where you plan and plot for months in advance. There are lawyers and realtors and even contractors often involved in the process. You have to co-ordinate the utilities and the phone and everything so that you can have lights and phones and heat and such, and you need to make sure that your children and pets get fed in all this chaos. It doesn't matter how many lists or plans you make and it doesn't matter how much care and effort you put into this endeavor. Something always goes wrong. If you are absolutely lucky then it will be something silly, like forgetting some small thing such as a box of pasta in the old cupboards. If you’re unlucky you will have forgotten some massive thing like the deposit cheque for the mortgage company. However it pans out there will be heartache and yelling involved, and once you get done talking to yourself that way you have to move on to the problem at hand.

The first and probably most critical part of the puzzle is the use of vehicles on moving day. The funny part is that this is often the furthest thing from your mind in the beginning when you first close the deal to buy a house. "It's no problem" you foolishly exclaim to your wife "My buddy Frank owns a truck and I can borrow the van from work". What invariably happens is that Frank is already going on a fishing trip you never knew about and apparently his truck actually enjoys fishing as well as you are unable to borrow it for that weekend. The company truck will likely have the transmission fall out of it on moving day because, as the company truck it is driven recklessly and aggressively by the staff because they can't do it to their own cars. This leaves one at the mercy of the rental companies. So after negotiating a deal involving large quantities of money, some contracts signed in blood and the soul of your firstborn you are now ready to start moving the boxes.

OH CRAP! THE BOXES!!

Where are you going to get enough boxes on the night before you move?? What you'll end up having to do is going on your hands and knees to every store in town only to find that they crush their boxes as soon as they finish with them, which wouldn't really matter anyhow as the kids that open them hack at them like Freddy Krueger with their box cutters. So it's back to the truck rental place you go, where you use some more blood and the rest of the contents of your wallet to purchase empty cardboard boxes for more than you par for ones that contain products!

As the day wears slowly on, you slink home with your remarkably overpriced cartons and begin a long, sleepless night of packing only to find that you forgot to buy packing tape. Now that all the stores are closed you find yourself in some dark and dingy all night mart where $2.00 packing tape that has yellowed with age can be purchased for about $6.00 a roll. You grumble under your breath and reluctantly grab two rolls and head to the counter. Your wallet, now bereft of cash, has to cough out a credit card, which the clerk tells you is subject to a $3.00 service charge if you buy less than $20.00 worth of stuff. Now you get really pissed and grudgingly go back to get two more rolls. On the way to the till you see some Tylenol and realize that that will be more than handy, but actually necessary as your head is beginning to throb like the headphones on that kid on the subway yesterday. You head back to the car with your purchases and congratulate yourself on spending an additional $20.00 in order to avoid having the clerk take you for that $3.00 service charge.

Back home you go and you stuff all your earthly possessions into garbage bags and cartons and decided it is time to catch some shuteye. You lay down in bed only to have the alarm clock go off just before your head hits the pillow. Turns out that it is 7:30 already and you’ve got people coming to help you move your stuff at 8:00 because if you aren’t out by 4:00pm that day the lawyers will have your ass, which you’re pretty sure is in one of the boxes that you aren’t looking forward to unpacking. You throw a pot of coffee on and wait for the 12 people who said that they’d be there bright and early. By 8:30 you and the 2 people that actually showed up grudgingly begin to load the truck up with your stuff. It turns out that one of the guys is complaining that his back is sore and asks if you have any Tylenol. You sell him one pill for $2.00 and apologize that all the cups have been packed.

With all your worldly crap stuffed in one measly cube van you feel humbled and head off to the new house after going back to leave the keys inside that you forgot in the glove box of the truck. When you arrive you unload everything into the house and everyone collapses from fatigue on your couch, which now seems to be missing a cushion despite having counted them as they went onto the truck. As you sit next to them and gaze into their eyes you notice something other than exhaustion. Oh crap! After a long days’ work they are looking for food and drink. Knowing full well that you have no cash you run out to the local beer store and grab case of the cheapest brew you can find. Throwing that on the credit card it’s off to get some pizza. On the way to the pizza joint though, you notice that the truck needs gas so you pull in and stuff the gas line in the truck and start pumping. Since you picked it up with a full tank you have to return it with a full tank so you just fill it up. You watch with dismay as the readout of the pump crosses into the triple digit dollar range and just as you are wondering if it possible to sneak out of a gas station in a 12 foot tall white truck the pump stops with a smug little click.

You pay the gas station attendant and then the pizza man with your very abused credit card and head home only to remember halfway there that you don’t live there any more. You try, unsuccessfully to do a three point turn so you can head the right way and make some new friends in traffic as you complete your 27 point turn. By the time you get back to the new house you find that your friends have given up on you for dead and headed home leaving you and the wife to eat two large pizzas on your own. After a few beers and a few more Tylenol you get very sleepy and realize that you still have to make the bed, which is a little more involved than making the bed like every other day. You open 18 boxes until you find the right wrenches and screwdrivers to assemble the bed and about 7 more until you find the bed sheets all because you were too stubborn to buy a $10.00 magic marker (plus $3.00 service fee) from that guy at the all night mart. As you and the wife settle in for some well deserved rest she slides across the bed. You put your arm around her expecting a cuddle and your heart stops cold when she asks..

“Honey……where’s the dog?”