A Big Fat Crappy Move Story

When we moved almost two weeks ago, the van we rented was not big enough for all our stuff. That's saying a lot, because we really don't have that much stuff. Okay, we do have eight million books. But as far as big furniture -- we only had two dressers, our mattress, and two bookshelves.

Several weeks before the big move, the wife told me she rented a ten-foot van. I was nervous. The bus I rode to work each morning passed a Budget rental place. One morning they had ten foot van out front. I freaked out because it looked tiny.

I told her of my worries, she assured me we'd be fine. The Budget website said how many rooms of stuff could be packed into which sized vans. I still worried.

The morning of the move, Amy pulled the van up in front of the apartment building. Amidst the slush and snow (it was a proper New England good-bye), I freaked out more. Here I was standing in front of this ten-foot van, imagining all of our stuff not fitting into it. The wife again assured me it would be fine.

The movers showed up and started moving. Let me take a second to say that these guys from Gentle Giant movers were awesome. If you live in the Boston area and need to move, use them! There were only two guys, but they sprinted up and down our three flights of stairs carrying large and heavy objects for two solid hours. It was amazing.

As the movers moved, I paced nervously in the snow by the truck. I watched it slowly fill up, knowing that I didn't want to see how much stuff was still left in our apartment. One of the movers jumped up into the back of the truck. I peeked around the corner to look in at him.

"So, uh, how's it lookin'?" I asked sheepishly, huge snow flakes floating down all around me.

"Fine," he said.

I cut to the chase. "Is it all going to fit?"

He paused and looked around at the inside of the truck. "It's going to be close," he laughed.

I laughed too, nervously.

Watching them pack the truck was like playing Tetris. There were square objects being fit nicely into little nooks, the dish boxes fit nicely between the shelves of the bookcases. I could hear the digitized music of Tetris in my head.

The truck was getting really full. I headed upstairs to freak myself out more by looking at how much stuff was still left in the apartment. In I walked, and out came a gasp. There were still chairs, some pots and pans, our suitcases filled with our clothes, our little school desk, and more.

So I played the "What's Most Important" game with the rest of our belongings. I grabbed a mover and started pointing.

"Leave the chairs, leave the desk, leave that basket of hangers, those suitcases of clothes have to be on that truck or the good people of Maryland will be blind from our naked pastey-white New Englander
bodies." The mover nodded, knowingly.

And then it was full. They had jammed that little truck so full of our crap it took their mighty Giant strength to pull the truck's door down and lock it. I took a moment to live through my vision of driving that nice Budget van over a small bump on the highway -- and glimpsing into the rear view mirror to see every bit of our belongings being shot out of the back of the truck all over I-90.

So we started jamming things into the cab of the truck. Amy's suitcase of clothes got the passenger seat. It was all buckled in like some large, square-ish relative. Behind Amy's seat was her guitar. In the section between the seats were some boxes of files. And then scattered about in the remaining tiny empty spaces, Amy stuffed her shoes one-by-one into the truck. I expected to be driving my Saturn in front of the van and look back to only see a pair of eyes looking out of the windshield.

I'm glad we had professionals doing this because if it had just been Amy and I with some of our friends, we would've had to leave a lot more behind.

Amy and I surveyed the "left-behinds" in the apartment. We picked out the most important items and left them at a friend's house. Another "I'm glad": We had arranged with some friends that if the truck did prove to be too small for all our crap, we could leave some stuff in their basement to retrieve at a later time.

So we took what we could. And I'll take this moment to again say that even though any more than two people riding in my little two door Saturn SC2 is incredibly uncomfortable, it can fit an immense amount of stuff in it. All I can say is thank God for the one Saturn engineer who said, "Hey -- let's give these car owners some more trunk space by allowing the backseats to be folded down." If you know him/her, give them a large hug for me.

We finally set off. The New England - Mid-Atlantic Caravan of one ten-foot Budget Van and one little Saturn headed off into the sunset (or more appropriately -- the winter snow squawl that was our good-bye).

I'll tie this into another story I mentioned that I would tell: The Saddest Dinner Ever at a Friendly's Restaurant.

My fish "Fishstick" was all packed up to go with us down to Maryland as well. I was nervous about toting the little guy all that way down there, but I thought he could make it. He was stowed in his waterbag in the passenger seat of my car. I chatted with him on the way down, apologizing for hitting certain potholes, chatting with him about a topic heard on a talk show, singing along to bad 80s music, and assuring him that he would love his new spacious home. I also told him that I would invest in some new aquarium rocks for him once we got to our new place.

When we hit Kimona, NY, we stopped to eat. I grabbed his little water bag to take him inside to eat with us. It was dark in the parking lot of that Kimona Friendly's restaurant, so I couldn't see him that well.

We sat down in the restaurant and I untied the top of the bag to get a better look at him. Poor little Fishstick was floating along at the bottom of the bag, upside-down. He had not survived the trip.

So I sat there, crying through my dinner of grilled cheese and french fries. Amy hates seeing me cry, so she started crying too. I felt so guilty. I felt like I had been selfish -- I knew that the trip would be hard on him -- why didn't I just leave him behind with some friends who would give him a happy, non-mobile life?

It was the most pathetic dinner at a Friendly's Restaurant ever.

Fishstick was a mighty goldfish who was over two years old. Amy had gotten him for me as a Valentine's Day gift. In his old age, he had even gone gray. He used to be totally orange -- but then he slowly started fading from orange to gray. When we moved, he was almost transparent. But he was still very active. I thought he was good enough to make the move.

We buried the little guy in the Friendly's parking lot, behind the dumpster so no one would bother him. Then we drove off, crying some more.

So far, the move had absolutely sucked. The moving van was too small so we had to leave some stuff behind, it was snowing the whole time, and now our poor innocent little fish had died. At that point I was just waiting for someone to flag me down to the side of the highway where they would then just give me a good kick in the shin if only to add some more unexplainable pain and inconvenience to the trip.

After staying with a wonderful friend in New Jersey that night, we made it to Maryland the next day.

To be continued...