Mom Move 2022, Day 1

Woooooo!!!

My sister came from Minnesota and drove Mom around the block for two days in order to give us the time to pack and move. Only she forgot to push "send" on the text telling us that they'd left. Mrguy, oldest neph and I were poised and in the neighborhood but nobody made the tropical bird sound, as it were, tipping us off that the coast was clear. Finally I called the front desk to find out if they'd left, and they had so we rushed in, an hour behind. It was 11am and we had to pack a two bedroom apartment.

The plan? Stage the truck in two loads. Boxes and furniture with green stickers go to my mom's new apartment. Boxes and furniture with pink stickers go to storage. The truck gets packed with storage in back and apartment in front, and will make two stops. Neph and I stay at the apartment and unpack as fast as we can and mrguy goes to storage with the movers.

Is it a rule somewhere that it has to be beastly hot on moving day? Or is that just my own personal rule? So hot. I dripped over everything, and the men just drew a veil of charity over that whole thing and pretended it wasn't happening.

We walk in, I start stickering furniture and labeling things in yellow that are either a) going home with me or b) require my own attention in order to sort out.

The household items were stored by committee, and it was a complete hodge podge. On top of that, my middle sister had projects stored in every cranny. And items that I was afraid to throw out even though they looked like they might have just gotten "tidied" into their current hidey hole.

Then there was the biohazardness of it all. In the evening I was working in the bathroom, and found this bag:

Extra specimen cups! Woooo!

Then the neph found an item we will call "bloody slipper". Clearly the game was afoot, and he declared that he had won. I didn't have to work too hard snatch victory from the evil jaws of youth and eventually win the title of "Finder of Grossest Item". I'd already thrown away misfiled used Depends (yeah, whatever), and the occasional corn pad (mildly gross). But I definitely pulled out in front with my "Several Dozen Used WooWoo Cream Dispensers". Yup. Good times!

We were unbelievably hot and tired, but dinner had to come from somewhere and we had to eat. So we ordered some wok-fried salmon teriyaki for pickup and took a documentation break. I manned the spreadsheet, handed out number stickers (3 per box) and color code stickers, and called for content descriptions. Inventory!! We took dinner to our house, ate it and fed the cats, then returned to the apartment around 7pm. That's when the hard work of hall closets, kitchen and back bedroom had to be tackled. It felt impossible.

At 11pm mrguy said it was time for the final blitzkrieg, so I put on the Ramones and we rocked out for 2 minutes, then got back to work. I was amazed by mrguy, who was able to just push through like a total monster at the end. He later described it as being like a horse who could see the barn (i.e. finishing the project) and got a crazy burst of energy.

We all went to our homes and drank beers and couldn't sleep.