How Moving is Like a Video Game
What don’t I need until next Saturday? That’s what I’m hauling over to the apartment building, one carload a day. That list plus the one that details all of the necessary things to clean/organize/trash/recycle/donate fill my brain to overflowing. Thus, I’m sharing an essay that I wrote during our last big packing push as we left North Carolina. Enjoy!
Remember the video game, Tetris? Variously shaped combinations of blocks fall with increasing speed as arrow keys click those blocks back and forth so the bottom line fills without a space. Each full line disappears and the next line takes its place. Eventually, empty spaces are left in lines due to errant directional clicks or the speed of the fall. A wall strewn with holes fills the screen. Game over.
This is my life right now. Boxes, weird empty spaces that need to be filled, disappearing lines, and an increasingly short time frame.
I’m packing boxes, running out to purchase special boxes, picking up boxes from liquor stores and the salvage grocery store. Every errand run includes a stop by Goodwill or the Habitat ReStore with at least one full banana box of donations.
Do you know banana boxes? I suspect these sturdy boxes were formulated by a supervillain in his laboratory. While constructed from thick cardboard and a glue that came directly out of that evil scientist’s “super strength plus” vials, their usefulness is almost thwarted by the large holes in the bottom and the top.
BWAHAHAHAHA!
They make absolutely awful packing boxes but are GREAT for donations. The ones I’ve been picking up from our local salvage grocery store have a piece of thick paper padding that covers the large hole in the bottom. The tops are a teensy bit bigger than the bottoms, and a piece of cardboard tapes easily over the hole. BOOM! Two boxes with no lids that hold a TON of poorly organized stuff! I’ve been filling them with office supplies, cookware, vases, frames…
For sorting Steph’s constructions supplies from the shed, I’ve even created a system. One of these banana donation boxes goes in the back of the car. I bring Steph boxes of construction supplies and tools from the shed and then have her sort them into “keep” which gets put into a plastic tote, and “toss” which gets put into a small white bankers box. That way, I can manage the size of the load and still fill the larger banana box all the way to the brim with the heavy construction supplies that the Habitat ReStore needs. And the volunteers can handle hefting those heavy loads.
Every donation makes lines disappear.
Getting boxes for free has been remarkably easy. The last time I went to the salvage grocery store, one of the workers came out and helped me fill my car with them. The liquor store employee seemed sad that I wasn’t taking even more of his boxes, and asked if I would be back soon for another load.
Even so, we purchased two batches of small cardboard boxes from Uhaul. These little gems are the perfect size for record albums, of which we have 16 linear feet. I used the same boxes to pack all of the books. Plans include returning to that store for boxes to hold the art, to a big box hardware store for a box for the television, and to an office supply store for bankers boxes for our files.
Don’t worry! Lesbian Law #2 states, “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” and we’re following the rules. After the books and records, I first am packing in plastic totes we still have from our last move. Then, I’m filling the boxes from the liquor store. And, the Uhaul store will take back any unused boxes we purchased from them.
Once the boxes are packed, I store them in the old guest bedroom and along the living room wall so we can still navigate the house.
My mother-in-law gave us boxes leftover from her recent move, and three small ones had a list of options to check to say what was in them. Do they go in the office? Kitchen? Bedroom? The last on the list is “Load of Bricks.” The “Load of Bricks” boxes (of which there are a lot more than three) have an entire section so anyone loading the truck will have a good idea of what to put on the bottom layer for stability.
The lines are beginning to stack up.
Though I do have a secret for filling that unfillable space.
Yarn.
This magical substance that feeds my creativity ensures its continued existence in my life by being soft and fuzzy and making a great buffer in the place of bubble wrap (which, I mean, plastic is EWWW! Though the crystal got wrapped in bubble wrap and then cushioned with yarn, so I’m a hypocrite).
Corks work well for this, too. A full brown grocery bag of corks leftover from when we owned the liquor store follows us around. Plus, Steph constantly talks about making something from them. Well, I say constantly, but mostly when I start saying things like, “We don’t use these corks for anything, maybe we should throw them away.”
She promises me a cork trivet is in our future.
And, when you have them in bulk like we do, they do make handy packing peanuts.
When packing, yarn balls, skeins, and hanks puddle into odd-shaped places that need a little spacer. They protect fragile things and keep heavy packages a little lighter. You know how in every box of books there’s always a place where no book can fit? Yarn. And that yarn keeps the books from shifting and moving and hurting someone’s back.
HA!
Yarn sneaks in around delicate crystal and stabilizes our favorite vases. And the yarn (as long as it isn’t wound into tight balls) stabilizes while also giving when the piece needs to shift.
The smaller tightly wound balls can be used like packing peanuts with the corks, and the larger ones can go inside vases or pots or anywhere that needs a larger placeholder.
My final lunge at disappearing the lines is selling off pieces of furniture.
I dislike social media, and spend as little time on there as possible, but I have to admit that nothing sells like the Facebook Marketplace. Each time I post a piece of storage type furniture, there’s a flurry of activity. Eleven of the thirteen 9-hole cubbies we used around our home for storing books, yarn, and other random household goods disappeared over a weekend. The other two have a waiting list.
On the other hand, larger pieces of furniture and household goods languish. The sofa and loveseat stare sadly at their 149 clicks as opposed to the 1459 clicks on the 9-hole cubbies.
But overall, the sales of 9-hole cubbies, file cabinets, and display cases have paid to fix the electricity, haul away a huge load of junk, and buy all those special boxes.
More lines gone.
Soon, the boxes will disappear into our storage unit. We’ll discover our new home and a new game of Tetris will begin.
But for now, I’ve gotta go! Time to get more boxes.
Help us pay for movers! Here’s a list of ways:
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