Packing It In

With this move we were completely spoiled and had a cushy moving allowance. This meant that a moving company actually came to our house to pack up our things for us. To me, this seemed like an extravagant luxury. Having lived through the experience, however, I'm not sure that I would describe it as luxurious. What would normally take me weeks of careful sorting and packing was done in a matter of hours.
The moving company was owned by a husband and wife team. They were very nice and hired a couple of additional hands to pack up our house. It wasn't the people that made the experience less-than-desirable, it was just the sense of loss of control. It was as if a black hole suddenly opened up and everything in my house disappeared into the swirling vortex and then reappeared in the moving truck. Anything that wasn't physically attached to your body was in danger of being packed.
During the insanity, my friend called to see if she could help clean. I said that would be great and asked her to bring some paper towels because all of mine (even the opened partial rolls) had been packed. Thirty minutes later she was at my house with the promised paper towels complete with a pair of latex gloves sticking out the top. Before we got to cleaning, I wanted to show her a shelf in the basement that she could have if she wanted it. In the time that it took us to walk to the basement and back up again, the new roll of paper towels had been, you guessed it, packed.
All day, I felt as though I was asking the question, "Have you seen the ___?" and the answer was always the same. "Yes, we packed it."
Curtains belonging to our landlord? Packed.
Curtain rods we had purchased to replace one that our boys broke? Packed.
Bubble wrap for packing our breakables? Packed.... in its own separate box.
The key for turning the gas fireplace off and on? Packed.
Partial bags of chips we were planning to send as snacks for the road trip? Packed.
Bottles of water for the trip? Packed.
My friend's son took his shoes off at our house while the packers were there and I asked him to put them back on in fear that they might end up in a box. This turned out to be good advice. I wish I would have taken it. At some point in the chaos, I took off my shoes and put on a pair of flip flops. It wasn't until the evening after the truck was loaded and gone that I realized my mistake. Every last pair of shoes was long gone, sucked into the void. I had to go buy another pair just so I could attend my last Zumba class and so I wouldn't be navigating the airport the next day in flip flops. My duffle bag of clothes did escape the packing frenzy which is kind of too bad. I could have gotten an entirely new outfit out of this deal.
Anyway, I have to give the movers credit. All of our things made it to our new house without a single item being broken. A couple of game boxes got a little squished, a few pages in books bent but all-considered it was a job well done. One thing is for certain- this experience has given me a new respect for Green Bay football players. I used to think their team name was a little weak. Now, I know better. Packers are a force to be reckoned with.