Moving Day

It’s moving day. At last. I hear the rain is coming back to help me move, which is a bummer. In theory, I know a move that is but a mere few blocks away should be easier than a cross-country move, but alas, it is not. Careful packing and wrapping seems senseless when the box will be unpacked again after two lefts, a right, and six speed bumps.

A cross-country move would entail carefully packing like items in clearly marked boxes, which would then be deposited in the appropriate room on the other end.

A neighborhood move means toilet paper boxed in with the books and knick-knacks, oh, and that spatula I forgot in the dishwasher—basically, wherever whatever was leftover would fit. We’ll all be rifling madly through every box in the place for the misplaced toilet paper in a few short hours, I just know it. Speaking of toilet paper, I’ve always had a thing about having “enough” on hand. I feel best when the there’s has at least a 24-roll reserve. With the upcoming move, I’ve let the supply dwindle, and it’s making me more than a little anxious.

It’s like having an adequate stockpile of food. I’m sure this is some genetic quirk I’ve picked up from my family’s farming roots, when supplies had to be ordered from the Sears & Roebuck catalog and shipped via stagecoach twice yearly or something. Some people find comfort in warm socks, or soft puppies, or large bank accounts—I find comfort in a closet stuffed full of Charmin and bulk buys of canned goods. I’m not a packrat though. Don’t get me wrong. Considering my age and the number of hobbies I’ve had, traveling I’ve done, and décor styles I’ve used, and the huge fact that I’m basically a big old mushpot of sentimentality, I have very little. Somewhere in the past ten years things have just become unimportant to me. I have but a handful of things I’d insist on keeping if push came to shove, and those are mostly of sentimental value. My insurance agent was trying to sell me a jewelry rider yesterday, but I own no jewelry. No diamonds, no sapphires, no rubies—I’ve spent all the money I would have spent on jewelry on trips to the beach. No stocks, no bonds, no Mercedes in the driveway, no big screen television, no villa in Majorca. But, by tomorrow night I will have the greatest treasure of them all—120 rolls of nice, white, soft and cushy, two-ply.

Possessions are usually diminished by possession. ~Friederich Nietzsche
Originally published: Mar 1, 2006