This "moving" as it is called by English speakers is a fool's errand, a goon's deed*, a rube's project if you will--and why wouldn't you (I have more, see below for the complete list).
To move, here is what you do: take all of the stuff that you have accumulated over the past 37.9 years, pick it up, carry it to some sort of vehicle, set it down, drive for a while, pick it up again, and set it down again. You follow this process with everything you have, including push pins, and shower curtains, and cans of beans, and sand paper, and wrist watches, and chutes and ladders, and chutes, and ladders, and holiday wreaths, and blenders, and night gowns, and formal gowns, and semi-formal gowns, and business-casual gowns, and casual gowns, and artwork, and toasters, and ... well, you get the point.
While pursuing my first graduate degree, I did an internship at the Governor's office. We had to move the governor's staff out of the capitol while the capitol building was renovated. They brought prisoners from the point of the mountain to do the moving, which, after last week, I think might be a better crime deterrent than the death penalty--there were a couple of moments last week where I longed for the sweet release of death. Then I realized that moving is the very labor that we who go to Hell will be engaged in--Eternal Packing, as it is called in the scriptures.
The night just before moving day, Buffy and I didn't go to bed. We just wandered around the house picking up and putting down stuff, usually into boxes. Buffy went thirty-six hours without sleeping. By the end of moving day she was staggering like a drunken sailor--a beautiful, sophisticated, golden-voiced drunken sailor. I actually got a couple of 15-minute naps during the night. One while sitting on the toilet, and one while taking apart Mimi's bed. Sleeping on the toilet is never a good sign for how your life is going, and I'm pretty sure that sleeping on a pile of bed parts while clutching an allen wrench is a very bad omen. Quoth the raven, "nevermore."
The reason for the sleepless night is because we wanted to be ready for when people showed up the next morning to help us load the truck. Humankind hate showing up to help someone move only to learn that nothing is packed and ready. We are afraid of people hating us, so we wanted to be organized and ready. But, being organized takes forever, and at some point you just have to get it done. In that way, Buffy and I complement each other very well. She spent several days (weeks, even) organizing and packing things, then when it was time to just get it done, I swooped in, threw it all in a box, scrawled something unreadable on the box and cleared it the hell out of there.
So, about 60 percent of our stuff is perfectly organized with labels that say things like, "downstairs living room: board games, children's books, anvils." These boxes practically unpack themselves. The other 40 percent is in boxes labeled "Swwwfng Room" and "udnstars bdreew." So, you know, not bad.
The moral of this story is that moving is not enjoyable and that we should all repent so that we are not eventually sentenced to an eternity laboring with the "moving squadrons of the netherworld."
The End
The rest of the list:
a chucklehead's task,
a yahoo's duty,
a bumpkin's chore,
a moron's pledge,
a simpleton's career,
a dunderhead's occupation,
jive turkey work,
a doo doo pie's trade,
a dimwit's vocation,
a nincompoop's business,
a bonehead's job, ora doody pants' line of work.
*a phrase used in the third-to-last episode of 30 Rock.
1 comment:
oh man, our turn is coming up. I am not looking forward to it.
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