On The Move

This edition of The State of the Union originally appeared on July 2, 2004.

I.  Big Nasty

They called him Big Nasty.

I knew when I ordered the 26-foot truck from my friends at U-Haul that I would be dealing with a large vehicle.  I knew as well that it would take diesel fuel, and have a manual transmission.

Still, I was unprepared for the beast that was Big Nasty.

When I approached the desk and gave my name, the gentleman chuckled, then turned to his friend with a smile.  “Go get him Big Nasty,” he said.

My initial view of Big Nasty was of his left flank, upon which were emblazoned a colorful painting of Ohio’s All-American Soap Box Derby, and two slogans:  “America’s Moving Adventure” and “The van that rides on air."

The former would prove to be prophetic; the latter would prove to be a lie.

As I slid behind the wheel, I was intimidated.  First, I noticed a warning on the sun visor, which read, “Anticipate Stops / Break Early.”  Before and after this admonishment was a skull and crossbones.  Either the writer of this warning was a really big pirate fan, or he was deadly serious about this early braking business.  I decided right then that I would heed this warning.

The second thing I noticed was that this truck had no three-point seat belts -- only lap belts, no shoulder restraints.  I think the last vehicle I rode in with no three-point seat belts (not counting airplanes) was my parents’ 1975 Toyota Corolla station wagon.  I was nervous.

The actual driving was much scarier.

My car has an automatic transmission, but I’m fluent in stick, and have driven lots of manual transmission vehicles, large and small.  It usually takes a little while to get used to the clutch and find all the gears, but once you get comfortable, the shifting is generally pretty smooth.

There was no smooth to Big Nasty.

Putting Big Nasty into first felt like trying to lift a garbage bag full of water off the ground with a radio antenna.  Going from first to second was worse; evidently, Big Nasty had endured some rough wear over the years, so simply finding second was a chore, and when I did find second, getting the truck into gear was like trying to shove a pine cone into a beer bottle.  Shifting to third was slightly better, in that the engine didn’t sound so much like a sick llama.

Fortunately, I never had to get on the highway, so I didn’t even try shifting into fourth.

II.  Many Hands

Man is a social being.  This is a good thing, for if he was not, who would help him move?

Thankfully, I didn’t have to find out, at least not for this move.  I put out the call, offering pizza and beer to all those offering to lend a hand, and discovered that I hadn’t pissed off that many people after all.  In fact, plenty of friends joined in to help me park the small nation I was driving, and load him up with furniture and boxes.

Only problem was, the day we moved, I wasn’t exactly, as they say, fully packed.

Now, I won’t lie to you -- I knew I had a lot of stuff.  It’s just that when I estimated how much stuff I had, and how much time it would take to pack all this stuff, my estimate was slightly off -- by about an order of magnitude.

Part of my problem was that I’d lived in my old place for five years.  The last time I lived in the same space that long I was in high school, and Ronald Reagan was still in office.  Five years, friends, is a lot of time in which to accumulate stuff.  Especially when you’re an incorrigible, inveterate, incurable, irredeemable, hopeless pack rat, like me.

It certainly didn’t help that in that time, I had five roommates, all of whom managed to leave a little something -- or a lot -- behind.  In fact, there was stuff in my basement from roommates of roommates -- people I’d never even lived with.  I had to move, or chuck, all this stuff.

For the normal person, this would be a simple process of assessing one’s possessions, then determining which to keep and which not to keep.

For me, it was something altogether different.  First, there was the awful realization of how much stuff I actually possessed.  When you live in a place, and it’s mostly moderately uncluttered, you delude yourself into thinking you don’t own that much stuff.  And then you try to pack it, and you realize that stuff is everywhere -- in closets, under sinks, under beds, in basements -- and you simply can’t believe how much you own.

And it’s not even that I couldn’t fathom where it all came from.  It just hit me that at no point in the last five years had I even attempted to stop it from coming -- a fact that made me a little queasy.

Not as queasy, however, as determining what to toss.

Some people might look at an object, say, “Hm, I haven’t used/worn/read this in a long time, and I probably won’t, so I’ll pitch/recycle/donate it.”

I took such opportunities to take a sentimental journey through the last five years of my life, and to wallow in existential dilemmas such as this:  Do I keep the two-sizes-too-large Violent Femmes t-shirt (they were out of my size, and at the time, I just had to have a Femmes concert t-shirt.  Surely you can relate) with the hot pink screen printing that I haven’t worn since the mid-Nineties, or do I let it go?

Laugh now, but I spent a lot of time on debates like this.  This, of course, may be why it took me more time to pack than it took me to write my last novel.  I probably should have realized that if I picked up something and it reminded me not of a person or an event but rather of the last time I picked it up, it was time to let it go.

III.  Almost Done

Everybody hates moving, of course.  Nevertheless, I managed to turn my disdain for moving into a rationale for not finishing my packing.  As such, though my friends and I filled Big Nasty with my stuff -- and 26 feet of truck is a lot of truck -- and carted it away, my apartment still looked like somebody lived there.

Despite all that still remained to be moved, I had to return Big Nasty to his rightful owner.  So, after unloading him at the new place, I took him to the gas station to fill him back up before taking him home.

Sadly, foolishly, ridiculously, as I sat there pumping diesel, I had this sense of accomplishment, like I was done.  I was not done.  I was not almost done.  Over the next three days, concluding with a 15-hour bender on Wednesday, the day before I had to turn in my keys, I borrowed a pickup truck from a friend and removed another twelve truckloads of stuff from my apartment before it was empty.  I threw away and gave to Goodwill more stuff than I even thought I owned.

But let us not speak of that nightmare ever again.  Let us instead return to the idyllic isle at the Mobil station, where, after completing my purchase of diesel fuel, the pump asked me, “Want Car Wash?  Y/N.”

I smiled.  Purchasing a gas station car wash for Big Nasty would’ve been akin to taking a rented weasel to a day spa, which is why I considered it momentarily -- pictured the scene in my mind, actually -- then pushed “No.”  My time with Big Nasty was through.

Of course, as I mentioned before, my time spent packing, chucking and moving was far from over, but we’ve agreed to not speak of that, and I don’t want to violate that trust.

So let us instead speak of the profound lesson I learned through this whole experience, and that lesson is this:

I’m never moving again.

Of course, that last line was wishful thinking -- in fact, I’m moving again this weekend.  Take pity on me.