Way back in the spring of 1998 little newlywed me and my friend Jill went to a moving class to prepare for our first military move. Here we are, happy and naive.
We were treated to horror story after horror story of how packers will wrap up and pack *anything* in their sight, household garbage, your car keys, cell phone, the oven racks (that belong to military housing, not to you), and there was even the unfortunate tale of a cat that was packed in an overseas shipment. (and yes, it died. ick.)
The purpose of the horror stories was to scare us straight — so we wouldn’t become the central character in our own Moving Tale from the Dark Side. And I would have called myself Queen of the Move: until today. I’ve pre-planned and packed and organized and decluttered to the point that every packing and moving day has run like a finely choreographed ballet. The cat contingency plan is that before the movers arrive, she is locked in the master bathroom with food, water, her litter box and any luggage that is going with us in the car. Every time. The image of unpacking a dead cat is one that has stuck with me. *shudder*
I was confident, cocky even. I thought I could master the Overseas Move since I had proved my abilities in 7 previous moves. New baby? No problem. I’ll wear her on my back. I can do it all. And then, I failed. Complete and total belly flop.
It started this morning while I was scrubbing the stove (prepping for our move-out inspection, #437th thing to do on my list), there was a little tickle in the back of my brain that something wasn’t right. I was forgetting something . . . what was I missing? I remembered holding some important papers in my hand . . . where had I put them? And then I saw myself holding the titles to both of our vehicles and thinking, “we will need this in Egypt” and PUTTING THEM IN THE FILE FOR THE MOVERS TO TAKE. Now this wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing except the tickling in my brain was telling me, “you need the title to the car or you won’t be able to ship it to Egypt.” So I went upstairs and asked, “we don’t need the title to ship the car, do we?”
And then there was a teensy bit of yelling and a teensy bit of crying and in the blink of an eye I went from SuperMover to one of those people. The ones they warn you about. The ones who call the moving company, begging and crying to get into their shipment and the movers laugh and tell them, “Too bad. See you on the other side.” The ones who unpack a mummified cat. The ones who have to pay to have their cars rekeyed. The ones who are bad movers.
****the next part of this story involves a trip to the DMV and lots of praying and begging. To Be Continued . . .