Moving to Tennessee: Part 1
Remember how I spent three months preparing for this move?
Three months packing boxes, labeling everything, taking furniture apart, finding creative ways to save money, getting rid of things, and convincing myself that I was incredibly organized?
Yeah.
That was cute.
Apparently, three months of preparation means absolutely nothing when moving day actually arrives.
Let's start with my daughter.
She flew into New York less than 24 hours before the move.
Why so late? Why not.
Well, she had an entire bedroom to pack.
An entire bedroom that I had been specifically forbidden to touch.
And when I say forbidden, I mean I probably could have entered a federal building with less security clearance than it would have taken to get into that bedroom.
Now, my daughter keeps everything.
EVERYTHING.
And she doesn't just pack things.
She has to say goodbye to them.
Every shirt.
Every little memory.
Every random object that apparently holds some deep emotional significance that I will never understand.
And then there are the rocks.
Yes.
Rocks.
My daughter travels a lot, and apparently when normal people visit another country, they bring home a magnet, a T-shirt, maybe a Christmas ornament.
My daughter brings home part of the country.
She collects rocks from everywhere she visits.
So while I'm standing there wondering how the hell we're going to fit everything we own into a moving truck, we're carefully packing rocks that have already traveled farther than most people I know.
And of course, you can't just throw the rocks in a box.
Oh no.
Each rock has a story.
"This one is from Iceland."
"This one is from Italy."
"This one is from..."
I don't even know anymore.
All I know is I'm paying to move rocks from New York to Tennessee that have already been flown home from countries around the world.
At some point, I started wondering if it would have been cheaper just to buy Tennessee some new rocks when we got there.
But these are her rocks.
So the rocks were coming.
Now add those to the clothes, childhood memories, things she hasn't looked at in years but suddenly couldn't possibly live without, and everything else in that room.
And remember—
We had less than 24 hours.
To make things even more interesting, we weren't just packing.
We had to separate everything into two destinations.
Tennessee or Michigan.
Sounds simple, right?
Wrong.
There were piles everywhere, lots of tears, plenty of laughter, and approximately 400 conversations about where something should go.
Meanwhile, I was trying to remember that I love my children.
Then daughter number two arrived.
My oldest daughter flew in just hours before the move so she and her fiancé could become our official moving truck drivers.
Yes.
My daughter and her fiancé had volunteered to drive a giant truck containing basically everything I owned from New York to Tennessee.
What could possibly go wrong?
At this point, I was still optimistic.
Which, looking back, may have been my biggest mistake.
We ran out of boxes.
If you've been following my packing adventures, you know I was determined not to pay for moving boxes.
I collected them from everywhere.
Friends.
Neighbors.
Stores.
If it was cardboard and could hold something, I wanted it.
I was basically running an unofficial cardboard recycling operation out of my apartment.
And after all that effort?
We ran out of boxes.
Not one or two boxes short.
We needed boxes.
Immediately.
So what did the woman who had spent months bragging about not buying moving boxes finally do?
I ordered boxes through DoorDash.
DOORDASH.
I had officially reached the point in my life where I was paying someone to deliver empty cardboard boxes to my house.
So much for my brilliant money-saving strategy.
But whatever.
We had boxes.
We had daughters.
We had rocks from around the world.
We were ready.
Now we just needed the moving truck.
How hard could renting a U-Haul possibly be?
I had a reservation.
I had a credit card.
I had a plan.
Apparently, none of those things mattered.
Every time the rental location tried to run my card, they told me it was being flagged for fraud.
So I called my credit card company.
No fraud alert.
They tried again.
"Fraud."
I called again.
Still no fraud alert.
This went on for nearly an hour.
Finally, we discovered the problem.
THEY WEREN'T EVEN RUNNING MY CREDIT CARD.
They were trying to charge some mystery card they had on file that didn't even belong to me.
An hour of my life gone.
But finally...
WE HAD THE TRUCK.
Surely things would get easier now.
They did not.
Enter the professional movers.
I hired movers because I knew we had a lot of stuff, limited time, and I had absolutely no desire to destroy my back before I even made it out of New York.
I also figured professional movers would know how to properly load a moving truck.
Especially when it came to fragile items.
You know those boxes that are clearly labeled:
FRAGILE
Apparently, I misunderstood what that word means.
Because the movers seemed to interpret it as:
"Please put this box at the bottom of the largest pile you can possibly create and then stack every heavy thing you find on top of it."
I watched in amazement.
Remember my wine glasses?
I had packed them.
Wrapped them.
Protected them.
Labeled them.
Five boxes of wine glasses.
FIVE.
And somehow these boxes seemed like excellent candidates for supporting the weight of my entire household.
I'm now considering starting a new business.
Moving labels for people who don't understand moving labels.
Instead of:
FRAGILE
Mine will say:
DO NOT PUT HEAVY SHIT ON TOP OF THIS BOX.
Maybe I'll include pictures.
Arrows.
Diagrams.
Possibly a short instructional video accessed by QR code.
Apparently, we need options.
But then something amazing happened.
The truck actually looked...
GOOD.
The movers were organizing everything beautifully.
Furniture was fitting together.
Boxes were stacked neatly.
Every little space was being used.
I remember looking inside and thinking:
Wow.
These guys really know what they're doing.
We're going to have plenty of room!
And that was apparently the moment I jinxed the entire operation.
Because something changed.
Suddenly, the careful organization disappeared.
Things started getting tossed wherever they would fit.
Huge gaps of wasted space appeared.
Boxes were being piled in ways that made absolutely no sense.
And oddly...
There was a rather noticeable smell of weed hanging in the air.
Now, I'm not making any accusations.
I'm just reporting the facts.
The truck was being loaded beautifully.
Then there was a strong smell of weed.
Then the truck started looking like someone was loading it during an earthquake.
Coincidence?
Perhaps.
But I'm beginning to suspect somebody's organizational skills may have gone up in smoke.
By the time they were finished, our beautifully organized moving truck looked like someone had opened the back doors and thrown an entire apartment inside from across the parking lot.
And then came the words I did NOT want to hear.
We're out of room.
Excuse me?
OUT. OF. ROOM?
After three months of downsizing?
After giving things away?
After selling things?
After packing and repacking?
After my daughter personally transporting rocks home from multiple countries just so I could apparently transport them again?
We were out of room.
And we still had stuff sitting in the apartment.
A LOT of stuff.
So there we stood.
One completely full moving truck.
An apartment that was not completely empty.
Two daughters.
One fiancé.
One Remmie.
Several internationally traveled rocks.
Five boxes of wine glasses currently supporting God knows how much furniture.
And me.
Still somehow believing we were leaving for Tennessee the next morning.
Clearly, we needed another plan.
We needed another vehicle.
We needed to get rid of even more stuff.
And we still had one last night to spend in New York.
But surely, after everything that had already gone wrong, the rest would be easy.
Right?
Oh, you sweet, naive woman.
Coming next:
Part 2 — Who the Hell Packed My Underwear?
Because apparently I packed everything I owned.
Including the things I still needed.
And spoiler alert...
Curtains can absolutely be used as blankets.