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Jewish World Review May 11, 2001 / 18 Iyar, 5761

Greg Crosby

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Consumer Reports


A Moving Experience

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- WE are moving. My wife and my dog and I, along with many of our belongings, are moving out of the home we’ve lived in for the past six and a half years and into another house about a mile and a half away. The actual physical move will occur in about two weeks, so right now, we are not moving in the literal sense -- we are packing, and sorting, and discarding, and wrapping, and selling off or giving away things, and signing papers, and dealing with Realtors and escrow companies. Half our time is spent doing those things, the other half is spent sweating, and swearing, and bickering, and yelling, and drinking.

When I sat down at the computer I had every intention of writing a light-hearted slice of life humor piece related to our move, but that’s impossible. There has been nothing “light-hearted” or “humorous” about this experience. Adjectives describing our adventure are more along the lines of “gut-wrenching,” “angst-laden,” and “stomach-turning.” I am exhausted, frustrated and on edge -- and I fear my wife is at the point of no return. She has, at last, reached that plateau where she could, at any moment either, a) go mad, b) divorce me, c) kill me or d) all of the above.

Our poor dog, Moose, doesn’t have a clue as to what the hell is going on around here. But he knows we’re up to SOMETHING. He watches us suspiciously, waiting for us to pull off a getaway or plot some diabolical scheme. He realizes, with all these boxes and stuff around, we must be up to no good. He follows us from room to room, keeping an eye on us and waiting for us to make a false move.

They say dogs are trusting, but these days our Golden trusts us about as far as he can see us. That’s it. He’s an extremely smart dog who possesses keen intuition and perception. I wonder if he really does know that we are moving and just chooses to resist it. Moose is capable of many things, but as yet hasn’t lifted a paw to help us pack. This is the thanks I get for all the back scratching.

We had three different moving guys in to give us estimates. The first guy told us how all the other guys are crooks. The second guy told us that the first guy is a dirty liar. The third guy told us that the first two guys are incompetent or incontinent or something like that. Anyway, we went with the first guy. Why? He was cheapest. But we’d also used them before, for our last move, and had a fairly uncomplicated experience. Based on that, we hope to have the same luck with them again. Well, we’ll see.

It has become painfully obvious that through the years we kept buying things without ever getting rid of anything! We just accumulated. If we moved and the new house needed a new couch, we bought a new couch -- while at the same time holding on to the OLD couch, putting it into another room. This feat was easily accomplished, I realize now, because with each successive move, we kept occupying larger quarters. This time we’re moving to a smaller place, which means we suddenly find ourselves with too much of everything.

In particular, we have too many couches. Six, at last count. We also find ourselves with an abundance of beds -- four. Not an excessive amount for a family of five. But we are a family of three, counting the dog -- and we all sleep in one bed. Please, don’t ask. We have loads of tables, too. End tables, coffee tables, night tables, a large 48” round game table with four chairs, an oak Pub table with four chairs, a kitchen table with six chairs, and a dinning room table with six chairs. We like to sit around a lot at tables.

We’ve been packing books now for about, oh, I’d say three months ... and bookcases are still filled. We have more books than we could read in several lifetimes. We also enjoy listening to music. Music in every conceivable format, from CD’s, to cassette tapes, to vinyl records. I don’t know how it happened, but I did throw away my eight-track tapes years ago -- and I’m thankful that I’m not old enough to have bought 78’s, otherwise we’d probably still have those too, sitting in boxes in the hall closet under the coats.

Like fighting wars and having children, moving from one house to another is best left to the young adults among us. I’m getting too old to move. In more ways than one.


JWR contributor Greg Crosby, former creative head for Walt Disney publications, has written thousands of comics, hundreds of children's books, dozens of essays, and a letter to his congressman. You may contact him by clicking here.

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© 2001 Greg Crosby