U-Haul, I haul, we all haul a sleeper sofa up three flights of stairs. Moving all the earthly — and often ungodly heavy — belongings of others can put a strain on lower back muscles and friendships. Which is why I always lift with my legs while biting my tongue.
Helping lug a box marked "bellybutton lint collection/kitchen utensils” for a coworker or casual acquaintance is the embodiment of too much information. However, any sense of decorum is tossed aside like a moldy beanbag chair when packing or unpacking friends or family. Such was the case this past week as I volunteered to help a childhood friend move his family into a house near Honor.
As moves go, I fully expected a cargo hold strewn with split-open garbage bags stuffed with frying pans, underwear and cans of WD-40. After all, I still vividly recall a pair of socks standing on end in my friend's football locker. We also shared a house during our college days with three other friends where he was Oscar Madison to a bunch of second-rate slobs.
Then I arrived to find boxes labeled with final room destination — in legible penmanship no less. I hadn't considered the chromosomal X factor when it comes to packing. The XX packer cocoons wedding china in four-ply bubble wrap. Given the same item, the XY packer would choose white tube socks — perhaps out of the dirty clothes hamper.
Truthfully, I expected a truck packed by a guy who once drove around with a bale of straw in his car for two months to be a disaster. I kept waiting for the soggy shoe box to drop. Instead it was a 90 degree T-shirt sweat heat, four foot wide dresser through a three foot doorway, 12 milk jugs of used motor oil, too many right angles and one dead mouse run-of-the-mill move.
Several years ago, one of the major moving companies used "adventures in moving” as a marketing slogan. Obviously the ad genius who came up with this gem had yet to move out of his parents' basement. While I'm sure it conjured up idealized family bonding cross-country trips in the boardroom, those in the real world would rather avoid the definition of a "daring, hazardous undertaking” with all their possessions in tow and stick to point A to point B travel.
• Mom: "Hey kids, we're moving out west so your father can pursue his dream of raising pygmy jackalopes. So let's go rent a truck with AC that will conk out half way across Arizona in August and a radio that only pulls in AM yodeling. Maybe we'll even run over a saguaro cactus and get a flat.”
• Kids: "OK, but only if we drive at night and pick up hitchhikers that look like Rutger Hauer.”
From packing up coworkers' dirty dishes to unloading color-coded boxes into color-coded rooms, I've had plenty of moving experiences in my lifetime. Unlike the miracle of birth, none could be called a labor of love.
Grand Traverse Herald editor Garret Leiva can be reached at 933-1416 or e-mail gleiva@gtherald.com