Mature Life Features

By Cecil Scaglione

Mature Life Features

The next person requesting assistance for a move will have to speak with my attorney. Everything in, on and around me hurts from dragging boxes, lifting furniture, climbing stairs, jumping  off trailers,  dodging characters carrying stuff, and just trying to stay alive. The soft warm rain we had Wednesday made the entire week survivable. As an aside, on our way to Phoenix, the saguaros that  began appearing alongside Highway 8 east of Gila Bend looked scrawny and scorched. On our return trip to our soft and comfortable beds, they appeared saucy and sated and green with the water soaked up during the week’s storms.  

Having moved into  a half dozen homes during my married-with-kids  period, several rules and reminders popped up as we transferred a household acquired by two adults and two youngsters over the past decade.

1 – If you’re not carrying anything, get out of the way.

2 – If you are carrying something:

            don’t drop it   

            don’t bang the walls with it, especially in the “new” house

            don’t leave it sitting in the middle of the floor — get it out of the way

3 – Make sure relatives, friends and neighbors who volunteer to help show up.

4 – Make sure they show up on time.

5 – Start early; moving stuff after dark is boring, tiring and unnecessary…

6 – … unless you’re moving in the desert, in which case you should start early, take off for siesta during the heat of the afternoon, and resume in the cool of the evening.

7 – Move ALL the big stuff first (see No. 8).

8 – The exception is COMPUTERS. Get them up ‘n’ runnin’ asap.

9 –Stay out of discussions on where things should go – “put the dining table there, the big mirror on that wall, the entertainment center in this room, etc” Let the moving family square up on that stuff.

10 – Before moving, measure all your beds and dressers and appliances and furniture to see if they will fit where you would like to put them. (e.g. The fridge hole in the new house was almost a quarter-inch too small for the fridge being moved. It had to be squished into its stall. A sofa set was too large and bulky for the site the family selected originally so it had to be taken back down the stairs it was laboriously manhandled up and replaced by a less formidable sectional set.

11 – Don’t forget the moving dolly at the “new” house because you need it to manhandle stuff onto the trailer or truck (or moving vehicle) at the old house.

12 – Plug in a fridge at the new house to cool water, lemonade, beer and other refreshments to make the experience more bearable.

13 –Pack a toothbrush in your pocket so you can handle that chore on the first night and morning in the new house without having to scramble through piles of boxes, bags and bins to find it.

These rules apply primarily to short moves done by families and relatives and friends and neighbors who know nothing about moving  and for which moving vans and moving people have not been hired.