Unpacking After a Move, or If You Weren’t Crazy Before, You Will Be Now

This is the third installment in my acclaimed series on moving.*

You have now moved from one apartment into a better one. You have worked hard and long to get this new apartment, and are looking forward to celebrating the fruits of your victory. Only one thing is raining on your rapturous joy and ecstasy: moving!

Picture this. You have transported all furniture, boxes and bags to your new digs, and are ready to start the process of transforming what was an empty space with paint on the walls into the apartment of your dreams.

Day One

Look at the mess and panic. Calculate that it will take you about 20 years to unpack all the stuff.

Start with one of the bags. There are clothes in it. Easy, you think. Think again. These have to be put in your dresser drawers. Access to the dresser is blocked by several heavy boxes.

Give up on the bags and start with the boxes that are blocking the dresser. Spend two hours emptying the boxes and figuring out where to put the stuff you packed in them. This isn’t easy, because some of your furniture, including tables and bookcases, is in the middle of the floor with the rest of the clutter. End up tossing half the stuff onto the bed (one of the few pieces of furniture that is in the right place), to be sorted out later.

Pick up the cat, who has found the open bag of clothes and settled on top of them. Re-close the bag and tell the cat how much you love her, even when she’s underfoot.

Stop to take a break. Spend twenty minutes looking for the TV remote control, which you just know that you packed in that green tote bag along with your cell phone and Kindle rechargers. You finally find the remote control in the beige tote bag, with all the extension cords and electrical strips. By this time you don’t want to watch TV. You just want to lie down somewhere.

Push all the stuff on the bed over to one side. Note that the cat is at the foot of the bed and that she refuses to move. Tell her that you still love her, even though she’s a sweet pain in the ass. Curl up in the remaining space, intending only to rest for a few minutes. Wake up three hours later.

Start unpacking the bags again. Get three of them emptied and the contents stuffed into closets and drawers, trying to work around the cat, who is sticking her nose and paws into everything and jumping into drawers. Tell her (sweetly, of course) that if she doesn’t get out from underfoot you are going to have cat for breakfast.

Make the decision to give up for the day.

Days Two, Three, Four, Five, Six and Seven

Repeat Day One. You have to look for the remote control every day because the cat hides it in a closet, under the bed or inside another tote bag. You are convinced that she is in league with Satan. You make mental plans to call a priest for an exorcism after you get everything unpacked and in place.

Day Eight

You can actually see the other side of the living room, and walk around relatively unhindered. The cat has become bored with trying to help you unpack and is now concentrating on trying to elicit drops of water from the bathtub faucet and staring through the windows at birds and squirrels.

Move all the chairs, tables and bookcases until they are in the right spots. Unpack the boxes marked “books” and fill the bookcase shelves with the contents.

Day Nine

Depending on the size of the apartment and how many rooms it has, shove the remaining bags and boxes into some place where you won’t have to look at them most of the time. Decide that you are finished unpacking for now.

Give the cat some extra treats to make up for thinking she was a spawn of the Devil.

Day Ten

Decide that you don’t like the way the furniture is arranged. Drag some of it around until you are satisfied that it isn’t going to look any better than this no matter what you do.

Day Eleven

Plan your housewarming party.

*Acclaimed by me, that is. Other critical praise will follow as soon as I can get some of my friends to read it.