Monday, September 19, 2011

Forget Packing, I'm going shopping.

Daily Forum column for 9-15.

"How can two people have so much stuff?" I yelled out over the top of a mountain made from cardboard boxes.

My male counterpart had nearly boxed me into our bedroom and left no escape, which I think he did on purpose.

After nearly five years under the roof of our house, along with our two furry additions, our little family is in fact, moving.

In the weeks leading up to the search for our next dwelling I had made some demands.

Although I'm sure they were muted by the sounds of helmet clashing coming from our television, I tried real hard to set some ground rules.

"Our new place has to have more kitchen storage," I demanded.

The grunt I received from The Man told me he at least knew I was in the same room.

"And a bigger bathroom," I begged.

Another grunt.

Had I mentioned a larger room for our pool table or maybe a wider patio for the grill I'm sure he would have been the one sifting through the classifieds, scoping out websites and making phone calls. Instead, I was left to sift through hundreds of listings.

After multiple rejections due to vacancy issues, space or the fact that we have a miniature horse posing as a dog living with us, our list of options had been narrowed to one.

The downside?

Our new home, or should I say apartment, will be considerably smaller.

We're talking no more basement, or pool table. No more eat-in kitchen, or grill even. It's more of a store the pots and pans in the oven when it's not in use, kind of small.

With just a few weeks to pack up our life, the chaos most call moving began.

"What do you even use that for?" became a commonly used phrase, along with, "I was wondering where that went."

While our new place is thankfully a bit bigger than my college dorm room, I continuously remind The Man — who by the way is a keep every pair of shoes, even if the soles have holes, type of guy — that we will never be able to fit five years worth of our stuff into a two-bedroom apartment.

I lived in an apartment once. I even spent two years living the dorm room life, so I'm convinced that somewhere along the way I must have lost my mind to be leaving our house behind.

"What am I going to do with my crock pots," I'd whine. "You mean we're going to have to put our shoes in the same closet?"

My short depression was halted by a quick but ingenious realization. Moving not only meant that we would be living in a new place, but that we would "need" new furnishings.

"Forget packing, I'm going shopping," I blurted out as I dropped the box of kitchen gadgets at The Man's feet and stormed out the door.

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