Twas Brillig

Hi, I’m Jen of a2eatwrite. I’m a long fan of Brillig’s, and despite the fact that I have many years on her, I wish I could be her when I grow up.

For my guest post today, I thought I’d come up with some moving tips for Brillig:

I have moved many times in my life. I’m not sure I’ve moved as many times as Brillig has. If you read her “About Brillig” section, you’ll see that not only has she moved many times, but she’s moved to and from all kinds of interesting places.

Nevertheless, I’m seeing fit to give Brillig moving tips because obviously she really needs to hear this from me, a much less experienced mover.

Be that as it may, I really have moved a number of times, and I can prove it from my mortgage application. In said application (completed two moves ago), I was asked to list all places of residence for the previous seven years.

I listed ten.

For each of these places, I had a system down. Do it all myself, and what I couldn’t do myself, I bribed big, burly friends to do. I’ve found that pizza and beer is a good bribe when you want household stuff done. There’s a current commercial by McFastFood’s that says that Sweet Tea is the proper bribe. Not. So. Beer, pizza or diamonds. Trust me on that one.

By the time I married D., I could fit all my worldly goods, including furniture, into the back of a Dodge Omni. For those of you who don’t remember this gem of engineering, it was a VW Rabbit knock-off. For those who don’t remember the Rabbit… think Golf, only smaller. In terms of “furniture” this included a futon frame and said futon, folding chairs and card table, and various knicknacks to make it all pretty. I usually bought a couple of other things at used places and then sold them back to used places when I moved.

Then, as I said, I married D. D never met an object he didn’t think he could eventually find a use for. D’s parents had about 1500 square feet of basement filled with glass jars, stacks of newspaper, scrap metal, etc., etc., in case it “came in handy.” My in-laws are the most wonderful folks in the world, but they survived the Depression and are Yankees from Vermont.

‘Nuff said.

So by the time D and I were ready for our first move together, I knew the Omni wasn’t going to figure into it. Maybe for the contents of his desk drawers, but no more than that.

Now, I should also mention that D had a bad back in those days, and couldn’t really lift heavy objects. (And all of his objects were heavy, because “useful” objects always seem to be). I also had background as a theater technician and had spent many, many hours loading and unloading trucks and carrying objects that seemed to be three times my weight or more. So guess who was in charge of moving?

And yup, the pizza and beer trick worked again, too.

Our move across country, however, was into yet another apartment. This apartment served us very well until I was about 7 months pregnant and decided that going down three flights of stairs and through two locked doors every time I wanted to do laundry would be a bit much. Especially while carrying said laundry AND the baby. So as pregnant women can sometimes do, I convinced harangued, threatened and pleaded shamelessly D that maybe this would be a good time to buy our first house.

Then my OB stepped in. Lift things? Moi? BAD idea. She wanted it all done for me.

Voila.

Now I knew the secret to moving. So I sat there, eating pizza (no beer for the pregnant lady, obviously), while various friends (and D, whose back miraculously healed upon learning I was pregnant) lifted and grunted and placed things, and I sat like a princess.

Brillig, Dear, I know you have your hands full and probably don’t need any pitter patters of more feet just at this moment, but think… just think… about packing a pillow. After all, Mr. Brillig hasn’t seen you for awhile, right?

Just sayin…