Moving-Military Style

Talk about a whirlwind. Moving with the military is something you have to experience to believe.

The first step is for the packers to show up. This time based on the weight of our junk they sent 4 people. They come into a room and literally wrap everything in paper and then put it in a box. When I say EVERYTHING, that's just what I mean. If your kid snuck a candy bar at some point and stuffed the wrapper into a nook, then that wrapper will be wrapped in packing paper and put in the box. I jest not. I'm pretty sure my bucket of recycle bottles got packed. I tried to circulate around intercepting the stranger items and tossing them as needed but there was only one of me and four of them. Oh well, we'll sort it out at the other end I suppose. I have to just pray that nobody sees us unpack or we will get the strangest reputation in the neighborhood.

Did you see the new people who moved in? They saved old candy wrappers and empty plastic bottles! They must have some strange hoarding disease!

Then after a few days of packing comes the inventory stage. Every box gets a sticker with a number and every number goes on the master list. At the other end you then check off number by number.

So, for example, we have box 0215: empty CD cases. Yep. We really do.

We had 6 legal size pages of boxes.

Next come the loaders. We had a crew of 5. One guy did the dissemble and paperwork and four poor schmucks loaded the semi. Did I mention it was 110 with 100% humidity? Good times. As they load the boss makes notes on the inventory like "dining table:scratches on surface." This is so that you can't claim pre-existing damage at the other end. In our case, this is the 6th military move. It took more space for recording the damage than it did to record the stuff. Whatever. Of course stuff isn't just loaded. Oh no. First it gets wrapped in plastic, blankets, or both. After carefully wrapping every article great care is then taken as it is shoved, crammed, smashed, and generally squeezed into tight spaces. The "care" is more to insure that the entire truck gets filled, not so much that everything comes out whole on the other end.

We filled a semi.

Including the space underneath where the spare tire goes.

Then another few hours are spent filling out several forms in 6 copies. You then sign that you have personally watched and agree with all notations, inventories, and numbers. Right. As if you could be in 6 places at once and personally count everything. Not that losing some of the junk would be bad. For instance if they managed to drop the TV we got in college, well it had a long and happy life. But they won't. Oh no. It's NEVER the stuff you don't care about that gets lost/damaged/stolen by aliens. Oh no. It will be the one item you actually care about.

Curses to you Murphy and your stinkin' laws.

It is always best to watch them load the truck and then beat them to the other destination. Then they load the stuff off and usually you get most of your stuff in the same condition.

Unlike us, who are getting there a month later. Thus our stuff will be unloaded at some storage facility and then delivered when we cal for it. This means several different people will touch it several times. Each step astronomically increases the risk that stuff will be broken/stolen/lost/eaten by dinosaurs.

But again, it won't be the stuff you want lost. Never that stuff. Every old candy wrapper and empty plastic bottle will make the journey just fine.