Adventures in Moving, Part I

"They're up to no good," one cat declared to another as he surveyed the wreckage that was the apartment. "Boxes, containers, throwing things out..."

It was December 24, and the apartment was in chaos. The U-haul trailer had been picked up and hitched to the car, but things were not neatly packed. Despite my best efforts, I was far behind schedule for packing.

We had decided that we would leave on the 25th. My rationale was that, since it was Christmas day, many people would be spending the day at home with loved ones. That would, hopefully, translate into light traffic for the first day of our drive.

Unfortunately, I hadn't planned for the fact that things wouldn't be properly packed by the day before the move.

As the day wore on, things were still not looking good in terms of having everything packed up. My boyfriend had finally decided to get seriously involved with the efforts, but things were going slowly.

"Silly humans," another cat said. "They have too much stuff for that little trailer."

And we did.

The furniture was being discarded for the most part, but we were taking our almost new mattress and box spring with us. I am pretty much the princess in "The Princess and the Pea," and I did not want to go through the effort and expense to find another mattress that met my requirements.

Then, there were the boxes and the storage bins. Of course, almost none of these were yet being loaded onto the trailer.

Friends from temple came to help load the mattress and box spring before they had to head off to a holiday party. The evening ended with those two things and a few boxes loaded.

As night fell and I surveyed the chaos, I wondered if we would ever escape. Could we really put things together the next day? My goal was to be out of the apartment and on the road at noon. Would I meet my goal?