1.) You Always Own Too Much Shit
If you're reading this at home, take a look around your room/apartment/house/Hooverville shanty. You've probably got it in decent order. Nothing looks terribly out of control. I mean, you have stuff, plenty of it, but it's totally manageable. No. It's not and you're dead fucking wrong. The second you start that packing process you'll notice the true quantity. It's like at the arrival of boxes, all of your possessions start reproducing like coke-fueled rabbits.
I don't really want to sift through the results of a "cocaine + bunny" image search.
Where did you get all of this stuff? You don't remember carting it all around last time. Did you really bring back that many things from your parents' house over the holidays? Why do I even own some of this shit?
I really don't know how to defend this purchase.
Even if you thinned out your possessions before your last move, it doesn't matter. Chances are you just bought all new shit to replace whatever you ditched. Or maybe you just totally forgot about how much of a pain in the ass it was lugging your stuff around when you moved in. It doesn't matter, though, and you grimly face the fact that a sizable portion will "have to go." But you don't really do that. No, you stand around picking up all of your stuff and deciding that you really do want that hideous sweater from Great Grandaunt McDoodle or that you really will need all of those AV cables and old computer parts. And you do this for days. You totally lie to yourself until it comes down to right about the last day. That's when you have your "Oh, shit!" moment.
Then, out of nowhere, you are a changed person. Suddenly you are a heartless, nihilistic son of a bitch and nothing holds meaning for you any longer. You just start tossing everything in sight into the garbage, no matter how precious it was a few moments before. If you insist on putting a positive spin on this frenzy, please consider this a perfect opportunity to ditch any artifacts from a former relationship with a cheating gorgon that may still be lingering about your place.
She's hiding her face because if you see it, you'll turn to stone.
You're going to fill all of the available trashcans at your place. Then you're going to sneakily add garbage to your neighbors' trashcans. And finally you'll just give up and toss your garbage bags beside other people's trashcans. The worst is when your final moving day is trash day as well. It's pretty hard to keep your head down when you walk right past the garbage men start tossing all of your stuff into that hideous, foul-smelling maw they call a truck. You KNOW they're laughing at you.
And apparently they're also going to murder you.
2.) You're Forced to Confront Your Past
Before you get to that scorched earth policy and you're still "trying" to pack, you have to face another horrible truth: everything you've done since you lived there. You find all sorts of filthy secrets you'd locked away and forgotten. This may come in the form of uncovering well-intentioned projects that you just never finished. Remember that month when you were really fucking into knitting and you just couldn't stop talking about it too everyone you met? Say hello to your haphazard and pathetically half-finished scarf.
There are freezing kids in the world that could've used that. Ass.
Or what about the time when you were really going to get in shape and you were totally for reals serious about it this time seriously? Oh, my, it looks like you unearthed all of those exercise books and infomercial fitness gadgets you bought.
Yeah, this thing was clearly going to get you all kinds of ripped.
Awesome. Not only are you stressed about moving, but you've confronted irrefutable evidence that you're a failure. OK, well, maybe not. Maybe you're just a bad person instead. Every time you run across a borrowed movie, album, or book that you never returned or even watched, listened to, or read you'll feel a heavy stab of guilt. Worse yet, you're confronted with the decision of how to handle this. Do you have time to enjoy them now? Almost certainly not. Should you give them back? Eh, probably. Unless you hope that the lender also just totally forgot. But what if you return them and then you're asked how you enjoyed them? And then you're also asked why you're so goddamn late getting back to them? It's a gamble; live with the embarrassment or live with the guilt.
Like I said, you're a bad person.
The situation can be so much worse, though. Let's pretend you have friends willing to help you. They're going to see all of your shit. Every last thing that you hide away in a closet, drawer, or S&M dungeon is going to get exposed.
"Why do you own all of Season 2 of 'Sailor Moon' on VHS?"
There is another situation which is worse than that...
3.) Strangers Will be Examining You
And that situation occurs when your landlord leads total strangers on a parade through your private life. Typically, it feels pretty awkward to have voyeurs blatantly gawking at everything you own, so you try to make yourself scarce when your harpy of a landlord arranges these little viewings. This means you have to spend a lot of time not being in the place you pay to live in and wondering just who is secretly sniffing your bedsheets.
It's the only way he can feel alive anymore.
I've come home more than once to find the contents of my medicine cabinet rifled through. One time they just straight up took some of my medicine. You can hide things away as best you can, but they're there to investigate this place and they're going to be manhandling all of your personal items. Whatever they want to touch is fair game. And it's impossible to see the actual apartment through all of the things you've populated it with. They're not really looking at the rooms, they're judging you and probably thinking they have nicer things than you do.
Of course this all provided that your landlord was responsible enough to give you the proper amount of notice before barging in. My place right now just leaves a note on your door. No phone call, but only a gesture of "meh." That's kind of illegal, though. Even worse than that, I had a landlord that made me leave the apartment to show it regardless of the fact that I had just come home from the hospital for a serious injury the day before. Another time I was surprised by the same landlord when he just showed up and led people into my bedroom while I was changing. The viewer didn't even flinch. She just regarded me in a half state of dress and then walked out. Like I was an amenity.
"This stuff doesn't come with the place, lady."
4.) Trying to Get Back Your Fucking Money
Landlords and insurance agents are always more pleasant than when they might have to give you money back. It's not in their understanding. The normal routine is that you pay them, not the other way around. So your landlord starts cooking up all these reasons why they'll have to get a professional cleaning crew in. I was threatened with that because my cat had tossed some of her Fresh Step out of her box while I was at work. Not actual poop, just like a quarter cup of actual litter.
At any rate you're going to clean that place harder than you've ever cleaned it before. You mop, wash, and scrub everything until all you can taste is bleach and Pine Sol. But, no matter what, you know, you just know, that you're going to get fucked.
To be fair, you were already in a convenient position and dressed for it.
I had this process go well exactly one time. The guy cut me a check for my full $700 deposit right while we were standing in the kitchen. I immediately got the fuck out and dropped it in the bank before he could say anything else.
But on the way out the door, I had to walk right past the garbage man AND the building's maintenance manager...
Sorry, guys. Just...I'm sorry.
LP out.
