Some are
creatures of the night, others are creatures from the lagoon, I am a creature
of habit. My natural habitat is a minute-perfect
morning routine (including a staggered snooze button strategy), a permanent and
excessive stock of tea bags, and jeans, always jeans.
I’m no
longer allowed to order breakfast at my favourite café, because the slightly
terrifying woman who runs it assumes it will be ‘the usual’ (and I’m too scared
to argue). A former housemate once
declared himself flabbergasted when I didn’t shower, brush my teeth and dress
in the usual order, throwing out the entire ecosystem of how he in turn knew to
step around me.
My life of
habit has also probably been assisted by staying in the same share house rental
property for eight years.
Conventions
are like annual plumbing-based house floods, eventually they just become
compulsory. Patterns are like neighbours
whose names still escape me (unless they’re birth certificates happen to read ‘Cat
Man’ and ‘Bin Lady’), they’re there whether you look for them or not. Routines are like an oven that perpetually
burns everything it touches, ultimately you just surrender and set them to
music.
Eight years
as a Gen Y who stayed in one address – I was either lazy, or rusted on. Or, you know, both.
It was going
to take an act of god, an interstate job, or an offer of royal engagement to
pry me away… and to be honest, if a prince wasn’t willing to move into my share
house, I’d have to question his commitment to the relationship. Anyway, option B panned out before that became an issue.
I live in
Melbourne now (Brunswick, The Land of
Recreational Jugglers, to be exact, but I’ll get to that).
After
the supreme trauma of uprooting my habit-laden existence, I thought the least I
could do is offer a guide for other novice movers like me (I think there are
two of you out there). And so, without
further ado, I present:
6 Painefull
Steps to a Relatively, Sort of, Almost Painless Moving Experience*
1. When booking a mover, give extra points to the
organisation that offers to transport your stripper pole. That’s just thoughtful.
 |
| My air compressor AND my stripper pole? How do they do it? |
2. Invite some friends around, give them tea, and
permission to throw out any items of clothes you own that they have long
secretly hated. Don’t be alarmed when
you have no clothes left, though do be aware that if you give them scissors on
request, they will use them. When you
find them using said scissors, take a photo, send it to your mother – at least
someone in the family will derive joy from the event.
3. Get a tall friend to check the far, hidden corners
of the built in wardrobe. Don’t look too
closely at what they find.
4. It’s an obvious one, but it has to be said: definitely,
definitely pack your novelty top hat. No
matter what your mother says it will come in handy, I swear. Eventually.
5. When the movers arrive several hours late, in
the middle of the night, and inform you they can’t drive their truck into your
street, and instruct you to hire another smaller truck, move everything
yourself, then store it in an easily accessible storage facility they can pick
it all up from in 3 days time… have Layla on hand. She will scare the BEJEEZUS out of the
movers, make them her Sherpa bitches, and promptly tell them to grab the bed
because “We’ll just carry it all 100 metres up the hill to where you
parked”. Watch the removalist's blinking
terror with satisfaction, and become deliriously pumped to an internalized
soundtrack of ‘Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves’.
6. Co-opt a bearded nephew to share driving duties
down to Melbourne. The beard is useful
as it will help you acclimatise to the SHEER VOLUME of beards that will
surround you once you arrive in Brunswick.
 |
| It turns out this is what a bearded nephew looks like when you make him wear your novelty top hat |
Painefull
Out
* = Steps require
ownership of scissors, a tall friend, a top hat, a Layla and a bearded nephew.
