There Was Movement At The Station... Geographical Movement

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.