The move is halfway done, and I learned a number of important things.

1. Call to verify that your truck will be there. Then call again. I reserved a truck for Thursday at 2 pm. Confirmed it on Monday. Called at 1 pm Thursday to say that I was on my way over…and my reservation had been canceled. Wow. No explanation. My sweetly scathing tone inspired a down-home three-ring binder Budget representative to scramble around and find me a truck. Had the truck at 2:15. Crisis averted.
   Why would they cancel my reservation? Optimization. I hate computers. When a Budget center temporarily closed, they canceled my original reservation and gave me a reservation in Arlington. The original center closed, and the folks in Arlington assumed the original center would take my truck. No harm, no foul.
2. Inspect the truck. Two major points here: my truck has a cartoon on the side which gives me a helpful moving tip. Never use packing tape for a painful practical joke. Thank you. And while checking for damage on the truck (which is thankfully very damaged, reducing my liability) I could read great graffiti under the paint. Someone sucks cock. I don’t know who, but they do. The truck says so.
3. Check the weather. Wednesday’s rains were biblical. Thursday felt like London. I was so overheated that I didn’t even care. I’d better get some Vitamin C.
4. Economize. Condomize. My passionately-in-loveseat (so small that you snuggle with anyone who sits next to you) is too large to fit down the stairs. Rather than buy stretch wrap for $50 at Staples, my mother took el-cheapo kitchen plastic wrap and turned the couch into a giant shrink-wrapped candybar. It practically slid down the stairs. Emboldened by her success, she proceeded to use plastic wrap to fasten table legs to each other, to keep drawers from opening, and to ensure that every piece of furniture will arrive at my girlfriend’s parents’ house looking like a giant condom.
5. Know the rules, but decide how you feel about them. Somerville is happy to give out No Parking signs for your move, but my neighbors didn’t heed them. When I stormed out of my office at 2 pm, unsure whether I would have a moving truck, I wanted to tow their cars. Truck in hand, I mellowed. The good parking space helped, too. My mother, however, did not mellow. She wrote Please move your car or you will be towed on a newspaper and put it on the car windshield. Sometimes I forget which of us is the good cop and which is the bad cop.
6. Your truck is not a lamp. The team kicked ass. Filling the truck took an hour. Properly loading it and balancing it, so my crap wouldn’t slide around during the 200 mile drive took another hour. Two hours. Rental truck. Lights on. Do the math. When we got ready to drive away, I turned the key and (click) (click) (click). Adam saved the day with jumper cables. My goodness.
7. Choose your roommates well. At the end of a long evening of moving, there’s nothing like sharing a hotel room with your mother. I speak with my family a few hours every week, but my mom wanted to describe in detail the difference between the hospitality at our hotel and every other hotel she stayed at this year. Good night!

In short, if you’ve got to move, hire people. Failing that, surround yourself with people who will do anything to help you. Like carrying giant condoms in the rain across the street, past a car with a sopping threatening newspaper on its windshield.