Completely and utterly astonishing…when the military says your household goods will arrive in 60 – 90 days, and they actually show up in 62! I was expecting to be sleeping on an air-mattress until Thanksgiving.

You know what else will take your breath away…when the 18-wheeler shows up and you think to yourself, “There is no way ALL that crap could really be mine!”

Hmmm…I guess it is mine.

I’d like to take a minute here to dispel a few myths. Most non-military members think that moving is “soooo easy” because the packers show up one day and put everything into boxes and then the movers show up the next day and haul it all away. Wrong.

Moving with the military takes days…weeks…maybe even a month…of “pre-packing”. See, when you move your own possessions, you are the one who wraps everything with an extra layer of bubble wrap, you make sure the salt and pepper are in zip-lock bags before going in a box, and you are the only person who touches your underwear. The average military member must also, prior to every move, sort every single item they own into one of the following categories: suitcase, unaccompanied baggage, DITY move, regular shipment, or storage.

Hence the need for “pre-packing”. If you don’t want to open a box of towels and find pepper all over them, you need to pre-pack. If you don’t want every four-legged piece of furniture you own to turn into a three-legged piece, you need to pre-pack (and pre-disassemble!). If you don’t want to open the garbage can and find your bed sheets, you need to pre-pack.

Yes, those are my bed sheets. With the garbage can and fly swatter…of course!

I think Joe and I did a pretty great job of pre-packing this time around. Classifying ourselves as highly organized to obsessively organized on the Likert scale gives us a genetic predisposition for excellent pre-packing skills. That being said, I did learn an important lesson during this move: no matter how many hours you dedicate to pre-packing, no matter how many times you bag and re-bag, and tape and re-tape certain articles of clothing…your unmentionables will still end up on the street. I’m talking directly on the pavement.

There is no metaphor here, dear readers. I am speaking in black and white, completely literally, no smoke and mirrors. I couldn’t even make it to the scene of the accident quickly enough to pick them up myself. Walter, the mover with only half a mouth of teeth, fumbled over them like Leon Lett trying to sneak a peek at the Jumbotron, while I watched helpless from the stands.

That’s Walter in the back.

Sorry…no picture of Victoria’s (not so) secret.

Our car, on the other hand, has not been heard from. Bangkok has her now. Or the Mariana Trench.