The Pack Out

The State Department pays for us to relocate to Washington D.C. for Doug’s training. They pay movers to come pack our belongings into two separate shipments. A smaller shipment called unaccompanied baggage (a total of apx. 450 pounds between the two of us) which is sent to our apartment in Falls Church, Virginia and an enormous shipment of everything else (except what Doug and I pack in his car for the road trip).

I am not a very organized person. (Stop laughing, my dear students. At least I can admit it.) So when I found out that we were required to inventory our belongings I was a little overwhelmed. You’ll see the word “overwhelmed” many times in my writings of these days. I decided to begin right away. I started with what I considered easy, books. I listed every book Doug and I owned. Next I listed my clothes since I had to go through them anyway to get rid of pieces. I then moved to smaller groups like kitchen items, games, camping gear, pictures, furniture, etc. Do you want to know how many socks I have? How many frames we own? I can tell you. I was so pleased with myself. I was organized! I should have known that punishment loomed in my future.

I was instructed (more than once) that on the day the movers packed us, Doug and I were required to supervise the packing and keep an inventory of what was placed in each box. Doug and I discussed this one. I was concerned that movers would not appreciate us looking over their shoulder, that they may be offended that we thought they’d steal from us. I wanted the movers to like us so they’d do a good job. He assured me that these movers were informed as to these requirements and that they had done pack outs for other Foreign Service families. Great!

With all that in mind, I gathered items that needed to be packed together and marked them for long term storage, unaccompanied baggage or (a third category) storage ready to be transferred to wherever we were posted. For instance, all my renaissance festival stuff was in a pile, all our exercise equipment, our instruments, etc. This way, I thought, inventory would be easy as would packing and unpacking. On certain shelves of books, I marked long term storage on other shelves I marked store for overseas. Same with my music.

When the movers showed up, I was ready with my little pad of paper and pencil. I reminded the movers that we were required to watch the packing and inventory each box (I was still concerned about offending them). I was then told that no, I did not have to stand over and write down every item. The movers said that they inventoried the boxes. I was skeptical, but Doug assured me that I did not have to. Okay, less work for me. So, as we walked through the house with the supervisor, I pointed out the piles and my labeling system. He said he understood. We did switch labels to colors – yellow for items to be stored for easy access to be shipped overseas and red for long term storage. Easily done.

About halfway through the second day of packing, I saw one of the movers grabbing things from this pile and that pile and putting them in one box. I pointed out that he was mixing piles.

“Oh.” That was his response. “So you want the piles separate?”

“Yes!” I was nervous now. “That’s why they are labeled and separated!”

I started looking through the box he was packing. In it were things from my childhood, renaissance festival garb and an instrument or two. NO!!! I breathed deeply.

“I had these separated into clearly marked piles of items that need to be packed together.” I went over to the instruments and asked him where particular instruments were. He did not know. I looked at his “inventory” of each box he had packed. Each box read “basement, miscellaneous”. That’s an inventory??? All these boxes need to be repacked, I said and I ran to the supervisor. Had he not explained this to his fellow packers? Apparently not.

I get very frustrated – sometimes just plain livid – when I pay attention in life, act responsibly only to somehow, in the end, be punished for it. I learn too often that it does not matter what I do, fate will step in, swing its ugly hand around and what will happen, will happen regardless of my actions. This is one of those attitudes I’m working on in boot camp.

I want to say that I believe that packer was genuinely distraught over the situation. He spent the day looking for those two instruments and informed me when he found them. He had to unpack and repack eight boxes. Later, he came to me and said “Don’t forget, we’re here for you. If there is anything not right, speak up.” I believe he did that of his own accord and was sincere. Good man. It took the movers two full days to pack us out.

When Doug first found the house we lived in, we were just dating. I remember him telling me about it and taking me to see it. It was locked so all we could do was walk around it, stand on the porch and peer in the front window. To this day, I can still see what I saw in the house that day. That’s funny because I was just dating him and really didn’t think much of the house. If I were to buy a house, I’d want more than a few feet between it and the next house. Anyway, I do remember that day vividly. So after the movers were long gone and we had relaxed on the front stoop eating leftover pizza, we got up, held hands and walked to the front window and peered in one last time.