Moving: Need a Man

Yesterday, at 6am, I drove to the local Uhaul lot, left my car, and drove off with a pickup truck pulling a UBox—Uhaul’s response to the POD. It was a lot of fun barreling down the avenue in a monstrous Tundra, the trailer swinging along behind me. The fun ended about 15 minutes after I started trying to back the trailer into a parking spot.

Don’t you dare laugh. The entire parking lot was barely wider than the ensemble that I was driving. I don’t think any male could have done better.

I eventually gave up, and decided to unhook the trailer and drag it into the parking spot instead. The guy in the UHaul lot had dragged the trailer. He made it look easy.

GRUNT.

Not happening.

But why was I insisting on doing this the hard way? Let’s face it: the easiest way to change a flat is with a tube of lipstick and a touch of mascara. I flagged down a passing knight and asked him to rescue me. He obliged, with some far more effective grunts. Okay, in this case a male definitely did better.

After that it was pretty straightforward for a while, thanks to my (friend’s) trusty Magna Cart—yes, it’s really called that, isn’t it awesome? I love using the name.

Stacking boxes inside a shipping container is a lot of playing Tetris in 3D, but with a few extra variables like weight and shifting potential. I don’t know why nobody’s made an iPad game of it yet.

I felt perfectly adequate for a humming hour or so…until I needed my car to get to work. The truck was cute and fun to drive, but the UHaul advert splashed on the side took away some of the style. Also, I was paying by the mile.  So I unhooked the truck and took it back to the UHaul lot to get my car, and after work, reversed the process. Then, when I realized that I’d left the mattress cover in the car, I went and did it all over again. I thought wistfully of how nice it would have been to get dropped off at the lot at the very start and eliminate all of this shuttling.

I went back to playing 3D Tetris for a while, but was soon struck with another difficulty: the couch. Even my trusty Magna Cart (yes, I will seize every opportunity to say “Magna Cart”) couldn’t handle the couch. I needed help. Luckily, I had cultivated a few friends during my time here in Downtown OOT—always a good strategy if you ever anticipate moving a couch one day.

Friends are also handy for when you need to hitch a truck up to a full trailer. This is a very precise maneuver that requires a second person standing behind your truck making inexplicable hand gestures and calling out things like “Stop—no, a little more—stop!—a drop more fenceward—no, a bigger drop—ooh, you missed.” And so on.

It was around 1am, when I was eating melted cheese and surveying all the boxes that somehow still needed loading—where did it all come from?!—that I took out my Rugged Individualist membership card and threw it over the fence.

“You know, I could really use your help right now!” I shouted at my future spouse, who happened to not be present at the time. Convenient of him, isn’t it? Hiding out until all the work is done.

This experience has convinced me that a unit of two is much more effective at tackling life than an individual, even  when the individual is supported by friends. For sheer efficiency  and ease of everything, everyone should get married.

I’m accepting applications for people interested in beginning before that UBox arrives at my new address in suburban OOT.

Thanks, Erlenmeyer Exploder for the geography of OOT.

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Still Single? At Least You Have Facebook

HT to Relarela for this one.

Studies show that heavy Facebook use gives you about half the support you’d get from being married. That was stated to prove how supportive FB can be.

“Facebook users get more overall social support, and in particular they report more emotional support and companionship than other people,” wrote Hampton in a blog post. “And, it is not a trivial amount of support. Compared to other things that matter for support — like being married or living with a partner — it really matters. Frequent Facebook use is equivalent to about half the boost in support you get from being married.”

To me it’s rather ominous. I don’t use Facebook. Does that make me the 21st-century equivalent of the hermit monk in the woods?

Then again, perhaps it’s news of hope. Just think: the modern single can hack their way to happiness with a few simple steps. Get a dog for oxytocin, Facebook for support, plus a few trusted friends just in case. Bingo! You’re operating at over 85% the emotional support of marriage with none of the stress. Sounds great, right?

Right.

No, really.

First Quote of the Week

Found this in the drafts folder.

Received this from DatGal following the post on “My husband doesn’t let.”

Once upon a time there was DatGal and NEF. DatGal borrowed a pair of dangly earrings from NEF and said she wouldn’t bother returning them, as NEF’s DH (dear husband) wouldn’t allow her to wear such things.

Yes, of course she was poking fun.  Isn’t that what engaged people are for? (Rhetorical question. If you don’t know the answer, you must be engaged.)

Realizing she was being mocked (engaged people are not as thick as we would like to think), NEF tried to explained.

“It’s not that he doesn’t let, it’s that when you care about someone so much you just wanna do what makes them happy.”

This was said in that super-smarmy tone that means “Obviously, since your not engaged/married you have no idea what I mean, but I’ll try to explain it anyway.”

If you’ve had the good fortune to never hear that tone, it’s very similar to the one used to say  “Im yirtza Hashem by you” with the little head tilt and comforting smile. It’s a condescending tone. And it’s annoying because it insinuates that single people haven’t got a clue about what it means to like someone or want to make them happy or whatever just because we haven’t found a non-related member of the opposite gender to spend the rest of our life with.

Maybe we don’t know as much about that as married folks might, but – my dear NEFs – neither do you. You’re not married yet. The fact that we’re not engaged does not make us insensitive, selfish cretins, however we might pretend while we’re picking on you. Just FYI.