5:08 a.m. - Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2002
Ms Leslie's 2-Year Moving Day Continues

I moved into this little one-bedroom apartment in January, 2001. It was one of the easiest moves I think I�ve ever made. All I did was park my van and unload my sleeping bag, a few clothes and an ice chest. Nearly a year previous to my move-in, I had left my books, tools and a few other belongings at Ann�s house and gone on some extended road-trips, ending up spending several months living with my sister in San Diego. I was trying to help her get out of her own terrible depression and get her back to work.

The point is, I finally came back to Mississippi and rented this apartment. I slept on the floor for eight weeks before finally breaking down and buying a bed. Shortly therafter, I bought a futon, a small table with two chairs, a fifty-dollar computer desk for this hand-me-down computer, and an exercise bike. Then, a month or so after that, I bought a set of of cookware. I forget the name of the German cook who�s hot on TV cooking shows, but the set came under his name. It cost a hundred bucks at Sam�s club. Shoot! What the heck is his name? You know how you can see someone�s face but not remember their name? And the harder you try, the more confused you get? Well that�s me right now. Here I sit, owning the guy�s frying pans and I can�t even remember his name. HA!!! Wolfgang PUCK!! How did I forget that, what with the tantalizing rhyme for his last name and all? Whew! At least I can go on now.

Having bought the frying pans, moved some of my books and remaining clothing over from Ann�s, and gotten a few other household goods, like sheets and a couple of bags of cleaning rags too big to be washcloths and too small to be towels and therefore perfectly suited for use as both, I settled in for another two years before buying another thing for the apartment. Oh no.. that�s not right. I also bought a 14� TV from Wal-Mart.

That was enough for me. I�ve been pretty much OK for two years. But sometimes I think others have been a bit appalled to find that I live with so few possessions. What they don�t realize is how overwhelmed I feel from owning as much as I do. It�s actually scary for me.

But yesterday was a breakthrough, I guess. It started in November when I finally found the resolve to buy myself a microwave oven. That was a big step for me. Then, yesterday, I got tired of being stupid again. I love that line. I hate Mike Tyson who said it, but I love the concept. Sometimes you just get tired of being stupid. I got tired of stupidly keeping my clothes in cardboard boxes because I couldn�t bear to own a chest of drawers. I got tired of stupidly piling food and other items on the kitchen floor because there was no other place to store them. And I got tired of looking at books piled stupidly on the floor of my tiny living room because my hand-me down little bookcase couldn�t hold them.

So I hiked up my panties and went to Sam�s Club. It may occur to the very astute that I really like Sam�s Club. It�s not a club, of course. Anyone with thirty-five dollars can �join�. It�s just Sam�s totally clever way of getting people to pay him to take their names and addresses so he can send them junk mail. But here�s the deal with Sam�s club: They seem to always find the right balance between price and quality. In my mind, at least, there�s a kind of a magic formula. Quality/Price = Value, or something like that. When I go to Sam�s, I don�t have to think very hard. I always feel I am getting the best value. God help me, I think I trust Sam Walton.

Where was I? Oh.. so I hiked up my panties and went to Sam�s Club, closed my eyes, held my breath, and bought storage: A white four-door floor cabinet for the kitchen, An oak sawdust-glued-together-and-covered-with-oak-veneer-to-look-like-real-wood bookcase, and a similarly constructed five-drawer chest of drawers. I didn�t look at the prices. I didn�t give myself time to think and talk myself out of it as usual. I just got one of those big flat carts and tugged the boxes onto it one by one.

Getting the boxes onto the cart was hard. I�m not weak. I work out and I know how to lift and tote. But honestly, even with the exercise, I�ve lost at least half of my muscles. There was no way I could lift even one of those boxes. It was all I could to put my cart close and then pull a box off the stack and down onto the cart. So at checkout, I asked for someone to help me put the stuff into my van. That�s hard for me too. I�m used to working things out for myself. It feels a little humiliating to be forced to ask for help. It�s going to take some getting used to, I guess. The clerk called two of the nicest young guys to help me. They wouldn�t allow me to push the cart out to the truck. They were astounded to find that I had loaded this stuff by myself, especially when they went to work trying to lift it into my van.

It�s really hard to explain how I felt as I watched them struggle with my purchases. I was a little embarrassed, standing helplessly while they worked. But I was relieved too, and grateful. They made me feel very special and somehow�.. cared for. It�s a very new feeling for me and I can�t seem to get used to it. I think it might be well worth the trade-off of my self-reliance.

When I got home, I had the problem of unloading all this stuff and getting it to my front door. In my own independant fashion, I planned to tug each box out onto the pavement one at a time, cut the boxes open and carry the furniture to my door piece by piece. It all comes in pieces, you know. It was a good plan, even though it was going to take me until midnite to finish. What actually happened, though, was better than anything I could ever have planned. As I was tugging the first big box out of my truck, the UPS man stopped his truck, unloaded my boxes, and then used his handcart to carry each box right to my front door. How special is that? I�ve never, in all my life, known men to be so sweet. This is a new side of them to me and you know�. I could get used to it.

So it�s out with the yellow cardboard boxes as I move my clothes into my new chest. Up with the books, as soon as I assemble the new bookshelves, and my kitchen cabinet is already together and holding the pile of stuff for which it was intended. Life is good.

Now, if only I could shake this feeling of responsibility and dread from being even more attached to something. But maybe that�s fodder for a whole new entry.

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