Moving sucks. There's nothing fun about putting everything you own into boxes, only to have to take them all back out in a matter of days. It's tiresome and exhausting and by the time you're done with it you're almost too worn out to enjoy it. If you're going through a move, just know that you're not alone and we've all experienced that hellish nightmare. Here are 10 reasons why moving is the most miserable experience in life.
1. Exploiting Your Friends
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Odds are, if you're moving you're going to have to ask your friends for help. One downside to doing this is that your friends will resent you forever and hate everything about you. No one likes moving their own stuff, let alone the keepsakes of a random friend. Plus your pals aren't expert movers so inevitably one of them will bang your table against a wall or scratch and there's nothing you can do about it. You paid them in Papa John's pizza so there's not a great replacement plan in that.
2. Hiring Movers
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If you decide against getting your weird cousins to help you move, there's always the option of professional movers. Unfortunately this turns into its own set of horrendous problems. I'm pretty sure they just make up quotes like they're pricing items at the airport. "A banana? $13! Moving a futon? $600!" You can call three different places and the price range will vary by around $50,000. Then when you finally lock down movers their pickup and delivery timeframes make Time Warner look like the most punctual people on the planet. "Yeah we'll be there between 8am on Wednesday and Easter."
3. Finding Boxes
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If you weren't moving, you could walk outside and boxes would just rain down from the heavens like some freakish recycling-themed nightmare. When you actually need them it becomes easier to spot a cardboard comet than it is to find usable boxes. Of course places like U-Haul sell boxes, but nothing makes you feel more dead inside than paying for a box. Did you really go to work for a day to get paid in cardboard boxes? Not even breakdancing street performers would bring themselves to this low point.
4. Finding Boxes That Actually Fit Your Stuff
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When you do finally track boxes down you end up with 600 that are two inches too short to hold any of your stuff. So that turns into you either cramming them into the box and making it look like an idiot child wrapped a Christmas gift, or you just draping a blanket around your surround sound or TV and hoping for the best. I'm sure that quilt will protect your $800 soundbar when your fat-fingered brother inevitably drops it down the stairs during the move.
5. Change of Addresses
Back in the day the biggest issue you'd run into is you'd have to set up all of your utilities at a new address and alert the post office of where to deliver your future mail. Now you have to update your PayPal, credit cards, eBay, Facebook, Skype, Venmo, Groupon, Snapchat, Vine, Maps, Uber, Lyft, Yelp, and any other completely necessary app that requires all of your personal information. It seriously takes a day just to let your phone know where you're now living.
6. Your Pets Are In Hell
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You think the move is difficult on you, but your pets are fairly certain the world is coming to an end. Your dog is going to pee on the floor for at least the next week and your cat is going to be so horrified by his new surroundings that you might not see him until spring. He'll wedge himself into a corner like some sort of hairy doorstop where he'll pray for death at least the next week. Isn't this a fun adventure?
7. You Realize You're a Low Key Hoarder
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Everyone thinks they don't have that much stuff until you start moving. That's when you realize there are boxes of junk in your closets, attic, and basement that you never open, but just move from one place to the next. You don't even remember what's in the boxes anymore, but for some reason you can't get rid of them and never open them. Clearly this is something you truly need in your life considering how much you love and cherish it.
8. Hanging Pictures Is Borderline Torture
If they really wanted to torture prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, they should just make them hang pictures all day that have to be perfectly straight and don't have the easy hanging mechanisms on the back of the frames. Instead, they have those stupid devil-created frames that have a hole on each side and somehow you have to line it up like you're playing Tetris while blindfolded.
9. Your Labeling System Always Fails
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As much as you'd like to think you're going to have all of your items perfectly organized by room to make moving as smooth as possible, it's simply not going to happen. You'll always end up with a few dozen items at the end that don't really go with anything else, so you carelessly toss them all into a few grab bag boxes. Your wireless router gets stuffed into a box of dress shirts. Your blended is in a box with office supplies, and childhood toys, for some reason. It's a complete mess and always turns into you desperately looking for an item that you don't find until you open the final box. By then you've already bought a replacement and you're completely filled with rage.
10. Happy Vacation!
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The options when it comes to moving are either do it on the weekend, which means you'll be completely exhausted Monday morning when you go back to work, or use your vacation days for it. Can you think of anything in the world less relaxing to do on your vacation than pack up everything you own, and then unload it at a new location? It would seriously be more soothing and calm to be chased by a swarm of bees for three days than to spend that time moving. You'll swear you're never moving again and if you do, you'll claim you're just going to sell everything so you don't have to worry about packing. Yeah right.
1. Exploiting Your Friends
Odds are, if you're moving you're going to have to ask your friends for help. One downside to doing this is that your friends will resent you forever and hate everything about you. No one likes moving their own stuff, let alone the keepsakes of a random friend. Plus your pals aren't expert movers so inevitably one of them will bang your table against a wall or scratch and there's nothing you can do about it. You paid them in Papa John's pizza so there's not a great replacement plan in that.
2. Hiring Movers
If you decide against getting your weird cousins to help you move, there's always the option of professional movers. Unfortunately this turns into its own set of horrendous problems. I'm pretty sure they just make up quotes like they're pricing items at the airport. "A banana? $13! Moving a futon? $600!" You can call three different places and the price range will vary by around $50,000. Then when you finally lock down movers their pickup and delivery timeframes make Time Warner look like the most punctual people on the planet. "Yeah we'll be there between 8am on Wednesday and Easter."
3. Finding Boxes
If you weren't moving, you could walk outside and boxes would just rain down from the heavens like some freakish recycling-themed nightmare. When you actually need them it becomes easier to spot a cardboard comet than it is to find usable boxes. Of course places like U-Haul sell boxes, but nothing makes you feel more dead inside than paying for a box. Did you really go to work for a day to get paid in cardboard boxes? Not even breakdancing street performers would bring themselves to this low point.
4. Finding Boxes That Actually Fit Your Stuff
When you do finally track boxes down you end up with 600 that are two inches too short to hold any of your stuff. So that turns into you either cramming them into the box and making it look like an idiot child wrapped a Christmas gift, or you just draping a blanket around your surround sound or TV and hoping for the best. I'm sure that quilt will protect your $800 soundbar when your fat-fingered brother inevitably drops it down the stairs during the move.
5. Change of Addresses
Back in the day the biggest issue you'd run into is you'd have to set up all of your utilities at a new address and alert the post office of where to deliver your future mail. Now you have to update your PayPal, credit cards, eBay, Facebook, Skype, Venmo, Groupon, Snapchat, Vine, Maps, Uber, Lyft, Yelp, and any other completely necessary app that requires all of your personal information. It seriously takes a day just to let your phone know where you're now living.
6. Your Pets Are In Hell
You think the move is difficult on you, but your pets are fairly certain the world is coming to an end. Your dog is going to pee on the floor for at least the next week and your cat is going to be so horrified by his new surroundings that you might not see him until spring. He'll wedge himself into a corner like some sort of hairy doorstop where he'll pray for death at least the next week. Isn't this a fun adventure?
7. You Realize You're a Low Key Hoarder
Everyone thinks they don't have that much stuff until you start moving. That's when you realize there are boxes of junk in your closets, attic, and basement that you never open, but just move from one place to the next. You don't even remember what's in the boxes anymore, but for some reason you can't get rid of them and never open them. Clearly this is something you truly need in your life considering how much you love and cherish it.
8. Hanging Pictures Is Borderline Torture
If they really wanted to torture prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, they should just make them hang pictures all day that have to be perfectly straight and don't have the easy hanging mechanisms on the back of the frames. Instead, they have those stupid devil-created frames that have a hole on each side and somehow you have to line it up like you're playing Tetris while blindfolded.
9. Your Labeling System Always Fails
As much as you'd like to think you're going to have all of your items perfectly organized by room to make moving as smooth as possible, it's simply not going to happen. You'll always end up with a few dozen items at the end that don't really go with anything else, so you carelessly toss them all into a few grab bag boxes. Your wireless router gets stuffed into a box of dress shirts. Your blended is in a box with office supplies, and childhood toys, for some reason. It's a complete mess and always turns into you desperately looking for an item that you don't find until you open the final box. By then you've already bought a replacement and you're completely filled with rage.
10. Happy Vacation!
The options when it comes to moving are either do it on the weekend, which means you'll be completely exhausted Monday morning when you go back to work, or use your vacation days for it. Can you think of anything in the world less relaxing to do on your vacation than pack up everything you own, and then unload it at a new location? It would seriously be more soothing and calm to be chased by a swarm of bees for three days than to spend that time moving. You'll swear you're never moving again and if you do, you'll claim you're just going to sell everything so you don't have to worry about packing. Yeah right.