PICK A BOX

There’s nothing quite so thrilling *insert sarcasm* as unpacking boxes after a big move.

If putting everything into boxes isn’t bad enough, you have to rummage through a cardboard jungle just to find anything!  Iris has been stressing for three days about her damn kettle, which we eventually found in the microwave!  Poor woman can’t go but a few hours without her beloved cuppa – she went for nearly a whole day!

I walked in on Sunday morning with a cuppa for her from the bakery, and I thought she was going to attack me!  Poor darling.

So, all of her goods arrived on Friday, and on Saturday, Charlie went in and did the tiling to her kitchen splash back.  Looked like he cut some of the tiles with his teeth (remember, I have worked for a commercial tiler for 12 years), but overall; he did an awesome job.

Sunday rolls around, and Charlie and I head back there, where he does quite a few little repair jobs around the place, and I spend my time grouting in the tiles, and trying to work out how the fuck the oven works.

So Iris had planned to spend Monday down in Noble Park, joining the ladies from her old CWA branch for Christmas lunch.  I felt that this was a perfect opportunity to relieve some of her stress, and attack her unpacking for her.

Brilliant idea.

Would have been even more brilliant, if the friggin carpet people had finished their job in the lounge!  If they had, I could have unpacked the ten boxes sitting in there that are just from the damn crystal cabinet! 

Anyway, I had a rush of shit to the brain, and decided to bring Jade along with me to help.  God forbid she spend her day off (school holidays) relaxing at home and watching tv, or chilling on one of our garden benches in the sun, reading a book.  Oh no! If I have to suffer, she can too.

Charlie, Jade and I have moved three times since being together; first time into the house at Broadford, second time into a unit in Kilmore, and finally, into Allenbee Fields.  During this time, I don’t think Jade unpacked a single box.  If she did, she can’t remember it, because she had no effin’ idea what she was doing.

So we opened every single box in the place (and there wasn’t really a lot, I must admit) to have a look inside.  We moved the boxes into their correct rooms (they weren’t labelled by the packers – thanks for that), and some into the garage for storage, before we started unpacking.

We learnt a few interesting things along the way, whilst we were working together.

Firstly, we have similar tastes in music, and know what music each other likes, because we took it in turns selecting stuff on my ipod, and spent the day rockin’ out to various shit from Def Leppard to Lily Allen whilst we worked.  Yeah.

Secondly, we will never be able to save the forests.  I’m convinced of it.  Why you ask? Because the amount of paper that the removalists packers require to do their job, is simply phenomenal.  I seriously pulled 10 glass items out of a three foot high box, and the rest was packed full of paper.  PACKED.  Now I understand why they call it packing… they just shove forty-seven reams of butcher paper into a pox to protect everything, and it’s packed as tight as a nun’s clacka.  Jebus…

We literally spent five minutes unpacking the box, unwrapping everything, and putting the items away, and twenty minutes flattening and folding the paper, and putting it back into a box.

I would have been quite happy to start a bonfire in Iris’s ten by two meter courtyard, but apart from council restrictions against it, the removalists will come and pick up all of the old boxes and paper for us, so they can re-use it.  So, here are Jade and I, like a pair of numpties with nothin’ better to do, folding a forest of paper up.

Jade was so sick of folding paper by the end of the day, that she crawled into the corner of the kitchen, curled up into a foetal position, and started saying ‘No more paper…. No more paper…’

‘Tis nothing therapy won’t fix.

Thirdly, I’ve never known anyone with so many freezer bags, garbage bags and pretty paper napkins in my life.  Every second box we opened; ‘Oh look! More napkins!’ and we would laugh.  At least now, when I’m shopping and want to get Iris something nice, I can buy her some fancy friggin’ napkins.

Fourthly: Iris has some beautiful china.  Not the modern ‘everything has to be white’ stuff like most of the population (including me) has, but beautiful, old school floral stuff that’s quite delicate and very, very pretty.

Fifthly: Jade takes everything so literally, that it frightens me.  I don’t know if it’s because she’s just a kid, a dumbarse, or if she has Asperger’s.  Everything gets taken literally.  Like, we’re unwrapping the aforementioned china, and she says ‘Isn’t this all going to be Dad’s some day?’

I’m like ‘WTF are you talking about?’

‘Well, you and Grandma always say that it will be Dad’s, and he’s always telling Iris to take care of his china, and drooling over her crystal cabinet…’

Sure.  This is an ongoing joke between Iris, Charlie and myself.  Charlie is a big girl that loves crystal and china.  I can take or leave it, but he loves it, particularly the old-school stuff.  Iris jokes that she will leave all of her china (along with her titanium hip so he can make a golf club head out of it) to him when she dies.  Jade doesn’t appear to realise that this is a joke.  She does now.

Finally, having a massive garage sale and cull before she moved was the single most brilliant idea I have ever had.  This of course, was born of experience, but it has made the transition for Iris so much easier.  If we hadn’t, she would be overwhelmed by a truck load of crap she didn’t need, which would just stress her out even more.

So, after an exhausting day of unpacking, Jade needing therapy (I think I will bring home a box of the packing paper, just to torment her), myself needing more osteotherapy, because my knees and feet are killing me, and both of us needing medical attention from all of the paper cuts we received, we had an awesome day.

Iris was most shocked and pleased when she came home, and the majority of the boxes were gone.

I’ve got more unpacking scheduled for this weekend, and I hope, after that, that I never see another fucking packing box again.

Peace out.