i can't move my arms.

i can’t move my arms.
i moved yesterday. and now i fully understand why people used to stay in one house for their entire lives. it’s also probably why a lot of people stay together even though the relationship is plainly over, because a little tension is preferable to taking all of your worldly possessions out the door and somewhere else. in fact, i’d say a LOT of tension is preferable.
the moving van one has to drive is scary as well. it’s heinously noisy, and not really what you’d call a smooth ride, although one does get the feeling that, as the biggest thing on the road, everyone else is going to have to get out of your way. this may be an erroneous feeling, but, since my day with the truck is over and i didn’t hit a thing, i’m going to keep feeling it.

packing is brutal as well. i repeatedly hit these walls while packing where i think, ‘that’s it. i’m finished. i can’t do one more thing. i’ll just have to go like this, with only a fraction of my stuff.’ i would do that every year going back to college. when i went to school in dublin, flying over, british airways made me unpack my trunk in line, because it was too heavy. i dunno, i’m a pretty small girl and i’d managed to heft it around so far. they were nice enough to give me a free duffel bag, though.
by far the worst part of yesterday, and this includes driving the 12-foot truck on the bqe in a violent rainstorm, was ikea. i developed a theory yesterday while there. we had to wait in line for forty-five minutes, it was as good a time as any. ikea is like childbirth. soon after the event, the actual memory of it fades. if you could remember the whole thing clearly, there is no way you’d do it again.
they didn’t have the mattress i needed. or any mattresses the correct size, for that matter, that weren’t laughably out of my price range. i asked an employee if i could order an out-of-stock item for delivery when it came in. he smiled and said no, but i could always come back tomorrow and check. i then said a very bad word not-so-under my breath. delivery charges for purchases made on the internet carry a fee of at least 110 dollars. my only choice, apparently, is to come back, either with a rented conveyance or with 50 bucks or so for home delivery. BUT I’D HAVE TO GO BACK.

there was a lady in the line next to ours, a line that was actually moving, that had bought hot dogs for her family. she’d bought an extra and was asking to see if anyone on-line wanted it. apparently, i need to hone my skills of looking as hungry as i feel. She forced it on a little girl who very plainly stated that she did not want it.
i encountered one poor lady in bed linens who just couldn’t work out what was going on, and why didn’t the sheets say whether they were for deep pocket mattresses? she said she felt like her brain was going. i told her that that was completely normal for ikea.

it always seems like such a good idea before you go. even driving up, you feel this surge of affection for sweden that it usually only felt by actual swedes. and at the beginning, with naught but your empty yellow bag slung jauntily over your shoulder, it seems totally doable. you just need a few things, right? some sheets, curtains. and you can get a cart at the end in the warehouse. but then you realize how heavy 2 sets of sheets and 4 sets of curtains can get. and a duvet cover. and oops! you picked up a queen size that was in the full size rack so you have to trot back over there. and you have to carry it all back upstairs to the extremely unpleasant children’s department, where you need fourteen sets of heavy metal wall fixtures. and someone keeps intermittently yelling “olivia!” and would it really be all that hard for an engineer somewhere to come up with a cart that doesn’t list severely to one side? it’s hard to go straight when you’re constantly aiming to the right.
i would have felt sorry for the huge number of pregnant ladies who were walking around, but then, it seems to me that they had the perfect excuse to stay at home.