Hunley: The perils of moving

L et's hope my new home just outside Occoquan is all that it can be.

Because I'm not sure I can make it through another move.

Well, besides the move of all my earthly possessions from two 10-by-10 storage units in Lake Ridge to my condo.

See, I sold my house in Fredericksburg on June 8, but settling on the new place won't happen for a few days.

So everything I own is now in my car or in those glorified garages as I bunk with the family that unofficially adopted me when I became friends with their lastborn child in college.

It's a strange existence wondering if you can assemble credible business attire from what's hanging in the back of your automobile, or if continuing to hold down a job for another day will require a trip that means entering a code into a security gate and figuring out what keys fit the padlocks securing your material life.

No wonder it's said that moving is one of life's most stressful experiences.

My stress has been mostly mental, as professional movers did most of the literal heavy-lifting.

They easily hoisted my cumbersome items onto a tractor-trailer, barely blinked when the smoke alarm went off in my old home—that's a story for another day—and then fit boxes, beds and bureaus together in the storage unit as if they were playing a real-life version of the computer game Tetris.

Meanwhile, I considered how this would be a much more lucrative way to exercise than paying for a gym membership.

Indeed, think of the shape I could be in if I moved people every weekend.

On the other hand, given my predilection for steak and sweets, the job also could give me a heart attack.

It really could go either way.

So I stood there and tried to entertain the real men in this scenario by cracking jokes. That way, I figured I wouldn't be completely useless.

Otherwise, there you are, doing nothing while your fellow human beings carry all the things you didn't have sense enough to give away or throw out.

It seems like you should help, but then it doesn't—not only because you're paying to get out of the helping, but because if you knew how to move, you never would have called anyone else.

Yes, it hurt writing that check to the moving company, but it hurt a lot less than my back would have had I done everything myself.

I don't own a pickup, but if I ever do, I'm getting one of those bumper stickers that says, "Yes, this is my truck. No, I won't help you move."

Jonathan Hunley is a staff writer at the News & Messenger. Contact him at 703-369-5738 or at

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