The Great Diaspora
I think I'm going to go out and sleep in one of the hundreds of big yellow trucks nosed into curbs tonite, trying to look as inconspicuous as elephants hiding behind saplings. I don't have to-I'm just doing it to express solidarity with those who are enduring The Night of Living Homelessly. It happens every year about this time, with a much smaller flourish of casting away around Christmas. The problem is that people like me require leases that start on 8/15, but also require people to be out of their apartments on the 14th. This, of course, is not just stupid cruelty.
It allows a few precious hours where there is more floor space than not and when the new tenants can point out all the excesses of the previous tenants and show that yes, there was TOO a huge hole in the wall before they signed the lease.
After my peaceful slumber next to the giant panda bear my roommate won at the county fair, in the morning, I'm going to order pizza for breakfast and go to the Norris Court grocery for ice cream for lunch. I'm gonna eat like my parents told me never to. I may not brush my teeth at all until the full moon (no, I don't mean the guys partying next door) especially since I think my toothbrush was tossed out with the kitty litter, which is parked right next to the inevitable plaid loveseat. (How come there is furniture called "loveseat," but so many arguments take place there?) Actually, my husband and I are convinced that a loveseat we tossed out three years ago has passed the house twice on the top of cars and ended up on the curb next door this year.
Here is a novel suggestion that would take care of a lot of problems-since apartment furnishings tend to be pretty generic (apart from the occasional elephant-foot umbrella stand) why don't we just simplify everybody's lives and demand that every person simply shift her/his goods to the apartment to the left (not to the right; after all, this is Madison) of his present abode? We could do this in the way that firemen do when forming a bucket brigade-all at the same hour-or the way I have seen people move libraries-a book at a time, hand to hand.
The beauty part of this arrangement is that we could circumvent the vagaries of the Orange Truck Mafia-no more waiting while Neanderthals scratch themselves and hold you in suspense-no more churning differential gears that could yank off your grandma's credenza. Just wait for the new apartment owner to check out the place, put the new stuff exactly where the old stuff sat (I mean, how many variations could there be for the basic bed and dresser?) and enjoy the slightly different view. Boards and bricks for bookshelves will be already in place.
I remember it all fondly-one year I moved four times when roommates kept getting married and/or jailed. (Hey, it was the late sixties-we were prisoners of conscience.) Actually, I remember it with great pain. Okay, a mixture. Save me a place next to the cab of the truck, please.
-Gay Davidson-Zielske