...Buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed Bath & Beyond. I don't know, I don't know if we'll have enough time.

Moving sucks. Period. No one gets up on a Saturday morning and thinks to themselves "Y'know what I want to do today -- I want to take all the stuff in my house outside and then move it all back in" (the same way no one gets up on a Saturday morning and wants to clean their apartment -- if there are people who do get up feeling like doing this, please call me). But moving in a city sucks more (moving in suburbia = not having to worry about someone stealing stuff out of the back of your truck, getting a parking spot in front of the building, permission to use freight elevators, staircases that are too narrow to fit furniture, other people walking in the stairwells/using elevator while you're trying to move, and/or doors locking on you every time you enter/exit). And moving in New York sucks the most.

What sucks the most about moving in New York is Ikea. "Wait a minute," you're thinking, "Wouldn't boxed furniture be the EASIEST thing for moving in New York?" Yes, it would be. If Ikea actually had the products you wanted on the shelf. Or if at 8pm on a Saturday night the place wasn't packed like they were offering free Swedish meatballs or massages or meatball massages...whatever. Or if the catalogue had a good index. Or if they actually had affordable and comfortable chairs. Or if all 80% of all the people who worked there didn't seem to secretly wish the black plague on you (Sandra in bedding -- thank you for your patience. You were really nice).

To be fair, the death trap that is Ikea in Red Hook isn't Ikea's fault, per se -- I love cheap furniture, even if it takes 37.2 hours to put together. They are providing wanted and needed products (and, to be fair, it's not like all other furniture providers in New York are bursts of sunshine -- the guy on the phone at Sleepy's deserves to be suffocated by a Tempurpedic mattress). But in the "self-service" atmosphere that is Ikea and the population of New York -- coming in on free bus and boat shuttle -- is just too much to handle when trying to pick out whether you want a Malm, Aneboda or Dalsev bed frame (can anyone pronounce these words?). It was so stressful that we forgot my spiffy bathmats and kitchen towels at check out. Alas, sacrificed to the moving gods, along with a comfy Ethan Allen chair, a queen box spring, the hallway walls of my apartment building and my dad's nose.


This post is dedicated to the brave men of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Bethesda that risked their muscles and sanity for free pizza and beer.