A State of Chaos

28 August 2005
The only way to describe the state of the living room when Audrey, Ted, Julie, and I returned to it after one final trip down to the truck is: chaos. Absolute, utter, chaos. Stacks of boxes littered the floor, bags were thrown all over the couch, and bits and pieces filled in any potentially empty space. The evening had started out pleasantly enough, but ended with me close to tears when I realized just how much crap I had to sort through and put away (or get rid of). Julie took Audrey and me on the back of her scooter to pick up Audrey’s brother’s truck; we were praying the whole way that we wouldn’t get stopped by the police. After getting the truck, we headed to Audrey’s dad’s apartment, where my stuff had been stored over the summer, swinging by Ted’s place to pick him up on the way. We were shocked to see the piles of my stuff and remember how much of it there was. There was, for a while, some debate as to whether or not everything would fit in the back of the truck. Luckily we had Ted, who is simply amazing and miraculously enough stuffed everything in the truck. It was a bit of a balancing-act, with a few of the boxes perched precariously on the back, but it was all in. Audrey drove very slowly back to the Riviera, taking each turn with painful caution. Julie and I followed. Once back at the Riv we unloaded the truck, recruiting the help of a few passers-by, and took everything upstairs. Ted grabbed the last box, made the final trek up the stairs, and dropped the box on the floor. I stood and took a good look at the state the living room was now in. “Holy shit,” was the only thing I could say. After a minute or two I remembered that I actually do have a larger vocabulary than that, and I turned to Audrey and simply said “Hug.” “Don’t be overwhelmed,” she told me, “you have until the end of the week.”