Step 1: Pick up supplies. Head to the local hardware store a couple of weeks ahead of your move to pick up some basic packing supplies: boxes, tape, bubble wrap, etc. Make sure you don’t get enough so you have to take multiple trips back to the store. Oh look, there’s a sale on plants. That philodendron will look great on the new credenza you just ordered.
Step 2: Don’t panic. If you’re following this guide, you’ve got plenty of time. Tape up a couple of boxes and start packing at a leisurely pace. If you pack by room, it’ll make for an effortless unpacking process.
Step 3: Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit. Your move is tomorrow and all you’ve done is tape up a couple of boxes. And you bought a plant at the hardware store? Idiot! You were only supposed to get basic packing supplies. Now you have to move the plant too. You just made more work for yourself. Why do you have so much shit? In what world do you need this many wigs? And go back to the hardware store, you’re out of bubble wrap.
Step 4: Decide what to keep and what to toss. Signed publicity shot of Billy Crystal in City Slickers? Keep. Handful of your grandfather’s ashes you were supposed to scatter in the Pacific Ocean? Toss. The only place grandpa loved more than the beach was the alleyway behind your apartment building. Novelty light-up glass from Medieval Times? Keep, obviously. Baggie of mystery screws? If you haven’t needed them by now, they clearly aren’t that important. Toss. Medication your doctor prescribed you to help make you more decisive? Keep. No, toss. Actually, keep. Repeat this process until everything you own has either been kept or tossed.
Step 5: Remember to rest. Moving can take a physical toll. Don’t forget that resting when you need to can actually enable you to get more done than if you try to work through the exhaustion. There you go, take a seat down in that chair. Oh my God! The chair collapsed because it didn’t have any screws in it? Uh, that’s a lot of blood, and I’m pretty sure that bone is supposed to have skin covering it.
Step 6: Go to the emergency room. Apparently you’ve severed something called your “femoral artery.” There’s no way you can drive with your leg at that angle, so you’re going to have to call an ambulance. What? No, I can’t drive you, I’m a How-To guide, not a person. Stay with me. Don’t let that philodendron grow up without a father.
Step 7: Undergo major reconstructive surgery. Good news! Someone with your blood type was crushed to death by a hydraulic press an hour before you came in. The bad news is: it was your dad. They were able to swap his femoral artery in for the one that you absolutely shredded on the chair you forgot to put screws in. Speaking of screws, you now have fourteen of them holding your leg together. You’ll be able to walk again eventually, but don’t go outside if you hear thunder. You’ll also have to register your leg with the FCC for a radio transmission license.
Step 8: Pay your hospital bill. This is America, where freak accidents can cripple you physically as well as financially. Good effort with getting yourself insured, but the particular ambulance that picked you up was out-of-network, so that’s going to run you $3,000. Luckily, the hospital they took you to is in-network, but the X-ray technician and assistant anesthesiologist were out-of-network, so those will cost you $2,000 and $5,000, respectively. You don’t have that kind of cash? No problem, you can make the check out to “St. Anthony’s Hospital.”
Step 9: Declare bankruptcy. You’re a thirty-three-year-old who still rents an apartment, so obviously you don’t have any savings. There’s just no way for you to cover your $10,000 of medical debt plus the cost of your father’s funeral. It wasn’t cheap to re-inflate his corpse for the open casket. That’s why God invented Chapter 7 bankruptcy. I know what you’re thinking now, but don’t worry, after you liquidate all your assets, you’ll still have to pay off your student loans. Now, take a deep breath and put a smile on that face, the movers come tomorrow between 8:00am and 8:00pm.
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