Moving.... SUCKS

D-Day: Monday, July 31, 2006. That was when Cheeru, Batman and I had to say goodbye to our glorious residence that saw its share of parties and cricket matches also known as 649 Marjorie Mae Street. Batman, Ramu and I first moved into that apartment in 2002 and when Ramu graduated in 2004, Cheeru slid in seamlessly for the next two years. Four years of stay in the same abode resulted in us collecting/buying a boatload of furniture. Luckily, few mates from the cricket team needed some furniture and we were able to unload some of the junk to them.

I realized one concept about moving during this ordeal: Postpone the inevitability for as long as you can. See... You eventually have to move out. If you cut down on the actual "pack and move" time, you'll be able to trash a lot of the stuff you'd otherwise be having second thoughts about trashing, if you had a lot of time on your hands. For example, Batman had bought a good-looking dresser table that even had a mirror couple of years ago. If we had had been moving the furniture over a period of time, say 1 week, we'd positively have taken that monster with us to the new place.

Even after giving away a lot of the furniture to our mates, we left another bunch at the dumpster. Its funny how people in the neighborhood somehow know that somebody is leaving a whole bunch of stuff at the dumpster. As soon as we started throwing away the junk, there were couple of families in their cars and vans taking away the stuff. At one point, cheeru just handed over the table he was carrying to them instead of leaving it at the dumpster. Its like, their antennae are tuned in for the moving!!

The whole ordeal lasted about 12 hours and we had a cricket match the next morning. Weather forcast: High in the 90's and humid. Boy, was it hot or was it HOT? We lost the game inspite of matter's spectacular effort with the bat. Rest of the team batted like chumps. (Totti -- its okay. I think we can still manage. We are not in that dire straits that we need your abilities. Not quite yet!!!).

I saw something during the whole moving thing. There was a family that pulled up by the dumpster in their car. I thought they were going to take some of the furniture and stuff. I was really surprised-more shocked- to see the father and son jump into the dumpster and start going through the garbage and pick stuff out that they could use or whatever it is that they were going to do. Isn't it some kind of federal violation.. you know, invasion of privacy?? I don't know these rules and regulations, but I'm sure there is some law in the book to that effect. Anyway, it reminded me of some homeless people that I have seen in India that would go through the garbage collected on streets looking for things. I guess its all the same anywhere you go in the world, except they pull up in shiny Honda Civic in the U.S.

P.S. My lab mates made an awesome video of one of my buddies making a putt (about 25-30 feet) in our department corridor. Its complete with background music and all. The production values are excellent!! Click this link to see it. PUTT