Is moving really the worst?

Friday. 6 a.m. I have the day off for moving, and it feels like a holiday: the sense of expectation, wrapping things. It’s a little like Christmas.

“Why did you use $10 worth of bubble wrap to wrap a 10-year-old toilet plunger?” Emily asks.

“Plungy and I have had some good times,” I say.

6:40 a.m. The very large Russian movers are here. The smallest one, who is still twice my size, introduces himself as Otto. Judging by the clipboard he is carrying, he appears to be the foreman. He shakes my hand with a grip like a vintage double spring groundhog trap.

7:10 a.m. Although the movers are complete strangers, I feel compelled to ingratiate myself. After a half hour, it’s like we’re in it together – long lost brothers. I’m sure this instinct serves some Darwinian purpose. If we were in the wild, I would be the bespectacled sloth eating parasites from the largest one’s underside.

I offer a mover with an especially hang dog expression a glass of water. He sloshes it back, the cigarette in the corner of his mouth still dangling from his lower lip. I smile. Then laugh. It feels like a trick learned from his days in the Russian circus where he performed in a bear costume alongside real bears. He hands me back the bowl, returns to working and all the while, his expression never changes.

8 a.m. “This was under the couch,” says Otto.

He hands me a crossword puzzle torn from the newspaper. By the looks of the date, I started it over two years ago. I’d only gotten about three words in. Another project unfinished. I thank him for it and place it in my back pocket. 8:05 a.m. Otto barks orders at the others who sluggishly obey. They tote boxes, couches and plungers with the same look of stoic indifference.

Otto says something unintelligible to a man who has what appears to be rake marks across the top of his bald head. They begin to argue. “Everything ok?” I ask. “He thinks you move toilet,” says Otto. I laugh, thinking this is some kind of joke. But in in the hallway I ask Emily to Google “the toilet stays in the apartment” in Russian. She tells me to go downstairs and watch our stuff on the curb. 8:35 a.m. There’s nothing to make a man feel more useless than seeing his belongings on a curbside. When the movers come down, I skitter to the side. Skittering comes natural to me. 8: 55 a. m. Bored on the stoop, I pull out the crossword puzzle and get to work. A five-letter word for insignificant. Nothing comes to mind. 9:00 a.m. Emily calls me back upstairs. It’s time to say goodbye to the apartment. It feels silly, but I say it anyway. We leave the keys on the window sill and close the door. We leave it unlocked, just in case.