Moving is the pits
Between 13h00 and 20h00 on the 29th of June 2010 my family and I were freezing our behinds off at Loftus Versfeld Stadium. We were on Row K, in Block MM on Lower E level and we entered between Gates 8 and 11 to watch the Round of 16 match between Japan and Paraguay. When we were reminiscing about this day, my 16year-old reminded us that he was a six-year-old who I used to refer to as “a midget” back then and that he was on the field with the players as one of the mascots. The only reason I know so many details about this day is that we are moving house this week and, while packing, I came across a souvenir folder with Fifa 2010 World Cup tickets.
Those were good times. I’ll tell you what times are not good, though: moving. Our last move back to Gauteng was all of 15 years ago. It will shock you just how much stuff you amass in 15 years.
I was on “you pack up the garage” duty this past Freedom Day. As luck would have it, my 81-year-old father-in-law, Harry Masenya, rocked up to help me out. And by “help out”, I mean to embarrass me by setting a pace I had not planned on working at. Sweat was dripping off my nether regions by 10.30am. And having help while packing is embarrassing. He kept grabbing stuff, holding it up to me and asking, “Does this go in the ‘to chuck’ or ‘to keep’ pile?” Meanwhile, he’s holding up three different alternators for the 1998 Opel Kadett 140is I last drove in 2013. Or a perfectly operational BMW 3-series 6-CD changer that I once advertised on the Unilever intranet in 2004 and no-one was interested in even then.
Discovering that you have six industrial-strength hydraulic jacks in your garage is also a humbling realisation because when did you ever need to lift a 2t crate onto a ship at Durban Harbour? I’m just grateful that I’m the one who stumbled upon the “Love Box” of leather whips, corsets and masks that the missus and I invested in during an experimental phase.
And what no-one ever warns you about is that, as stressful as packing is on its own, there is Targaryen dragon in the form of the buyers of your house breathing fire on the back of your neck. Especially if, as is the case here, they are buying their first house in the ’burbs. During the March 21 long weekend, the family is lazing about at home, as one does during these days when we’re supposed to be human righting, when one of the kids alerts to me to two people lurking at the gate. It turns out to be the buyers of our home. The hubby’s mother is visiting and we’re so sorry we didn’t make an appointment, but we’d like an opportunity to show her around. Sure, this is an intrusion, but what the heck. And this is when they revealed the other muddy foot of this equation. We ended up with four generations of 14 souls stampeding through our house, opening cupboards, trying out the trampoline, dipping feet in the pool and bouncing on the kids’ beds.
Last week, the transfer of the house was finalised. Within six hours I was buried under an avalanche of messages from the agent, inquiring about when we were vacating the premises. He even sent us a voice note from the buyers threatening to come through and demand occupational rent in person.
I was tempted to buy 10l of sorghum beer, a case of Castle Lager and two bottles of Smirnoff 1818, invite half a dozen of my hosteldwelling cousins and wait for the invasion. And then I remembered an incident that occurred when my father sold his house in Hammarsdale, in 1996. The buyer brought four of his friends, about a week after the sale went through, to our house. I remember this because we were in the middle of an enthralling episode of Jam Alley on a Friday evening. That buyer also stampeded through the house before leaving us with the words, “Remember, this is my house now!”
At least my father had the last laugh because, at the end of that same month, the new owner came through to collect his rent and found us packing our furniture into a truck. He sat down on the verandah and buried his head in his hands at the realisation that he wouldn’t be leaving with any cash.
If you’re moving any time, I would like to paraphrase that struggle child with the twirly tache who used to give out pillows to his guests after his SABC TV talk show: may your gods be with you.
Discovering you have six industrial hydraulic jacks is humbling because when did you need to lift a 2t crate onto a ship at Durban Harbour?