Fit the object to the box.
There are two types of people in the world: neat freaks, and the rest of us. There, I’ve laid it clear. Putting things away is so much harder than taking them out. And my whole packing situation is a result of a visceral discomfort with “out of sight, out of mind”.
Put one item in a box, and the effort may be effortless. Put a dozen mismatched articles into a box provided by someone else, and unless you appreciate Tetris, the job takes on a spirit of its own. Seriously. I’ve been in packing mode for months, I think. The books went first, and they were easy. Fill until the empty spaces lose significance. Close, seal, repeat.
But the easy part (for me) ended weeks ago. I’m now into the strange and marvelous. As an example, there’s that router attached to a little grey-green table, purchased in a hardware store years ago. Left assembled. After all, putting away doesn’t mean getting all neurotic about things. And so, faced with the challenge of letting someone else put my stuff in a truck, I tried to find a box of appropriate dimensions. Wasn’t going well, until I realized that the legs could be unscrewed, and the router removed with a minimum of effort. Suddenly, the large object changed form, into something easily packed away. The job is now done.
Move on, to the handsaws (I’m in the basement, where tools hide). After nicking a finger on a tooth, I decided that some sort of guard was in order. The duct tape was MIA, so I developed an alternative. Plastic tape, one time use. Unless the packers are clumsy beyond belief, they shouldn’t shed any blood on my behalf.
We also packed the “home cinema” away, this time in the original cartons. Much simpler, although the game console was a game.
