Why didn't I Hire!

 I had been working as a data analyst at a software house in California and had always wanted to shift my apartment to New York, the place of my birth. Almost all of my relatives and friends lived in or around that state. Moreover, I had many connections that were ever willing to lend a helping hand, while in California I had to struggle a lot in order to get even the simplest of all possible tasks completed. Getting a job in or near your hometown, that enables you to live in there, is really a blessing.

I was too excited at the prospect of moving back to my native city and did not pay much attention to details, nor did I plan beforehand as to how I should have carried out the moving.

 All was done in a hurry and the not too difficult task of shifting turned into a complete mess. As a student of computation, I usually try to do things step by step; so I identified the things that were to be packed first of all. The items that are seldom used were packed, and the warm cloths, as spring had blossomed forth, were collected and arranged into suitcases.

 A colleague of mine had called one of his friends who drove a container, and we hoped that it would suffice for the purpose of shifting in a single go. In the beginning it went smooth but things got complicated as we tried to do multiple things simultaneously. I began to realize over time that the job was easily begun than done.

It required over forty cartons to pack only the books.

 Initially I had intended to allot separate boxes for each subject or area, but after the lapse of two hours, I had to recourse to just stuffing the cartons, paying no attention to sorting or arranging the books in an orderly manner.

The same thing happened with the kitchen utensils. I had brought special sacks for the express purpose of binding them all together, with one sack reserved only for one or two types of pots. We had lost the packing of dinner and the tea set, so we had to place tissue papers, and sometimes torn cards, in order to stop them from crushing into each other. 

It took us an hour and a half to pack them all. Since it was already late, we had to reopen some packets to use articles that we had packed till then, thinking we would not be needing them before reaching our destination. We could not get all the household ready to be loaded into the container and, consequently, cancelled the appointment with the driver. That night was spent like the ones during camping escapades. 

Whenever we needed something, we had a hard time locating it; and if it had been made ready for the departure, our embarrassment knew no bounds.

Our problems were not over with the dawn of the morning. Much of what had happened on the previous day, repeated itself. It took us around eight working hours, with occasional inter positions of rest, to get the household ready for the departure. Out went the container on its way and my family accompanied me in my car. We needed some items to assist us on our journey, but most of them had been loaded onto the truck.

So we had to buy several of them, and we cursed our inability to know beforehand as to what might be needed on our way to New York.

When I look back at it all, I cannot help wondering why I did not hire some professional long distance moving or relocation service. It took us around six hours to unload the truck and get the household spread here and there in our new apartment.

 And we were not satisfied with the setting even after the lapse of a fortnight, despite having tried many arrangements. When I estimated the cost, it was far beyond what any home relocation service might have charged us with.