Told You So!

Do you know how infuriating it is to have a spouse who is always right? Not that he lords it over me, but still . . . .

When it first became certain that we were going to relocate, I got all fired up and wanted to start packing up the house right away. Truth be told, I had been eager for this day because for too long I had told myself, "If we ever move, I'll finally get rid of some of this junk we've been hanging on to." There is no WAY I am cluttering up a new house with all this stuff that's been weighing us down for so long!

However, when it came right down to it, I began struggling with what can be packed right now and what needs to wait, what can be packed by me and what I should save for the moving company. I finally decided that one easy way I could make myself useful was by starting to pack the many books we have clogging every room in this house. And boy, I approached my task with a vengeance! I quickly filled six boxes right away and was feeling so proud of myself until Randy, happening through the living room as I was clearing a bookshelf, glanced down into the open box and said, "You're not supposed to pack books that way, you know."

Now I didn't take Packing 101 in college (though I did once give a presentation on "How to Pack a Suitcase" in speech class, and got an A+!) so I was unfamiliar with the dos and dont's of proper book storage. According to Randy, you're never to pack a book by standing it on its side--it could ruin the binding. Has anyone else ever heard that? The thing is, I wasn't trying to be lazy, but it just seemed like I could get more books in a box by standing them all on their sides because if you lay them flat, you have to be more precise about which book is packed where in terms of size, or else you end up with a lot of wasted space. So I told Randy that. "If I lay the books flat, I can't get as many books in the box." "Sure you can," he said. "Watch."

And then, of course, he proceeded to remove every single book from my carefully packed box, whistling all the while, and by the time he was done he had repacked the box with every book I had included, PLUS had room to spare! Why am I not surprised?!