the idea: when packing three people’s stuff for a week into a car, make it into a game of tetris

Throughout my life I have spent a lot of time packing, having divorced parents with split custody does that.  After a while, I got pretty good at it.  I can pack quickly and tightly, showing up with just a backpack and myself if that’s what for the occasion calls for.

There was packing for the weekly move between my childhood homes, for summer camp, and eventually for college.  It was when my sister, my mother and I and all of the stuff for my dorm room and my sister’s dorm room had to fit into a little Toyota matrix that my packing skills were really put to the test.  It was during those years that I became the family car packer.  It probably has something to do with my spatial awareness (an artistic trait perhaps?) but this always came quite easily to me.  I could always find a way to get everything in, and leave a space to see through the back window.

Today as my mother, sister, and I packed up a rental car to drive from Connecticut to Michigan, I once again fell into the role.  Now that I’ve gone through four years of college and moving all my stuff up to Boston, my packing skills have only grown.  As I was sliding each suitcase into exactly the right place, it felt exactly like a giant game of tetris, which somehow managed to make packing all my family’s shit into a car in humid, hot weather almost enjoyable.

It’s the little things, man.  The little things.