Moving A Packrat From The College Dorm

 "This is worse than my anxiety ridden dream," my Mom gasped as she took in all the stuff gathered haphazardly in Natalie's dorm room.

At lunch, prior to this, Mom had said she had frequent dreams where she had too much stuff to move out of her dorm back when she was in college.

And suddenly, her nightmare was smacking her in the face in the form of her granddaughter's belongings. 

There seemed to be bags of things everywhere. Natalie had packed, kind of, and was shoving things randomly into containers.  

We walked in the room and I suddenly was fully of aware of what those therapists in the Hoarders show must've felt like. Claustrophobic, for starters. And then the alarming urge to shout, "What the fu*k?" 

But what else can you do but start grabbing stuff and getting it OUT? Especially when there is a deadline to be all the way GONE or else fees will be administered. 

But truly, where did everything come from? 

Oh and Natalie's face is like that because she had a stage makeup final in the morning. (She got an A.) But she didn't feel like taking it all off. So we moved her out like that and I think people in the building understand her antics at this point (she once walked around in a full face of Pennywise makeup) so no one even blinked an eye. (Though some parents did. I heard one mutter, "What kinda dorm is this?")

Anyhow, I knew where all the stuff had come from. Natalie would come home frequently and be like, "I forgot this," and she'd leave with a bag full of things. And this happened at least 5 times, and, well, those things remained in her dorm so when it came time to move out? Yeah. Hoarders Village. 

PLUS she gets attached to inanimate objects, so she had like half her stuffies with her, because if she left Snoopy at home, his feelings would get hurt, and of COURSE Foofa had to join, because Foofa had been around since she was tiny. 

It took several trips to get everything out. Thank goodness for this cart and a wagon we had brought. And thank goodness the elevator was working. The day before it BROKE and I had nightmares of us lugging the bins down the stairs. Natalie is one the top floor, naturally. 

And on that top floor, she had this Pennywise looking out the window, and as we passed other families, one kid was like, "That was YOUR dorm? Cool!" because I guess Pennywise had lots of fans. 

In the end we got it done. With 15 minutes to spare. Natalie promised that next year she wouldn't have this much stuff. 

(I'm not sure I believe her.)

But it's finished. And she's home for the summer. She already has her new dorm room for Fall Semester. She's with the same roommate she had before because they got along so well. It's always a wonderful thing when that happens. 

She's going to miss her school. Not finals or studying though. But she loves the area, the people, the professors..

And I still have one kid in college, and he moves out Tuesday, but thankfully (THANKFULLY) he does not have nearly as many things.