We watched the closing ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games on a tiny, portable TV about the size of a postcard. We are currently in the process of moving, so our regular television has already been packaged in bubble wrap.
Thus it was, my wife and I sat in an empty living room, on a pile of cardboard boxes, eating reheated chicken pot pies, squinting at a tiny screen.
There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the Olympics. The Beijing Games have been termed the weirdest, most contentious, most disappointing sporting event of the modern era, with the lowest TV viewership to boot.
Fifteen-year-old Kamila Valieva was suspended for alleged drug usage, Mikaela Shiffrin left without a medal, American athlete Vincent Zhou was quarantined. And there was an empty medal stand where team figure skaters were supposed to be standing until a doping scandal got in the way.
Although frankly, I haven’t had time for the Olympics this year, inasmuch as our entire lives are contained in U-Haul boxes right now.
We are
moving to Birmingham next week, and we have approximately 3,201 carboard crates in our house. Even our silverware and toiletries are contained in unmarked parcel. This morning, for example, I was was in the restroom when I realized we were out of toilet paper.
“We’re out of toilet paper!” I shouted.
“I already packed it!” my wife said.
Then she slid a Scotch-Brite dish sponge beneath the restroom door.
Most of the boxes in our house are marked with my name because stuffwise, I definitely have more junk than my wife.
There are boxes labeled: SEAN’S MISCELLANEOUS, SEAN’S STUFF, SEAN’S CRAPOLA, SEAN’S BAGPIPES, SEAN’S ROTISSERIE, etc. There is even a refrigerator carton in our kitchen merely labeled SEAN. This is the cardboard box my wife will bury me in.
“I married a packrat!” my wife has shouted many times throughout the packing process.
She’s…