however, after packing the first box, i found the latter was not true at all. my mission today was to pack the cds and vinyls. easy, right? apparently not as easy as i thought.
the moment i started putting the first vinyls into the box, i realized it's quite a big box, to the point where i'd certainly have to think about weight before i ran out of space. that was the first complication. what seemed like an easy "put some things in a box" now became mental math and shape rotation to find the optimal balance of space and weight distribution, while still maintaining thematically appropriate contents.
i had started this task while my fiancé was out, and i resisted the temptation to just call him and ask what he'd do—i knew he'd have a plan sooner than i would. but there are already so many moving tasks that he's in charge of due to my inability to do it (like calling our german landlord about things and calling swedish moving companies about other things), i've been trying to take as many other tasks off his plate as i can. so i decided to persevere on my own.
i hesitantly filled a box and didn't realize until afterwards that maybe i should have taped in together on the bottom. moving out of my apartment in the u.s. flashed in my mind—i had packed a couple boxes without taping them together, and they of course bottomed out. but these boxes seemed a bit more secure...i decided i'd tape them anyway, just to be safe.
what followed was the worst tape job you could imagine. i realized i didn't really know what the tape was specifically supposed to accomplish, so i just placed it along the bottom seam, and a bit up the sides. it was clear packing tape, and i tried to rip it with my hands, which accomplished little more than tangling the tape up in on itself and rendering it surely more useless than it had already been placed. i tried to bite it, which worked to finally tear the tape, but tangled it just as much, if not more.
by this time, my fiancé was home, and i gave up doing it on my own, to at least ask him how he would go about taping the box. this was the correct choice: as expected, he had a strategy immediately. he also mentioned how the vinyls i had already placed should typically be placed upright rather than laying down, which to my credit i did at least wonder about.
after re-taping the box more securely, i managed to pack in all the vinyls and cds into that one single box, thinking there was simply no way it would be light enough to carry. but after breaking out the bathroom scale, my fiancé declared it was actually 10 kilos below what it was rated for on the outside of the box.
so, our first moving box is officially both packed and not overweight. now that i've done one decently well, with the help i ended up asking for, i feel empowered to pack more on my own. and honestly, i don't think i was doing as badly as i thought anyway, i just didn't immediately have confidence and efficiency, but both are simply a product of doing something enough times. i'm glad i asked the questions i did, because even though i want to take things off my fiancé's plate, it doesn't really help as much when it's done poorly, so better to make sure it's up to snuff before i really go to town.
oh, and for the record, the box that felt so big to me that i'd surely have to consider the weight of the items i put in it? apparently it's one of the smallest moving box options available...
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