Metro Pulse/Snarls/Smooth Moves

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Against the odds, a moving experience goes well

by Scott McNutt

Sometimes, as any expert in probability theory could tell you, sh*t happens. For instance, sometimes, when one plans to move one's fiancée out of her downtown apartment, one arrives with the rented moving van only to find the road to one's fiancée's apartment closed. And sometimes, when one thinks one has been extremely clever by using another closed road as an alternative route to one's fiancée's apartment, one discovers that one's moving van will not fit through the south entrance to the alley behind the apartment building, no how, no way.

And the probability experts say, "Toldja so."

At this point, even probability experts would not blame one if one took one's moving van and went home. But one's fiancée would.

So sometimes, one perseveres (and not just because one's fiancée will kick one's hiney if one doesn't). Sometimes one offers up prayers of thanks to the Probability Gods for these Moving Experiences. Because sometimes, as any probability expert could tell you, It Could Have Been Much Worse.

I've had many a moving experience. They were all bad. Take the last one: It involved two solid days and nights of toiling in the rain, innumerable trips up long, long flights of stairs, no assistance from friends, and some items being broken (including one mover's hand). In some of the moves I have made, a plague of flesh-eating beetles bursting from a packed box would not have fazed me. "Now I gotta repack 'em," would have been my only thought. Because sh*t happens.

So in this move, I was gratified to have found only the roads blocked, the alley impassable, the police officer contemptuous. These are mere trifles.

Countering those trifles were the aid of generous, trusty, fast, efficient friends, warm, dry weather, and cold, wet beer. And nobody's appendages, hands, feet, or otherwise, were broken. Against the laws of probability, the move was smooth.

Which makes me nervous. Moves aren't supposed to be smooth. That's why, like losing a job, going to jail, or being forced to watch reruns of Charles in Charge, home relocation is much feared among the general population. As the old saying goes, if people were meant to relocate, there'd be retirement communities on Mars.

So, because moving should be trying, tiring, and difficult, and this latest move wasn't, probability is unbalanced. The universe is in disarray.

And that worries me. Something bad is going to happen.

If only my fiancée's favorite heirloom had toppled out of a third-floor window and landed on my best friend's head, breaking both it and him, I'd be carefree. Maybe, if I drop the heirloom on my best friend's head...

No. That's defeatist. If I go breaking my fiancée's favorite heirlooms on my best friend's head, then the terrorists have already won.

No, maybe sometimes moves go smoothly for reason. Maybe this move betokens a good omen for my upcoming nuptials. Maybe this was the move to end all moves. Maybe, just maybe, the laws of probability will be broken—on some probability theorist's head.

No sh*t.