Up Until the Very Last Moment

On the last day, we watched sweaty, with all of our doors open, sedating and holding our wide awake animals, as the movers loaded our stuff into one van, and then underestimating my ability to make absolute efficient use of every square inch of our 1000 square foot home, packed to the brim with table linens, tableware, serveware, drinkware, and just the most specific one-time use vintage items for parties, a second truck.

And when they were gone, we stared as wide-eyed as our still fully awake, yet quadruply sedated animals, at the pile of stuff that remained. More than 12, but less than 20, perfectly stacked plastic bins, the majority of which either held skincare that I was probably going to use someday or pet stuff. I got the cats a mini condo for staring out the hotel window and a bottle of Feliaway to keep them from pissing all over the hotel room.

I looked at Mike and asked, “are you ready?” And he nodded knowingly, but he did not know because we definitely had a follow up conversation about what we should do first. We agreed that it was to sedate The Boys again and then let them out of the bathroom to see if they would pass out while we loaded up our cars. We did and they did not.

“Impervious to sedation just like their mother, The Boys wandered surprisingly soberly through the house up until the very last moment.”

Impervious to sedation just like their mother, The Boys wandered surprisingly soberly through the house up until the very last moment. In demeanor, we captured them casually one by one, but in our minds we were both thinking, “OMFG HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?”

Then sweating, we took our first and only picture together in front of our new old home and we drove in our respective cars with our respective Boys to our new temporary home: a hotel across from an Arby’s in Ohio.