Things I Have Learned

I'm still unpacking, and will be for the foreseeable future. I surely don't have time to blog it all, but I can share a few of the lessons I've learned over the past couple weeks.

- Verizon Online (which, I have learned, is not the same as Verizon) has astonishingly crappy tech support. I mean, astonishingly crappy. And I'm someone who came from Charter, so I know what crappy tech support looks like. This reaches exceptional levels of crappiness.

- Oh, and if there's a phone jack on your wall, and your sellers tell you they got DSL out of it, you might want to confirm that it's an actual functioning jack, rather than a dummy that's been screwed to the wall.

- Verizon (not Verizon Online) is very good at hiding a cable run around your house. DishTV - not so much. Indeed, Dish isn't particularly good at hiding a cable run inside your house, either.

- DishTV will say anything to make you sign up for their service; on average, two of their promises will not be true.

- I have a lot of clothes. I mean, yeah, I'm coming from a place where I had a walk-in closet, so I knew it would be tight trying to fit all my clothes into a regular sliding closet. Then again: (1) the closet is oversized; (2) it's probably meant for two people; and (3) I had Closet Factory put shelving in, nearly doubling the useable space. And yet, I fill it. Tightly. I have overflow. And it's really hitting me because -- although I not-very-happily spent the last four months living in the shithole with only a fraction of my wardrobe, I got by with that, and now, a lot of my wardrobe seems like overkill.

- Before you pack to move, go through your closets and throw stuff out. And I don't necessarily mean clothes here. But stuff. Objects you don't use and haven't used for more than three years. Because, while you might have a place for it in your home, you won't necessarily have such a place in your new home, and it will frustrate you that you paid to have it packed, paid to have it stored, and paid to have it moved ... all to bring it to your new house where you will mostly likely pay to have it hauled away.

- Speaking of which, if you're a single person moving into a house previously occupied by a family of four, don't call the Sanitation Department to swap out for a smaller trash can until after you've completely unpacked.

- Label the box with the tools. Go out and buy a big flashing sign reading, "The Tools Are In Here" and plant it on the top of the box. (This from someone who still hasn't found the drill.)

- Paper plates, paper napkins, plastic silverware, folding tables. All are your friends.