The other thing my parents don't have the range for is literally moving.

They haven't done it since 1980! My dad said something like "I'm glad we only have to move once!" that made me realize he was 30 when they moved here. Since I was 30, I've moved a couple times (and helped friends); I'm only 40!

Heavy stuff on top of flimsy stuff. Big boxes too full of heavy things to lift. Little soft stuff in the car before big rigid stuff. Mom thinks I'm "too critical" if I protest or undo these things.

Here we are, a mere 12 hours from having woken up in a different house, and my mom is confidently asserting that she's lost something permanently and forever.

Yeah. That sounds like someone who hasn't moved since the Carter administration.

My mom doesn't know how to unpack either. She is fixated on locating a particular thing (that isn't urgent or essential) and wandering all over looking for it.

Also where the boxes or bags do have labels it's just the contents, not where it goes. "Pots for plants" rather than even the most basic things like whether this is indoor or outdoor. "Bed pillows"...there are three beds! In two levels of the house!

My dad confessed to something like...breaking one of the hinges on the garbage bin I think?? It's confusing; I wasn't really listening and also I guess he calls them "dumpsters" ("people have got their dumpsters out already!")

And my mom threw her hands up and said "We aren't having any luck at all with this move!"

I barked a laugh at that. Nothing broke! No one had a fight! Less than 24 hours in, she's putting doilies out and my dad's grilling burgers. I've never had a move go so smoothly!

I'm really not coping well with watching them fail to cope with not knowing where everything is. Mom can't find her fall decorations (because she doesn't want to look through the many, many boxes of Christmas decorations that it probably ended up with). Dad briefly couldn't locate his library books this morning.

They're genuinely freaked out, I do sympathize but... I've never had a life where I get to be so anxious about less than 24 hours of such minor instability. Must be nice. Can't relate.

After my shower, I opened the curtain and was genuinely horrified at the sight that greeted me:

Also /while I was napping/ this afternoon, she came into my bedroom and made everything I'd left on the chest of drawers -- my washkit, some stuff I refused to allow Dad to put in the dumpster, and some girl stuff I don't want -- into what looks like a weird shrine to one of my meds boxes.

She's just. So odd.

Mom is carefully washing the breakfast dishes now, before she puts them in the dishwasher.

Unable to now use one of the two excuses she always gave me when I whined about having to wash dishes (not just rinse, wash: soapy hot water until nothing left on them) before they went in the dishwasher, which is "we don't have the water pressure here like they do in town," Mom is already leaning on the other: yesterday she told me "I don't care what anyone says, it sterilizes the dishes."

My dad is going to businesses around town today to tell them about my parents' change of address. Even in this small town people have phone numbers and email, honestly...

Then he's going to go ask a neighbor who offered to leave us their sack truck after we used it on Saturday, which he refused out of habit/excessive Minnesotanness, if we can borrow the sack truck because we do in fact need it again today.

He sounded unsure about how to change his address for the Minneapolis paper (can't just drive there!), and I said "they'll have an email address or an online form you can use."

After a minute, he said "Oh, I bet you can do it online! Because a lot of these places don't actually wanna talk to you any more..." By which he means, he doesn't like talking to people. 😂

So this isn't ALL complaining...

I've spent the last hour or two outside with my dad: getting covered in dirt (good-smelling outside dirt! not indoors dirt), getting rained on, lifting heavy things, ratchet-strapping them in a dodgy way, riding with him in the pickup listening to sports radio, going the slow way to the next town to drop the heavy stuff off at the auto salvage place...

Finally I'm enjoying myself!

Got back to the old place and it smells like Lysol as soon as I open the door.

Turns out my mom has been spraying it all over, when she finishes cleaning. Just, into the empty room!

I think this must be like burning sage for old white midwestern ladies.

Ah yes, the two genders of helping my parents: organizing seasonal decorations into boxes with my mom, and then helping my dad set up his DirecTV account and smart TV.

I'm in hell, trying to read a PDF manual on my phone because my dad is pretty cool but he's still the kind of cis guy who doesn't read instructions and has thrown them away.

My dad is busy setting up a Gmail account! Because while I was distracted with the TV, he tried to go online to change his address for the newspaper subscription they have, and I guess one of the options was to "sign in with Google" so he thought he HAD to do that????

My mom hangs all their shirts, t-shirts, sweatshirts, and pants on hangers. And then complains she has no closet space.

My mom told me to go get a cooler from the basement so we can keep peanut butter (and jam, for people who aren't her, she likes just peanut butter) sandwiches cold until we eat them in an hour.

Oh I guess I have to add jam to the list of things my parents store in the freezer?!

Again with the "not understanding how pre-refrigeration food preservation works"!!

@bright_helpings yeah i got nothing for this one

i guess canning requires enough headroom that the jars dont crack, at least?????

@bright_helpings also will admit an ongoing question as you keep reporting this things is how large is your parents freezer to fit all this?