Some people might have questioned our odds of making it that first time I helped John move out of his dorm room. He was to drive me home to Cleveland on his way home to Detroit. John had just graduated from Small Liberal Arts College on a Hill and this heave-ho from Dorm Sweet Dorm was to be a permanent one. John, I should note, looks at a car like John Nash looked at window panes. In one glance, he sees geometric formulas align. He can pack a trunk so neatly and tightly, you would think he was following a directions sheet from IKEA. On this particular move, he packed every last milk crate, pizza box, and one shiny new diploma into his car. If Honda Accords could float, he'd have been ready for another flood. Evidently, it was the two-by-two that he had forgotten, though, for in the passenger seat sat his TV/VCR. Before I could make any jokes about Greyhound itineraries for a Sunday afternoon, he was raising his eyebrows, amazed that he had forgotten to factor his girlfriend into the cargo.

Out came the TV, placed back into dorm storage through the summer, to be reclaimed on his voyage through campus the following fall on his way to grad school in Boston.

That same TV still lives in Boston, and is still an encumbrance as that same strategic packer and his wife, no longer a mere passenger, but a student in the School of John Lee's Strategic Packing, prepare for their move from rental to owned real estate. This time, they've got help.

Good Bye, Sweet Rental

Hello Owned Sweet Owned