I think he's trying to kill me...

It's started

The end is near.

The world as we know it shall cease to exist.

Operation Pack The House 2010 has begun.

I'm moving in one month, and so, I've started my 30-day preparatory countdown.

Or my Pack-Down, as I like to call it.

Being infinitely anxious and Type-A when it comes to big life changes, I tend to manhandle them into some sort of list form, buzzing through task after task in order to manage my stress and keep my mind off the impending doom that is moving one's entire life from one location to another.

Not that I'm nervous about it or anything.

Not that I've had nightmares about waking up on the morning of the move to find out that the U-Haul we rented won't be big enough to hold all our belongings.

Not this girl. No way.

I'm cool as a cucumber.

Still, just in case, on the off chance something goes wrong, I've created a beautiful six-page master list, with about 18 sub-list addendum and about 48 sticky-note additions.

I carry it around with me constantly throughout the day, ticking things off and writing little notes to myself in the margins.

Then I re-type it all when I get home that evening and sleep with it under my pillow.

Because I'm all kinds of laid-back.

Anyways, last week, I tackled my first item on the list: Pack Living Room.

When moving, I always start in the living room. While I treasure them dearly, I can live without books, DVDs, framed photographs and knick-knacks for a month. So everything comes off the walls and shelves and coffee tables and gets stored away.

Being ever exuberant about packing, I normally whisk around the house afterward, taking all the rest of the photos, art work, and decor down in other rooms, as well.

While bare walls freak me out, packing all that stuff the night before I move would give me a full-blown anxiety attack.

So I get it out of the way early, leaving things like kitchen utensils, clothing, and bathroom amenities until right before the move, in an effort to make sure we're not naked and smelly, sipping cold soup from our cupped hands, weeks before we get to our new house.

It's the little things.

Anyways, back to Step 1: The Living Room.

Last Thursday, in two hours, I managed to neatly pack away all manner of life's luxuries - books, DVDs, a compilation CD of relaxation music I bought once that doesn't actually do a thing to help me relax.

Then I sat down to catch my breathe and figure out how to tackle the final thorn in my living room's side:

My husband's XBox.

It was just sitting there, in the TV cabinet, stored away like it had been for the last three months. The games were as he left them; the little controller thingie shoved in next to his wireless headset just like he liked it.

I glowered at the whole thing.

My nemesis.

The item that makes me want to, at times, set our house on fire, just so it will burn with it.

It's the only thing in the entire world that can turn my sweet, affectionate, attentive husband into a comatose, incoherent man-boy.

I swear, I could walk by him naked, carrying a platter of fried chicken and pound cake, and he'd barely bat an eye while he's playing on that thing.

The XBox and I are not friends.

Granted, we've had a truce for the last three months.

We've both been grieving the lost touch of our loving man, and in that grief, we've managed to co-exist peacefully.

The XBox, nestled in the TV cabinet, and me, lounging on the couch, in the everlasting silence, with a book.

My husband left his gaming system unpacked when he left under the auspices that "others might want to play it, so I don't want to put it away yet. Just pack it in a box when you're packing everything else."

Which was really just man-code for "I'm being lazy, and I just don't wanna," because it wasn't like the dogs and I were at all interested in playing "Kill People A Lot 2.0," or whatever stupid game he was into at the moment.

But I'm not one to dwell.

After all, it's now May, and the time had come.

The XBox had to meet the bottom of a Rubbermaid container, packed away with all it's wires and doodads.

So I sat there, figuring out the best way to approach it, worried I'd turn it on, turn it off, break it, or forget some crucial remote-control-majigger that it needed to run just to my husband's liking.

Being inexperienced in all manner of gaming, I didn't know where to start, so, against my better judgment, I just jumped in.

I grabbed for the remote and shoved it in the box.

Success!

The thing wasn't even plugged in, I thought. It didn't even fight back!

Heck, it didn't even nip at my hand.

I've got this, I thought. XBox, you will be mine!

Spirits bolstered, I began to pick up speed, throwing in remote after headset after game after game case. I was doing really well. I was taking this thing down like it was my job (which, granted, by default, it kind of was.)

And, at long last, all the extra crud was put away, and now, all I had to tackle was the actual gaming console itself.

I unhooked it from approximately 194 wires and placed it in the box.

Huzzah! I cried.

I had officially packed the entire monstrosity. All that was left was the mess of wires that attached the console to the T.V. Or the remotes. Or the headsets. Or my husband's brain. Whatever. I didn't know.

All I could see was a mess of wires.

And they looked important.

Luckily, we Type-As are excellent at tightly winding and binding all manner of wires, so I was ready for the job.

This mountain was almost summited, my friends. I could see the top.

So I gave one wire a tug.

Nada.

I tried another.

Nothing moved.

I tried a third.

Not an inch. Nothing budged.

Only slightly concerned, I grabbed a handful of the wires and began to trace them back behind the T.V. cabinet, where my hand groped around blindly, feeling...feeling...

Chaos.

Absolute and utter chaos.

From what I could tell, my hand met a nest of wires so interwoven and tangled that my poor Type-A heart just about stopped.

What had he done? I muttered.

Instantly, I blamed my husband.

After all, the man actually owns a dresser full of cables and USB cords and Ethernet wire and various other computer and/or electronic mumbo-jumbo that I've a) never seen before, and b) never needed to use in our entire two years of marriage.

He maintains that all those wires make his computers, et. al., more efficient.

He used to rig them up all the time to maximize something or other.

And apparently, he'd done the same darn thing with his darn XBox.

The 194 cables were so interwoven and looped through the TV cables and the DVD cables and the sound-system cables that I had no idea which end was up. Not that I could see much, as moving the entire booby-trapped T.V. cabinet was too heavy for me.

At this point I was sweating. And drawing up pretend divorce papers, citing "irreconcilable gaming habits."

I was bending awkwardly around the TV and holding a fistful of tangled wires in each hand. Standing on my tiptoes and dripping anger.

Life was not good.

I began to weave one wire in and out of the others, all the while feeling the corner of a wooden shelf cutting into my abdomen.

More than 30 minutes later, I finally got the wire lose and swung it to the ground.

I changed my approach for the other 193 wires ahead.

Laying on the ground, I began to feel around for the connection points of each wire. When I found them, I'd unplug them blindly and begin to slowly tug.

Wire 192 came easily.

With a little more work, Wire 191 finally succumbed, as well.

Then I set to work on Wire 190 - a fighter if I ever saw one.

She was a tough old bird, connected to the TV in at least three different places.

I unplugged and tugged, unplugged and tugged, unplugged and tugged, and just when I felt her giving in...

...I noticed movement from the top of my eyes.

I glanced up with just enough time to see it.

My impending doom.

The entire T.V. falling toward my outstretched, prone body.

Pause to Note: We're old school and own an old, big, cumbersome T.V. I've refused to let my husband get a flat-screen television thus far. (Or ever, after this debacle.)

So there I am, lying under a falling T.V., holding the wires of a gaming system I'd rather destroy then ever see again.

What an unfortunate way to go, I thought.

I considered just lying there, meeting my Maker, giving up the ghost. Letting the XBox finally win.

Luckily, I rallied.

Not wanting to die childless, alone, and in the presence of my nemesis, I managed to lift my body and arms up enough to grab the T.V. and, using my new-found momentum, shove it back onto the T.V. cabinet shelf.

I then collapsed to the floor, grabbed my phone, and texted my husband, "You're in big trouble, mister."

He "LOL-ed" me right back.

Apparently, my threats aren't as effective when I'm three states away.

Either that, or he's conspiring with his XBox to kill me.

One may never know.

Because after it was all said in done, I managed to take out Wire 19o and the remaining others, before throwing them all in a box.

And, in an un-precendented move for this Type-A girl, I packed it all up without so much as a packing peanut for that pretty little gaming system to rest it's head on. The console? The remotes? The headset? The 194 wires? I just threw them all in, unprotected, unorganized, and undone. One on top the other.

Who's laughing now, XBox? Who's laughing now? I thought. Enjoy that bumpy ride in the back of that U-Haul.

Because you may have won this battle, but I will win the war.

***

Happy Tuesday, everyone!