It was the last move.

I think.

I mean my wife said it was the last move but she’s said lots of things that sounded true but later turned out not to be.

Wife: Well that’s the last dance competition you’ll ever have to sit through.

Me: Thank God.

One month later:

Wife: Good news, Emma has another dance competition you get to sit through.

Me: “(The exact opposite of, ‘Thank God.’)”

So it’s possible it was not the last move.

The move of which I’m referring to is the move of our 23-year-old daughter Emma out of her Lawrence, Kansas apartment.

Well, actually it was the second move out of Emma’s Lawrence, Kansas apartment.

See, Emma has been living in an apartment in Kansas City for several months and so at first, we moved just what she needed to complete her Kansas City apartment.

Since the lease on Emma’s Lawrence, Kansas apartment doesn’t end until the end of this month my wife opted to delay the final move.

“But don’t worry,” my wife told me. “It won’t be too bad. There isn’t that much to move.”

“Oh (seriously bad, bad word),” I said.

See, I’ve been involved in many moves with my wife and every time she said “Don’t worry. It won’t be that bad” she was correct.

It was worse.

“If it won’t be that bad why are we renting a U-Haul truck?” I asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” my wife said.

So, I worried.

Since Emma’s first year in college in  2016, we have moved her at least 10 times.

I think that’s a lot.

Now, granted, some of the moves were not your regular full-fledged moves. But they were moves, nonetheless.

I’ve mentioned this before but I think “nonetheless” is one of the greatest words ever. It’s like three words for the price of one.

I think we could use more words like nonetheless. Words like “thebabybackribsaredone” or “justgetthevaccineyoufriggingmoron.”

Having to rent the truck told me all I needed to know about this latest move. In my moving experience, if you have to rent a truck, it’s going to be a bad move.

Normally, my wife is quick to say “Oh, it will all fit in your car” when we move Emma. Of course, when my wife says “Oh, it will all fit in your car,” what she really means “There is no way it will all fit in your car and we will have to make at least three trips.”

So, when my said we needed to rent a truck for this move, I knew I was screwed.

Metaphorically.

To be fair we didn’t have to rent the biggest truck they had on the lot.

But still. We had to rent a truck.

Now, I will never claim to be a member of the blue-collar working class but I did  spend several months working in the oil fields around Pawhuska, Oklahoma. And I spent some of those months driving trucks but that was more than 40 years ago.

Since then, I have spent much more time making up goofy stuff on typewriters and computers than I have driving trucks.

Making things worse is that in order to pick up the key to Emma’s Lawrence, Kansas apartment we had to drive to Emma’s Kansas City apartment.

Have you ever driven a semi-large truck in and around Kansas City?

Don’t. You won’t like it.

The reason we had to drive to Kansas City to get the key from Emma was, because of a work conflict, she would not be able to help with the move out of her Lawrence, Kansas apartment.

I’ll wait for a second so the few of you still reading this can say, “Wait. What?”

That’s right, Emma was not able to help us with the move out of her own apartment.

“Well, Mike,” the few of you who are still reading this are thinking. “Why didn’t you pick a day when Emma didn’t have to work to move her out of her apartment?”

To the few of you who are still reading this and are thinking that, I say, “Ask my wife.”

No, seriously, please ask her because when I asked her and all she said was “Mind you own business.”

We got to Lawrence at noon on Friday. My wife said we would probably be done loading the truck by 2 p.m.

We left Lawrence at 3:30 p.m. just in time to run into rush-hour traffic in Kansas City.

Friday afternoon rush-hour traffic.

Have you ever driven a semi-large truck full of stuff through Friday afternoon rush-hour traffic in Kansas City?

Don’t. You really won’t like it.

We arrived back in Carthage sometime after 6:30 p.m. and started to unload the stuff out of the truck and put it in a garage in the back of our house.

But before we could put the stuff into the garage in the back of our house, we had to unload other stuff in the garage to make room for the new stuff on the truck.

“But Mike”, the few of you who are still reading this are thinking, why didn’t you take the stuff out of the garage before bringing a truck load of new stuff to put in it.

To the few of you who are still reading this and are thinking that I say to you again, “Ask my wife.”

Eventually we got the truck unloaded and drove it back to Joplin. When we got home, I sat down to drink a beer and discovered the St. Louis Cardinals had lost the game I had hoped to watch but wasn’t able to what with all the loading and unloading.

“Well, at least I didn’t have to watch them lose,” I said to myself in a serious case of trying to look on the bright side of life.

It was later that night when my wife announced the move was our last one for Emma.

“There is no (Incredibly long string of bad words used as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, run-on sentences and dangling participles,) way that is ever going to be true,” I said to myself.

But what the heck? Maybe next time it will all fit in my car.