Get ‘er Done Merit Badge, Intermediate Level

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 6,691 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—9,460 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ 

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life   

For this week’s Each Other/Get ‘er Done Intermediate Level Merit Badge, my friends organized a sneak attack. You see, they knew about my Merit Badge addiction hobby, and they were waiting for a good opportunity to strike.

One of them decided to move.

Yeah.

That glorious life change of changing houses.

Boxes, boxes, and more boxes, as far as the eyes could see.

Photo by Mixe2021 via Wikimedia Commons

And they knew I would roll up my sleeves and help a farmgirl out.

I’d be resentful of their cotton-pickin’, strategic, evil-genius-like, shenanigans … if I weren’t so begrudgingly admiring of them.

So, roll up my sleeves I did, and we were off for a full weekend of that great American pastime: moving.

There was an eight-hour minimum time commitment involved in earning my Badge, and just the thought made me laugh maniacally and curl up in the fetal position. I had already promised to finish the job with my pal—eight hours smeight hours—so I was in it for the long haul.

Get it? Haul? U-Haul? Hah.

I could probably earn six Intermediate Level Badges with the contents of this gal’s house, I swear. Minimalist, she is not.

Groan. Throw myself prostate on the floor.

Weep a little.

But back to work! At least it’s not the Hottest Day of the Year, or the Rainiest, or the Coldest (which is when I tend to my own personal moving days in the past). I could probably control weather patterns just by scheduling moving days, actually. Something to think about as a career, Janey: meteorologist/professional mover. Hm. If the Organic Sushi on a Stick Drive-Thru doesn’t pan out …

Unpacking and putting things away in a new house is kinda fun. Packing and cleaning the old house? Not. So. Fun. About as much fun as gnawing off your own eyebrows, which is basically what I felt like doing 7.5 hours in. We started off organized enough: boxes labeled in nice black permanent marker, helpful things like Kitchen Baking, or Non-fiction Books, or Pantry Dry Goods. But then, exhaustion and hunger and wild-eyed craziness set it, and pretty soon I was labeling boxes Lift with Your Legs, Dummy, and Why Do You Even Need These? and These Could Be Replaced at the Dollar General So Why Are You Making Me Pack Them? and my personal favorite, I Sold My Soul to Pack Your Junk Drawer.

I was getting hangry (angry due to hunger), so we stopped for a pizza break. After a nice slice (or four) of a Hawaiian and Jalapeno special, I felt slightly less sarcastic and umm … slightly less like I might murder the next person who misplaced the packing tape. We settled back into a rhythm of wrap, pack, tape, label, repeat, and before we knew it approximately three lifetimes later, we were done.

Well, except for the cleaning of the old house so she can get her deposit back.

Groan.

Weep.

Throw myself prostrate on the floor.

There better be another badge in it for me. I don’t know if I can make it.

Please send cookies.

  1. Cindi says:

    Bless you for being such a good friend and farmgirl!!!! People always scatter like leaves in a hurricane when someone so much as thinks about moving. Controlling the weather by planning a move? I seriously think you have something there!!! Best wishes to your friends in their new abode. They clearly have the best friend ever ~~ and they deserve some cookies, too 🙂

  2. Winnie Nielsen says:

    I am thinking I would have given up waaaayy before lunch! There is nothing more overwhelming than someone else’s STUFF that you can’t figure out why anyone would want to keep it. In my opinion, there aren’t enough cookies to ease the pain of that task. We like to never get to the bottom of my Mom’s craft stuff. Decades of great projects, and decades of bits of this and that.

  3. When I moved last , 3 years ago, all my then friends swore they would never help me move again, but in my defense I had packed and clearly labelled EVERY SINGLE BOX,even with its destination, so they only needed to schlepp and read the box to see exactly where it was headed. So not quite so awful.But I am a packrat, good thing they didn’t see what actually was in most of those boxes or they’d have headed to the dump, harhar. Yep, Zen I am not.
    You are a VERY good friend to do all that .

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