Moving day turned into epic tragi-comedy out of a movie

Moving house is the stuff that divorces are made of.

Imagine when you realise that he has packed away the car keys by mistake and he cannot even remember the box he put them in and you just feel like throttling him.

I rank it up there with renovating, building or going on an adventure trip together like camping when both of you do not have a clue how to put up a tent.

After my recent move, which I want to declare was my last in this lifetime, I found myself doubling over in laughter when I recalled my worst moving disaster that happened some years ago.

We had coordinated with the incoming tenant that we would all meet up at the house I was vacating at 2pm. In our heads I would take up to two hours doing my two trips moving out my furniture, while this family - those sickeningly perfect 1.2 nuclear families including a cute dog - moved in in two phases by first unloading their goods on the lawn as they waited for me to clear out of the house.

What transpired on the day was a comedy of errors on my part that to this day should have traumatised me never to contemplate a move again in this lifetime. My first mistake was to hire an unprepared malume from the township, with my good intention being to give bread to my local entrepreneur.

The last time I checked with malume he actually did own a removals company but, unbeknown to me, he had since converted that truck to transport other goods when he saw that the removals business in the township was not a roaring trade. Since he did not want to disappoint me, as he later told me, malume decided to use my deposit to hire a trailer instead to lug around my furniture in an old Ford Cortina because he did not want to lose out on the business.

I was so gobsmacked when an old man in his 70s, a scrawny teenager and a mean-looking guy arrived at my door the next day with a car I could have sworn Ford had long put out of commission.

The old man, called Modala, was a recovering stroke patient and walked around with the shakes. As I felt sorry for him, I took over the driving. According to the young man and the mean-looking guy, they were hastily assembled the previous night to do the job.

I had expected an agile driver and three fine, strapping lads who could outdo any professional musclemen - and whose muscle flexing as they moved boxes could also distract my thoughts - and not these fakes!

They arrived at my house at 1pm and were very late loading our first trip as they had to wait for the trailer that they had only secured on the day of the move.

From then on it was a day of hell, with endless fights between the mean-looking man, who wanted to drink alcohol on the job, and Modala, who tried to admonish him. As the pressure mounted for me to get out of the house, the mean-looking man and the teen could not handle the pressure of carrying the heavy boxes at the speed and deftness needed.

My furniture ended up being dragged around violently and damaged, heirlooms were broken and by the time we finally packed all the boxes away, my voice was hoarse with all the shouting. I felt like an extra in a tragi-comedy.

And, of course, the perfect family was more organised. Their removal company had five big men who carried their heavy boxes so effortlessly they seemed rehearsed. They were all wearing blue overalls and moved with military precision and were done in less than an hour.

By the time I bid goodbye to my old home, the curtains had already been hung by the four ladies they had organised to clean and the grandmother was dishing up steaming stew for all the workers while we stood and salivated.

I learnt the hard way that day to be absolutely prepared for any move. This time, at least, moving house was less stressful.

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