10 Miles of Crazy into a 5 Foot Looney Bin

I remember learning, perhaps 25 years ago or more, that a study was done on how women and men give directions. I'm paraphrasing GREATLY (and cannot find the source to name) but the conclusion was that men give directions by distance and women give directions by landmarks. The study found, I suppose, that men don't generally pay all that much attention as to what is around them but rather where they are going - and women are more aware of what is around them (and note where they can ask for directions) but are not so great at measuring distance.

The folks doing this study asked participants how they'd drive home, I guess and the men would say "go two miles on the interstate, exit at Main, turn left and go about 700 yards." The women would say "go 6 exits on the freeway, exit at the gas station, turn towards the nail salon and it's just past the coffee shop."

I'll interject here by saying the obvious ... that these above statements are HUGE generalizations. But that I believe in them. I am a horrid judge of distance, time, weight, length, age, cost ... pretty much if there's a number attached to something, I'm gonna be awful at guessing it. So when I called a company recently to rent a storage facility crate, I was going on the mercy of the individual at the other end of the phone. "That sounds like you'll need just one vault then - terrific. That'll be easy" said the voice with confidence. Me, I wasn't so sure.

After we concluded the transaction, I took my handy roll of masking tape and my marker and headed to the garage. I now have tape all over the floor and walls with markers of labels like "in trouble at this point", "really - maybe throw some more stuff out" and "uh oh - you gotta ship this."

I won't know until later this week if I've measured correctly. What I do know is that I'm a very good packer (but a not-so-great labeler). The only thing that I really won't have room for are the moving pads, but I honestly don't think that anything will have room to shift once I get it into the vault. I also know that I'll be the only one to witness the opening of the said vault so if I'm wrong on the shifting, no one will hear me say "damn - really shoulda shipped that."