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cats won’t stay out of the boxes

Packing continues. Slower than I thought.

Cats have decided the moving boxes are theirs now. Both of them (the orange one’s clearly the ringleader). I’ll tape one shut and 5 minutes later there’s a paw print pressed into the cardboard like a receipt.

Ended up leaving 2 boxes open on purpose just so they’d leave the taped ones alone. Worked, mostly.

Work’s been quiet this week, which usually means it won’t stay that way. Used the extra time to finally go through a closet I hadn’t touched since we moved in. Found a stack of unused notebooks, chargers for things I don’t own anymore, and a sweater I forgot I liked.

Gave most of it to a donation bin two blocks over. Walked back lighter – not just the bag, actually lighter.

Still have the kitchen left, and that’s the part I’m dreading. Everything in there has a reason it’s in that exact spot, and I don’t trust myself to remember the reasons once it’s all sitting in a box labeled kitchen misc.

Progress is progress. The cats disagree.

Comment 6

  • dewdrop10.30 08:04

    The leaving a couple of boxes open as a decoy was such a familiar move, my cat did the same thing years ago when we moved out of our first apartment. He wasn’t the ringleader type though, more like he just claimed the one box with the softest blanket in it and dared anyone to move it. We ended up working around him for days, same as it sounds like you’re doing now.

  • kindroutine10.30 10:01

    That closet clean-out probably felt better than the actual packing, since finding stuff you forgot you had is kind of satisfying. We did something similar before our last move and ended up with 7 chargers for devices we didn’t even own anymore.

  • DewyDreamer10.30 10:08

    do you have any plan for keeping the cats calm on actual moving day, or are you just going to wing it like the boxes

  • → DewyDreamerClearCareCircleAuthor10.31 05:25

    No real plan, honestly. Last time we moved I just shoved both cats in one carrier the morning of and hoped for the best, which meant about 20 minutes of yelling in the car before they settled down. This time I’m leaning toward shutting them in the bathroom with food and litter while the movers are actually going in and out, then only dealing with the carrier right before we drive off.

  • slowsundays10.30 11:29

    mine did this too, had 3 boxes sacrificed

  • Wildflower Days11.04 13:18

    Quiet weeks always bite back for me too, finally tackled a closet after 3 years!

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