We got our PODS pod delivered today (that’s Portable On-Demand Storage). Basically you get a small moving truck (minus the truck part) delivered to your house. You fill it up at your leisure and can either keep it there as on-site storage for $100 a month, or have it stored at the PODS site. Then you can have it delivered wherever.

So our POD arrived from Roanoke with the last of our stuff today. They tell you when you load it that you should strap things down, which makes sense. It’s traveling on highways and byways and some shifting of contents my occur.

What they don’t tell you is that the guy who loads your POD onto the truck may tilt it at a 45-degree angle sideways as he loads it.

We loaded our POD carefully, but no amount of care can prepare you for your stuff being tilted to the left that far.

Luckily we had put the heavy stuff at the bottom and lighter stuff on top, but still — it was quite a mess when it arrived.

Note the wooden bed frame on the right, which came flying from somewhere. When we packed it, the POD was neatly stacked, not willy-nilly the way you see it here.

In one case, I had put one room air conditioner on top of another. These things are pretty darned heavy, but that 45-degree tilt was more than enough to knock one off the other.

The PODS guy who loaded our stuff also decided that the best way to get into our driveway was to drive on our neighbors’ lawns. They were none too pleased, and one threatened to call the police and file a complaint against them. But they must have reached an understanding — the driver and another guy came back and filled in the big rut in her grass with topsoil and seed.

Still, it gives you an idea of the amount of care they take with your stuff.

Of course, the PODS folks do tell you to strap your stuff down, but I assumed that was because of the general travel. It never occurred to me that they would deliberately roll it sideways!

Nothing appears to be damaged, thankfully, but I’ll certainly hesitate before I use them again. I’m just glad to have my things back so we can finish the move.

So it’s official: We’re moving to Richmond. Roanoke’s economy is just not very good, and, as our neighbor pointed out, finding a decent job that pays more than $8.00 an hour isn’t easy.

In Richmond, though, we have the lowest unemployment rate in the state (3.2 percent, I think), plus the whole state-government thing. And a good job. :)

This time we’re gonna save a lot on the move by A) tossing a lot of stuff, and B) packing a POD ourselves so we can save the big and burly men for the big and burly stuff.

There is something incredibly satisfying about tossing stuff. These are things we’ve had in boxes in the attic but haven’t used in three years, so it’s time for them to meet the trash heap (or the Freecycle list).

So for the next six weeks it’s Land o’ Boxes for us. More on stuff — if you care — as it happens.