The Luv Doc: Moving Out

A leg shaker, not a plan maker


Dear Luv Doc,

Me and my girlfriend broke up over the holidays. It had been a while coming, but we got in a huge fight leading up to Christmas and it just seemed like it was time. She was always working or going out with her friends. I was always home cleaning up the messes she made when she blew through the apartment on her way to this or that wondering when she would get home etc etc. She has been living with a mutual friend of ours since just before Christmas, but there is still a lot of stuff that she hasn't moved out of my house – clothes, shoes, furniture, plants – that she says she will be coming to get, but it's been nearly a week and she hasn't come by. I have been seriously considering renting a box van and taking it all to her new place and dumping it in the carport, but that seems like a crappy thing to do to our friend. The thing is that it's going to end up there anyway and our friend should know what she is getting into. Am I being too impatient?

– Anxious in Allandale


Yeah, it kinda seems like it. I am assuming this wasn't one of those "I'm throwing all of your shit out on the lawn" kind of breakups and that you two at least had some cursory discussions about logistics. For all I know she drives one of those Fiat 500s, which are admittedly adorable and maybe even useful if, say, you live in West Campus and are always having to squeeze into tiny parking spots left by frat bros who ride their Honda Ruckuses to their 8am kinesiology classes at Bellmont Hall. Goddamn that was disturbingly specific, wasn't it? For moving, however, a Fiat 500 is more of a problem than a solution. Truly, a rickshaw has more utility, so she's going to need a minute.

Then again, for all I know she might drive one of those King Ranch Edition Power Stroke Turbo Diesel F-350 pickups with a heavy-duty towing package. Why? Search me, but I see pickup trucks like that in driveways all over Central Austin, and not a goddamn one of them is hitched to a horse trailer or a flatbed with a mud-caked backhoe on it. They all look like they just got detailed by a dude with a twist moustache.

I'm thinking the people that own those 15 mpg phalluses have never even been through the drive-through at the Dairy Queen for a dip cone. More likely they are slow-dragging the Mavericks parking lot on Saturday nights fantasizing about how much Pflugerville ass they are going to crush in that antique leather effect interior. Tim Riggins could only dream.

I know what you're thinking and you're right. It makes no fucking sense that someone in Allandale – much less inside the Austin city limits – has a legitimate need for such a vehicle, and yet they exist. So, if for some bizarre reason your recent ex-girlfriend drives one, I think it's fair to expect her to get her shit moved out in a more timely fashion and you should immediately start tossing her shit on the lawn.

I can tell by the cut of your jib that you're a doer, not a thinker. You're a leg-shaker, not a plan-maker, and it's a brand-new year. You've got shit to do! Out with the old, in with the new! But seriously, it really hasn't been that long. It takes a bit to move out of a place – especially if you actually went to the trouble of buying furniture. I am guessing you had been living together for more than a couple of months. She is going to need some time – both literally and figuratively – to move on. I think another week or two is more than reasonable. Maybe you can talk through it like adults and perhaps set an actual move-out date, but if not, that box truck idea can always be on the back burner. It would certainly get better gas mileage than a King Ranch Edition Power Stroke Turbo Diesel F-350.

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