The end of an era, and thoughts on being right

So as of late I've been packing the house for the big move... well really packing it for the big showing, the big move is in a couple of months. I've come to a couple of conclusions:

1. I own way too much crap. Seriously, I'm like a proto-hoarder or something. Or I would be if I wasn't currently throwing most of it away. Maybe I'm just lazy. Bringing crap into the house is easy. When it's reached a certain critical mass it becomes too damn overwhelming to go through and throw out. Fortunately a dear friend has been helping me, and has been keeping me motivated and my spirits up.

2. Moving sucks in more ways than I expected, now that I have a job and a life and a kid and everything. This is uprooting on a scale I hadn't experienced before, and it's kind of wrenching. I'm really not looking forward to this at all.

The other thing that's happened as of late happened tonight. It was officially the last night for video rentals at Rogers Plus (formerly Rogers Video). They are out of the home video market, they are selling off all their stock and converting the store entirely into a cable/phone/home phone store. I'm not surprised, I've been seeing this coming for a while. Video rental is going the way of public stables in the era of the car... or music stores in the era of the internet.

I'm kind of sad really. It was like working in a library. We had some great old movies and foreign titles, and no matter what they are saying about On Demand being there to fill the gap, I really doubt that they're going to have some of the stuff we have kicking around our shelves.It made me sad that the collection is going to be sold off tomorrow.
I'm also angry that I've worked there for six years renting movies. That was not the plan. It was supposed to be a temp job until the film career took off. It's what I went to school for after all. Well, we all know how that turned out.
And it was freaking me out, because I'm leaving it three months, I won't even be there when the reno is finished. The Beaches (the neighborhood I live in) is all going condo soon, they're tearing down a bunch of buildings along Queen St. The street I've walked every day for six years is going away. The store is going to be completely different. Even if I come back to visit, it will all be gone. Literally everything in my life is changing. New city, new job (no transfer for me, the Rogers in Windsor isn't hiring), even my relationship with my son is shifting to something new. I'm only going to be with him two weeks out of the month. That's going to be a big change and really wrenching.

On the other hand, I happened to mention to a customer that I'd been up at my parent's farm on the weekend, and she said "Oh? Where?" which lead to a series of more specific questions about where we'd gone to school and when and holy crap you're Michelle. It turns out we'd gone to school together, been in the Gifted program together (still waiting on that gift, thankyouverymuch), I'd picked strawberries for her dad and we'd been on TV together. It turns out people look really different 25 years later, who knew? So if she hadn't come in on the last night on a whim and asked me where I'd gotten the nice tan on my face (woo running around like an idiot with a kite). It also turns out that I could confirm to her husband that she had in fact been on a quiz show when she'd been in grade eight. Ha! Vindication! We also got to relive the moment that the universe truly taught me that you can do everything right in a situation and still lose spectacularly. We made it to the final game of the season on Campus Quiz. I was the trivia and vocabulary guy (not the math guy, shocker, I know). Both teams had racked up ridiculous scores, at the time the highest in the history of the program (I may be misremembering because it makes the fail more dramatic). It came down to a tie breaker trivia question. I was in my element. This was my moment to shine. The question was:
"In the television show Fraggle Rock, what was the name of the human who lived upstairs?"
And the angels sang and golden light shone upon my face, for verily I had watched Fraggle Rock every week, and I loved that show. I knew all the obscure characters, never mind the only human on the show!
I grinned. My moment of triumph! I buzzed in.
"His name was Doc"
"Oh, I'm sorry, his name was 'The Professor'"

Buh...

Wha...

Go check the IMDB right now, I'll wait.  Fraggle Rock

The next question goes to the other school, they answer it and win. There's a murmur in the audience. Some of the kids know I was right, but for a lot of them I'm the shithead that just lost us the game.  I went up to the Producer and tried to tell him he was wrong, that we'd won, but he dismissed me. It didn't matter to them. I pressed my case with my teachers, and they thought that I was probably wrong, but if I could prove it...

You know, it doesn't really matter in the end. They split the difference and we both got prizes without them admitting they fucked up. People still thought I was the asshole that cost us the game.

And I learned that sometimes being right was even worse. Worse than what? Worse than anything.


Dance your cares away!