In 1988, former fugitive and sometimes Chelsea, Quebec resident Randy Quaid appeared as the villain in the film Moving. It stars Richard Prior as a man who loses his job and has to move his family from New Jersey to Idaho for the prospect of a new gig. Along the way, the movers he hires to ferry his belongings from the East Coast to what colloquially became known as fly over country, go AWOL and Prior takes things into his own hands to get his stuff back.
The film is both a screwball comedy that would never get made today, and a celebration of capitalist attachment to “our” things. It currently has a 33% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. No matter, I still laugh out loud thinking about the scene where Prior’s character gets fired; it’s comedy gold.
Growing up we had a copy of the movie on VHS, and it got played a lot. Probably for the double hit that we’d recorded it off “First Choice Superchannel” (it paid for itself) and that my parents could never figure out the Motion Picture Association film rating system. “R”meant regular. It got that rating more than anything for the explicit language, which as anyone who has ever moved a family, becomes overly familiar using.
As a kid I never moved.
I spent all my formative years in the same semi-detached house off Montreal Road near Beacon Hill in Ottawa. “Moving” outside of the colorful vocabulary every kid finds hilarious also provided a fantasy that was wholly ethereal…getting out of my hometown.
I’ve spent my entire adult life leaving and returning to Ottawa. While my current situation is the first as a dependent of a Global Affairs employee, I have become an old hand at packing up a home and setting up a new one over the last twenty years, yet each occasion brings a new set of challenges.
Hundreds of Canadian families at home and abroad are currently resettling during the annual diplomatic rotation season. Think cicadas, only noisier and slightly more entitled.
Relocating under the benevolent watch of the federal government is an experience that harkens to the plot of the film Moving. You have a new job to go to, very far away from your old one. You have a tight timeline, at best eight months from finding out about your new posting to getting on a plane. Your spouse likely has to leave their job; and your kids have to leave their friends and go to new schools. When you arrive, you don’t pick your neighbours since your accommodation has likely been chosen for you. The only real difference is that Richard Prior’s character selected his own movers, to his chagrin, and the comic effect of the film.
When you move courtesy of the feds, they pick the movers. Contracts have been signed; companies procured. Not all procurements are equal, especially during a time crunch, which these movers are under. You are told the day they will be showing up — no window, simply told. After this it’s advised you have everything separated into piles: stuff that is going with you and stuff that is staying in storage.
During our packing we were informed by other diplomats to make sure we didn’t have garbage anywhere near our belongings, noting that if we could use our neighbour’s trash, we’d be better off. Asked why, they told us flat out: “The movers will pack your garbage”. We laughed.
We laughed less when four months into our time in Jamaica our stuff arrived and one of our boxes contained garbage.
I should have clued in, when in Ottawa, they packed the license plates off our car.
Posting season is hectic. It’s like regular moving only more so. From all the government agencies involved, to all the companies contracted out, getting people from A to B hasn’t gotten any easier.
To everyone who is relocating, to another country or otherwise I offer up three pieces of advice. The move is all part of the adventure, embrace it. It won’t hug back, but at least you’re trying. The movers will pack your trash, they really really will.
Finally, there is no way Randy Quaid will be your neighbor…unless you move to Burlington, Vermont where he owns a home on Randy Lane.
At 40, Andrew Elliott packed up his old life as a radio morning man to start a new chapter abroad—without a job, a clear plan, or expectations beyond supporting his family. He quickly learned that life as a diplomatic spouse isn’t all glamor. Somewhere between becoming a hunk, a chunk, or a monk, he found the humor, challenges, and unexpected growth in a role that often goes unspoken.
