Travel Light and Ship Smart by Lucas Schleicher
A student’s college years constitute a very formative time period. The student will acquire their career skills and develop into a mature, well-rounded individual. Inevitably, to nurture this sense of adulthood, most students will rent an apartment in an effort to truly have a space of their own. Unfortunately, the budget will be low, so furniture will mostly be small, portable, and scarce.
However, every good apartment must have a nice couch or futon perfect for chilling with friends. Throughout the school year, many good times will be shared on this futon. When the time comes to leave, it will be just barely too big to fit in the car. Thus, that futon (and all its wonderful memories) will be thrown away at the end of the school year. Whether it’s sold cheaply or just abandoned, this futon will be cast aside simply due to inconvenience.
This story is all-too-familiar. Even though we become attached to these things, we need to let them go simply because they’re too bulky or expensive to bring back home. A full futon won’t fit in a car seat, and a moving company won’t devote a truck to it. Somehow, it’s perfectly in the middle of the two options, making it suitable for neither. My friends even tried sawing their futon in half (with the hopes of reassembling it) for compact storage, but it ended up being “possibly the worst idea ever.”
Situations like this have forced me to travel very light. I sleep on an air mattress on the floor because mattresses are too large and bed frames are too bulky. My personal desk consists of a folding table and a folding lawn chair purely because they’re cheap and easy to pack. If that sounds uncomfortable, that’s because it is. Out of necessity, everything I own can fit in the trunk of any vehicle.
Thus, when I read that Ship Smart is willing to perform “Small Moves,” my hopes soared. I always travel rather light, so the total weight of my belongings hardly approaches a hundred pounds (significantly less than the thousands required to hire a moving truck). A Small Move perfectly encapsulates how I’d like to live my life as a highly-mobile college student who would prefer some more comfort.
I could certainly replace my air mattress with a comfy mattress to make my nights less restless. Similarly, I could buy a true office chair so the hours I spend sitting at my computer aren’t nearly as killer on my lower back. I could even invest in heavier luxury items (like mini-fridges or small drawers) since I would no longer have to worry about them not fitting in my mom’s car. Most importantly, I’ll no longer have to buy a futon for every new apartment I live in. There’s not a doubt in my mind that all of these items would fit in a Ship Smart Small Move (since the only requirement is that the total weight is kept under two thousand pounds).