Wedding Planners, Baby Planners… Moving Planners?

A few weeks ago Salon.com reported on a boom in professional baby planners—people who plan everything from the baby’s room and the shower colors to diaper types and the hospital bag—for what I assumed is a segment of the socioeconomic population to which I do not belong. So, I had trouble wrapping my brain around the concept (although I forwarded the article to my baby-loving friend JG who should start designing his letterhead).

Granted, I’ve had neither a baby nor a wedding, but I assume I’d plan both on my own. Maybe I’m just a control freak.

But, you know, I think I’d be happy to hand over the reigns for moving.

Neil and I have both moved aplenty in our lives—in fact, Neil has moved something like 5-6 times since college to my three—so we weren’t shocked by any moving pains. The packing. The carrying. The lugging. We were also prepared for finding new places to shop and losing one utility while another overcharged.

And then there’s the inevitable changes in services and, most importantly, the cable pain.

Thanks to the local monopoly, we moved from Time-Warner to Time-Warner cable, which we assumed would be an easy time. Not only would Channel Three (WKYC/NBC) be on channel three (it was on channel two in Stow; channel three was TBN, The Bible Network, which provided quality programming like Bibleman, featuring Willie Ames from Charles in Charge), we thought the service and, more importantly, the digital interface would stay the same.

Yet again, we thought wrong. (Haven’t we been doing that a lot lately?)

Good news is Channel Three is on channel three, and Five is five, Eight is eight. But the pipedream of a smooth transition from apartment to house was just that. Not only did we lose the upgraded interface (that matters to a user-experience designer and a computer geek), but TW dorked up the accounts, overcharged us by something like triple and managed to preprogram our cable box to flip on a local polka station when we turn on the TV.

Don’t get me wrong, I am Croatian and, therefore, love polka, but Neil… the rhythm just doesn’t get him.

What Neil does get, however, is people. Right now he’s in hour two of Time Warner negotiations and, I believe, his fourth or fifth person. They’re chumming it up now about the movie “300,” but 30 minutes ago they were butting heads over what charges went to what bills. While Neil saved $150 by calling, we’ll see if by call’s end he’s outdone his hourly wage.

Rumor has it, though, that the current cable interface is a legacy graphic from the last cable company, and while we kind of dig the accuracy of the current DVR rewind/fast-forward functions, we should get upgraded to the Stow TW interface soon.

We don’t really watch enough TV for it to matter much, but there’s something about being able to type and search a program name to have it served up nice and hot on my DVR.

Only real tragedy: we lost all the All-Star Workouts, Namaste Yoga, Friends, How I Met Your Mother and Extras episodes I had recorded and sworn to watch. But who has time for TV when you have a house to… own?

I guess it’s all part of the joys of homeownership to jump through these fiery hoops. Would I prefer someone else to get out the trampoline? Maybe. I wouldn’t kick a moving planner off the moving truck. At the end of the day, though, I just stop, drop and roll, look around and smile. Because the house is mine.

Plus, I have Neil to fight the good fight with the cable guys. And the gas people too. I just hope he doesn’t charge me some unreasonable rate…