My Three Easy Steps for Surviving Your Move to Your New Home are:

(a) carefully label all your boxes

(b) load your items into the moving truck, with the most important boxes loaded last

(c) set the moving truck on fire

I moved into my new place two weeks ago, and my lower back promptly moved out. Last night I brushed my teeth with my socks. When I get up at night to use the bathroom, the bubble wrap under my feet crackles like it's Chinese New Year, and I usually wind up going back to bed because I can't find the bathroom in the maze of boxes. Of course, I can't find the bed, either - I've been sleeping on the dog.

The Cable Guy came to set up my TV service because that's the most important thing; with that hooked up, I'm able to invite my buddies over to watch the game and help me unpack. The Cable Guy informed me that my new neighborhood has a different cable setup and I'll have to buy a satellite receiver and a space station. He hooked everything up and it sounds like it's working fine, somewhere over there behind the boxes marked "Living-room stuff."

According to my telephone provider, my phone service will be activated sometime between noon Wednesday and the next solar eclipse. No problem: I have a cell phone, though I neglected to see whether it worked in this new home before I moved here. It turns out the only way I can make a cell call is to go to the garage, climb onto the roof of the car, lean out the garage window and put one hand on the fence while my foot rests on some paint cans. I left messages for my buddies to come over and listen to the game somewhere in my living room; I got a voice mail back saying they are "not that kind of buddies."

My mail has been forwarded - I just don't know to where. The person I spoke to at the post office suggested that the reason I'm not getting any mail is probably that no one likes me. That's one problem I can cross off the list!

I called my son to come help me. "Dad, I'm at college. You don't want to spend all this money and have me be nothing but a mover, do you?"

"Yes," I told him. "Yes, I do."

Actually, moving entails a great deal of skill, which I realized as I watched the movers I'd hired and saw that they didn't have any. They seemed to believe that they needed to acclimate every piece of furniture to the new place by ramming it into the walls and that the word fragile translates as "OK to step on this after you've dropped it."

The dog, meanwhile, seems happy with the maze of boxes, personally marking each one as his territory.

Miraculously, I do have Internet access! However, the cost to move the cable box over to where the desk will be when I can find the desk is prohibitive, so to send e-mail I need to stand in the bathroom and type on my computer, when I can find the computer, when I can find the bathroom.

The kitchen in my new place is much larger, so that's where I've put the piano. All I've eaten since I moved in is pizza, though I may have to change that strategy, as the pizza boy is threatening to halt deliveries because the smell coming out of my place nauseates him. I should have packed my frozen meat someplace where I could find it by now. The dog found some of it, but it didn't agree with his stomach.

Most of the boxes I've opened contain carefully bubble-wrapped objects that I've decided I'll throw out as soon as I find my trash can. My clothing is MIA, too - I'm wearing what can only be termed "emergency underpants."

I did find my socks, though, so maybe I can get away with wearing just those.

I wonder what the pizza boy will think of that.

Write to Bruce at bruce@ wbrucecameron.com.