U-Haul People

I refilled a propane tank at a nearby U-Haul, where people seem always to be in transition.

I saw a woman alone, her car filled with belongings. Was she returning a truck? Or scouting one out? I imagined that she was moving away. The stuff in her car was the gear she needed when she got to where she was going. Maybe she was making the last trip to her new place.

I saw a bunch of people that looked like a family. One or two parent looking types. One or two sibling looking types. They were hugging each other, in front of a U-Haul truck whose hatch was still open, allowing me to see what looked like an apartment's worth of stuff. It's early for students to be arriving in Boston, but maybe it's not too early to make a trip to a Midwest or West Coast school?

I saw a young couple, proceeding slowly from the office, papers in hand. "They've got each other," I said to myself. Maybe they're moving in together, and they needed a truck to consolidate stuff.

The attendant made the propane tank hiss. The odometer read three gallons. He capped the tank, and gave it to me. Did people at the U-Haul look at me, and deduce that I was the local?

I drove away and at the first stoplight, I realized how familiar I was with this road. I could go left, right, or straight, and it wouldn't matter: I could get home. The familiarity is comforting and suffocating at the same time.

When the light turned green, I went straight.