After three years in an 11th Street apartment that was just big enough to not be embarrassing, at least for those acquainted with the realities of Manhattan life, we toured an apartment by chance that changed our minds about the importance of living below 14th Street. Or even below 125th Street—Yes, Harlem is our home now.

It’s not that an apartment like this would cost more downtown; it simply isn’t available downtown. A full ground-floor unit that was rebuilt over the past few years along with the rest of the building? Doesn’t exist down there. Similar space and amenities in a downtown package, what with a doorman and other ostentatious Manhattanerie, would be well into wealthy / stupid rent payment territory.

So we packed and moved on fairly short notice, though one doesn’t complain when a yearly lease termination coincides with the availability date of a new apartment. Having a working internet connection on move-in is one thing that fell through the cracks, as shown by the Gawker Media-like stability of technically.us over the past week. The phone company finally came a week late and ran a wire between two sockets in a box in the cellar, giving me the sensation that my electrons had finally, also, moved into the apartment.

Before moving the electrons there was the formidable task of moving our physical possessions. I suggested that, one more time, we may as well do the move ourselves. Not for thrift (or not just for thrift) but because I’ve heard one or two horror stories about movers. Tardiness, fees escalating on the day of, general rudeness—the things I despise most in the world. It seemed like having only ourselves to be disappointed with was a safer bet.

I reserved a cargo van with a rental car company, knowing from experience that cargo vans tend to be replaced with “small” moving trucks if those happen to be more readily available. This plan worked well enough, as the van was available when I went to pick it up, a good size, and brand spanking new. It drove deceptively like a car.

There is something particularly frustrating in looking for suitable parking for a moving van in New York when you don’t drive in the city normally. Because, after years of looking upon cars from all over the country lined up in front of your door step (and hearing their alarms at night) you would now like to use that space for the period of five hours. But you may not. Though it would certainly be worth $50 to the mover to claim a space at his door, this is not an option.

Of course most people double park in these situations. Professional movers certainly think nothing of doing so. But not wanting to cause a ruckus on our last day on the block by impeding traffic, we used a loading zone on an adjacent block. Such zones are not common and we thought we may as well take advantage, even if that meant crossing University Place with dozens of boxes, tables, chairs, lamps, and a sofa.

A van’s principal advantage over a truck is being easier for an amateur to pilot through Manhattan traffic. The corresponding downside is that you must drive through more of that traffic because the van is smaller and requires more trips. On this Friday we had to make three, on a route that NYPD made loopy by directing our suspicious cargo van away from visiting foreign dignitaries scattered around Midtown.

It was slow going. I’ve not had a lot to do with Manhattan congestion, having the sense to use my feet and my Metrocard, but here we finally had the chance to experience this disgrace firsthand. It is even stupider than I’d imagined. On our enormous five-lane avenues there is one good lane. And it is the fire lane.

The outermost lanes are write-offs; delivery trucks are double parked in them on every block. Drivers in Manhattan complain about double parking causing congestion, and now I see that they are correct. But they are plainly wrong in their suggestion that it is simply a problem of lawlessness that could be remedied by steeper penalties, as if a pack of bad drivers were ruining things by their lack of manners. Delivery trucks have no choice but to stop and unload, whether there is parking or not. Much of the time the double-parked vehicles are attended and so cannot be ticketed, making steeper fines irrelevant. City drivers may ask for the impossible, but they will not get it.

Of the remaining three lanes the left and right most become turning lanes where a timid moving van can easily become lodged. So, “fire” it was.

The unbelievable thing is that even on these arteries of the city, trifling personal automobiles are lined up at cheaply metered spots along the edges. Who are these people abandoning their automobiles on New York’s avenues? Why do we let them? Delivery trucks that are essential to the life and business of the city are blamed for clogging traffic, but the space they should be able to use is taken up by a bunch of good-for-nothing freeloaders. It’s not normal.

But the traffic proved to be the least of our problems. Though I’ve driven an unwanted moving truck twice in Manhattan without incident, the smooth-driving van got the worst of me. Apparently the distance between the front and back wheels must be accounted for in the maneuvers one makes when pulling into to a gas station, lest one collide with the barriers protecting the pumps from errant cargo vans. Thank goodness the renting agent had a damage waiver sales pitch (commercial license plate = no Amex converage?) I hadn’t heard before.

With a crunching sound the period of our lives where we think we should move by ourselves came to a close. There is no reason to pretend I know well enough what to do with a large vehicle on the streets of New York. It makes perfect sense to let someone else park it in defiance of the law, bomb up and down avenues, fill the damn thing up with gas, and also please take care of that pull-out sofa bed that is shockingly heavy for its size.

Not that we are ever moving ever again ever.