On Office Moving Day, a Wealth of Formerly Buried Treasures Comes to Light

Experts say that moving is one of the most stressful experiences a person can have, right up there with death, divorce and finding out that your daughter is dating a guy with a motorcycle.

You might think that moving your office wouldn't be as stressful as moving your house, but take it from me: It is. The Washington Post newsroom is being emptied in advance of a renovation, and right now parts of the fifth floor look like a shady boiler room operation that the cops busted in on a little too late: barren cubicles, dangling telephone cables, silent computers. There are a few people working at scattered desks, but they'll be gone soon, many of them relocated to a scary-sounding place called "Conference Room 7."

I have to vacate my office, too, and I'm currently in a state of denial. It's not like I have particularly fancy digs. There's a big pentagonal pillar in the middle of my office. I don't have a window. And, because I'm under an air-handling unit, there's a constant thrum of white noise, as if I worked in the engine room of a submarine. But it's mine and it's full of my stuff, and now I have to get it out of here.

I had contemplated ignoring the constant e-mail reminders about the move. I thought I'd just stay put like that homeowner on Massachusetts Avenue who held out for more money as condos were built around his house. I'd be like the last Japanese soldier in a cave in the Philippines. But I decided I couldn't survive very long on packets of ketchup and duck sauce scavenged from my desk drawers.

I hate moving. I agonize over every decision: Keep or pitch? Pitch or keep? When I pick something up to throw it away or put it in a box, I get totally distracted. I lean back in my chair and try to remember when I last saw it. Before I know it, 20 minutes have passed.

It must be harder for journalists than for normal people, since we think each scrap of paper can be a story, each story a book. We're all convinced that someone will want to tell our life story, and throwing something away might deny future biographers precious material.

Then it hit me: I don't need to pack it up at all. I can just donate everything to the Smithsonian as a typical example of an early 21st-century newspaper columnist's office. Smithsonian curators could come and pack it up for me, carefully annotating every item, slipping it into a plastic sleeve or acid-free box. They could then precisely reconstruct my office at the National Museum of American History, like they did with Julia Child's kitchen.

Unlike Julia Child, I'm still around. As long as they have wi-fi in the museum, I could work from my new/old office.

I called the Smithsonian, and they were doubtful that they could have it all packed up by tomorrow, which is when I have to move. Frankly, they were doubtful that they wanted the stuff at all. But in case they do, here's a partial inventory of the contents:

-- A handwritten letter dated April 4, 2004 (blue ink on white legal pad-size paper), that begins: "Dear Mr. Kelly, I work for a living & find it simply amazing that someone is paid for producing the nonsense that you write!"