We Are the Pod People

 

For weeks in my walks through the city, I have been noticing the PODS, as in “Portable On Demand” storage boxes. A few days later, a "For Rent" or "For Sale" sign often appears on the same lawns. That doesn’t mean decisions were made: PODS don’t convey the certainty of moving vans.

 

If you hire a Mayflower Truck, you know where you are going. POD people can’t decide. After great catastrophe, shared trauma, everybody tells his story. I know some of my neighbors are leaving for now with their spouses, who have found work elsewhere. Some are selling damaged shells and moving into smaller places, still in the city. Some are removing possessions from houses that need renovation, but they aren’t rebuilding yet. Some couples are separating over the strain, so half the household is going in the POD. Some are throwing off a satellite—an efficiency apartment, a camp on higher ground. In case--in case the levees aren’t fixed before the next biblical flood.