As every single Boston resident has been heard to joke, “The students are coming!  The students are coming!”  In fact, at this point the students are already here.

My Peapod driver tonight arrived at the tail end of my delivery window, having spent fully 45 minutes just trying to get past Boston University’s move-in.  I was stop 11 of 23.  A colleague spent an hour longer driving through the same area over the weekend.

No fewer than eight U-Haul trucks and two furniture delivery trucks are double-parked within sight of my window.  Across the street, it appears the entire building is changing ownership.

One girl waited on the sidewalk surrounded by her worldly possessions until a van arrived to cart her and her belongings away.  Another girl, the very model of efficiency, simply hailed a cab, piled in with her futon and two chairs, and headed off.  One enterprising gentleman acquired a bellhop cart from somewhere and lugged it up the six steps to his front door before realizing that he’d just have to lug it back down again once laden with his belongings.

At my own building, one departing student rearranged the benches out front to make space for his pickup truck on the sidewalk after finding our loading dock, parking garage, and two makeshift lanes of on-street parking to be taken already.

Despite the chaos, this batch of students seems inexplicably (and delightfully) more civilized than the last.  The only disturbance so far was when the kindly gentleman moving in across the street found his driveway blocked.  Rather than use the other driveway around the corner, or take one of the six on-street spaces next to him, he decided to just lean on his horn until the blocking driver returned — a good four minutes later.  And how did the neighborhood react?  Two people ran out to suggest alternative parking ideas, while the rest urged him to “shut up” in hushed but insistent tones.  (Sure, it had no effect, but the sentiment was laudable!)

This is going to be a great year.