I have another in a series of brilliant ideas, disseminated here poorly. In three days, I’ll have a better, funnier way of telling it and I’ll have severe George Lucas urges to start modifying the post. But I won’t modify the post. Instead, I’ll let it become the usual paean to mediocrity which is part of the Blurbomat Creed.
Idea? The MovaTron 4000™. Instead of having the pain of loading the truck, then unloading the truck for storage, then reloading the truck from storage and then unloading the truck at the final destination, you simply load your stuff into the truck, which contains an inner shell called The Cocooninator. The Cocooninator is a thick, polycarbonate/Kevlarê box that fits exactly the shape of your moving van. So you finish your load. You seal The Cocooninator, then close the truck. You drive to your storage destination. The truck then performs some hydraulic magic. You pull up to the loading dock and after pushing a couple of buttons, your Cocooninator is waiting for the lackeys at the storage facility to get off their asses and move it to the overpriced Cocooninator Storage Module. The only finger you lift is the one that presses the buttons. Sure, you just spent 6 hours loading your truck. Do you need to be messing about with painful unloading?
The only problem I can see is that Public Storage seems to have a variant of this idea. However, the cost is pretty high (they offer Powerloading!), and you have to have space for all the giant containers (Non-Cocooninator compliant) and be sure that your neighborhood won’t be vandalized by young thugs. I’m pretty sure Public Storage could attract a new market segment with a mid-level pricing point with the MovaTron/Cocooninator system. Also, Powerloading doesn’t work in San Francisco, or other, non-flat places.
Plus, who doesn’t want to work some hydraulics?