Moving is evidence that the human species is a hair away from insanity.
It should be against the law to move with your spouse as your help. Movers should come with pack it up and unpack it specials. I should be able to close my eyes and SURPRISE! I'm moved!
Yesterday was extremely long. I never thought I was going to get in the bed. It kept threatening to rain, we were running behind schedule. Trey had a meeting in the middle of the day! But that wasn't what ran us late.
I wanted to be out of the house and moving by 8. We didn't get moving until 8:30. Then we couldn't find the box with the shower stuff in it so Trey could get ready for his meeting. Then it took forever at the bank. Plus, I hadn't eaten and there was so much excitement, my blood sugar was getting kind of low so I had to stop to eat something. Well by that time, everybody had quit serving breakfast, too!
Well, we get the first load to the apartment. Both of our trucks were packed full. All of the kitchen - I think, I'm still not sure! Ha! - got moved, I thought all of the bathroom, and a few things that I had told Trey not to worry about until later so we could get important things like the kitchen and bathrooms done and make another trip for some clothes. I had thought we were staying in Northport for the night until the night before and we had already - excuse me, Trey had already decided that he wanted to get the bed.
Well, our trucks aren't big enough so we got a bigger one from the dealership and got the mattresses.
Well, it wasn't big enough so for our THIRD trip of the day, we had to get the bed frame.
Here's where my therapist would have upped my Lexapro.
First. If you've seen my office or my kitchen or my - OK if you've met me, you know how much I don't like things out of order. I was already having my personal organizational issues with changing our moving plans while we're actually moving and putting kitchen paraphernalia in it's new home. I hadn't even tackled unpacking the bathroom at this point.
My goal for the day was like I said, move the boxes for the kitchen and bathroom and clothes and unpack. Grab furniture and unimportant boxes on Saturday. But as this story is going, and as you should know about Trey by now, that's not how my plans went.
So when Trey said, "Let's just get the sofa and the TV, too. The cable man's coming today," I started to feel the senselessness coming. Hello, Bryce? I need a padded room for one, please?
"OK, how about just the TV and more boxes. And clothes," I begged. "I need clothes for tomorrow."
Trey just had this puppy dog face in his eyes. I hate it when does that. It's the kind of I want it really bad though and it would really make my day and I know I'm asking a lot out of you but I want it anyway face. His eyes look like that cartoon cat that Warner Brother's draws. You know, the one with the big doe-eyes and they twinkle? The kind you can't say "no" to?
"We can just get one section of the sofa and the bed frame and it'll fit!" He had the excitement of a five-year-old. He's evidence that I already have a kid - a 32-year-old named Trey!
"And we don't have a rope, baby," I rationalized, "What are we going to tie it down with?" I put my hands on the tailgate hoping this would bring him back down from wherever he was.
"I've got an extension cord!"
Shit! Why can't I have those doe-eyes like his?
Defeated, I agreed. I agreed to ONE section of our sofa. One. Well...my Einstein decided we could get the other section on there, too.
Let me clarify something: I have the heaviest two-piece sofa. Putting the first section on the truck was challenge enough. Putting the second section on top was enough to qualify me for the strong man competition.
Once we had the sofa on the truck, we had to squeeze the bed frame into the bed of the truck. I was getting madder and more frustrated by the minute but Trey has less patience than I do and was already giving me his opinions -- even though this was his idea. We worked out getting the metal bed frame squeezed between the side of the truck and the sofa and then began tying the extension cord around the sofa.
Moving tip #476. Never use an extension cord to tie your sofa onto the truck. Ever.
It took us several passes with the extremely long cord but we got it tied around the sofa. But did you know that it doesn't stay tight as a rope? Yeah. Us,either.
I followed Trey with several car lengths between us because I was watching the rope slowly but surely slide down the end side of my sofa. I wanted to cry. And when he went over the railroad tracks, the sofa sections literally bounced on top of each other like the top section was on a trampoline! It was my worst nightmare. My beautiful tan and leather sofa bouncing into the highway for a large truck to demolish. It was halfway to the apartment that I realized Trey did this on purpose - because he wants a new sofa! Fortunately, for his sake, the sofa made it to the apartments in its original state. Now we just had to get it up the stairs...
We untied the extension cord. It took half the time it took tying up the sofa since it had gotten so loose on the trip to the apartment. Miraculously, though, despite all the bouncing, the top section of the sofa was still in its original position. We slid the elephant weight off of the truck and headed to the stairs. How do movers do this every day?
Trey started up the stairs and I was right behind him. We got about halfway when my hands just let go. I was so sweaty already not to mention tired, irritable, aggravated, pissed off, frustrated, PMSy and ready to quit. But I kept trying. I'll refrain from the other details but this scene is the reason why married couples should never move houses together by themselves. Ever.
Once the sofa was up the stairs, we had to rest. We were exhausted. Fortunately for us, in more ways than one, the cable man showed up to install everything. This man, Sean, he has this best timing in the world!
Sean was a huge, tough-looking man. His hands were probably bigger than my face. He was very nice and personable and was moving as quickly as he could to get our cable, internet and phone hooked up. It was a nice break from moving objects up the stairs. While Sean was fixing us up, Trey leaned over and said, "We'll get the other half of the sofa when he leaves."
I wanted to cry. My body was screaming enough! at this point. "I can't help you with the sofa. Let me call Kinley. It's almost 5:30, he'll be getting off work soon and can help you. I don't have anything left in me to get this sofa up the stairs."
"Don't call Kinley." He sounded very firm about that, "You can help me. I'll let you go up the stairs first."
"Trey, it's not a good idea. I'm just going to go call Kinley, maybe Jason will let him come over here now and help you." I begged. All of me was aching. I was thirsty, tired, I felt like I'd been beaten up. I know he had of felt the same. We'd been moving all day...up and down those stairs...I wondered why he didn't listen to me to begin with when I told him moving the sofa was a bad idea...
We stopped discussing it for a minute and began joking around with each other. I picked up the phone to call Kinley even though Trey begged me again not to. Meanwhile, Sean had overheard our debate.
"Man, let me help you."
I hung up the phone. When a 7 foot tall man built to be a linebacker volunteers, he's hired! Trey accepted his offer and we waited for him to finish, unaware of the time or the cloud coverage.
I started to unpack more of the kitchen and finally paused to watch a bit of the TV for a second. It was the first glimpse of the world around me I'd had all day. Trey was flipping the channels and paused on FRIENDS for a second when I began to hear an all too familiar relaxing sound lightly tapping the window.
"Trey, is that rain?" I asked, praying that I was hearing things.
"Oh no!" The clouds that had been so ominous all day were finally making good on their promise. We both sprinted outside to see the rain not just coming down but pouring down - on our sofa. We ran to the truck and pulled the sofa into the breezeway. For that moment, that section of sofa was as light as a feather! Upon inspecting the damage, we realized that the section was s.o.a.k.e.d.
"What do we do?" Trey demanded like I knew all the answers. But I didn't have all the answers. All of our towels were still in Northport. I didn't pack my handy shop vac into my back pocket that morning, either! I didn't know what to do.
"I brought my hair dryer?"
"Great," he answered disparagingly, "Go get it!"
"Well we have two towels, Trey! What do you want me to do?" I felt like I didn't deserve his sarcasm. But apparently he felt I did because he walked upstairs to the apartment without saying a word and disappeared. I thought Now I know he didn't leave me out here. I can't get back up to the apartment and it's raining! I hope the cable man gets done soon. I knew that if we could get the sofa inside, it would eventually dry and everything would be fine. I just wanted to try to soak up as much of the water as I could before it made it into the apartment.
Trey then re-appeared with to the towels I had used to pack. We laid them on top of the cushions and sat down, bouncing like children jumping on the bed.
I look back at this moment and laugh at us now. It was something out of a sitcom. However, we were burning mad; we were tired, irritable, sick of this move and now bouncing on a sofa. It was one of those quiet moments where you reflect on the day and think, "Did all this shit really happen?"
He talked me into trying to get the sofa up the stairs. I was headed up the stairs first this time, fortunately. It made it a little bit easier heading up first and Trey was given the opportunity to realize how difficult it was for me to push up the stairs with the first sofa section.
"Oh hey, let me help you with that!" It was the voice of salvation, the voice of Sean, the Cable Guy! Hallelujah! He was finally finished - again, with his impeccable timing.
"Sure! Tell me when you've got it and I'm letting go!" His hands were already in the place of mine and I dashed up the stairs out of the way. As I imagined, this sofa was light weight for this guy. He should be in the moving business! The piece was up the stairs and in the living room in no time.
Wet - but in place.
This Thanksgiving, I am thankful that Stephen helped Trey with the rest of the heavy furniture and not me.
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