KEEP ON MOVIN’ DON’T STOP

Well, there’s a couch blocking the hallway, and there are books piled up all around the TV. And there are 5,000 unpacked boxes taking up every available inch of floor space. But from a purely technical standpoint, the Big Move is done.

I wouldn’t say it went “smoothly”. But that’s fine with me. When things go smoothly, there’s nothing to remember (and therefore, nothing to write about), so who would want things to go smoothly? Well, maybe Drew did. There were moments when I thought he might lose it. But for a guy who went from having a nice, orderly apartment to an apartment where his junk and my junk were intermingled and piled high from wall to wall, I’d say he handled it all very well.

I thought I was smart to reserve a truck in advance, but the truck rental place was closed when we showed up at 9 a.m. On the internet, it said their hours were from 9-3. The sign out front said the hours were actually 11-3. Suddenly, Drew and I had two hours to kill and a lot less time to complete the heavy lifting. When we came back at 11, the lady informed us that in fact, their hours were 11-2, which meant we’d only have three hours to complete what was originally supposed to be a six-hour move.

My friends Chuck and Eric both offered to help, but Drew figured two more helpers wouldn’t hurt, so he hired a couple of Mexican-American Day Laborers (and if I’m not using the politically correct term, please note that I at least tried to). I was nervous about doing this, but Drew had done it before, so he handled it like a pro. Marco and Juan were very nice and extremely good workers. They were finished packing the truck before Chuck and Eric even showed up. Suddenly, we were on schedule again.

Our moving men also gave Drew an opportunity to practice his Spanish. I took six years of Spanish in high school and college, but when called upon to use it, I panic. As I was trying to explain which items were going, all I could come up with was to point at various things and say either “Este, si” or “Este, no”. And I said “muchas gracias” about ten thousand times. When they left, Marco and Juan complimented Drew on his Spanish. To me, they said, “Adios… do you know what this means?” Uh, yeah. I knew that one.

Since I was moving into Drew’s already fully-furnished apartment, I got rid of a lot of my stuff ahead of time. But one of the things I wanted to keep was my couch, mostly because it was one of the few things I had bought new, and I paid way too much for it. When I get ripped off on something, I’m reluctant to part with it. So even though Drew already had two couches, I wanted to keep mine for the spare bedroom. Well, couches aren’t good at bending around corners, and the spare bedroom is unfortunately located around a corner. Marco and Juan tried every type of pivot and partial-lift, scrape-against-the-roof-tiles, halfway-into-the-bathroom-and-out-again, but-what-if-we-take-the-legs-off strategy imaginable, but could not get that big couch through that little doorway. After about the fifth time I heard “no lo hace”, I knew it was time to give up.

We really had nowhere else to put the couch, so we just left it sitting in the hallway. This is supposed to be a temporary solution until we figure out who to give, sell or donate it to, but I can already see us getting comfortable with having the couch there. It’s been three days, and I barely notice it anymore. I squeeze past it every time I walk down the hall, and it no longer seems like much of an issue. It’s a minor inconvenience I’ve learned to ignore. Some people have noisy neighbors or a leaky roof. We have a couch blocking our apartment’s main thoroughfare. No biggie. We deal. I have a feeling that couch will be there a long time.