Moving is for Suckers

So the move is over, with a minimum of casualties. The only things that were abandoned due to the narrow stairs were Robbo’s couch, my kitchen table, and my box spring.

It all began Friday night, as I was moving on Saturday and had yet to pack anything. I figured, I’ll get some malt liquor, Kacyn is coming over, and the packing will go smoothly. I’m a moron.
So we grabbed some 40s of Mickey’s, and started drinking. And kept drinking. And then Robbo got there and started drinking. Then Ali called and asked if she could come over and bring a box of wine. And I said, “Hell yes you can come over and bring a box of wine!” and then two of Robbo’s friends called him to ask if they could come over and bring some... greenery. And he said, “Hell yes you can come over and bring some... greenery!” Then James came over, and so on, and so on. Then suddenly, it was 3AM, I was shitfaced, and had packed nothing but a single casserole dish. And it wasn’t even really ‘packed’ so much as ‘placed into an empty box by Kacyn.’ (Don’t worry. I took a multitude of pictures documenting this night, which will be posted later.)

This required me to get up at 9:00 on Saturday morning with a raging hangover and an entire apartment to pack. Somehow, everything got thrown into boxes and bags and I still have no idea where anything is. We set out to pick up the UHaul, at which point Robbo and I realized that neither of us was willing to drive the monstrous thing. As I was the one who rented it, I bit the bullet. I am an awful driver. So here I am, trying to merge onto the parkway in moderately heavy traffic, in this gigantic truck, hands gripped to the wheel and tears forming in my eyes. We get it home, pack it up with all my belongings, and our motley crew of movers headed to the Southside to unload.

As expected, my couches did not fit up the stairs (by about an inch. One fucking inch!) This required Robbo’s rope method of hoisting the couches to our second floor balcony, with its 5-foot railings. This was a great idea until one of the knots came undone, the other rope snapped, and my loveseat hurtled 30 feet to the ground, landing with a resounding cracking noise.
I stood there for a moment in disbelief. Everyone was silent. Have you ever seen a couch fall from two stories? It’s actually kind of amazing. Beautiful. Very American Beauty. No, not really. So I flipped the couch over, and realized that it had not broken. Nothing. It was perfectly fine. “Damn,” I thought, “the gods must be smiling on us today.”

Then the storm came.
Thanks a lot, gods.

Long story short (too late, I know), we managed to haul two soaking wet, muddy couches and an armchair up to the balcony, thanks to Robbo, Joe (who did the entire thing with a cigarette in his mouth), Chris and Geno, who then removed and replaced the kitchen door to get the couches into the house. (A very special honorable mention goes to Ali, because without her dive for the rope in the rain as the couch was about to clear the railing, none of this would have been possible.)

I threw my box spring off the balcony into the backyard in a fit of rage after it wouldn’t turn the corner to get to the third floor. (It's still there.) Robbo’s couch was abandoned due to the fact that it had been rained on for days and was missing a leg. No one felt like carrying my kitchen table up, so Geno kicked out one of the legs, and it’s still sitting on the curb in front of our house. Finally, I backed the UHaul directly into a gigantic cinder block.

All in all, a great day. I take back the assertion I made in my last post. I freaking LOVE moving.