To quote a friend: "Do you know what my favorite thing about moving is? Nothing!"
A friend had solicited volunteers in helping them move. Personaly I've always enjoyed the process. What could be better than a giant puzzle game? You get the fun of lifting heavy objects, the stimulation of finding the best course of action in navigating hallways, stairs or other obstacles plus the exercise and banter with your mates. I would almost call it fun. Not roller coaster, gaming or movie theater fun but certainly more fun than sitting at home wondering what to do with your Sunday afternoon.
So when I got the opportunity to help I said, "Count me in!"
I had helped them move into this house about eight years ago. I recalled it being a really good move. It had it all, flight of stairs with a bend and narrow landings, loads of heavy items and lots of "from the hip engineering" to get things from A to B. Serious moving mojo was required.
Back then my group of friends were all newly married couples and moving weekends were pretty common place for us. I've moved a lot of people and I've always had plenty of support from friends during our moves. After a while we all got used to what was a good move and a bad move.
When moving a friend there are a few things you want to find out up front. Questions like:
"Do you have any particle board furniture that you are hoping to preserve?"
"Have you already packed everything in boxes?"
"Including all the items in your kitchen cabinets?"
"Does your TV weigh more that a VW Super Beetle?"
"How many boxes of books do you have?"
"Will there be pizza?"
Or the big one... "Do you have a piano?"
This question should actually be number one on that list. Turns out on Sunday the answer was "Yes, but it's already been moved."
So... as far as I'm concerned it was one of the easiest moves I've ever helped out on. In fact we only needed to take one load of items to a local mini storage. Super simple. We loaded up the refrigerator in my truck and only had to remove one gate from it's hinges. The friend I was helping was a well trained packer and had zero trouble finding room for all his items. In fact he did so well, he had plenty of room to spare. It was like watching a live action Tetris game with realistic grunting and sweating.
All in all I think we only spent two hours there. Afterwards my brother-in-law and I hung out at my place. We played video games, ate tater tots and watched Sci-Fi. Oh and I even scored a 19" monitor that was going to be tossed out. Pretty close to the perfect Sunday afternoon ever!
