Let's Move

A friend asked me to help him move this weekend. You've got to understand, this is very big in the confines of a male hetero relationship. To best explain it, it's like a marriage proposal. While girls are always dreaming of how their guy will pop the question, if they will find Mr. Right, guys are thinking that their Mr. Right is the guy that will lug a big screen up a flight of stairs. Shhh, you had me at free beer.

Because that is the going price of having friends move you, free beer. And pizza. You've got to feed the natives before they get restless. Think about it, if your moving buddies are not fed and liquored up, they could very much leave you hanging with your sofa only halfway out the doorway. Oh, of course I could move it myself, I'm very strong. But others couldn't so you have to make sure that your tribe is well taken care of.

In this case, the wife did the taking care of. You could tell that she was very appreciative that her husband had some friends of any sort that would actually help them move. Sure, in the back of her mind she was thinking that she hoped these yahoos didn't break her shit and she was pretty sure one may have been in prison, but a free move is a free move. Those thoughts were right behind the one that swore she would chew her husband out for not hiring movers as he is a cheap bastard as soon as we either broke her refrigerator or took a dump in her closet. Because you know, that's just funny.

And as a wife that has to deal with complex relationships between women, she didn't want to offend us, thinking that we may be the same way. That is why there was a 20 minute conversation of what type of pizza we would want. So for all those other wives and girlfriends out there, let me make this simple. Guys like pizza. All pizza. Of every make and model, pizza just rocks. It's the bee's knees. Sure anchovies may suck, but hey it's still better than not having pizza. It's like sex. Any sex is better than no sex and we will always go for it, and for pizza. Unless of course the pizza has herpes. Then I won't help you move and I won't eat your pizza. But I'll probably still drink your beer.

Now there are a few rules when guys help other guys move. First is if you have a box of porn stashed somewhere, we would appreciate a glance at it. And if not, be prepared to be ripped on your lack of a box of porn. I don't know why this is, but it is. Second, please remove anything embarrassing from the house. Take it away ahead of time or stash it in the mailbox until we leave. Normally people keep these embarrassing things in the master chest of drawers. As a general rule I try not to be the one to move this. I don't even want to take the chance that a drawer falls open and out falls the KY. Awkwardness would ensue and then I would feel obliged to show you my fuzzy handcuffs and things would just get more weird from there.

On this occasion though, as I am very strong, I did move the master chest of drawers. But before I did, I very subtly asked if there was anything that might fall out and start jumping on the floor in a vibrating type fashion. "Dude, there's nothing in here that is going to make this weird is there?" Yup, I'm a subtle one.

But the friend I was helping was way ahead of me and assured me my 10 year old mind would be safe from any shock and awe and can we please go back to talking about the strippers at my bachelor party. They were so hot. But they whipped me with an actual whip, that wasn't so hot. But I was very drunk so that brings the hotness right back around.

You do learn a lot about your friends when you move them. For example, you learn all wives must dust every piece of furniture before it goes into the dirty, filthy truck. And you learn that family mementos are very fragile. And you learn that your buddy had a Don Johnson suit that he proudly wore and that wouldn't be so bad if it was actually 1988 but it is pretty damn funny that it was 2000.

And of course you learn that all their shit is made of solid wood. As every mover knows, solid wood is moving slang for "fuck that is heavy." You may mention this to your buddy such as "all your solid wood shit is heavy." To which they reply "That thing? That was my dads from when he was a kid and we just use it for storage." Of course they completely gloss over the fact that it is made of maple, a very solid wood (use previous explanation), and that it has to go down two flights of stairs to the tune of O God my forearms are burning please don't me drop this on grandma who is cleaning.

I'm a little bit of an amateur woodworker as well. So as I was moving the 4th armoire (that's right I said 4th) I took the time to notice the hand cut dovetails. I noticed that the mission desk was authentic and had mortise and tenon joinery, and I noticed that they had a Victrola.

Ok, I had no fucking clue what a Victrola was when we moved it. But I do know the cabinet that was part of it was made in the Queen Ann style. Me smart. According to Wikipedia a Victrola is the name given to a cabinet that housed a phonograph and was most likely made by a company called Victor Talking Machine Company. What Wikipedia does not state is that they are cumbersome, have fragile legs and are made of SOLID WOOD. No worries though, we moved it without any damage that I'll ever admit to. The mission desk on the other hand is going to require some repair work.

But the truly weird part of all this was that we, 4 guys, we're having a pretty good god damn time. I know, it sounds weird. But we are all stay at home dads. And while we were moving, we had no kids. We had no one hanging onto our jeans. We had no one running to us every second with an b0o-boo. We had no one that threw a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at the dog and of course missed and hit the carpet instead. Grape jelly stains, by the way.

So for us, this was a little bit of a vacation. Shit, I'll do this all day and every weekend. Beer, pizza and the ability to cuss as much and as often as I want to. Fuck shit fuck this was awesome.

The remainder of the day passed and things were good as we continually ripped our buddy for being the biggest pack rat we have ever seen. For the last time, I'm not, on principal, moving 5- gallon buckets that actually don't contain anything. I'm not doing that, shit no. I will move your fridge, I will move your kid's SOLID WOOD changing table, I will move your left over pieces of door trim. But I draw the line at empty buckets.

Unless of course they are needed for the Victrola because I have no idea how that thing works.