About a month ago, we finally purchased a new tv, which D had been coveting since before we got married. The day it was delivered, he stayed home from work to bask in all of its sleek, modern glory. Our old tv looked like a dinosaur in comparison. When I came home from work, he was on the couch watching a woodworking show on the new tv…which was on the floor. He was waiting for me to help lift the old tv, or “the beast” as I will now be referring to it, from the tv stand. That was not fun. However, we somehow managed to hug the tv from both sides and shuffle a few feet over to the corner where we lovingly sat it down on the floor. It would reside there for the next few weeks because my desire to stop seeing it there did not override the fear of my lungs bursting and arms snapping off in an attempt to move it down to D’s office in the basement.
Weeks go by. The new tv is great and I was getting pretty used to ignoring the beast in the corner. Until last Saturday when I heard D running cable through the wall down to his office. My immediate thought was, “Oh, crap. He’s going to want me to move that stupid beast downstairs so he can hook it up in his office. Well, it’s not going to happen. No way can I move that thing. He will have to ask one of the guys to come over and help.” I continued watching the Bachelor while remaining in complete denial. Eventually, I heard the familar sounds of woodworking and I began to relax. “Okay, he realizes there is no way I can help drag this thing down there so he has moved onto another project,” I thought. So, I went back to wondering why that annoying girl on the show has to sing to the bachelor every chance she gets. Seriously, do the girls this season think this show is actually some sort of talent competition?
Anyway, I’m watching my show and then here comes D, holding this cart he has fashioned out of scrap wood and some wheels (I am just now wondering as I type this where those wheels came from). It reminded me of the carts they had on move-in day at the dorms to help make moving all of your stuff in a little easier. Okay, a little easier on my dad and/or brother who usually ended up doing most of the heavy lifting.
He shows me this cart with a huge smile like he is so proud of himself for making this task easier for me while I am thinking, “Are you freaking kidding me?!” because I realize we can’t just send this cart careening down a flight of stairs. He goes on to explain how we just have to lift it on the cart and then roll it to the stairs. “Yeah.. then what???” I asked, my tone a tad sarcastic. “Well… then we carry it down the stairs, but I will go first to take the brunt of the weight and when we get to the bottom it goes right back on the cart. Really, it won’t be that bad,” he replied.
You have to admire the guy’s technique. He knows there is NO WAY I was going to move that thing without some kind of assistance. So, I start thinking maybe he’s right. Maybe it won’t be so bad. And it would be nice to get it out of the living room. So, we load it onto the cart, which honestly wasn’t that hard. Then, we realize one of the wheels has already buckled due to the weight of the beast, so we take it off the cart. He fixes the wheel, we put it back on. We roll it out of the living room, through the kitchen, and into the hall. Piece of cake! Then, it’s go time. Right before we are about to attempt lift-off, he gives me a speech about bending my knees because my form wasn’t that good before. After letting him know that if my form wasn’t good enough, he could find someone else to help him, we went for it.
Now, ladies. If you ever find yourself in a similar predicament, I recommend that you be the first one to go down the stairs. Because while it may seem like that person has the harder job, the other person immediately ends up bent over at an awkward angle that no amount of proper knee bending can help. And it’s like that the whole way down. About halfway through this horror, I asked for a break. My grip slipped a little and the tv landed with a bit of thud as we set it down. We took it stair by stair after that. The whole time I was silently cursing my husband and thinking about dropping that tv for real to teach him a lesson.
Somehow, we made it to the bottom and put the beast back on the cart, which we wheeled through the woodshop and into his office, its final resting place. D was pretty triumphant about it. “See? We did it! I told you that you could do it.” I was not feeling so triumphant. That last thing I told him before I went back to my show was that when we are ready to dispose of that thing, we will be beating it with a baseball bat Office Space style and removing it piece by piece.
