Moving is one of those times where you might let people into your lives in a way that you normally wouldn’t. People see all your stuff, how clean you live, how poorly you are organized, and they see you on one of the most stressful days of your life. So, ask your close friends to help you move! Or better yet, family, they probably already know these things about you…and they will still be your family.
I have helped quite a few people move in my time in Point Douglas. I mean, people in the area tend to move a lot, plus they don’t have resources to move themselves in the way most of us do moving. Many people wind up moving with shopping carts and wagons. Some of the people I have helped to move could easily have moved with a shopping cart. I moved one woman who had a garbage bag and a box, and that was it! I have a large car, a 2004 Toyota Corolla, so it works well for me to help…
My favourite move had a few amazing moments. A single mom, we’ll call her Marilyn and her young daughter, were moving from a 4 plex, about a block and a half, to rent a cute little house.
The day they were moving was extremely hot and humid, and the second storey apartment they were moving from was sweltering! I noticed the cat was lying in her bed, and Marilyn said, “I sure hope she doesn’t have her kitties today!”
We started (and by ‘we’ I mean ‘me’ as Marilyn nor her daughter were doing anything) by hauling smaller items which she would take in a wagon to her new home. It wasn’t long before I started to look around at how the small apartment was constructed, and realized this move was going to be difficult. I asked, “how did you get this couch in here?!” She responded, “my son added this wall, while we lived here, so, you won’t get it out through that door.” I thought we should try anyway, she responded flatly, “just throw it out the window.”
“Throw your couch out the window, from the second storey?!” I asked.
“Yeah, we’ll put the mattress down there first, and it can land on that,” she coolly responded.
I thought to myself, ‘well, this is going to be fun!’ But, I started to wonder how I was going to do this all by myself. So far, I had been the only one to do any moving at all.
I got the mattress in place, hooked some straps around the couch, so I could keep it from falling head over heels out the window. I was concerned that the couch would rotate, and smash the window in the first story apartment! I took the window out, and set the edge of the couch on the inside of the window sill. I looked out the window, and heard the bell ring in the school across the street, and as the playground of the school filled with children and staff, I grabbed the straps and started to push the couch out the window. I had it cantilevered about 3/4 of the way out the window, when I let go a yell, and a grunt, and shoved the couch out the rest of the way out the window, praying that it wouldn’t tumble into the window in the first storey. I caught myself on the windowsill before I fell out the window, and watched as the made a perfect fall, dead centre on the mattress below! A mixture of cheering and laughing came from across the street in the schoolyard, apparently we had really grabbed their attention!
That was just the beginning of this move, as we still had a massive rear projection TV to get out of the place. Thankfully, part way through the move, Marilyn had hired a 14 year old boy to help me. He and I picked up this incredibly heavy tv, were able to maneuver it out of the apartment, and began moving down the stairs. We were sweating like crazy. I had been concerned that the tv wouldn’t fit around the corner of the stairwell, and as we edged closer to that corner, I realized that this corner would not be easy! But we kept inching our way towards it. I was on the lower step moving backwards and the 14 year old boy was at the top, hanging on to the tv as best as he could.
I bumped my back up against the wall, and realized that not only would the corner be difficult, it would be impossible…I could not move…and the boy on the stairs above me was struggling to hold on. Did I mention that it was 30 plus degrees celsius and super high humidity!
At just that moment, the young girl comes running out of the apartment onto the balcony yelling, “SHE’S HAVING HER KITTIES!” Marilyn was down in the yard and yelled back, “DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH THOSE KITTIES OR THE MOTHER WILL EAT THEM!!” The girl screeched, “BUT SHE NEEDS HEL-!” “SHE’S FINE,” Mom interrupted. “I ALREADY TOUCHED THEM!” she cried. The Mom came storming towards the balcony anger burning in her eyes, but I stood there, trapped behind a TV, while also blocking anyone from getting up and down the stairs…I imagined myself sweating so profusely that I completely dehydrated and shrivelled up, and then the TV made it out.
Eventually we did wriggle and wrench that TV around the corner, putting holes in the walls in the process, but we got it out.
That was an exciting move, and I loved doing it! It is an honour to help someone else, and to be allowed into their lives when things are not going well, and maybe when they are not at their best. It is an honour to help someone move…imagine how many stories you can tell about helping someone move…it’s always interesting. By the way, that is not me volunteering to help you move!
The cat, and it’s kitties made it to their new home, and wonderfully, against all science, the mother did not eat them.