Here in town we have a company called Meathead Movers. They’re everywhere. I wasn’t so sure about trusting this brand with my stuff or my walls, but I noticed we used them at work. They claim to be “student athletes” that use moving as a way to workout, which is basically the worst possible workout I could invent, but I digress…
The first week of April I was headed to Florida for our user conference and so I woke-up the Saturday before, hell-bent on getting my mattress out of the shipping container and into the new Sweet Mom Suite. There was logic behind this meathead move. I should get the king mattress up the stairs before the banister goes in. I can sleep in the house so I don’t wake everyone up when I head to the airport at 4 in the morning. I should preview what’s in the shipping container before unboxing twenty years of marriage and a business we packed up two years ago.
I’m an early riser. I wade through the waist deep grass. The combo lock won’t budge. I trudge back for WD40 and wrench open the doors. No sign of my goal. Just my luck it will be strapped to the absolute back of this shipping container. Only one way to find out.
I pull out boxes and boxes and put them in the grass. It’s quick work to make an even bigger mess. Then I hit a wall. Maybe this is a two-day project? The weather app predicts rain tomorrow. There’s no way out. I need two people to move my grandparents’ kitchen table. An hour in and no sign of my mattress.
Good morning Nate! Time to wake-up and help me with this project. To his credit, Nate is a capable, complaint-free partner with a video game debt to pay-off. We move the table, the chairs, more chairs. The lockers from the shop. Art. Until we finally get to some metal things that look like my king-sized bed frame and box springs. We meticulously make five trips into the house and up the stairs with these awkward, sharp metal pieces that will surely wreck anything they touch.
We get them all into my new bedroom and… they make NO sense. Why are there so many pieces? What goes to what? All the corners are different. YouTube is useless.
We need Dad. Indisputably, bed frames live in the Dad database.
I talk Nate into a water break. We’ve finally identified my mattress. It’s strapped to the furthest possible back corner of this shipping container. As the kids would say, “We’re cooked.” We’ll wake-up Jake. Maybe he’ll know what to do.
Needless to say, Jacob does not love this plan. Begrudgingly, he joins the meathead movers in my new bedroom. He takes one look at all the metal parts and immediately declares, “This is three beds.”
Whaaaaat?
“These two smaller ones used to be in the barn. I remember playing hide-and-seek and Nate got stuck under one. You’re going to take that piece in the hall, hook it up to the side of this, and that’s the king-sized bed. Bye.”
Thanks Jame. I knew you’d come through.