*Warning: Extra Long Post (Sorry)

If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.

-- Murphy's Original Law

I love moving. Nothing on the planet better illuminates the changes one’s body goes through in 20 or 30 years.

Fatigue that was once invigorating is now alarming. Injuries we used to laugh at are now nearly debilitating. The battle cries of youth have become the whimpers of middle aged.

…… This is really starting to suck.

Our 6-mile, 5-week adventure has turned out to be a rather complicated trip down Not-a-spring-chicken-anymore Lane. (Yes, you read correctly. Just 6 miles…. But 5 weeks.)

It was, in fact, supposed to be just two weekends. (Plus an additional week of cleaning after all the items had been removed.) The first weekend would be trips of small, light things we need right away, like food, toiletries, ect. Things we can fit in to The Crapmobile. The second weekend I had scheduled a u-haul and an appliance dolly to carry the large/heavy items.  It seemed like a reasonable plan. (Really – I was feeling good about it – “easy-peasy” I kept telling Ed.)

This now returns us to Murphy’s Original Law, which I’ll re-quote:

If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.

Yep.

I used to be angry with The Universe, because my entire life has just been one mishap or ordeal after another. I’m not necessarily less angry now that I’m older, but I am more used to it. My friend Apathy and I have developed a rich relationship.

So I had a plan all set. I had made lists, and reservations. I made phone calls and budgeted monies. I was on top of everything. This was going to be the easiest move ever.

Mm-hmm.

The day before we were to actually start moving, I managed to twist my ankle. Not bad enough to require medical attention, but it has made the two flights of stairs we’ve had to navigate over and over quite interesting.

I should also acknowledge the triple digit heat, and the fact that the place we’re leaving doesn’t have air conditioning.

This is a conversation Ed and I had after Day 1:

Ed: “Geez…. I think two more hours would have killed us.”

Me: (Looking at my watch,) “Check. Two hours shy of Death. Maybe we’ll get luckier tomorrow.”

Me: “Next weekend will be better. We’ll have the truck, and the dolly. And we’ll get all this done, and then we can rest.”

However, with our stretched, aching muscles, some serious fatigue, just the two of us to do what took four people last time, and my swollen ankle, with each day that passed, you could actually see the growing terror in our eyes.

Our previous motto, sometimes battle cry, used to be something like “We Fight ‘till we Die.”  After the second Saturday’s fiasco, we discussed it, and agreed our new battle cry involves sobbing and begging for mercy.

So, weekend two arrives. We had made a few trips during the week to grab small stuff, but now we had a truck and a dolly, and we were ready to rumble. We entered that apartment, looked at each other, and said “It’s On.”

The first item we chose was the second largest piece, an armoire.

It bears noting at this point, that the idiot(s) who designed the entrance to our former apartment thought it would be funny to enclose a long, narrow staircase, and put the door not straight ahead at the top, but on the side.

So our first struggle is getting an item out the door. Then we have to deal with stairs, ect.

Well we got it out the door finally, and discovered two things: Because of the stupidly designed staircase, the person on the top end (in this case me), can’t actually hold the dolly, and Ed, big as he is, is no match for a runaway armoire.

We had gotten lucky earlier that day; I had reserved just a pick-up truck, but they gave us an 8 foot box truck instead. We were like, “cool – we can get everything that’s left in one trip, and be done with this!”

Yeah….. The armoire sort of chased Ed down the stairs and then attacked him at the bottom.

This was, er, problematic.

We only had the truck for six hours – that’s load AND unload – and we still had several more large items that absolutely had to be on that truck because they just won’t fit in to The Crapmobile, and now Ed, with a fresh new leg injury and two gaping wounds on the top of his head, had to sit and rest for 15 minutes after each item. (At the end of the day, Ed says to me, “You kicked it, didn’t you?”)

The second item we chose was a long dresser. It was very difficult getting it out the door. Prematurely bewildered, we chose to just give it a push down the stairs, and let it slide.

The remaining items (that we took that day), all managed to beat one or both of us up, and we still had half an apartment to move…… One Crapmobile load at a time, over the next two weeks.

In our almost final load, I got all cut up, and bruised up pretty good, and now, in week 5, just the cleaning part remains except for the final load of cleaning supplies, one table, and a large heavy piece out on the balcony we keep forgetting about………….