My calves hurt: a tale of moving to the 2nd floor

Ormond Beach Observer
Opinion

I've always liked the idea of living on the top floor. It would feel sort of like living in a treehouse, I imagined. Only one with plumbing, electricity and less bugs.

I still have yet to experience life at the very top, but I knew I was getting closer as I signed the lease for my new apartment, located on the second floor of a three-story building.

My mom shook her head as a I made my decision and said "Good luck moving up there yourself."

Oh mom, you're so cute when you think you're not going to be a part of my antics.

Now, her hesitation to help comes from an understandable place. My past moving history has involved me throwing everything into unorganized piles in my backseat and making hundreds of trips back and forth to retrieve what I've accidentally left behind. It's usually a mess, but this time it was going to be different. I had boxes, packing tape, a U-Haul! This was going to be a breeze.

I returned to work the week before I was set to move, so in order to make the process simple, I packed everything (and I mean everything) up the Sunday before. This attempt at getting ahead immediately backfired when I realized I had packed some essentials (checks, camera charger, soap), and had to go back and unpack them.

After a week of living with my parents, we were all set to move everything in one trip — a feat none of us could believe was actually happening. My mom was giddy at the idea of decorating and my dad was grumpy at the idea of walking up a flight of stairs more than once.

We decided to take on the biggest task first, a.k.a. the couch, and used all of our upper-body strength (which even combined is not a lot) to move it up to the second floor. We did it, barely, but then another challenge faced us: getting it through the door.

The couch was, in my opinion, small, but so was my new front door. We twisted and turned and grunted as we exhausted all of my dad's (who is the resident smart guy in our family) options. After seriously considering the idea of an "outdoor hallway couch for all the neighbors to enjoy," I suggested sitting the couch upright in front of the door, and then moving the lower-half in first. It worked, and I'm still gloating.

The rest of the move went as smoothly as expected (meaning dad fell once, I got tons of paper cuts and mom yelled at us for not working hard enough), and as I worked to unpack boxes, my parents ran to the store to pick up some new home necessities.

"The checkout guy at Walmart said he hopes you appreciate us," Mom said after they returned.

I looked around at all my books, heavy furniture and coffee mug collection that my parents had willingly helped me bring here, to the next chapter of my life.

The word appreciation is really an understatement.