I love mornings…
…especially when I have a much coveted day off. I wake up with the childlike anticipation and excitement for what a day of total freedom will bring. It could be a day trip out of town with a special lady, an all-city bar hop with the boys, a deep sea fishing trip with my father, or just lying in bed watching whatever comes on the Discovery Channel. Yup, I love that feeling. But of course I forgot…this is my life….and not a normal one, because then it happened.
“Chris, what are you doing today?”, she asked.
Thinking I’m about to be invited to a cookout I quickly (stupidly) responded, “Nothing. I got the whole day off, what’s up?!”
“Can you help my Mom move a few things to her new apartment?”
*Silent hesitation*
“Ummm…yeah. Sure. I guess I can swing over there for a little bit”
“Great! It won’t take long…we have a lot of people helping us.”
Yeah right. They had a lot of people standing around, talkin’ about they were either sick, or had a back problem, or some other bullsh*t excuse to why their participation would be limited to only carrying blankets and pillows. So, at 11:00am there was only me and one other guy to help…and we both seemed to be equally hung-over from the night before. On top of that, her mother’s apartment reeked with the putrid smell of poor planning. Besides a few boxes….absolutely nothing was packed. Dishes, glasses, and silverware were lying on the kitchen table as if to say, “Just make sure I get in the van!” And her mother wasn’t even home to say exactly what was leaving her well lived-in apartment of 20 years. If I hadn’t let them use my car to go pick up the moving van…I might have had a change of heart and dipped by using the “stitches” excuse. But it looked like I was gonna be there for the long hall, so I just got it in my mind to get it done so I could enjoy my day off.
“I’ll still have time to catch up with the guys this afternoon.”, I thought as I picked up a box of old sewing equipment.
Well, besides being on the third floor in a building where several children decided it was a good day to play tag on the steps…and not having any tools to take apart the solid oak bedroom furniture…and the little voice in my head that kept asking, “How the f*ck did you end up here?”…moving her stuff out to the street went pretty smoothly. After the two hours of removing twenty-eight screws from the bedroom furniture using only a pair of pliers that someone found under the refrigerator…moving the entire building to the top of Mount Everest would have seemed like a piece of cake. Just then my day got even better. That’s when I got the call. “Chris…the van won’t start. We have to go to another U-Haul. They said they’ll have one for us at 3pm…we’re heading over there now.” So there I stood, without a car, with Hung-over Homeboy and all her mother’s belongings down on the street, trying to decide the shadiest spot to sit on the 120 degree sidewalk until they returned with the mother and a moving vehicle.
I thought as I slowly cooked from the inside on the sidewalk, “Man, this is the first nice beach day we’ve had in a minute…well, I’ll just check a movie later...I don’t wanna be outside anymore.”
After three hours of watching drug dealers hop out to random cars, little13 year olds modeling their newly found sexuality, and crack heads walking past and giving me looks like my sidewalk sittin’ @ss was worse off than them…they finally showed up with a moving truck. It was now 4:45pm and I started throwing things on my back and ordering people around in an attempt to salvage what was left of my day off. Once we got to the new apartment, which was in a residential complex for the elderly, I instructed Hung-over Homeboy to finish bringing in the rest of the stuff in while I reassembled the bedroom set and entertainment center….while all of the excuse makers decided it was a good time to get some Mickey D’s….then come back and instruct me on how the furniture should be arranged….while they all munched on fries. After we tried every possible furniture configuration they were finally satisfied with the one that I originally created when I lugged all the stuff in. So at 7:45pm they considered the move complete…relinquishing me of my commitment and setting me free.
“Maybe, I’ll just rent a couple of movies and relax tonight”, I thought as I rubbed my lower back.
But as I said before…this is my life, so I wasn’t surprised when I was about to hop in my car I heard an engine struggling to turn over and someone declare, “Oh no….Chris don’t leave! The truck won’t start!” And of course the truck was parked in a strict no parking zone…dead in the center of this elderly complex. Then as we were working to figure out why the truck wouldn’t start…it happened. The residents started coming out of their homes like it was Dawn of the Dead, waving canes, and expressing their disapproval of the truck being there. After being yelled at for 15 straight minutes and successfully restraining the urge to disrespect my elders I calmed them down and discovered that the need to move the truck right away was not because it was blocking the ambulance and fire route. It was because it was restricting access to the resident’s favorite bench…the one that’s lower to the ground with less bird poop on it. (WTF?! Isn’t Wheel of Fortune on or something?) So eventually, I went to the UHall and got someone to come and restart the truck. At 9:15pm I successfully watched the whole day, the apartment, the sidewalk, and the truck, disappear in my rear view mirror.
On the way home I get a call from my buddy.
“Hey…where you been? We’ve been tryin’ ta reach you. I thought you were comin’ over?”
“No dog, I’m going home and going straight to bed. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
My wonderful day off.
There are not too many people I like right now.
But on the plus side, if I ever have a problem getting into heaven I can have St. Peter just review this day. I'd be like, "Come on dog, look at all that crap...I think I've earned at LEAST a weekend stay."
“Chris, what are you doing today?”, she asked.
Thinking I’m about to be invited to a cookout I quickly (stupidly) responded, “Nothing. I got the whole day off, what’s up?!”
“Can you help my Mom move a few things to her new apartment?”
*Silent hesitation*
“Ummm…yeah. Sure. I guess I can swing over there for a little bit”
“Great! It won’t take long…we have a lot of people helping us.”
Yeah right. They had a lot of people standing around, talkin’ about they were either sick, or had a back problem, or some other bullsh*t excuse to why their participation would be limited to only carrying blankets and pillows. So, at 11:00am there was only me and one other guy to help…and we both seemed to be equally hung-over from the night before. On top of that, her mother’s apartment reeked with the putrid smell of poor planning. Besides a few boxes….absolutely nothing was packed. Dishes, glasses, and silverware were lying on the kitchen table as if to say, “Just make sure I get in the van!” And her mother wasn’t even home to say exactly what was leaving her well lived-in apartment of 20 years. If I hadn’t let them use my car to go pick up the moving van…I might have had a change of heart and dipped by using the “stitches” excuse. But it looked like I was gonna be there for the long hall, so I just got it in my mind to get it done so I could enjoy my day off.
“I’ll still have time to catch up with the guys this afternoon.”, I thought as I picked up a box of old sewing equipment.
Well, besides being on the third floor in a building where several children decided it was a good day to play tag on the steps…and not having any tools to take apart the solid oak bedroom furniture…and the little voice in my head that kept asking, “How the f*ck did you end up here?”…moving her stuff out to the street went pretty smoothly. After the two hours of removing twenty-eight screws from the bedroom furniture using only a pair of pliers that someone found under the refrigerator…moving the entire building to the top of Mount Everest would have seemed like a piece of cake. Just then my day got even better. That’s when I got the call. “Chris…the van won’t start. We have to go to another U-Haul. They said they’ll have one for us at 3pm…we’re heading over there now.” So there I stood, without a car, with Hung-over Homeboy and all her mother’s belongings down on the street, trying to decide the shadiest spot to sit on the 120 degree sidewalk until they returned with the mother and a moving vehicle.
I thought as I slowly cooked from the inside on the sidewalk, “Man, this is the first nice beach day we’ve had in a minute…well, I’ll just check a movie later...I don’t wanna be outside anymore.”
After three hours of watching drug dealers hop out to random cars, little13 year olds modeling their newly found sexuality, and crack heads walking past and giving me looks like my sidewalk sittin’ @ss was worse off than them…they finally showed up with a moving truck. It was now 4:45pm and I started throwing things on my back and ordering people around in an attempt to salvage what was left of my day off. Once we got to the new apartment, which was in a residential complex for the elderly, I instructed Hung-over Homeboy to finish bringing in the rest of the stuff in while I reassembled the bedroom set and entertainment center….while all of the excuse makers decided it was a good time to get some Mickey D’s….then come back and instruct me on how the furniture should be arranged….while they all munched on fries. After we tried every possible furniture configuration they were finally satisfied with the one that I originally created when I lugged all the stuff in. So at 7:45pm they considered the move complete…relinquishing me of my commitment and setting me free.
“Maybe, I’ll just rent a couple of movies and relax tonight”, I thought as I rubbed my lower back.
But as I said before…this is my life, so I wasn’t surprised when I was about to hop in my car I heard an engine struggling to turn over and someone declare, “Oh no….Chris don’t leave! The truck won’t start!” And of course the truck was parked in a strict no parking zone…dead in the center of this elderly complex. Then as we were working to figure out why the truck wouldn’t start…it happened. The residents started coming out of their homes like it was Dawn of the Dead, waving canes, and expressing their disapproval of the truck being there. After being yelled at for 15 straight minutes and successfully restraining the urge to disrespect my elders I calmed them down and discovered that the need to move the truck right away was not because it was blocking the ambulance and fire route. It was because it was restricting access to the resident’s favorite bench…the one that’s lower to the ground with less bird poop on it. (WTF?! Isn’t Wheel of Fortune on or something?) So eventually, I went to the UHall and got someone to come and restart the truck. At 9:15pm I successfully watched the whole day, the apartment, the sidewalk, and the truck, disappear in my rear view mirror.
On the way home I get a call from my buddy.
“Hey…where you been? We’ve been tryin’ ta reach you. I thought you were comin’ over?”
“No dog, I’m going home and going straight to bed. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
My wonderful day off.
There are not too many people I like right now.
But on the plus side, if I ever have a problem getting into heaven I can have St. Peter just review this day. I'd be like, "Come on dog, look at all that crap...I think I've earned at LEAST a weekend stay."
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