My buddy Jeff has been the Warehouse Manager for a local furniture store for as long as I’ve known him. As a result, it is assumed amongst all of our friends and family that Jeff knows what he is doing when it comes to moving furniture in to, out of, and within houses. Time after time again throughout the years Jeff has proven us right in this assumption as he has captained the moving expeditions of almost all of us at one point or another, and some of us numerous times. He is so good and his knowledge is so well respected that his services have even been offered to and accepted by our families and friends of our families. The bottom line is, Jeff brings an expertise to the table that is unparalleled by anyone I know as he can fit the biggest piece of furniture into the smallest space possible all while making the job look easy. Every time I have ever doubted his abilities in doing so, he has proven me wrong.
There is one time, however, that I should have doubted him - and I would have been right.
In the winter of 2006/2007 Carol and I made the decision to buy new living room furniture. Because we were on a tight budget, we decided to forego the local furniture store that Jeff works for and simply go to a chain furniture store instead. Granted the quality of the furniture was not as nice as it would be had we gotten it at the local establishment, it was still a very nice set and we opted to have it delivered to our home after the three weeks that it would take to fill our order. During the three weeks in which we were waiting, Carol came up with a plan on how we could paint the living room a new colour and also add an accent wall which would really accentuate the new furniture and the new layout that she had envisioned.
Being the loyal husband that I am, I simply nodded my head because despite whatever protest I put forth, if Carol gets it in her mind to do a household project it is going to get done whether I like it or not. Additionally, Carol was about 5 months pregnant at the time and I was essentially scared shitless of her and her mood swings so whatever Carol wanted, Carol got.
While assessing our new living room situation, we were trying to determine what to do with the furniture that we already had in there. Luckily, it wasn’t very difficult because we really only had a zebra print chair that Carol had reupholstered back in the day and a Bassett couch that was, oddly enough, given to us by Jeff after he delivered brand new furniture to a customer who decided that they wanted him to take away this old couch. Now, when I say “old,” I mean it was only old to them. By all accounts, this was pretty much a brand new couch with no signs of wear and tear at all. It actually came with a matching loveseat, but Jeff gave that to our other friends Joe and Sasha for their basement as the set would not fit in either of our houses, but the individual pieces would work out perfectly.
We had gotten that couch in the house that we briefly rented on 11th St, and it had moved with us to our current house on 38th. I loved that couch as it was both very “nappable” and it’s deep beige tone would pretty much match any colour (yes, that’s the way I like to spell it) that we would ever want to paint the room that it was in. Unfortunately, after a few years in our houses and a few random parties that may have seen a few spills on it, the couch was now a little worse for wear and could definitely use a replacement. Hence, we bought the new furniture and it was determined that this couch was now going to go into the basement.
Upon my initial evaluation, I questioned whether or not the couch would actually be able to fit into the basement. First of all, we had the option of either moving it through the house or out the front door and around the house to the side door which was adjacent to the basement stairs. I was pretty sure that we couldn’t take it through the house as the amount of space we had available to turn it from the living room and into the kitchen was minimal but, knowing that I was no expert at this, I decided to consult Jeff.
Now Jeff has an amazing ability to recall pretty much any piece of furniture he’s ever moved and can also recall the floor plans of people’s houses just as well. Having moved this couch both into my old house, out of my old house, and into my new one, Jeff was very well aware of the dimensions of both the couch and my home. So, it was no surprise that when he said that moving the couch out the front door and around to the side door that I agreed with him. Jeff was the expert and I was the lackey who always ended up walking backwards when I helped him move. Jeff makes everyone walk backwards. In this realm, Jeff is king.
The night finally came for us to move the couch to the basement. Carol had an evening off work, Jeff was available, and our good friends Chris and Sarah had volunteered (a.k.a. been sucked in by the pathetic pleas of a pregnant woman whose husband almost flat out refuses to paint anything) to come over and help Carol paint the living room while Jeff and I moved the couch to the basement. Sure, I might have planned on helping with the painting when I was done with the couch, but I might have also planned on spending a lot of time in the basement rearranging things down there so that the couch didn’t offset the feng shui balance that I had going on down there (a.k.a. avoiding painting). Either way, my first priority was to move the couch.
Jeff came over after the suckers…I mean others…had already begun painting the living room and I was waiting patiently nearby. I tried to make myself look useful by bringing in lamps for better lighting and plastic and blankets to cover the floor, but I was really just doing anything that didn’t involved picking up a brush or a roller. I really, really hate painting. Anyway, when he got there we immediately took a look at the couch and went into the kitchen to size up the doorways and our options on getting it into the basement. It was obviously not going to make the turn from the kitchen door and down the basement steps because it was a ninety degree turn and we just didn’t have the room. So, like we had presupposed, our only option was to bring it in through the side door and turn it slightly so that it would go into the kitchen. From the kitchen we should be able to take it straight down the basement steps and be home free.
SHOULD be.
We went back to the living room, picked up the couch, and got it out of the front door with no problem whatsoever. Having moved quite a few pieces of furniture with Jeff over the years, I immediately turned around and started walking backwards (as I said, in this realm Jeff is king) towards the kitchen side door with Jeff on the other end of the couch. When we got there we set the couch down so that Jeff could assess the situation one more time.
Now, Jeff is one of the most confident people I’ve ever met. Given that, I should have questioned the look of concern on his face as he sized up our situation. But, having never really seen a look of doubt on his face before, I didn’t really recognize what it was and I assumed that maybe he was just gassy. Still, I had to ask him what was wrong and if he thought we couldn’t do this. I, myself was a little cautious as the couch was much longer and wider than I had envisioned (tape measures be damned) upon my initial assessment and I was beginning to question whether it was even possible to get it from the door and into the kitchen, much less get it from the kitchen to the basement. But, Jeff eyed it up again, said that we could do it, and all doubt was erased from my mind. Jeff knew what he was talking about.
As we picked up the couch and began moving it through the side door, we had a little bit of trouble getting it through the door frame. We were able to turn the couch so that it would fit, but even then it BARELY fit. Once part of the couch was inside the very small foyer area, our next trick was to shift it so that it could make the turn into the kitchen. Now, let me describe this foyer area for you. Coming straight in from the side door, it is no more than 5 feet from door to wall – and that may be generous. On the left is the doorway which leads to a staircase descending directly down towards the basement. On the right is about 3 feet of wall before you reach the opening for the kitchen. It is not a very big space, but one that Carol was very proud of. Oh, did I forget to mention that Carol spent a lot of time brushing coat after coat after coat of red paint on those walls to get it the exact color that she wanted to offset the kitchen that she also spent so much time painting to her exact specifications? That will be very important later in this story/debacle.
The couch was now mostly in the door and was pressed up against the far wall at the end of the foyer. We found this to be a necessary course of action as the more couch that was in the foyer, the more that we have available to us to turn into the kitchen. Unfortunately, when I tried to turn the couch I didn’t have much give. I turned and pulled a little harder and made some progress, but still not enough to make any major headway. I asked Jeff what he thought we should do and he suggested lifting my end up a bit in an order to “shorten” the couch. On his advice, I lifted up the couch and tried to turn it into the kitchen and was sort of successful, but not successful enough.
At this point, the couch was about 13% into the kitchen, 13% out the side door, and 74% in the foyer, at an angle, and lifted slightly upwards on my end with me holding on so that it didn’t scratch the wall anymore than I thought it already might have. We were sort of stuck but there were other options that we hadn’t tried yet to get this couch into the kitchen. While pondering these options, however, my arms began to get really tired from holding the couch and I decided that it might be best to just let it go and see if it would rest gently against the wall that it was wedged into. As I let it go I immediately regretted my decision as I could hear the plaster ripping off the corner of the wall as the weight of the couch pulled it towards the ground. I looked at Jeff and he looked back at me and we both knew that we were going to be in trouble for that one. I just wish that would have been the end of this ordeal.
After some discussion and more assurances that this could be done, we decided that we should lift my end of the couch up as high as it could go and see if we could turn the couch on its end within the foyer area and then lower it into the kitchen from there. As I pushed up on the couch with all of my might, I felt it rubbing against the walls the entire way. I knew that Carol was going to be mad, but I was so focused on getting this damn couch into the house that at that point I just didn’t care. Likewise, the forces of nature didn’t care that I wanted to get that couch into the house as eventually, I couldn’t move the couch upwards anymore and the ass end still was not completely in the foyer. In fact, we had pretty much wedged the couch in there and were able to let it go without fear of the couch going anywhere. It was stuck.
That is when Carol walked in.
Apparently, the sounds of two men cussing and grunting, furniture being drug along the ground, and the couch frame banging against and into the walls and doorframe are enough to attract the attention of a 5 month pregnant woman who takes a lot of pride in the way her kitchen looks. When she saw the predicament that we were in, she immediately noticed the walls. Now I knew about the aforementioned corner and the plaster that had been ripped off, but apparently in my efforts to wrangle the couch into the house, I had been oblivious to all of the other nicks and dings to pretty much everything in our path. I had anticipated slight damage, but not this. Needless to say, Carol was not happy.
I don’t remember what was said or if all communications were simply done through “the look,” but I knew that I was screwed and that Jeff and I had better get this fixed right away. My response was “I think the best thing to do is just to take the couch back outside, put it in the garage, and think of something else to do with it.” I don’t think Jeff was convinced yet that we couldn’t do it, but I knew at that point that one more scratch on the wall might result in an entire can of paint being shoved straight up my ass. I assured Carol that we had it under control and she left the room. The problem was, we had nothing under control.
Once Carol was gone we decided that, yes, we just needed to move the couch out of the foyer, take it back outside, and simply put it in the garage. Essentially, we had to swallow our pride. The only issue with that, however, is that when we tried to move the couch backwards, we couldn’t. We tried to move it this way and that but no matter where we went with it, it was stuck. We went over the methods that we used to get us in this predicament thinking that maybe if we just reversed our actions, then we could dislodge the couch and get it back outside.
Wrong.
No matter what we tried, that couch was stuck. Well, it wasn’t totally stuck, but anything that we would have to do to get it out of where it was at would cause even further damage to the already mangled foyer area – and that was not an option. At this point I was getting pissed (well, mostly scared of Preggo the Barbarian) and I just didn’t give a shit about the couch anymore. I didn’t even want it in my basement anymore and just wanted it out of the house. I suggested to Jeff that I should just go out to the garage, get an axe and that would be the end of our problems. He didn’t disagree, but was much more rational with his though process.
His solution was that we had already come this far in bringing it into the house, why don’t we just force it into the kitchen – walls be damned – and then try our luck with getting it downstairs. He even offered to bring patch kits and paint to fix up the foyer when we were done (as if Carol would even give us the option to NOT fix our handiwork). I decided that since the couch was definitely not going back outside and that an axe seemed a bit extreme, Jeff’s method was most likely the best so we pushed, pulled, pounded, and beat the shit out of that couch and the surrounding walls before finally maneuvering the couch into the kitchen – in one piece.
I should probably end the story here and continue it as a “part 2” later on as this there is still a lot more to this story and I’m already 5 pages in, but I really just can’t stop writing. The part of me that isn’t embarrassed by this story can’t stop laughing at the visuals that keep flying through my head of this night. So, I’ll keep going.
This was now our situation. We had finally gotten the couch into the kitchen, the walls and doorframe went scratched, dented, and flat out demolished in some spots, and in the living room were a pissed off pregnant woman and two friends who wanted desperately to laugh at our dumbassedness but who were probably scared to in fear of Carol turning her wrath towards them. The good news was that it was now pretty much a straight shot into the basement and we would be done. The bad news is that we hadn’t really planned on the basement door being narrower than any other god damned door frame ever known to man freaking kind!
I don’t think we even tried. We both looked at the doorframe, looked at the couch, looked at each other, looked back at the doorframe again, and sighed. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not an overly small doorframe, but having been through what we were just through, we were now intimately familiar with this couch and we knew that there was no chance in hell that it was going to work. Think in terms of Dirk Diggler encountering a virgin midget. Got it? That’s what we were facing.
We sat down on the couch and discussed our other options. First, as I suggested, we could just take an axe to the sonofabitch and take it out of the house one splintered piece at a time. Second, we could try and move it through our hallway which resembled the foyer in size in an attempt to take it out the back door and onto the deck. Or third, since it was already destroyed anyway, we could just force it back through the foyer and back out the kitchen door where it came in from.
We decided that the second option, though unlikely to work, was our best chance of saving any dignity whatsoever. The only problem with this (okay, one of the MANY problems) was that this route would be in direct view of the painting crew currently in my living room. That meant that any contact with the wall from me, Jeff, or the couch, would be met by the crazed stare of a soon-to-be violent pregnant wife. It also meant that any crazed stare would be back dropped by Chris and Sarah who were sure to be standing behind her mocking us in an attempt to get us to laugh, making Preggo the Destroyer even more irate.
Despite this definite no-win situation, we picked up the couch, tried to maneuver it into the hallway, bumped up against one wall, heard one deep sigh from Carol which non-verbally said “you better not f*cking ruin this wall too or I will place your nuts in a vice”, looked at each other in a state of panic, and backed right back up into the kitchen with the couch.
By now, we were out of options. Because of our collective inability to question Jeff’s expertise, Jeff and I were now facing a dire situation. Unless Carol wanted to have a full sized couch in the kitchen (which really didn’t match the motif) Jeff and I were going to have to figure out a way to get that couch out of there. At this point, I didn’t give a shit about that couch. I didn’t want it in my basement, I didn’t want it in my garage, and I DAMN sure didn’t want it in my kitchen. All of our exits were blocked off and we really only had one option. It was an option I had suggested before but was simply laughed off at the time as being too extreme. But, this had now turned into an extreme situation and I was left with no choice.
I went out to the garage and got the axe.
Before I was able to take the first swing Carol, Chris, and Sarah all came in to the kitchen to laugh at us for being idiots. We would have argued, but seeing as there was a couch in my kitchen with no way for it to get out, we had nothing to fight back with. That is when Carol saw the axe.
I quickly had to explain that we really had no other option. I reminded her of the wall, which she looked at in disdain (can I be any dumber? Oh just wait: yes I can.), and told her that unless we wanted to do more of the same, the couch had to die right here in this kitchen. Now, had we not been getting new furniture within the next week and had this couch not been free I think she would have protested a little more, but seeing as we were literally losing nothing but a spare couch in the basement, she gave in. She wasn’t happy – at all – but she gave in.
The three of them left the room and the only things remaining in the kitchen were Jeff, me, the couch, and the axe. Being the safe, calculating people that we are we took the cushions off the couch first and threw them outside because God forbid we ruin those freaking things. Anyway, I took the first swing and laid right into the framework of that couch. A few more abbreviated swings later (there’s just no room in a kitchen for a full axe swing – they should design those things better) and I had lain to waste the major structure of the couch. Jeff wanted to take a few get-out-the-aggression hacks and he beat the hell out of it as well. Finally, we were down to a manageable pile of wood, fabric, springs, and stuffing that we could deal with.
Now, have you ever noticed that when you do something stupid you sometimes don’t smarten up right away and continue to do more and more stupid things? Well, Carol was already mad about the walls and she was also mad about the couch being destroyed. As if that wasn’t enough, I figured why not add on to it? She’s only five months pregnant. How mad can a hormonally imbalanced person get?
I was about to find out.
Even though Jeff and I had destroyed the framework of the couch, the fabric was still stapled onto it making it almost impossible to carry outside. What we needed to do was rip the fabric away from the framework and into separate pieces so that we could carry the sad remains of this once proud piece of furniture out to the garbage. Now, I simply could have gone outside to my garage and into my workshop and found something, anything that would have been sufficient, but that was just too easy. Something in my brain was telling me “be stupid, be lazy, you won’t get caught, she’s busy painting.” And, like most times in my life, I listened to that voice. I found something in the kitchen that would work just as well.
Needless to say, Carol eventually came into the kitchen to find me huddled over a pile of wood and fabric, holding nothing other than one our steak knives which we had received as a wedding present to stab and then rip apart pieces of fabric on the couch. To make matters worse, when she asked me if I was using it to rip apart the fabric I lied and told her “no.” Right to her face. While I was holding the knife in my hand. AND I WAS COMPLETELY SOBER!!!!! She still brings this up to me…
To make a very long story just a wee bit shorter, we eventually got the couch apart (with the help of the steak knife once Carol left the room again.HAH! Never knew that, did ya, Carol?) and took the sad remains outside. Jeff went directly to the basement and just sat in the dark. I’m not sure that he had ever been wrong about a piece of furniture before and I’m not sure that he’s been wrong about one ever since. As a result, this hit him pretty hard and he pouted in the basement for a good long while before coming back upstairs to face Carol.
Pregnancy hormones being what they are, Carol had calmed down considerably by this point and was putting the finishing touches on the living room walls. Chris and Sarah quickly said their goodbyes for fear of the Babybeast being awoken again and Jeff left with promises of returning to help me fix the walls that we destroyed. Carol even helped take the final pieces of the couch out to the garbage can and was okay with it enough to even take a picture of me lying on the still-intact cushions while pretending to sleep.
So, what did I learn from this experience? Was it to always question Jeff when it comes to furniture type things? No, he has proven his worth time and time again for both me and my family and we are all grateful for his help. So, if that wasn’t it, shouldn’t there be something? Shouldn’t I have taken some lesson away from this utter failure on all accounts? Shouldn’t I have learned something? Anything?
Nope.
Thanks for reading.
