Saturday, October 1, 2011

Blowin' that popsicle stand.

Moving is an interesting business, as I learned when I helped Kylie the Magnificent move yesterday. You would think, with all of the times that I myself have moved before, that I would've known this already. I guess I never really paid enough attention.

We met at the Institute around 2, and I drove her to her house to put a preliminary load of boxes and breakables in my truck before heading over to get her new keys. The long wait was made somewhat more entertaining by a strange old man with long white hair who kind of looked like Leonard Nimoy and asked us several tricky wordplay riddles.

After unloading everything we could lift and hold onto long enough to get it up two flights of stairs, we headed back to the house so Kylie could supervise the boys as they moved the furniture. We knew that one guy had arrived already and two more were on their way, but she was definitely not expecting to find her fiance sitting in her kitchen waiting for her when we got back. He's skipped his last class to come up and help her move. Considering he lives two hours away, this premeditated act has to be one of the sweetest things I have ever seen. It seems like I've been seeing a lot of those lately. Anyway, his surprise was all the more unexpected because Kylie had been on the phone with him about five minutes before and had caught no wind of his being in the area.

After that, time started to drag by. The couches got moved, I made a Gatorade run for everybody, her fiance's friend showed up with a 15-foot trailer (and somehow managed to back it in in front of her house, despite the parking there being three-times more retarded than Kansas City's street layout), and she and I watched the boys dismantle and ferry things for a few hours, all the while getting more antsy. I think the fact that we both felt pretty useless was the biggest contributing factor to how restless we were by the time they'd finally loaded up the trailer and it was time to grab the bunnies and the fishbowl and get moving.

After Kylie and I had carried up all of the chairs, pictures, and small boxes we could find, she ordered everyone to take a break. After ten minutes of witty discussion (none of which came from me, as my brain had apparently shut down most unnecessary processes about two hours earlier), she and her fiance put the bunny in the bathtub (the hutch wasn't set up yet) and went to go get pizza, and the master trailer maneuverer continued carrying up the last few things by himself. I felt kind of bad that all I was doing at this time was fusing closer and closer together with the couch, but whatcha gonna do?

Yesterday was the first day in my life that I truly regretted my own laughable physical prowess. I was pretty much relegated to moral support, but I suppose that's okay. I'm good at that, and Kylie really did need it.

After eight hours of shifting things and some pizza, we called it a night.

The range of emotions I saw or experienced over the course of the day was weird. There were times when I was laughing so hard my face hurt, and others when Kylie was clearly stressed as only a science major knows how to be.

It felt good to help a friend, despite how feckless I thought myself to be at times. I can't think of anything I would've rather been doing yesterday.

Kylie? You're magnificent.

Listening to: The 181st Semi-Annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Reading: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

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