They say that moving is right up there with the most stressful things life can throw at you like losing a loved one or getting fired. They’re all supposed to be on the same level which I always thought was a little over dramatic.
I mean moving ain’t that bad right? Load up a bakkie with all your stuffs, drive from A to B, offload, rinse, repeat.
So Captain Albatross and myself borrowed a bakkie from a buddy on Saturday and got rolling.
We loaded up two couches, a bookshelf, the washing machine (FAHK those things are HEAVY!), a couple of boxes, a heater or two, and tied it all down so tight you could pluck the ropes like guitar strings.
We nailed the drive from Stellies into Vredehoek and everything was easy breezy. We get to the other side and started unloading stuff and taking it upstairs and even that was going well until we hit one major fucking snag.
My one couch is fucking HUGE.
It’s the Triple H of couches, nearly two and a half metres of soft, maroon leathery goodness that is the most comfortable basterd I’ve ever had the pleasure of passing out on. I mean, I’ve written some of my BEST posts lying utterly inert on that radass couch. Through the good times and the bad, that couch has always been there, it’s like a long, large maroon extension of myself.
(That’s what she said.)
Anyway, you think we could get that couch up the narrow, twisty stairwell leading up to our flat? Not a fucking chance. We wrestled that thing, we twisted it, we pushed it, we tried to walk it up the stairs one goddamn step at a time and eventually all we managed to do was wedge it in there so tight, we couldn’t get it out.
Which was when we came up with our killer idea of removing the sliding doors to our flat and hoisting the basterd up the balcony with ROPES!
I love rope. I’ve always loved rope. The old-school hemp kind is the best. Soon as I get my hands on that shit I just wanna lasso a fucking horse or climb a mountain or hang a guy. Ropes are the answer to EVERYTHING!
So we set the couch down the way it would normally sit, made two loops around each side of the couch, went upstairs and got hoisting.
CHRONIC fail. Don’t try that shit without gloves yo! What the hell were we thinking?! Also the couch kept twisting and turning and refusing to cooperate in any way, so we set it back down and had a beer.
Second time around we got the bright idea of standing the couch upright to do the hoisting and tying ropes around it like ribbon around a Christmas present. Right about then, the dude who lives downstairs arrived home and offered to help us, which I found pretty hilarious considering he looked like about 70 kgs of cookie dough and admitted to having just come back from Ratanga Junction where he smoked a joint and went on all the rides by himself.
We told him to go upstairs with J-Rab and to hoist for everything he was worth while we pushed from the bottom. At this stage, drenched in sweat and tired from taking all the other stuff up the stairs, I was pretty convinced the couch was going to kill us all. Soon as J-Rab and the Ratanga Junction Stoner yoinked it up, the weight would pull them off the balcony and they’d end up landing, couch and all, right on top of me and the Captain.
“RIP SlickTiger. His favourite couch killed him.â€
All I remember after that was dicking around with the ropes, checking they were all alright before we commenced the yoinking and then BAM! the couch was halfway up the building and into the lounge!
I bolted upstairs, grabbed a hold and helped the Ratanga Junction Stoner and J-Rab get the rest of it in and stared in total amazement at the RJS who had basically single-handedly pulled our entire couch up a second story balcony and into the flat faster than I could blink.
“Babe,†I said triumphantly to J-Rab, “whatever that man is smoking, I want some.â€
I tell ya, you haven’t lived until you can honestly say you’ve yoinked a couch up to a second story balcony with ROPES!
SlickTiger:1 Moving:0
Next week we haul the final load so that’s the bed, fridge, other couch and TV cabinet, so stay tuned for the next enthralling update because you know as well as I do that there’s nothing better to do on a Monday morning back at work than read stories involving stubborn couches, Ratanga Junction Stoners and ROPES! 😉
-ST
