Jessica and the Hutch versus the 6 inch Step

Raise your hand if you hate moving. Everyone have their hands raised? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Moving sucks. The only type of people who enjoy moving are the Monica Geller’s of the world. The packing and organizing and heavy lifting only to have to do it all again in reverse…torture.

Thankfully, I have always been pretty useless when it comes to any kind of heavy lifting, so people have stopped asking me to help (the one time zero upper body strength is a plus). You know that time on Friends when they were moving a piece of furniture into Phoebe’s apartment and Rachel starts to complain about how heavy it is and then laughs half-way through and pulls her hands away because she isn’t really supporting any of the weight? Yeah, that’s me.

Well, I recently had to move some stuff. Not a big move, but still. Most of the things I moved were in bags and were either easy to lift or could be dragged if too heavy. There was, however, one rather large piece of furniture. The people who helped me move placed this lovely piece of furniture in the garage for storage because I didn’t think I would need it. As I began unpacking I realized that I had nowhere to store my bags and bags of books and I thought about the very large, spacious hutch I had sitting in the garage. It would be perfect.

Problem. I was home by myself.

I thought about waiting until I could get someone else to help me, but I was already in work mode and I couldn’t unpack the things I wanted to if I didn’t have that hutch inside where I could store them. I stood in the living room thinking for several minutes before finally deciding to tackle it by myself. I mean, it had wheels for goodness sake, so how hard could it be?

Turns out, very hard.

I went to pull it out of the spot it fitted in so nicely and discovered my first obstacle - one of the doors on the front didn’t stay closed. This meant that every time I turned it a certain way or jolted it a little too hard the door would go flying open and swing there all in the way. So I had to keep closing it and try to hold it closed with my hand as I moved it. More of a nuisance than a real problem, so I continued on with confidence.

I swivled the hutch around and wheeled it to the door into the house….where there is a nice step. Crap. That damn step was very nearly the death of me. First I tried standing inside the house at the top of the step and lifting. Um, yeah…that didn’t work at all. I am pretty sure I only managed to lift the front edge an inch off the ground and that’s being generous. That meant I had to go back into the garage and try to tilt it back so that I could edge it up.

I spent most of my life going up and down that step as I entered and exited the house and never once did I realize just how very high it truly is. That little step of 6 in or so suddenly seemed as insurmountable as a mountain. I put every ounce of strength and weight I could into tilting that hutch back and managed to lift it about 2 inches. I came so close to giving up and I hadn’t even made it inside the house, but no! I was going to move that thing if it killed me! So I took a deep breath, braced myself, and heaved. Still not all the way up, but it was at least kind of wedged against the step off the ground, so I heaved again. And again. And Again. Until finally I felt it make it to the top. Victory!

***Last Friends reference I promise! All I could think about during this process was Ross, Rachel, and Chandler on the stairs with the couch. “Pivot!”

After much shoving and grunting I got the rest of it across the threshold. Then I just had to find the path of least resistance to where I wanted to put it. You know the problem with wheels? They don’t roll very well over carpet. That thing had a mind of its own. I don’t think it moved in a straight line once the entire time I moved it, but little by little I managed to get it to…another step. Gah! I had forgotten about this one. The only thing that saved me from breaking down was the fact that this time I had to get it down the step as opposed to up. It was still a challenge, but much, much easier.

The hutch now rests in a nice corner of the sunroom and is full of my books and movies. I was sweating and am now covered in bruises, but I did it. I moved a large, heavy piece of furniture all by myself. Yay me!

How do you do with the heavy lifting? Any moving mishaps or hurdles? Share your stories in the comments.