Choo’s Move

For those of you who enjoy the torture of others enough to request an update, here it is you sick, sick people.

I don’t even know where to begin, and there is just so much . . . so here is the rundown of critical events:

– Friday, 3:30 p.m. Got keys to house! Moved boxes and other various crud in SUV. I am not trusted with any box labeled “fragile” after accidentally *ehem* dropping a ceramic hot pad my wife painted at one of those ceramic hot pad painting places. It was purple and green with what was supposed to be a red chili pepper on it, but it looked like the drunken painting of a one-fingered blind man with Cerebral Palsy.

– Saturday, 9:30 a.m. Go to U-Haul to pick up 14’ truck. Stand in line for 35 minutes only to discover the truck I had reserved had been rented out earlier that morning. Luckily, a man showed up at that exact moment to drop off a 14’ truck a day early. Unluckily, said man must have driven the truck non-stop from northern Maine bathed in butt cologne because the cab smelled like a stockyard and had a mysterious sheen to it.

– Saturday, 10:30 a.m. Large gathering of friends help us move. Lamps are shattered, chairs are broken, tables are scratched, and we eat donuts and pizza. It was like partying with the Rolling Stones . . . 30 years ago.

– Saturday, 4:00 p.m. I become a human forklift driven by wife, playing Rubik’s Cube with our furniture until my spine threatens to launch itself from my body like a rusty bed spring.

– Sunday, 3:21 a.m. Disaster strikes as the regeneration system’s discharge tube for the water softener dislodges from its clamp. Had I known all of these big words at the time, this would have been an easy problem to fix. Instead, my wife and I stand in the hallway marveling at the gallons of water gushing in all directions from behind the washing machine. I turn off the water and return to bed with visions of plumber’s crack dancing in my head. I do extensive research in the morning (phone call to Dad) and fix the problem in 5 seconds.

– Sunday, 9:30 a.m. The diabolical Choo hatches a genius plan after being sent to Home Depot for interior paint. As you know, my wife unknowingly suffers from acute color blindness. Witness the genius: “I’m sorry honey, they were out of the color you wanted. But they were kind enough to match the color you wanted in a different, more expensive brand of paint for the same price.” Problem solved.

– Sunday, 11:00 a.m. Preparing to paint, we tape the kitchen. Vertigo tries to get the best of my wife but I show my support by re-taping her crooked lines while she’s in the bathroom and on the phone.

– Sunday, 4:00 p.m. Let the painting begin! The air is pierced every 35 seconds with my wife saying “Oh no! Get me a rag! Hurry!”

– Monday, 5:00 p.m. I break Bob Villa’s single day record for trips to Home Depot and shatter his record for most trips over a three day span. Home Depot throws a ceremony in my honor and awards me with a giant credit card bill.

– Monday, 5:30 p.m. I enter the Pharaoh’s tomb – otherwise known as the crawlspace – to reroute cables. My eyes and lungs fill with dust, legs are bruised and my arms bloodied. I narrowly escape a mouse carcass when it falls from the insulation. I gun down a wasp. I slay dozens of harmless spiders. In the end, I claim my prize: a cable access in the den for high speed modem posting with the Sharks. Indiana Jones has nothing on me.

– Monday, 8:00 p.m. I reward myself with the Drover’s Platter from Outback Steakhouse and treat my wife to the devastating case of gas which ensues thereafter.

– Today. We get the fridge and cable hookup, sometime between the hours of June and October.

Thanks for all of the support and advice. I hold all of you responsible for a blatant lack of disclosure for what can only be described as some strange form of hell. I’m sicking Johnny Cochran on all of you.