6.19.2005

other people's shit

"I have never seen so much stuff in my life as your daughter moved in here," the elevator man said to me. "But I know where she got it from."
I have become infamous in my building for the amount of stuff I lug in and out of a fairly small two-bedroom apartment. The car door I used as a table for a while created probably the most amusement, since it turned out to be a door one of the elevator men had junked.
Yesterday it was a broken coffee table, the results of shopping expeditions to Bed, Bath and Beyond and Zabars, and assorted luggage. A small load, all in all, until I later picked up eight sliding screens and fourteen bags of groceries I didn't want to pay for on the island. (Note: I stood in the Island Grocery staring at a box of grapefruit juice priced at $10 for about five minutes once before deciding that I just couldn't.)
However, on the drive up, I received several phone calls from a friend.
"Could you stop at Marshall's and pick up a rug I have put on hold and bring it over?" A little later: "Could you also pick up a cheap bed pillow for me?" And later: "I really need a short heavy-duty extension cord for the microwave. Would you mind?"
Mind, me?
Turned out the rug was an eight-by-twelve footer that weighed about 500 pounds. I had to put my passenger in the back seat of the compact car and hang the rug out the front window. I also had to pay for it.
Then I had to unload it into a crate at the ferry. By myself.
Why I can't stop smoking today: Now the rug is rulled up under my feet.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey now, listen, i had to have learned it from somewhere... and a bunck of sticks is certainly not the same as a car door.

Anonymous said...

I seem to remember helping a certain someone transport an air-conditioning unit she found at the dump, along with several plastic Eames chairs, from her Block Island house to her New York city apartment. Besides, moving junk from point A to point B is an addiction of sorts. You forgot to mention that one. In your long list of addictions.
Now about that rug: I owe you one, honey. I admit it. Got stuff??