My family is in a never-ending battle to rid ourselves of clutter. This has been going on for the better part of a decade. It stems from a traumatic experience my wife and I had cleaning out my grandmother’s house after she passed away. Prior to this we were collectors of random junk. I probably had a metric ton of picture frames I told myself I was going to use for future art projects, but I knew deep down I was far too lazy to make that much art. My grandmother was a collector as well, on a much grander scale, and that experience was kind of like being visited by The Ghost of Christmas Future. Terrifying.
A couple times a year we go through the house and decide what needs to be trashed, given to charity, or sold off. If I had my way I’d probably donate all of it, but some things require some effort to get rid of. Some things are heavy and cumbersome, so selling them and getting compensation for the labor is a nice incentive.
One of these objects, actually two, was a pair of large bookcases in my basement. Now, I have made no secret of my complete disdain for a certain popular Swedish furniture manufacturer that specializes in confusing instructions and cheap wood, and unfortunately that is where this set of bookcases came from. And as much as I hate to admit it, they were nice bookcases. Functional. They served their purpose well. But it was time to go.
Each bookcase weighed about a hundred pounds. Probably a bit more with the decade of dust and dander that accumulated in their pores. There was no way that I could move these up to my driveway myself because my house is situated on the side of a cliff. It’s a good four or five stories from basement level to driveway. I had two options. I could move them up through my house and get into a fight with my wife every time I scuffed the freshly painted walls or I could go through my yard on a rustic path of stairs made of rotten railroad ties. That was a no-brainer.
As I stated above, to move this thing was work, so I wasn’t going to give it away for free. Now the real struggle began. I used a social media app to post it for sale. If you have never done this I recommend giving it a shot. It is a great look into the humanity of every single weirdo and collector of junk within a couple hundred mile radius of your home. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling rocks. You’ll be haggling over the stupidest requests you have ever received in your entire life. How big is it? Is it heavy? Can you deliver? Can you paint it for me?
I have been burned too many times doing this in the past so I screen my offers as best I can. Finally I got a buyer that asked for a discount because they were driving from Alabama to get them. Why on earth would you drive from Alabama to pick up some cheap bookcases. Judge not. I agreed to the discount on the condition that they would help me move the bookcases out of my basement to their vehicle. The person confirmed and said, “I’ll bring my husband. He can help you.” Great. We’re in business.
A few hours later I got a knock at the door. The buyers had arrived all the way from Alabama. Now, I had assumed that when this lady told me her husband would help me he would be the stereotypical husband. Maybe a clone of me. I was not expecting the oldest man on Earth to be at my door. I’m talking Biblically old. I also wasn’t expecting this white-haired figure to confide in me that he had a stroke and could only use his left arm to help.
The only option I had of getting rid of these bookcases now was to get a friend to help me get these suckers loaded onto this ancient man’s truck. Luckily one came to the rescue. We started up the cliff of my backyard to the front and halfway through my friend started screaming. He had been stung by a yellow jacket. I was wearing shorts and braced for what was about to happen. My ankle caught on fire violently. Then my buddy got stung a few more times and tripped over while still holding the bookcase. All the while Grandfather Time is staring at us.
When we reached the top and examined our wounds I was able to pull a large stinger out of my ankle, venom sac and all. My friend was bloody from falling and gave me an uneasy look as we both realized there was still another bookcase we had to bring up. We looked down at the cloud of angry hornets and ran as fast as we could to grab it and bring it back up. Despite our speed we still sustained more stings, but finally the bookcases were on the truck and the adventure over.
The old man went to close his truck and discovered that the bookcases were about a quarter of an inch longer than his truck bed, making it impossible for him to close the gate. He didn’t seem very pleased. Then I watched this elderly, stroke-ridden gentleman call to the heavens for power and start slamming the gate closed on the bookcases he drove well over a hundred miles to get. Slamming with such force that it cracked the sides. Then he said thank you, got in the truck, and left.
Alabama. Guess they do it a little different over there.