Monday 26 July 2010

When in doubt, laugh hysterically

Saturday saw the final moving out of the flat. I’ve been looking forward to this day for a long long time. Not least because it would mean that I would finally have something nice to sleep in and somewhere to hang my clothes but because it would mean the end to things and the opportunity to begin moving on.

Whilst I’ve still had my stuff in the flat, there’s still been a connection to it and, by default, to my ex. I don’t think this is particularly helpful for either party in terms of getting on with your life and leaving things in the past.

I could have moved sooner but that would have meant paying for people to come and do it and I wanted to avoid that if possible because money is so tight at the moment anyway. My salvation came in the form of a friend’s boyfriend who could borrow a van to transport the rest of my belongings.

The main concern was the wardrobe. It was not an expensive piece of furniture by any means. It was a cheapazoid number from Argos which is meant to be thrown up together and then to stay in the same place. It’s not supposed to be moved about. It had barely survived the move from my Mum’s house to the flat when I first moved in with my ex so I feared for its survival when faced with another move across town.

After measuring the wardrobe it was decided a bigger van would be needed and on Saturday my friends showed up in this little beast.

Now I am no auto-fiend. I don’t own a car and I have no particular interest in them generally. If I see a car I like and you ask me to describe it you I’m most likely to say something along the lines of “Oooh it was green and sort of wavy”. This aside however I had to marvel at this van. I even went so far as to utter the word “sexy” when describing it. Sleek is another word I would use actually. It was a behemoth. I considered calling the whole thing off and just moving in to the van and sleeping there from now on.

Extra muscle arrived in the form of another friend’s boyfriend (sometimes it depresses me that I’m the only single girl in my group of friends, other times I’m pretty glad they’re all shacked up with someone) and the task began.

The bed was no problem, my Dad and I had taken it apart earlier in the day and that was all sorted. The boys went in to inspect the wardrobe and after standing round manfully for a while they took it in hand. Luckily for them, because it’s cheap and nasty, it’s also pretty light so I didn’t need to worry so much about them crippling their backs and needing to wear backbraces for the rest of their days.

They got it out of the bedroom. They got it out of the flat. They got it round the rather tricky corner on the stairs (damn you listed building with no lift!). They got it all the way down the stairs. And came to the archway at the bottom of the stairs.

And nothing.

Stuck.

No way forward.

They tried tilting. They tried going at it from an angle. The three females tried to say encouraging and helpful things. But it wasn’t looking good.

My palms started to feel a little sweaty. I was still halfway up the stairs behind the wardrobe so couldn’t see round the corner to try and see a way of manoeuvring it. I knew there had to be a way, it had come up there after all, but I had no idea what to suggest.

But boys know what to do don’t they and they figured a way of doing it. They tilted a little more and swung it a little bit this way and pulled it a little bit that way and it was finally through the archway. Success. My heart soared.

Then there was a loud crack.

And a bang.

And I watched as my wardrobe veeery slowly fell in on itself.

You know those videos where they blow up cooling towers and they slow it down so you can see each part slowly combusting and coming apart? Very similar to what happened on the stairs. Every. Single. Part of it came unstuck.

My heart actually stopped. I had quick flashes of all my clothes hanging out in piles on the bedroom floor. I had visions of me being locked in a mental home because I couldn’t handle the stress anymore. All I could think to myself was “Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod”. There weren’t any coherent thoughts.

There was silence.

And I realised that I had a few choices;
1. Start crying and probably never stop
2. Fly into a rage and kill everyone with the remnants of the wardrobe
3. Laugh

And so I laughed. And everyone else breathed a huge sigh of relief that I hadn’t chosen the first two options and started laughing too. I laughed even harder when one friend’s boyfriend said,

“If I’d have known it was going to do that I’d have brought the smaller van.”

Once home I made an emergency call to my Dad in rather panicked tones begging him to come round with drills and screwdrivers and nails. I had pinned all my hopes and dreams on having a wardrobe by the end of the day and by hook or by crook I was going to get one. Luckily for me he was available and we managed to cobble it (mostly) back together. The drawers still aren’t quite right, in the Grand Wardrobe Collapse of 2010 a piece of wood got broken in half. My feeling was that it was so small it was irrelevant. Turns out I know jack shit about furniture. Dad is going to get some more wood and come round at a later date and fix it for me. At the moment I couldn’t care less, I don’t mind that my drawers are just lying in the bottom of the wardrobe. They are in their place. Neatly.

And I can slowly feel my sanity beginning to return.

11 comments:

  1. Oh bless you, that was the last thing you needed! Glad you could laugh though, best thing in such a bad situation. Glad to see you're moving forward, look forward to see where life takes you now, Karen x

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh bugger!

    Everytime I move house something always breaks.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well exploading wardrobe aside its good to hear that you feel positive about the future.

    You are right you things still being at the flat don't help either of you. When i split up with my ex he didn't move any of his stuff out and kept coming to get things, It was to painfull and we argued every time. In the end I had to be cold about it and pack everything myself and take it to where he was living!
    He was angry with me but i needed my space back. You have done the right thing :)
    I'm off to catch up properly now xxxx

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh brilliant! How typical!!! Glad you're all out of the flat now, it seems that dragged on a bit and it can't be good - your bed looks very cute too! (as in not a creepy way, but the blanket does look very nice!!)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh god, moving is awful.

    Thank goodness you're moved now and can do nesting instead.

    ReplyDelete
  6. awww...happy story! I like this...glad you are not feeling too stressed! Moving on time here in more ways than one! I hope you are okay... I'm the only single girl with my friends too...and I was lamenting just the other day that I haven't even ever lived with a boyfriend which rather sucks... still as none of those past relationships worked out it is prob for the best otherwise I'd be doing what you're doing now too... I'd find it very hard...you're very brave! xxx

    ReplyDelete
  7. A great way to look at things - most definitely laugh...it's the only way to go - honestly crying is sooooo exhausting.

    take care,

    Nina xx

    ps. you must go and have a look at that US link though watch the pennies. Nxx

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sounds like yours was the best reaction to have, I don't think I would have handled it well at all! Now you'll just have to go and get some more lovely clothes to put in it! x

    ReplyDelete
  9. Option 2 would've been more fun! Only kidding. That was a nice looking van. When I moved house my wardrobe wouldn't come down the narrow and steep victorian stairs, I'd forgotten it had been assembled upstairs. So I had to leave it behind, luckily there are built-in wardrobes here or it would've been a clothes rail for a while.

    ReplyDelete
  10. This reminds me of when Kelly & I attemped to move my bedroom furniture to my flat. We had the big van, we decided we didn't men and could manage... after tackling one chest of draws which nearly killed us (and took a chunk out of my dad's newly decorated hall) and trying for the 2nd we gave up and I decided to head to IKEA and stock up!!

    Victoria xx

    ReplyDelete
  11. Awhhh, my motto too, Laugh, laugh, and laugh again! I am glad you didn't choose the other two too! Ha ha ha! Susie xxx

    ReplyDelete

Go on. Say something. You know you want to...