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What a Day!
Jul. 19th, 2004 12:09 amWell, its been a LONG day, which I will report briefly because my arms don't really work. I'm amazed I can even type.
It all started innocently enough. Yesterday, while on our walk where we saw the fireflies, we saw a flyer for a nearby garage sale on today. Since I had rotated my hours around, we figured getting there for 9:00 would be easy. Well, we arrived at 9:30 and there were already a bunch of folks there. We looked around a bit and though they had some nice things (A solid wood -- I think maple -- sleighbed for instance) most of it was stuff we couldn't afford. I then saw an interesting looking dresser. It looked like nice wood. A quick check revealed it WAS nice wood. I dunno my wood varieties, but this was make of thick slabs of something quite dense and sturdy. Then we discovered it was a lateral file cabinet and storage closet. They kind you sell to executives for $500 plus. Out of curiosity, we asked how much it was.
The lady exclaimed "You want it? Take it! Its so heavy we've given up selling it!"
As $0.00 was most definitely in our budget for a slightly used executive filing cabinet, we agreed to her price. We had gone shopping for such a thing at a used furniture store a couple of months back, and the cheapest we could find (of much lower quality) had been over $200, and outside our reach so we knew even used this was a major steal.
We fetched the car, which has a large trunk and fold-down seats, but it didn't quite fit. We also discoverd it weighed around 400 Lbs! (Call it 200Kg). We knew two people who had minivans and/or SUV's that might be able to haul this. The first was on vacation in PEI, and the second had had back surgery a few months ago and currently can't drive or lift anything. He WAS however willing to lend us his minivan.
So, we left the thing in the street in front of the Garage sale, and told the guy we'd be back in an hour to pick it up. We drove downtown, switched vehicles and drove back.
When we got there I discovered (in the midst of an attempt to put the thing in the minivan) that I had sprained my left hand on the last attempt, and it refused to lift or grip anything. My right was still working though, and with the help of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
taxlady and the previous owner's father-in-law, we got it stowed away.
Then while driving it back home, I realized that with only one working arm (and the other now only half-working from the last effort) there was no way that we were going to get it into our basement (wheretaxlady's office is), even if we only had to get it the 20 feet from the communal garage that all our townhouses share.
We decided that even if we could get help, we would need dolleys, or a hand-truck, or something. After some driving around (with the monster still in the back) we found and bought two $25 dolleys. When we finally got into the garage, where it was clear that we would have to ask our neighbor to move his car, as it was in the way of the planned furniture move. He agreed to move the car, and even to help with the move. We also roped in another neighbor who made the bad mistake of driving into the garage while we needed help.
With their help (and it wasn't easy, even with all of us working on it) we got the thing down out of the minivan, onto dolleys, along the garage, up the 6" step to our access corridor, along the corridor and into our basement, where it now sits, blocking access to the the washing machine.
taxlady is currently trying to figure out the best way to rearrange her office to accomodate this beauty, and I'm feeling quite happy with our 'purchase'. (Although truth to tell, we forced $5.00 on the man for helping haul the thing into the minivan for us. I guess I'm just not a ruthless capitalist).
The only downside of the whole shebang is that I can't really lift anything and even typing involves some effort. I suspect that means that even if a plan for moving the monster is made tomorrow, its going to be a week or two before it gets put into motion.
Meanwhile, now that we're home and have finally had breakfast (at around 7:00 pm!) I can finish reading LJ and the morning comics...
It all started innocently enough. Yesterday, while on our walk where we saw the fireflies, we saw a flyer for a nearby garage sale on today. Since I had rotated my hours around, we figured getting there for 9:00 would be easy. Well, we arrived at 9:30 and there were already a bunch of folks there. We looked around a bit and though they had some nice things (A solid wood -- I think maple -- sleighbed for instance) most of it was stuff we couldn't afford. I then saw an interesting looking dresser. It looked like nice wood. A quick check revealed it WAS nice wood. I dunno my wood varieties, but this was make of thick slabs of something quite dense and sturdy. Then we discovered it was a lateral file cabinet and storage closet. They kind you sell to executives for $500 plus. Out of curiosity, we asked how much it was.
The lady exclaimed "You want it? Take it! Its so heavy we've given up selling it!"
As $0.00 was most definitely in our budget for a slightly used executive filing cabinet, we agreed to her price. We had gone shopping for such a thing at a used furniture store a couple of months back, and the cheapest we could find (of much lower quality) had been over $200, and outside our reach so we knew even used this was a major steal.
We fetched the car, which has a large trunk and fold-down seats, but it didn't quite fit. We also discoverd it weighed around 400 Lbs! (Call it 200Kg). We knew two people who had minivans and/or SUV's that might be able to haul this. The first was on vacation in PEI, and the second had had back surgery a few months ago and currently can't drive or lift anything. He WAS however willing to lend us his minivan.
So, we left the thing in the street in front of the Garage sale, and told the guy we'd be back in an hour to pick it up. We drove downtown, switched vehicles and drove back.
When we got there I discovered (in the midst of an attempt to put the thing in the minivan) that I had sprained my left hand on the last attempt, and it refused to lift or grip anything. My right was still working though, and with the help of
taxlady and the previous owner's father-in-law, we got it stowed away.Then while driving it back home, I realized that with only one working arm (and the other now only half-working from the last effort) there was no way that we were going to get it into our basement (where
taxlady's office is), even if we only had to get it the 20 feet from the communal garage that all our townhouses share.We decided that even if we could get help, we would need dolleys, or a hand-truck, or something. After some driving around (with the monster still in the back) we found and bought two $25 dolleys. When we finally got into the garage, where it was clear that we would have to ask our neighbor to move his car, as it was in the way of the planned furniture move. He agreed to move the car, and even to help with the move. We also roped in another neighbor who made the bad mistake of driving into the garage while we needed help.
With their help (and it wasn't easy, even with all of us working on it) we got the thing down out of the minivan, onto dolleys, along the garage, up the 6" step to our access corridor, along the corridor and into our basement, where it now sits, blocking access to the the washing machine.
taxlady is currently trying to figure out the best way to rearrange her office to accomodate this beauty, and I'm feeling quite happy with our 'purchase'. (Although truth to tell, we forced $5.00 on the man for helping haul the thing into the minivan for us. I guess I'm just not a ruthless capitalist).The only downside of the whole shebang is that I can't really lift anything and even typing involves some effort. I suspect that means that even if a plan for moving the monster is made tomorrow, its going to be a week or two before it gets put into motion.
Meanwhile, now that we're home and have finally had breakfast (at around 7:00 pm!) I can finish reading LJ and the morning comics...
