I agreed to help my sister move, and that’s exactly how I spent my day yesterday. Unfortunately some of the big muscle that was supposed to help had to “call in” due to an unavoidable emergency situation. This left my sister (with a bad back), her boyfriend (who recently had gallbladder surgery and who hates exercising), my parents who can’t lift a dang thing because they are old, and then my friend Maine and I. Maine was asked to participate because he is an aspiring body builder and has the muscle they needed.
We began moving her out by loading everything into my dad’s GIANT trailer. If you’re looking for a size comparison, it’s probably the size of a U-Haul. If she lived on the first floor, the move probably would have gone a lot more smoothly. But my dear and loving sister lived on the third floor, which made for some interesting trips with the larger and heavier items. Because Maine and I were the only functioning bodies, we were the ones stuck with the task of hauling the heaviest things.
Just to put things in perspective I am a female who hasn’t exercised since I moved back in July. (I can’t afford a gym membership and walking around my apartment complex just isn’t cutting it for me.) Maine is 6′, extremely muscular, and probably weighs somewhere around 250 pounds. I am 5’5″, not muscular at all, and weigh far, far less. So here we are, a muscular man and a noodle-y armed woman hauling things downstairs like couches, mattresses, dressers, bookcases, and various other heavy-duty items. Everyone kept saying, “Are you okay? Don’t hurt yourself…”, but no one actually volunteered to take my place. If I hadn’t helped, Maine would have done it himself and probably hurt his back.
Fortunately she was moving into a first floor, ground level apartment. Unfortunately it was a 2 story one and her bedroom was upstairs. So anything going in the bedroom had to be hauled back up into a narrow staircase and into a hallway that mimicked it. Then twisted around a tight corner into a small bedroom.
By the end of the day I hurt a little bit, but I felt very refreshed from the exercise. That night I went grocery shopping and had to haul bags up into my own third floor apartment. That probably didn’t help things because I woke up this morning with a backache that could rival someone who threw theirs out. The night before after all was said and done, I soaked in a hot bath and laid on my heating pad. My mattress is kind of wimpy though so it didn’t help my back at all. So this morning I am laying here like a wounded animal. I made some hot coffee and took 800 mg of ibuprofen.
Now my boyfriend is a peach, he really is. He’s always looking out for me and trying to make sure I don’t do the stupid things that I do. But he’s also in another state at the moment and didn’t know what I was getting myself into. When I told him what happened he was furious. Not at me per-say, but at the situation that had occurred where I somehow was deemed one of the heavy lifters. He probably went on 3 separate tangents last night at various times, raging about how it was ridiculous that not only did I do what I did, but no one stopped me. I thought about this but decided I was okay with it. Moving isn’t awesome or fun or easy on your body. It’s meant to be the most annoying procedure of your life (or at least one of). I can’t have the others doing it because of the conditions of their bodies. Mine can actually handle it. And with a day’s rest, I’m good to go. And everyone did make an honest-to-goodness effort. Everyone did as much of their part as they could. Except for my lazy, good-for-nothing brother who said he was coming but didn’t show up until THE EXACT MOMENT we were done moving her from one apartment to the other. Literally. I’m fairly certain he planned it that way. And he could have been my substitute muscle.
But anywhozits, I recommend anyone who plans on moving heavy stuff for someone else have a back brace, gloves, and icy hot and medicine for when they get home again. And don’t think you’re gonna go home and want to make dinner either. Make a hot pocket or something. Go on, you earned it.
Chaos Follows Me 