This past weekend we officially started moving some of our things to my parents house for safe keeping and I learned two very valuable lessons that I would like to pass on to other novice movers. First, try to purge everything you can because you never know what unexpected value you may find as a result of letting things go. And second, use some common sense and wear sturdy footwear when doing some heavy lifting.
The weather in Chicago has been incredible and the 80 degree heat led me to blow off the dust on my flip flops and let my toes get some much needed vitamin D. I was on my way out the door taking the first official box to my car and then it hit me... actually slammed down on me. The box I was carrying held some precious cargo, aka wine, and part of the box bottomed out and a heavier-than-average wine bottle came torpedoing towards my innocent, nearly naked foot. (Actually, the bottle was probably average weight, but when it comes crashing down on your tootsie, you tend to think it must be a lead-brewed Merlot.)
My first reaction was, "is the wine okay?" immediately followed by falling to the ground in tears calling for the hubs, who couldn't read my "I think I just crushed my foot" cry from my "honey, can you open the front door when you have a chance, I think I'm locked out. No rush." Needless to say he casually sauntered down to the front yard to find me sprawled on the front walk with an errant bottle of wine slowly rolling down the driveway. It was quite the suburban crime scene.
Okay, lesson learned. I will wear covered shoes from now on during the move. I will also drink all the remaining wine to ensure that no one else can be assaulted.
So after getting over the first casualty of the big move, we moved on (and I of course put on different shoes) and started to debate over moving my husband's larger than life Coke bottle coin bank. He had been stashing change in this thing for who knows how long and I just couldn't justify moving it - it was heavy, it had been collecting dust in our spare room closet for three years and to be quite honest, after enduring a beat down by a wine bottle moments earlier, I really didn't want to go near any kind of bottle, let alone a three feet tall one filled with very heavy change. It had to go.
Surprisingly, the hubs agreed that it would be best to get rid of it and we soon found ourselves at our local Chase (me limping in and Adam trying to maintain his masculinity while walking by three-piece suited bankers with a massive coke bottle cradled in his arms) cashing in what we thought would hopefully net us 100 bucks. And at this point, as long as the bottle did fall the hit me, I considered it a win no matter what.
Much to our surprise, the bottle totaled a little more than $217. Not too shabby, eh? The once 20 pound, awkwardly sized bottle, now fit neatly into our checking account and would allow us to splurge on some weekend takeout.
The day started off on the wrong foot... literally and figuratively... and even though I wasn't expecting to get jumped by a wine bottle or pleasantly surprised by a Coke coin bank, they both taught me yet more valuable moving lessons.
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