We have moved around a bit in the last decade+ for my wife’s training and employment. That’s meant more packing and moving and unpacking and organizing and immediate desecration of that organization.
When we moved to Canada I did not follow the sage advice of my bff’s dad. His family has made multiple international moves:
Noah, moving is a pain. A lot of paperwork. Sell what you can and move with as few possessions as you can
Sorry BMan. You were right. We should have done that.
But since our bed is the only indulgence I’ve ever been willing to splurge on, we headed north with our bedroom set. Along with patio furniture, a dining room table, guest bed, and one of our kid’s beds. It was too much.
Thankfully, my wife has an engineer’s mind so reassembling furniture pieces is simple enough for her. She’s put together everything from a barbecue grill to an electric bike. Sad her married surname is Jewish otherwise the Ford Assembly line would be happy to have her.
But every so often there’s something that is a true challenge. When it gets desperate, I’m asked to help. That’s when I know we got trouble. With a capital T. And that rhymes with B and it stands for Bunk Beds.
Because if I were Igor, Frankenstein’s monster would have died a second time.
When a married couple is assembling furniture jointly there are three outcomes:
1. Power through and finish it
2. Abandon the effort and donate/junk
3. Divorce
So far we’ve limited ourselves to the first two. But man, am I certain my wife was eyeballing door #3.
I’ll save you the boring exposition on our home layout but we elected to acquire bunk beds for the kids to save space and create more play area. Fortunately, my wife scooped a deal on Craigslist. The only problem of course was transportation.
She was working so I showed up an hour after the scheduled time. In my defense, I thought it was cool to show up anytime after 1:30 p.m and my my kids wanted to go the park to see dogs (her) and test out his new heavy batting practice toys (him).
I show up in my Subaru ready to haul a bunk bed. Hard to see how this plan could fail.
It did.
I think the woman took a photo or two of the assembled bed which was never shared with my wife. I neglected to take photos because oops. The dude and I wrestled with the other pieces carefully deconstructing it by wrenching, pulling, and twisting until we had humbled the beds.
After stacking the pieces near the front door it was obvious my Subaru was insufficient. I saw a truck parked half a block away so I went up and knocked on the door.
No answer.
I saw an old woman reading on her porch across the street.
“Excuse me, did you know which house owns the truck”? I asked.
“It’s that house, the one its parked in front of,” she said.
I try the front door again.
No answer.
But fate smiled upon me that hot afternoon. A smaller white Toyota truck pulled up just as hope was slipping from my grasp. I walked toward the door and waited for the driver, guy I figured in his mid 20s, to exit.
“Excuse me sir, I was wondering if you could do me a favor. I’ll give you $20 cash if we can use your truck. I’d prefer you drive it. But we’re looking to move pieces of a bunk bed about 800 meters to my house.” I got to the point.
He pondered the request/offer.
“When do you want to do it?” he asked. “I can’t help carry, a back issue.”
Success!
"No problem. Don’t need your labor just the truck. I’d like to do it right now if that works for you? I’ll move my Subaru and you park there and I’ll load up the truck.”
The seller smirked at this new plan which didn’t involve renting something called a Modo. He offered to help me load and unload which I immediately accepted. So our new friend pulled up with his truck. We loaded up the truck and I texted everyone the nearby address.
I opened up the garage and we worked a 3-man team to unload the items into our laundry room to wait for my wife to get back. That’s when the real fun would begin.
8:07 p.m. The first step was my wife taking apart our son’s bed. Problem 1 was the mover’s apparently hadn’t put it together well so disassembly was more complicated than anticipated. Eventually my wife broke it down the main chunks were stored in a couple different rooms in our house until we figure out where we’ll donate it.
8:19 p.m. Visit #1 from our daughter who was supposed to be sleeping telling us to be quieter
8:35 p.m. The next step was the bookshelf. Problem 2 was removing the wall anchor. Then shuttling the books upstairs in a burgeoning pile near my daughter’s bedroom door. A book volcano belching new volumes on every trip. After carrying the bookshelf out we had room to start carrying up the pieces of the bunk bed.
8:42 p.m. Visit #2 from our daughter telling us to be quieter
8:46 p.m. My wife figures out the base piece for the twin/full lower bunk and how they go together. So begins a futile and frustrating process of trying to insert the corners in the metal bracket hinges. As you can guess every time we latch a bottom piece the upper piece doesn’t work.
8:49 p.m. the left side is in. Great. The right side isn’t. Boo. The ceiling fan isn’t really doing its part in lowering the temperature. In any sense.
8:51 p.m. ooh, we got 3 of the 4 parts in but not the last one maybeifwewrenchitalittlebit no. Still no. Not secured.
8:53 p.m. Visit #3 from our daughter telling us to be quieter
8:59 p.m. Now my wife has a new plan. Somehow this must conjure something from her professional training. The bunks are in breach. She is now rotating them up on its sides to loosen the brackets. Then reattach after it latches. I nod along confidently as if I have any role in this or understanding of the physiology involved. But bend and hoist as she busies herself with a screwdriver, wrench, and a can do spirit. She is Rosie the Riveter except her husband is a spectator not fighting fascism abroad. Though I do send some fire tweets on occasion.
9:33 p.m. We’re ready to try again and work on it. Still not quite right but agonizingly close to the victory my wife so richly deserves. This must be how Moses felt with Israel on the horizon.
9:42 p.m. And the children, dancing with their timbrels followed Miriam as she sang her song. Whispers of Mi Chamocha volley around the bedroom. The bottom bunk is now latched into place so we’re ready to tackle the upper bunk after a brief water break.
9:56 p.m. The upper bunk is much simpler. However when the bed was being dissembled the prongs or hooks or whatever were bent. So now the hammer is deployed and my wife might as well be Hank Aaron. Venting some of the steam from the previous effort she whacks away aligning things for a more seamless latch.
10:04 p.m. Now the bunk is in though my wife is completely certain the top left corner is secure. Nevertheless she persisted until the job was done.
10:12 p.m. We make quick work of remaking the beds with the mattress, pillows, and comforters.
10:14 p.m. We transition our son to the lower bunk for his first night in the new beds. Our noise sentinel remains in our bed for the evening.
10:15 p.m. And Alexander wept seeing there were no more worlds to conquer.
