It Pivots, We Were Told

April first. For the record, I am writing this with arms that feel like overcooked pasta, and that is a completely honest description of my current physical state.

Simone texted me Thursday night. Her neighbor, third floor, which matters enormously to this story, needed help moving a couch up the stairs this weekend and had run out of people to ask. Simone had said yes without fully visualizing the staircase, which is the kind of thing that happens when you are a fundamentally decent person and also when you have not personally stood in that stairwell and looked at the angle of the second-floor landing turn. I had not stood there either. I said yes because Simone asked and because I had no good reason not to, which is also how I ended up carrying one end of a sleeper sofa that weighed approximately the same as a refrigerator full of other refrigerators.

The internet, and also a certain famous television scene that I will not name because everyone has already made that reference and I refuse to participate, will tell you that the key to moving a couch up stairs is to pivot. What the internet does not tell you is that pivot is a completely abstract concept when you are on the upper end, your back is against the wall, one corner of the couch is pressed into your collarbone, and Simone is somewhere below you saying things that are technically encouragement but are coming out mostly as laughter. We were stuck for a real, measurable amount of time. I want you to understand that the couch did not move for several minutes and we were both fine with this because neither of us had the physical or emotional resources to try again immediately.

officially stuck. the couch has won.

It got there. I want to be clear that the couch is on the third floor now and it is not coming back down, not ever, not for any reason, because that apartment is where it will live until the building is demolished. We drank the neighbor's Easter candy as payment, the good Cadbury ones, not the waxy ones, and sat on the couch we had just nearly died moving and agreed that we had done a good thing. Simone said, completely seriously, that she was going to start asking to see floor plans before she commits to anything. I think that's reasonable.

it moved. eventually.