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| (Almost done packing) |
Moving Day, Part II
-- Well, today is the day. Everything must be packed and ready to go
lest it goes down with the razing of the building. The district refuses to move five of my book
shelves, shelves that I sincerely need to run my classroom, so I don’t have
much of a backlog of stuff.
I do, however, have an old
vinyl and metal chair that has been with me forever. I want this chair to move along with me for
several reasons. The top two reasons are: 1. Sentimentality; 2. It’s the only thing
sturdy enough to hold my weight.
I begin dragging the old
chair down the bumpy ramp. That isn’t
efficient, so I push it, instead.
Wow, this is great! The chair is just sailing along with me
behind it. This is going to work out –
THHHHWWWAAAAAAAAACK!
All of a sudden, the chair
hits a crease in the floor and stops dead.
I, however, do not, and I flip right over the chair, jamming my right
knee hard into the metal leg of the furniture I am trying to rescue.
I recover from the fall
and look up to see one of my teammates staring at me in the hallway. “It’s all good,” I assure her when she offers
to help me. I dust myself off, clench my
teeth against the roaring pain in my kneecap, and look around to see if anyone
else caught my pratfall.
Shit. The security camera is right there, directly
above me. Somewhere in the archives of
digital memory, my amazing chair roll has been caught on video for all of
eternity (or until the evidence is erased from the hard drive).
I continue down the ramp,
a little more cautiously this time. I
seem to have it all under control –
THHHWWWWAAAAAAACK!
I hit another divot in the
flooring. I am semi-prepared this time, and
the chair’s front legs remain stuck to the flooring imperfection. The back legs, however, go into the air then
slam back down again.
Yup, slamming back
down. SLAMMING down … directly on to my
left foot.
I am wearing sandals, and
I damn-near jump out of my skin with agony, except now that my foot is injured,
jumping is no longer an option. My right
knee is throbbing, my left foot is screaming, and I still have to get this
bastard of a chair out to my car.
A few more minor injuries,
and I am ready to put the chair into the back of my vehicle. As I am lifting the big-ass metal contraption
into my even bigger-ass metal contraption, the chair takes one more bite at my
hand.
“Why you … you … you
sonofabitch,” I mutter (in case any children or parents are within earshot). I decide I’ve had enough. “Look, you fucking asshole chair, I am trying
to save your sorry ass. I AM TRYING TO
SAVE YOUR FUCKING USELESS LIFE, NOW GET THE HELL IN MY CAR!”
With that final tirade and
a good shove, the chair is in my vehicle.
All I have left to do now is get my right knee and my left foot x-rayed. Oh, and secure that video footage, if
possible.
