“I think,” my wife says, “that the chest of drawers needs to go upstairs.”
The chest of drawers is one of the largest pieces of furniture we have, and is solid wood. Apart from the metal bits.
“Oh, good.” I say. “That really is excellent news.”
I long ago learned that you should never move a chest of drawers without first removing the drawers. It may take a few more trips to move the chest and the drawers separately, but those trips are considerably less arduous than they would be if you try to take the whole thing in one go.
“Which end do you want to carry?” I say.
A discussion ensues.
About five minutes later we are half way up the stairs, I’m only a step or two up the stairs, my wife is further up, ‘guiding’.
“Briiiiinng,” goes the door bell. I turn, the fluorescent waistcoat that I can see through the glass of the door can only mean one thing.
In our old house the police would sometimes pop round doing house to house enquiries, usually after some sort of serious incident or other. Depending upon the nature of the incident you got a different sort of police person. After a very serious incident you would get a non-descript man in smart shoes and a soft jacket. Less serious incidents would get a constable or two in uniform.
I used to have a friend who was a senior CID policeman. “People tell me that I look like a policeman,” I told him. “People tell me I look like a Jehovah’s Witness,” he replied. Which gave me something to think about.
Whatever sort of police person comes to the door, it generally means trouble, something has gone wrong if the cops are calling. Trying to get police to come out for less serious things was always hard work.
“Can you hold that while I get the door?” I ask my wife.
“Yes,” she says, quickly, which makes me wonder how much she is really lifting.
When I open the door the policeman is young, bearded, and smiling broadly.
“Good afternoon,” he says. “I’m sorry to bother you, but we’ve just had a gentleman pop in to our station,” (here he indicates the small police station at the end of our new road) “to let us know that your car is blocking part of the path.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I say.
“Your car, sir, it’s blocking part of the path.”
It is true, our car is indeed blocking part of the path, by about a foot. This is because we’ve been getting things out of it all day.
“Ah, well, I suppose that’s because we’re moving in…”
“Oh right, well - welcome to the neighbourhood! Anyway, it’s no problem, but when you get a chance, if you could just move it so that the path isn’t blocked, then that’ll be great.”
“Right,” I say.
“And if you need us, at all,” he says, “just pop in, we’re just down there!”
“Apparently,” I say to my wife, once the boy in blue has gone away again, “the police come to your door here if someone tells them your car is blocking the path.”
We spend a little time reminiscing about times we’ve had to call the police in the past, about fairly serious incidents, and nobody was available to come out.
“Maybe they were busy getting people to move their cars by a foot,” she suggests.
“He was very nice,” I say, “and he said that if we needed anything we should just call in.”
“Do you think he’d help us move this chest of drawers?” She says.
“We could ask…” I say.
‘Saturday columns’ are short, sometimes (relatively) funny, basically true* stories of mundanity and mishaps from my life.
*Some names, locations and other details may have been changed to protect the guilty.
😂
I also use the technique that K employs 🤣. I’m intrigued by the different policing approach despite it being the same police force!