The Saturday column: There's a traffic jam, and it's the eldest's fault
The Saturday column: There's a traffic jam, and it's the eldest's fault
Pointless stories about my life
A clattering noise from upstairs indicates the approach of the eldest.
“Uh oh,” I say.
“She’s off out to see her friends,” my wife reminds me. “I think she’s taking a box of stuff with her to give to a charity shop.”
The clattering noise grows nearer and soon the eldest is at the bottom of the stairs swaying slightly beneath the weight of a box which has not so much been packed as ‘filled’. At some stage in the proceedings it has been secured on the underneath by a single piece of tape.
“That’s not enough tape,” I say.
“That box is sagging,” my wife says.
“It’s alright,” says the eldest, “I’ll be speedy.”
There was a time when we used to move house a lot, in the early years of our marriage we averaged a move per year for about half a dozen years. I can’t even imagine what that was like any more.
“I basically hate this,” I said to my wife one day. “I never want to do this again.”
“Yeah well you’ve just started a job where moving is kind of part of the thing,” she pointed out.
“What was I thinking of?” I said.
Some people get their movers to pack up all of their stuff for them. I would do this, except the only thing I can think of that would be worse than packing up all my stuff is having someone else pack up all my stuff.
“If you want to be speedy,” I say, “it might actually help if I just put some extra tape on the bottom of that box.”
“Can’t, don’t have time, got to go,” says the eldest clattering out of the door.
“Hopefully she’s not in the middle of the road now, picking up all that stuff,” I say to my wife a moment later.
The youngest runs down the stairs and starts to put shoes on.
“She’s in the middle of the road, picking up all that stuff,” says the youngest.
I pull on some shoes to join the work force, a man wearing only a pair of shorts, trainers and a cigarette offers to help.
“It’s fine, thanks,” says the eldest, grinning broadly, “we’re nearly sorted.”
Cars begin to line up in the road, waiting to drive over the place where the eldest’s charity shop donations currently sit. She gives them a cheery wave.
Between us we load the things into the back seat. “Do you want me to tape that box up again?” I ask.
“No time, I’ll sort it out later - they have trolleys there anyway,” she says.
“I hope she brings that box back,” my wife says when we’re back inside. “It’s every box on deck at the moment.”
“I never want to do this again,” 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.