When you're 16 years old and in high school, every experience is a grand adventure. It's one to tell your friends about, because it marks you as fun, someone to whom things “happen”. When they're funny things, it makes the adventure even better. Involve parents, rain, a muddy Tennessee day and a moving truck, and the tale gains in the telling. Of course, you have to have the right props, but it's kind of hard to drag around a wide piece of wood to illustrate your story. Your audience will just have to use their imaginations.
A Little Background
Before we begin our story, you should know that just outside Nashville, Tennessee is a small community called Mount Juliet. It's the home of Charlie Daniels (yes, I know where his house is). Mount Juliet sits atop a rise in the ground, making snowy curvy roads lots of fun on which to drive at times. It makes life miserable, though, when your house sits off the road where the landscape dips a bit. The rain pools, the mud is sometimes impenetrable, and just getting up the driveway to make it to the school bus is quite a job.
Now, imagine a couple who happen to be my parents and who both drive into Nashville to work. Their car is parked on the street in front of the house most days to better facilitate a quick getaway every morn. They both work in offices on opposite sides of Nashville. One would drop the other off at work and then proceed to their job. Back at the house, as the rain continues, the water pools deeper and deeper in the driveway all the way up to the side door steps of the house. This is an important point to remember in this scary tale of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) moving.
What Happened
My parents had found a house closer to the infrastructure, making it easier and quicker for them to get to work. Consequently, they rented a moving truck and we were loading it. It had been raining for weeks, it seemed, and the yard was one heaving mass of mud. My Dad had backed the truck down the driveway, with the back as close to the side door steps as he could get it. A long wide piece of wood was used as a loading ramp. So far the loading of the truck was going without a hitch. The rain made things a bit damp and unpleasant, but we were handling it.
The Hard Part
Now the truck was loaded. My brother and I were piled in one of the cars with me driving. I was waiting for the truck to pull out of the drive so I could follow it to the new house. We noticed Dad having trouble getting out of the drive, and so we walked back down the driveway a safe distance away to watch the show. He tried rocking the truck. That didn't work. He tried putting Mom in the driver's seat and jacking the back of the truck out of the mud. That didn't work, either. Finally, Dad put the long wide piece of wood beneath the back tires of the moving truck.
The Scary Part
You should be aware that if you're going to use a piece of wood to get your tires out of the mud, you should also notice which direction the wood will go when your truck exits the scene. In this case, it shot like a projectile right through a living room window. Glass was everywhere, the truck shot out of the drive, Mom was startled and almost didn't make the turn out of the drive, and Dad was in shock. My brother and I found all this exquisitely funny and were laughing our teenage heads off. Needless to say, we all got out of there as quickly as we could and never went back.
Moving is no fun sometimes, but there are days it can be very comical and other days it can be downright scary. What's your horror story involving DIY moving? We'd love to hear it!
