Sonuva

A few days ago we purchased a piano, with the understanding that they would deliver, and I volunteered to assist instead of paying fifty bucks.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The gentleman arrived at shortly after 2 pm. I'd spoken to him several times on the phone, and he sounded like Wolfman Jack. This kept superson in stitches, and he often asks if we're going to talk to Wolfman. At any rate, our youngest went down for his nap. That's really nice. Superson runs outside and lays down in the shade of the twig that passes for a tree in our front yard while this guy tells me to get behind... no to the left, your other... why don't you get on the other side and stradle the dolly while I... oh hell.

See, he told me to push and, being the dummy that I am, I pushed. The first thing he told me was that we had to get the piano, about the size of a dresser, with the weight of a Buick and without the convenience of wheels, onto the dolly. He positioned me behind the piano because I was the skinniest of the two (which is necessary for getting into the van past the piano), and I don't think he expected me to push very hard. Unfortunately I've been reading alot about Bruce Lee and Marines lately, which gets a body kind of psyched. I pushed with all my pythons, guns, or whatever other euphemism you might want to use for the licorice whips that are my arms could muster. The piano exited the van.

It missed the dolly. Fortunately, Mr. Man was under it, cushioning the thing from the concrete. I think he broke a rib.

Anyway, we managed to lift the thing onto the dolly (go us) after some serious screaming, a bit of cussing, and more than one comment about owing drinks.

About this time, superson lifts himself up out of the shade, "can I help?"

"No."
"Please?"
"How about you go inside and keep Ultrason occupied?"
"Okay!"

He then preceeds to run laps around us while we try and maneuver about 3000 pounds of mahogany and metal up steps. This is not an easy time, and we take about 20 minutes doing it, but it's not the worst step of the process.

"Homestretch," he says. "How about we lift it over the railing here?"
"We can't get it down the hall upright," I ask.
"I don't think so."
"How about we do some rethinking?"

Wolfman grabs a tape measure while I hold the piano ("don't leave the piano! Don't EVER leave the piano!") and stares at it intently. "I'd say we've got maybe half an inch of room," he offers.

"Let's do it."

In case I haven't made the weight of this thing abundantly clear, let me offer a simile: "Like pushing a landed adult blue whale back into the sea."

Other words, my father called them "active adjectives" come to mind.

We made it all the way through by taking 20 minute breaks every 20 inches. About halfway I offered to get him something to drink (just water, okay?) and considered convincing my wife that we want a behemoth half way down the hall.

I'd like to pause and say that the damnable leviathan has WHEELS, but we can't use them on carpet. So we had to carry it. Oh, and the legs will snap right off if you put any weight on them. Purely decorative.

So, we get it in place, and we have piano. We can't open our backdoor, we have to have specialist tune the thing every five seconds (kids) and get a humidifier unless we feel like having it tuned every 2 seconds, my back feels like I've been runover, and the kids absolutely love jumping on it (creating more noise than was witnessed at that little Normandy get together during WWII), but we've got a piano!

footnote: Mr. Man left with only a slight limp. I'll have to work on my aim.