Feats of Strength

Ohmyword, Reader, this week has been setting out to prove that I am one strengthless giant bag of body.  I mean, Lawdee! It’s been testing my actual physical strengths this week! And lemme just confess, I have been coming up very weak in the arms.

Firstly, my mind said to me, “Hey, Trixie, ya know what would be super-fun while you’re unemployed?? hosting a wine night with the girls!”  And my mind was correct, it was super-fun!

Except for the other part of my mind, that whispered to me, “Well, you know this means we have to do some massive cleaning and possibly home remodeling because six people who have already been to your house are going to come back to your house and drink and eat and so that requires All The Things be done in the next three days”

I mean, we’re talking about me being a little bit nutzo, Reader.

I decided that was the week to KonMarie my cabinets and drawers.  And mop and scrub and sweep and mop again and vacuum and hey, why don’cha also clean the carpet on the stairway that no one is even going to go up, now’s a good time to tackle that, too.

So I did, and boy howdy, was I tarred. And then I decided that my living room just isn’t clean unless we move the teensy tiny 80″ TV out from the wall and clean and sweep and mop and polish behind it.

So we did.  And I let My Mister tell me, “It’s not even heavy, it’s just a little awkward.”

And he revealed himself for the liar he truly is.

Because an 80″ TV? Despite being thin? Is oh-my-effing-lawd HEAVY.

This next part is where I question my own mind, which we’ve above determined is also irrational and untrustworthy with decision making skills, because I let My Pants-on-Fire-Liar Mister convince me to just pick up that 80″ tv and walk it the five steps over to the coffee table and set it down INSTEAD OF MOVING THE MOTHEREFFING COFFEE TABLE to the tv.

What. Is. Wrong. With. Me??

But lift it and walk with it we did, and got it there with only a minor panic of my shouting, “I don’t have it, I don’t have it!” but by then we were at the coffee table and we were able to set it down and say sheeweee that was hard, and wipe my brow and let my jiggly arms take a rest.

We cleaned it all out back there, and tidied up the cords and moved some ‘lectronics to the basement and polished up the tv stand and then it was time to move the not-light-at-all tv back to it’s stand.

I didn’t have it, Reader.

First, every person with a half a brain knows it’s a lot lot lot more difficult to move something heavy back to a HIGHER shelf than the one they’re currently on.  It takes HOISTING in addition to the moving, and I did NOT have hoisting in my arms.

Me: “Let’s just slide the coffee table towards the stand.”

Pants-on-Fire: “That is impossible. The tv is already on the coffee table, there is NO WAY we can move the coffee table with the tv on it towards the stand.”

So we tried, Reader, oh how we tried.

I just didn’t have enough wingspan to keep it from tipping forward, grasping the bottom, balancing the top and HOISTING.

I came up with the brilliant plan of maybe all I needed was to put on my Ove Glove because it has gripper fingers and I figured maybe that would help with my kung fu grip.

So I suited up with my Ove Glove and was ready to try again.

I made it about three steps from the coffee table to the tv stand before my cries, which were surprisingly similar to Steve Austin’s in The Six Million Dollar Man, “I can’t hold her Oscar, she’s breaking up! She’s breaking up!” And then his experimental aircraft,  and my grip on the tv, ended and she landed with a shockingly loud kapow on the hardwood floor of the living room. Not Steve Austin; the 80″ television.

My Mister was m.a.d. at me, as if I did it on purpose and then I got m.a.d at him for lying that it was, “not even heavy!” and for also being mad at me, expecting my delicate flowered-ness to do hard lifting man work.

So the good news was, neither the tv nor the floor were broken. I frankly don’t know what I would have been more upset about.

The bad news was, the tv was now at an even LOWER point of pick-up, meaning even MORE hoist was going to be required.

I called in reinforcements, meaning a text to HandyDan was placed, and he agreed to stop over so I wouldn’t have to just live with my telly on the floor for all the the rest of my live-long days. Because that was actually my only other option, and it was beginning to sound okay with the only other option being that I lift that m-effer up off the floor. I was already planning how to redecorate the room around it.

Except.

Then I didn’t want to be a quitter. So I concocted the plan to move the coffee table closer, so I could lift it in two sweeps instead of one grand one – once to the table, then a rest, then the final to the stand. And I determined I needed to balance the top of the tv with my face, so I had to stand in front of it to get some leverage and let it rest on my head.

My Mister: “Okay, on the count of three, we’ll lift. One…two…”

TBB: Begins to lift.

My Mister: “YOU’RE LIFTING ON THREE! It’s supposed to be one, two, three – then LIFT! You’re lifting before I’m lifting!”

Well, I don’t know how lifting and counting works for you, Reader, but I thought it was one, two, then ON THREE the lift happened.  Not one, two, three, THEN LIFT. That’s four beats. That’s lifting on FOUR, not three.

I was unable to resynchronize my lift sequence. I just couldn’t do it. My Mister finally decided to change up HIS lift sequence, and lo-and-behold, we managed to get that fucker lifted and back on the stand ON three, and then I had to check my milk because I’m sure it was strained.

The good news is, we did it. And the behind-the-tv was company-ready, which is a very important part of the house to be cleaned when people are stopping in and not looking there at all.

In other news, we purchased this jar of sliced mango from Costco yesterday and despite having Herculean strength to hoist that tv all around the living room, neither one of us can open this jar:

Like, there’s no-way-no-how that jar is getting opened. It cannot be done.

We were on our way to take this back to Costco because eight dollars, and instead veered off for impromptu dinner with my friendie and her boyfriendie, and we challenged them to see if they could open this jar and prove that we are, in fact, really just a couple-ah noodle arms.

They couldn’t open it either.

However, My Mister did inform me that, “You really need to go to the gym and lift some weights, I didn’t realize you were so wimpy.” And he almost found out how much strength I actually have with a quick jab to the snout. However, I am a lady, and instead politely told him to fuck off.