The One Where I Move a Couch

“Do you like helping people? Do you like free things? Do you like exercise?”

I like all three of those things so when I got that text from a friend of mine, I was instantly intrigued. It ended up that she needed help moving a couch (read: extremely heavy loveseat) that she found for free. So I agreed and we moved the couch. The end.

A very realistic portrayal of the endeavor

Haha just kidding. That loveseat was actually really heavy and not the easiest thing to move. There were times when I thought back to the episode of “Friends” where Ross orders a new couch and has to move it in himself (PIVOT!). The only difference being that Ross was just dumb and ordered a couch that he couldn't actually move and we were able to move ours. But I will give Ross something: it's really difficult to move a couch and pivoting it does actually help. It was a struggle to pick it up in the beginning and we had to move it across town back to her apartment. 

It worked out, the couch is in her apartment. We moved it with a lot of breaks, four girls, and lots of “almost there”s. My forearms and triceps are still unnecessarily sore but it was fun. I wouldn’t do it again but ask me in a few weeks with the promise of coffee and food and I might do it.

We were quite a sight walking down Tunavagen past ICA and past a school. The kids at the school waved and laughed at the sight up four slight and surprisingly strong 20 year old girls carrying this huge-ass couch past their playground. People at ICA just kind of stared as we struggled with the last hundred meters, sweat accumulated, and we were struggling to keep it up. It was nice though, because when we took a break, there was somewhere really comfortable to sit and that was the highlight of the day. 

I really don’t think that moving a couch without a car or a strong person to help was ever on my bucket list but looking back it was quite the experience. For example, I now know that I can carry a couple hundred pound loveseat with the help of three other people, life lessons. 

So when you ask me what I did when I studied abroad my answer can now be “I went to a music festival, drank coffee, and moved a couch”

At the beginning...

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