When you're a teenager and in high school, every happening is a grand adventure. It's something to tell your friends about, because it marks you as interesting, someone to whom things “happen”. When they're amusing things, it makes the adventure even better. Throw in parents, rain, a muddy Tennessee day and a moving truck, and the tale gains in the telling. Subsequently, you must have the correct props, but it's kind of hard to drag around a wide piece of wood to illustrate your story. Therefore, your audience will just need to use their imaginations.
A Little Background
Before we begin our anecdote, you should be aware that just outside Nashville, Tennessee is a small community named 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 sometimes. It makes things miserable, though, when your house sits off the road where the ground slopes downward a bit. The rain pools, the mud can be impassable, and just walking up the driveway to make it to the school bus is quite a job.
Next, think about a couple who happen to be my parents and who both drive into Nashville to work. Their car is parked at the street in front of the house most days to make it easier for a quick exit every morn. They both work in office buildings on opposite sides of the city. 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 thing to remember in this scary tale of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) moving.
What Happened
My parents had found a house closer to Nashville, making it easier and quicker for them to drive to their employment. 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 tail end as close to the side door steps as he could maneuver it. A large piece of plywood was used as a loading ramp. So far, the loading of the truck was going without a hitch. The rain made things a bit wet and unpleasant, but we were dealing with it.
The Hard Part
At this point, the truck was fully 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 perceived Dad having problems getting out of the drive, and so we walked back down the driveway a safe distance away to view in order to see what would happen next. He attempted to rock the truck. No luck. He tried having Mom get in the driver's seat and jacking the back of the truck out of the mud. That didn't work, either. As a last-ditch effort, Dad put the large piece of wood beneath the back tires of the moving truck.
The Scary Part
You must be aware that if you're going to use a piece of wood to get your tires out of the mud, you need to pay attention to which direction the wood will go when your truck gets unstuck. In this case, it shot like a projectile right through our living room window. Pieces of glass were all over the place, the truck took off out of the driveway, Mom was surprised and almost didn't make the turn onto the street, and Dad stood silently in shock. My brother and I found all this excessively funny and were laughing our teenage heads off. Consequently, we all got out of there as fast 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!
