A Broken Man

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellows,

Do you remember yesterday? No, not your yesterday. I mean my blissful blip entry where I ended up talking about how content and relaxed I felt. 

Do you remember that?

WHAT A FOOL I WAS.

I slipped into a comfortable afternoon slumber on the couch while Caro watched "Poirot" on the telly. And when I awoke, still feeling halfway into the land of fluffy clouds and fantasy, Caro suggested that I might like to help her move her new sideboard from the garage to the living room. 

The new sideboard saga has been going on for quite some time. Caro ordered it months ago, but it only arrived on Friday. The man deposited it into our garage and was on his way. 

So I said, "Sure" because otherwise I'd have a sideboard in the garage in all perpetuity. I pulled and I shoved and I pushed and I strained and it moved about two inches on each OOF. 

Caro had a go. She leaned against it and flexed and it moved about two feet. 

"It's the terrain," said Caro, trying to make me feel better. 

So we manhandled it down the stairs at the side of our house, and then shoved it across the deck to our living room double-doors. We tried to lift it from the deck into the living room. 

We lifted and pivoted and pulled and heaved and nothing. 

"Maybe if we removed the outer packaging," I said. I was thinking so that we would have something to grab hold of. 

But it was the most packed packaging I have ever unpacked. We pulled and we cut and we sawed and we sliced and we ripped. 

Eventually it came free enough that Caro managed to lift it into the house before I even knew what was happening. She maneuvered it into place and I took the packaging to the garage to be broken down. 

I ripped and I tore and I scissored and sliced through that thick, thick, cardboard. Caro eventually came up and found me, sweaty and sweary. She produced a Stanley knife and cut it all up in literally 30 seconds. 

"Look at you," she said, bright as a daisy. "You look SHATTERED."

It is true. I was absolutely buggered. Effed. Knackered. But Caro was not. Partially it is because she is so much more fit than me. But also I think she was sideboard-happy. She has been looking forward to this sideboard for a very long time. 

"Would you like to help me bring the old sideboard up to the garage?" she asked. "You don't have to," she added. 

I think she saw the look of absolute devastation on my face.  

But I helped Caro carry the old sideboard up the side of the house. It was nowhere near as heavy, so we heave-ho'd it up there quite quickly. 

All the same I retired to my couch afterward, a broken wreck of a man. Meanwhile, Caro danced around her new sideboard and Punky got in it. 

Hence today's picture. You can see more of the new sideboard in the extra. 

I think that, during lockdown, I have atrophied and turned into a blob. Or perhaps sideboards are just not my thing. I can tell you this; they are most certainly not now. 

Anyway. That was yesterday. Today, I avoided furniture at all costs and am feeling much better about things.

S.