Sunday, October 27, 2002
Waking up with a raw throat, and thankful for the extra hour's worth of sleep from Daylight Saving's Time, I made my weary way back up to Keswick, in order to finish the job I had started on Friday.
A huge bin -- larger than the one I had filled last Xmas -- was in the driveway. I was big enough that I could walk into it from the back. As it turned out, this was a good arrangement, since some things were just too damned heavy to throw in over the sides.
First, all of the items I had bagged went into the bin. Then I methodically cleared out the shed, leaving a single new-ish rake for the new owner (he would need it, since the back yard was covered in leaves). Then I went inside and made sure I cleared out everything else in the house, room by room. That was the easy part, done in less than a couple of hours.
The worst part, the part I dreaded, was the two chesterfields. They were both fold-away beds, and weighed a ton apiece. The house did have three such chesterfields, and the auctioneer only took one of them -- the other two being too old and worn.
Both of my parents were children of the Depression years, and I suspect the drive towards getting sofa beds instead of "real" beds stemmed from a utilitarian quest for getting the most from your money, and dual purpose furniture would fit that idea -- that's why we had three of them, despite the fact that there was never an occasion when they were all used at once. I had always considered them hideously ugly, but when I thought about it, they did remind me a bit of those fashionable couches you saw in "white telephone" films of the 30s, and I wondered if that was what drew them to the vibrant colours and bold patters of these two chesterfields.
The first one wasn't so bad. While heavy, I found I could "walk" it easily enough out to the bin. The second one would not go so easily as that.
I was able to get the second one out of its room -- just. I managed to walk it to the front door, and realized that it wouldn't fit. So I managed to man-handle it back through the length of the house and to the entrance of the "new" addition. It wouldn't go through -- it was just too big.
It was then I realized that this chesterfield had been in the house for a long time, back to a time when the former back door -- where the entrance to the new addition now was -- was considerably larger.
I was stuck. I had to get this chesterfield out of the house, as this was my last chance to prior to the new owners taking possession. I couldn't just leave an old, worn-out chesterfield in the middle of their new house.
Problem was, I had no tools. The auctioneer had taken all of those with my blessing, but I hadn't counted on this type of situation.
It was then that I remembered the axe that had been in the shed. I went to the bin, and thankfully I was able to retrieve it. After having struggling through the house back and forth with this behemoth of a chesterfield, whacking away at it with an axe felt pretty good. ;-) Bit by bit, I was able to knock out one of the back supports, and using the Swiss army knife I had with me, I was able to remove the bulky cushioning piece by piece.
I learned a lot about the construction of chesterfields that day. I couldn't tell you how to put one together, but I have a much better idea as to how to take one apart now.
There was a knock at the door. I answered it. A short-ish woman I didn't recognize was there. "Keith?" she asked with a twinge of uncertainty. It was the cleaning lady I had hired to do a quick clean-up of the house. It was then I realized I still had the axe in one hand, and was sweaty from my efforts. I apologized for how I must have looked, welcomed her in, and explained, somewhat shamefacedly, what exactly I was doing to the chesterfield slowly being dismembered in the back hallway. She understood, and did a really good job of getting all of the wood chips and bits of stray upholstery that I had managed to spread all over the place.
After releasing a back brace for the chesterfield, I figured what was left of it should now fit through the doorway, and while it wasn't significantly lighter, it was at least small enough to squeeze through the hallway entrance. I walked it to the bin, and with a resounding, pleasing thud, dropped it in.
The cleaning lady finished soon after, leaving me with an empty house. That was it. I wondered through the shell of a home, seemingly stripped of everything that would hold memories, but still somehow filled with them.
I walked through the house, said "goodbye", locked it up, and left.
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