Moving Mattresses (Pt. 2)

You may have read about my insane desire to move a bunch of beds around in Cape Town to surprise Rebecca.  Long story short, to this day she doesn't understand how I was able to move huge mattresses and heavy bed frames in and out of bedrooms.  All in a wheelchair.  It still confuses her.  Mission accomplished.

This is part two of the same theme.  Here in Chapel Hill, Rebecca is finishing up her MBA studies.  We know that soon we will (hopefully) be working again and so one thing we have both done is utilize the time to travel and see friends and family.  A big one for me was visiting my brother-in-law and his wife in Kyrgyzstan.  Shortly after arriving in our second apartment (another story) in Chapel Hill, Rebecca visited friends and family on the west coast, leaving me at home to organize and take care of our dog, Tucky.

One downside of the new apartment was that, while fully-furnished, the bed was tiny and uncomfortable.  I flop around all night.  Basically I have restless leg syndrome on steroids and I try and rectify it by getting into a sideways push-up position and then flipping in the air, landing on the bed and often waking up my sleeping wife.  Rebecca also has a habit where she unconsciously insists on being in the middle of the bed, letting me know she has accomplished her goal by sleep-slapping me in the chest or, on special occasions, in the face.  Sometimes I am having one of my all-too-regular middle of the night reading sessions and am treated to this performance as a spectator and not as an unwilling victim.  She groans, rolls towards me, and swings her long arm high in the air, hand relaxed, landing finally on my chest.  It makes me laugh.  It's odd how high her arm gets.  She is either dreaming of giving a vicious haymaker to someone in a fight or maybe just a huge hug.  Her other arm is trapped against the bed so it's hard to tell.

Back to the story.  I had become determined to have a repeat performance of musical beds before she returned.  This time I decided to have other people do the lifting as much as possible.  We needed a nice queen or king bed but only for the two months before the lease was up, thus not worth much investment.  This was the dilemma.  My answer was Craigslist.  I had recently read of a study showing that people were more willing to help out of kindness than they would help for a dollar amount.  This seemed like an opportune time to test the theory.

Instead of searching for cheap mattresses, I put the maximum price as $0.  Surprisingly, several were for sale at this price.  This alone proved the theory, I thought.  Many looked like garbage but some were quite nice.  The first two I called were already taken.  Third time's a charm.  The girl said that her boyfriend was moving in and they each had a nice mattress and needed to get rid of one.  Great!  I immediately agreed to pick it up that same night, as she had other interested parties and was only giving to me since I was first to respond.  I was not in a position to negotiate.  At this point, I did not have a way of getting the mattress and she lived in Cary, NC, annoyingly.  Did I mention that we don't own a car?

I called up a couple places before quickly settling on trustworthy U-Haul.  I took an Uber to get the truck.  I realized that I had no way of moving the mattress (and box springs) from the current owner's apartment to the U-Haul, nor from the U-Haul into my current 6th floor apartment.  Another dilemma.

On the way to get the U-Haul, I texted the mattress giver and asked if she had a way of getting the items into the truck.  I asked about the boyfriend she mentioned and also brought up my wheelchair.  She said her boyfriend could help.  Great!

For help with the arrival to my apartment, I was bewildered.  I thought and thought and realized I had done a poor job of making the kind of friends that would move a mattress in a pinch.  In truth, I had done a very good job at avoiding making new friends altogether.  But now I am friends with a pastor and a couple other members of a church here so I suppose I failed at total solitude in the end.

Back to Craigslist to perform the true part of the kindness experiment.  I posted the following ad:

Move a Mattress and Box Springs

Hi - I'm asking you to help me out!  I am disabled and am trying to move a mattress and box springs into my apartment today.  I have a spinal cord injury and am in a wheelchair so I can't really move it without damn near killing myself in the effort!  I'm asking you for a favor, here.

All I need are a couple guys to move a queen mattress and box spring from the U-Haul to my apartment TONIGHT.  There is an elevator - no stairs.  It will be around 8 or 8:30.  If you are willing to help, text me and let me know and I'll give you the address and exact time.

NO PAY

Now, the response to this ad is the true reason why I have written about this event in my life.  Within an hour I had 4 responses from willing candidates!  Within 2 hours I had several more.  I couldn't believe it!  My cynical side starting thinking, "They are just trying to take advantage of me somehow.  Maybe they will see it as an opportunity to rob a helpless victim."  I decided that was a terrible way to think and also that it was unlikely that there were so many thieves out there.  I also decided that risking it and possibly getting robbed was better than not risking it at the potential of robbery.  That would be no way to live.

I worked things out with one of the first to respond and everything was set.  

I drove the U-Haul to Cary, NC.  Check.

Girl and boyfriend loaded their very nice but used queen mattress and box spring into said U-Haul.  Check.

Drove back to Chapel Hill, first texting the guy to meet me and help unload.  Check.

Worry about helplessly getting robbed and immediately purge thought from mind.  Unplanned but check.

The guy was a little late but he said he was dropping off his mom somewhere.  I figured a thief wouldn't say something like that and relaxed a little.  

A beat up car rolled up close to my apartment blasting loud rap music.  A very fit and fairly intimidating (to me, at least) black guy got out from one side, and a younger black guy got out of the other side.  Lots of smoke with the distinct smell of marijuana rolled out of the open car doors.  

"Hi... I'm Chip.  Are you Joe?"

"Yeah man.  What's up.  Is this it?" Joe pointed at the U-Haul.

"Yep.  Thanks guys.  I can open doors for you but otherwise would probably just get in the way if I tried to help."  

"It's all good, man.  We got you.  This here is my nephew."  "Hi." "Hi."

At this point I feel like an ass for judging at all based on appearances.   But my stupid brain still can't believe this is happening for free.  

They begin unloading the mattress and taking it up the walkway, through the doors and into the elevator.  Joe had to kind of bend and squish the mattress to make it fit in the elevator.  

We didn't talk much.  I showed them around, generally not being much help.  I had already moved the smaller mattress and frame (it was really light) out into the living room so they could just walk in and plop down the mattress.  

We went back down to get the box springs, walked through the doors and into the elevator.... trying.... stand upright?.... no... crap.  It didn't fit.  

Joe said, "Well, so much for that.  Where are the stairs?"  He didn't seem upset in the slightest, nor did the nephew.
"Joe! Crap man I'm sorry.  I thought it would fit.  Just leave it here.  I will figure it out or something.  I can't ask you guys to take this thing up 6 flights of steps!"  I figured I'd just throw it out and sleep on the mattress on the floor or something.

"Chip it's no biggie.  My nephew needs a workout.  Where are the stairs?"  I couldn't believe it and also felt terrible.  I pointed to the stairs, took the elevator up, then went to the stairwell and looked down.

"I know this wasn't in your plans.  Sorry."  

"Really it's no biggie."

"....So....do you guys just scour Craigslist looking for people you can help out?  Or how did you come across my ad?"  

"Well I run a moving business during the day.  Sometimes I find folks that will pay for little things like this on the side.  I do it all day anyway so it's no big deal.  But when I saw your ad, my nephew here had gotten in trouble at school, so I figured it was a good way for him to do something good to make up for the bad thing."  

"I see.  Well that makes sense."

I insisted on giving them some gas money but still couldn't believe all this.  I went in, sprayed some disinfectant on the mattress which clearly cost over $1000 brand new, put a perfect fitting foam pad on the top, made the bed with clean sheets, and tested it out.  It was awesome!  I smiled a giant smile.  Rebecca was gonna love this.

And she did.  She made me tell her the story and kept smiling and laughing the whole time.  She has been begging me to write about it ever since.   

I continued to get responses on Craigslist from people wanting to help.  Instead of deleting, I added this to the post:

UPDATE: I HAD QUITE A FEW RESPONSES TO THIS - ALL PEOPLE WILLING TO HELP ME MOVE A HEAVY MATTRESS AND ITS BOX SPRING - ALL FOR FREE!  MY FAITH IN HUMANITY WAS RESTORED.  THANK YOU SO MUCH!  AND THANK YOU TO YOU AND YOUR NEPHEW, JOE!

Here's to Joe and his nephew, wherever they are.