When you're a teenager and in high school, every happening can be a grand adventure. It's one to tell your friends about, because it marks you as adventurous, someone to whom things “happen”. When they're humorous 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 have to have the right props, but it's kind of hard to carry around a wide piece of wood to illustrate your story. Therefore, your audience will just have to use their imaginations.
A Bit of Background
Prior to beginning our tale, you should be aware that just outside Nashville, Tennessee is a small concern named Mount Juliet. It's the home of Charlie Daniels (yes, I know where his house is). Mount Juliet is situated atop a rise in the ground, making snowy winding roads a challenge on which to drive sometimes. It makes things miserable, though, when your house sits off the road where the ground drops some. The rain puddles, the mud is sometimes impassable, and just walking up the driveway to make it to the school bus is quite an undertaking.
Next, imagine a couple who happen to be my parents and who both go into Nashville to work. Their vehicle is parked at the street in front of the house most days to better facilitate a quick exit every workday. They both work in offices on opposite sides of Nashville. 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 until it reaches the side door steps of the house. This is an important point 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 get to their employment. Therefore, 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 backend as close to the side door steps as he could squeeze it. A huge piece of plywood was used as a loading ramp. So far, the loading of the truck was going smoothly. The rain made things a bit wet and unpleasant, but we were handling it.
The Hard Part
At this moment, the truck was loaded. My brother and I were piled in one of the cars with me driving. I was awaiting the truck to pull out of the drive, so I could follow it to the new house. We observed Dad having problems getting out of the drive, and so we walked back down the driveway a safe distance away to watch as the events unfolded. He made an effort to rock the truck. No dice. He tried putting Mom in the driver's seat and jacking the tail end of the truck out of the mud. That didn't work, either. Finally, Dad put the long, wide piece of wood underneath the back tires of the moving truck.
The Scary Part
You need to be aware that if you're going to use a piece of wood to get your tires out of the mud, you need to examine which direction the wood will go when your truck gains traction. In this case, it shot like a projectile right through our living room window. Pieces of glass were covering the area, the truck took off out of the driveway, Mom was surprised and almost didn't make the turn onto the street, and Dad stood trying to grasp what had happened. My brother and I found all this extremely humorous and were laughing our teenage heads off. It goes without saying, we all got out of there as briskly 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!
