Calling Out the Marines

Since last weekend, when I moved and left all my furniture out on the patio, I've been trying to figure out how to get my furniture into my storage unit. The logical thing would be to rent another U-Haul and have the same helper as last week, but my kids each had something to do this weekend so they wouldn't be available to help.

I stopped at the Assisted Living place yesterday to see if my buddy there and his dad could help me with the furniture, but they weren't around when I was there.

Today at church, I asked the tall Marine who had helped me move my bed into my room at my friend's house. He has a big pickup truck. He was busy, though, getting his house ready to put on the market. But he suggested another Marine with a truck who I haven't met yet but who is good friends with the not-as-tall Marine in my Wednesday night Bible study. The three of them discussed who could help and what time I'd need them and how much furniture it was and whether it would all fit in two trucks for one trip to storage.

After church I stopped at the storage place to be sure my access code worked. It did. Then I measured the inside of my storage unit and decided where I needed each piece of furniture to go.

At 7:00 pm, all three of the Marines arrived in two trucks. I had cleared access space for them, to make the moving of furniture go more smoothly.

They were amazing. They picked up my six-foot-wide dressers (I have two) without even taking out the drawers, with just two of them carrying each one out to the trucks. It wasn't easy for them, but I was impressed that it was even possible without some sort of wheels.

We got everything loaded on the trucks and got to the storage place without many hitches. Just a stop at the first traffic light to tighten down the straps on one of the trucks.

My storage unit is upstairs, and they have an elevator, but it wasn't big enough to hold my dressers unless it stood on end. So these Marines pushed and lifted and got each dresser on the elevator and back off at the second floor.

They carried everything, taking turns with the tough lifting, while I directed the placement. We got it all done in a little over an hour, and there's plenty of room to maneuver when I bring boxes later to stack on top of the furniture. It felt good to finally have the furniture protected from the elements (we're expecting rain this week).

The guy in my Bible study asked me, as we were walking back to the empty trucks, when I expected to get my stuff out of storage. I told him I had leased the unit for a year, and he said, "Good. I'll be in Afghanistan then."