RSS
|
Mobile
|
Daily Emails
|
We Twitter
| Make us your home page
What do a throw pillow, a recliner and a shoe have in common?
You can find all of them along our roadsides this time of the year.
It's hard to drive across Our Town in June, July or August without seeing a U-Haul or a pickup truck or a cattle trailer loaded to the brim with household goods.
As a college town, we're busier than most places during moving season. Many of the movers are students headed from home to school, from one apartment to another, from school back home after graduating -- or, wonder of wonders, to a job.
It's safe to say that a lot of our amateur movers aren't exactly accomplished in the arts of packing, loading, tying and hauling. So stuff bounces out. Frequently.
In the past two weeks I've noticed on our local roadsides a couch, a love seat, three chairs (one of which must've been a pretty nice recliner before the laws of physics took their toll), three or four couch cushions and at least half a dozen of those foofy decorative throw pillows.
And shoes. Lots of shoes. Not pairs of shoes, mind you, but single shoes that have become homeless on the highway one at a time.
I can understand how a mover could lose a throw pillow or three. They're used as padding between pieces of furniture, and the load gets jounced around en route. Eventually the pillow pops out and goes airborne.
That's no great tragedy, because other than padding for a move, throw pillows perform no useful task that I can see. And they've got bad karma.
A throw pillow is programmed for two things: to look good and to get in the way. It discourages anybody who might dare to get comfortable in your living room. Every throw pillow sends a signal, and it's an unfriendly one: "Don't you dare sit down here, Mister. You'll mess up the presentation."
As I see it, other than the litter on the roadside, there's no tragedy in a throw pillow meeting an untimely end.
A couch or a recliner is quite another story. It's got to be heartbreaking to get to the end of the road and discover that you've lost your coaching seat.
I'm guessing that couches and recliners lose their perch from pickup trucks that are piled too high with stuff. They offer a fair amount of wind resistance, and a bumpy road can easily toss them off unless they're tied down -- which they often are not.
So it's understandable how you can lose a throw pillow, or even a couch or chair. But a single shoe?
Did the mover simply toss it on top of his load, hoping it would fend for itself by falling through the cracks in the load? Did he use it as a wedge to tighten the load, and then the pressure squirted it out on a turn?
I have a theory that an orphaned shoe on the roadside is the result of an even more traumatic event.
Relocating is stressful, and even the most loving couples have been known to flash fangs at each other in the midst of a moving adventure. To understand my theory, let's assume we're Bud and Sissy, and we're moving in together. (The reader can decide on his or her own whether Bud and Sissy have just tied the knot, or whether they're just practicing.)
Now, let's check in on our fair couple as they're stopped at a light on 2818 at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The temperature is 104 degrees Fahrenheit. The air conditioning is out in Bud's pickup, and the windows are down.
Bud: "I'll be glad when we finish with this last load. Did you pack the beer?"
Sissy: "No. I thought you packed the beer."
Bud: "I told you I was loaded down with all your bathroom stuff, and I specifically asked you to bring the beer!"
Sissy: "Well, I didn't hear you. You had the music up too loud."
Bud: "Well, I heard you when you asked me to load up all your curlers and makeup and creams and lotions and powders and bath salts. Why didn't you hear me when I asked you to bring the beer?"
With that, Sissy slips off one of her shoes and throws it at Bud. Hard. He ducks, and the shoe sails out the truck window.
And lands beside a homeless throw pillow.
* Donnis Baggett is editor-in-chief of The Eagle. His e-mail address is donnis.baggett@theeagle.com.
