The Treadmill

"We need to take the door off."

"How on earth did you get it through here the first time without the door off?"

"I just said, we took the door off."

"Oh."

"I'll go find a screwdriver."

"All you need is a butterknife. That's what I used last time I came home and found my door propped up against my bed."

"Can't you just knock out the middle hinge with a hammer? That's what Lonnie did."

"Mom, the middle thing is part of the hinge. We can't just hit it with a hammer."

"Well, I don't see why not..."

"I found a butter knife- "

We have a treadmill. It's big and bulky, and my sister, who's gone 9 months out of the year, is the only person who ever uses it. Friday night we posted it on craigslist, and Saturday morning a man in Moses Lake bought it via paypal - he said he'd be here at 11 am Monday morning to pick it up.

Monday morning, 10 am.

My sister and I didn't get to sleep until sometime after 3 am due to a prolonged scrabble game involving the creative use of insults in tile form, sparkling cider, and a bag of truffles. It's snowing again, and my mom keeps yelling at the window, threatening dire consequences if the weather doesn't knock it off. My sister and I have chocolate hangovers and can barely stand up straight. The treadmill is down the hall in my sister's room, and somehow we have to get it to the living room, since we want the treadmill man in our house as little as possible (We had some worries about the guy being a creepy axe murderer, but decided there were plenty of people in Moses Lake, and he probably wouldn't bother driving two hours in the middle of winter just to kill us. My sister volunteered to stay hidden with a phone and her wooden curtain rod, just in case, but really she just crawled back into bed and passed out).

My sister and I have the combined arm strength of a small 4-year old, and though my mom is stronger, she constantly injures herself and is obsessed with not scratching her walls. The treadmill folds up, but is still too wide and only fits through our hall and doorways sideways. This meant pushing and shoving it over the carpet, after we got my sister's door off the hinges and wedged the treadmill through into the hallway.

After much arguing, cursing, and bruising, we decided to put a clear vinyl shower curtain underneath the treadmill, hoping to make it more slideable, and it sort of worked. Then we got stuck by the wooden stairs we bought at the fair 16 years ago, and stood there for five minutes, trying to figure out what to do. My mother kept trying to convince me to unscrew the railing (It's a long railing, and did I mention that the power drill's battery was missing, so we were using a little hand screw driver from the sale bin at Sears?), my sister was all for forcing the treadmill past, who cares about the walls, and I tried to remember how on earth my brother and I had gotten the treadmill past the stairs last time. Finally I kicked the stupid stairs, and remembered - they move if you kick them hard enough. That obstacle overcome, we just had the upward slope of our wonderful old house to navigate, while my sister yelled about how normal houses didn't have uphill slopes, and my mom obsessed about a missing cd that supposedly came with the treadmill, but no one else remembers it.

Finally, half an hour after we started, we shoved the treadmill into the living room and collapsed.

And then the treadmill man (who was neither creepy nor a murderer, but quite nice) and his brother came, picked up the treadmill, and carried it out to their truck.

Sometimes, guys are incredibly irritating.