Barstools in the City: A Tale of Schlepping and Noodle Arms
A couple of days ago, I was standing on the corner of 23rd Street and 5th Avenue, waiting for the light to change, when I saw a guy with a look on his face that was so familiar, I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. I also was going to take his picture, but I didn’t want to aggravate him even further.
What was his problem, you might ask?
He bought some heavy-looking barstools, and he was schlepping them back to his apartment. Each stool was wrapped with some plastic string stuff and had a handle at the top, so he basically had one he was carrying with each arm.
It was 35 degrees outside, by the way, and this guy had no gloves. Here is an artist's rendering of how that looked. I know– I'm a really excellent artist. No need to comment.
Later I told this to Stephan, and we laughed at length about how we (and really, all city-dwellers without access to a car) have SO BEEN RIGHT THERE. Like, you have a bar in your apartment, and it obviously needs barstools. If you lived in the suburbs, you’d be all “No problem, I will drive in my car over to the Home Depot, purchase the stools, roll them out to my car in a shopping cart, load them into said car, drive them to my home, unload them, and set them up.”
Really, the only exertion in this summary is when you load the barstools in and out of the car and take them in your house.
Now, the city version.
First, take away the shopping cart, the car, and the house. Add in your arms, and only your arms, because when they told you how much it would be to deliver the barstools, you were all “I ALREADY PAY A ZILLION DOLLARS FOR MY APARTMENT. I CAN’T BE SPLURGING ON BARSTOOL DELIVERY,” so you decide you will just have them pack those suckers up and you will carry them home because how hard could it be to carry some stools?
Right there—that moment—that is the one you will be looking back on and kicking yourself about.With every block, you grow angrier and more determined because DAMMIT, you are going to do this. The barstools are not going to get the best of you.
Anyhow, you pack the barstools up and take them, determinedly, out of Home Depot on 23rd and 6th. By the time you get to 23rd and 5th, where you are going to now need to take them down into the subway, you officially hate these barstools because they weigh 10 pounds each and your hands hurt and your face is cold and your arms feel like noodles and you didn’t bring any gloves, and before you start what is certain to be a perilous descent down the subway stairs, you stop on the corner and sigh, just waiting for the feeling in your arms to return, waiting for your energy to come back, because you know what lies ahead, and you know that you are merely ONE EIGHTH of the way back to your apartment.
This is where I saw the guy, and this is exactly why I did not take his picture. The look on his face was so exquisitely familiar to a fellow city dweller, I just couldn’t do it.
Here is what happens next–
Because next, you’re going to have to carefully go down the subway stairs while balancing the stools, then swipe your Metrocard with your now-dead hand, then run into the side entrance because the stools are slightly too large to fit in the turnstile. You then get another brief respite while you wait for the subway, but if you are schlepping those barstools during a crowdy time, you have to try to wedge yourself and the stools in between people who now hate you because you and your stupid barstools are invading their personal space. This goes on for 30 minutes, until you get to your stop.
Next, you reverse the “entering the subway” process, using the service exit, which you hope does not start alarming because some of them do and that is embarrassing, and you are already hating everything and everyone and promising yourself that you will NEVER EVER EVER sit on those barstools. You then get all the way up the stairs of your subway stop, balancing and trying not to trip or hit people with the stools.
Then you get to your building, and the doorman gives you a look like “Those stools are not going in the main elevators,” so you schlep past the trash room to the freight elevator, and it is cold back there and the freight elevator takes forever and smells like garbage and is a 50% farther distance to your actual apartment door, so you will need to drag the boxes down the hallway.
Finally, you get into your apartment with the stools, and your arms are so tired, and you are so cold, and you want to throw the stools out the window, so you leave the boxes in the front hallway, take a shower/ try to warm up, and go out for Chinese food, just because you now want the sensation of walking somewhere without those Goddamned stools.
Notice that you are not happily opening the boxes and putting the stools together in this scenario, because now the stools are your enemy. They have hurt your body and taken up three hours of your day, and you will need some time to get over it.
The next morning, your arms are sore in unique places, and you start replaying the moment when the store said they would “deliver and assemble” for a certain price, and NO NO NO you just couldn’t pay that price, but now you’re paying in muscle pain, and those f-ing boxes are still sitting in the hallway, taunting you, wrapped with that stupid plastic string and makeshift handles that gave you blisters.
Finally, after brunch and the paper, you decide to tackle the barstools. You put them together pretty easily, but for the next couple of months, every time you see those barstools, you are going to think only of the utter exasperation of that day, and your sore muscles, and how that “delivery and assembly” charge will be the best money you ever spend in your life.
Eventually, you will forget about this day and grow to love the stools.