Hauling and Dolling

I rented a U-Haul truck to pick up the Granny piano on Saturday. When one calls to make the truck reservation, one supposes the truck will be at that dialed location. No. I was called Friday and told where the truck would be. This is only a problem because U-Haul charges by the mile when you surpass the initial allowed distance. The place I called was much closer to Louis's house. This new location was a few exits up the interstate.

I've driven their trucks before when I went to ECU and from houses to apartments and vice versa. It's easy once you gets used to the mirrors. And how they handle in wind. Otherwise, a cake of piece.

Mom was running the Louis yard sale, and we arrived midway through the festivities. The garage and its (literal) pile of tools was very popular, but folks were milling in the house to bid for whatever was available. We dragged out the piano with the help of some very big guys, and I spent about 20 minutes lashing it to the truck interior with cords and tarps.

Louis had a stack of great 33 rpm albums, ranging from gospel to Bill Cosby to Johnny Cash Fulsom Prison disc to music for strip-tease parties. I'm not kidding. I hovered over the albums with mom's cousin, and we tried to tell her they would sell. Sure enough, the very next guy to look at the records carried the Cash album in his hand. Louis's record-player wasn't working right or I might have nabbed that contraption.

We left the truck at his house and hit the military surplus stores in our Greenville for the DragonCon cotumes. We hit paydirt. Your Sis picked up a flightsuit and leather boots; the latter can be used with her scooter. I picked up the sailor hat. At another store, we found my navy shirt and pants and some sleeve patches we'll modify to match the toy. At yet another store, we found a pilot pin and more patches. We drove back to my hometown to meet Mom for dinner. We fetched the truck and drove back up the mountain.

Now we knew handling a piano ourselves was a big job. A huge job. But we gots the brains, and we have yet to fail at a project. Until now. We almost almost had it in the garage entrance to the house, but the garage wall angle was harsh enough to block it. I mean, we had it up the makeshift ramp, and the front wheels were tasting the conditioned air. That close. We tried to get it up the front stoop, but the angle is too high. We stopped before we hurt ourselves, either through exercise or butting heads. The piano now sits in our storage room, and we're hiring piano movers to master the last 50 feet of this project. I moved a bookcase away from the proposed piano space last night.

While I was doing that, Your Sis made alterations to the costume pieces. She tightened the large flight suit and hemmed the Navy pants. She put a lot of time into that last night while I watched the first exhibition game of the NFL season. She spent the earlier chunk of the day at school while I worked on my feeble tan.

She left home early today to sign up for the motorcycle training class, and she got in. She's giddy. She bought her helmet a week ago in preparation.


I think it's a hot look.