The house my wife and I bought came with a small, unfinished room downstairs. I remember the realtor trying to market it as a potential home office. Fuck that! We’re not going to waste it on work. This room is going to be used for fun. We’re going to turn it into a game room.
For our first big purchase, I found a listing for an old-school, stand-up, electronic dart machine on Craigslist.
YEEEAAAHHH!!
I contacted the seller, agreed to purchase it, and to pick it up at his house, about 120 miles away. His story for wanting to sell it? He had a wife and baby and needed to spend money on other, more important, more mature things.
I borrowed an SUV from a relative and drove out to his house. The dart board owner was working and not home, so I dealt directly with his wife.
She welcomed me inside, walked me over to a designated area, and I see he has his own game room with six big stand-up arcade games in it. I got the real story from the wife: he wanted to get a new game, so he had to get rid of a current game. Interesting. Either way, works for me.
Turning to the dart machine–it’s extremely heavy (over 200 pounds), tall, and unwieldy. I wasn’t sure how I was going to move it out of the house to the SUV. The wife offered to drive me to a big-box store nearby and have me purchase a hand truck, which was very thoughtful, trustworthy, and unexpected.
She loaded up the family minivan with the baby and a complete stranger. I made the purchase, as suggested, and we returned to the house to properly load the dart board with this fine, new piece of moving equipment.
On the first attempt, I somehow loaded the machine onto the hand truck improperly. We both watched in horror as it fell forward and crashed onto the carpeted floor. Fuck a duck! Did I just break this machine after buying it and after spending $50 on a hand truck that I might not now need?
We picked up the machine and plugged it in to make sure it was still operable. It was. The next loading attempt was successful and less eventful. I wheeled the hand truck and dart board out to the street, next to the parked SUV .
We both said, “Thank you.” She walked back into the house and closed the front door.
Cool. Then about 15 seconds later I realized that I’m on my own and I don’t know how I’m going to pick up and load this heavy fucking machine into this SUV by myself.
Leave a Reply