Another way to handle distressed furniture

Yesterday, while out on an intensive moving job, one of my colleagues called about another job for today. As he started to read off the number for the woman who needed help, my phone volume cut out, due to an unexplained disturbance. When we reconnected several minutes later, I asked for her number again, but he didn’t have it handy. However, he said that she would be calling me and left it at that.

Yesterday’s job went into overtime and I didn’t get home until dark. The woman never called until this morning, when she rang a little before eight. I detected some anguish in her voice, and although, it was short notice, I told her I could help. I sped things up and within a few minutes, headed over to her place. There, at a very nice log home, she showed me the items she was putting up for sale. Turns out that she is in dire financial straits and needs to sell off some furniture to stave off foreclosure.

The large items she needed help with were some computer monitors, an old desk and an expensive looking and fragile dresser. While assessing the items, I formulated a plan, and began carefully transporting the items into the truck. While doing so, I sensed an amount of melancholy in this home and noticed that the woman was making herself scarce. I imagined that she was having a hard time dealing with the fact that she needed to sell off these family heirlooms and thought she may have retreated to her room to weep.

It took an hour to secure the items, and then I headed north to the antique fair. On the way, I stopped at a convenience store to fuel up with some coffee and a snack. A few miles later, an enormous red-tailed hawk swooped in front of me and landed on the edge of the road. This bird-of-prey was oriented so close, that I felt it necessary to apply my brakes, even though I felt he could clearly see me. As I braked, he took off slowly, giving me a magnificent view of his underside only twenty feet in front of my windshield. The rising bird’s strange behavior made me wonder if he was trying to send me a message of some sort.

Ten miles north, I snagged a prime spot in front of the fair and proceeded to unload the distressed woman’s furniture. While doing so, she pulled up, grabbing an adjacent space. As she parked, I noticed she was grimacing and within a few seconds she approached to confront me about my stopping off to snack-up. This stunned me so much that I didn’t even say anything. I just carried on working, with a straight-laced David Carradine stoic face. Soon a familiar person approached, kindly asking the woman how much she wanted for the antique dresser. Even though this customer was clearly interested, the woman’s response was disharmonious and whenever somebody inquisitive approached her booth, she kept loudly adding things, like her house was for sale, and hopefully someone would buy that.

After unloading, I pulled my rig out from the red-zone. I parked near the bookstore and thought it would be healthy to enter and reflect there about how to deal with the distraught woman. After a short breather, it suddenly hit me that it was best to escape her quickly concocted trap, as I didn’t want to see the poor rich woman anymore and had no desire for her poisonous money.

I cleaned up for a few minutes at one of our warehouses and then headed back down south. While approaching Ohio Gulch, the hawk flew directly over again, reminding me of his impending message. When I first saw the hawk, it was probably the same time that the woman was concocting how she was going to confront me. And the strange disconnect is, that right then, I had been formulating how I was going to tactfully offer her a discount. On top of that I had stopped at the store, for food and drink, because it’s best to work with fresh protein in your body, especially when handling fragile customers and their fabulously expensive distressed furniture.