Don't Try This at Home!

Don't Try This at Home!

After a lifetime of hustle and rush hour traffic, I finally made the plunge into the murky depths of self-employment. This was not totally my decision, although I always kind of made it out to be that way. It was really precipitated when the boss and I parted at his abrupt and I think, very rude, suggestion he wanted me to leave and never return. It wasn’t much of a leap to see how happy I would be working for me instead!

Hanging on by hastily obtained part-time work in the local deli - this way at least I wouldn’t starve – I proceeded to hang my shingle in the world of freelancers. By the grace of God, authorship suited me and it wasn’t long until diner income was replaced, (free grub and all). I was flying solo.

Ever notice how extra money you make when you get a raise gets absorbed and you still don’t get any further ahead? This same Murphy-type law applies to extra time you think you will gain by working at home. In case you don’t believe, allow me to elaborate.

With visions of fluffy slippers, steaming cups of coffee, and peaceful days soaking up sun while composing eloquent manuscripts, I began my new “job” working for me. I could see it already… son Alex mowing the lawn… daughter Haley washing the family ride… me up early to feed myself… cats… kids… hubby… and then starting laundry before settling on the lawn chair with my laptop. Knocking out a couple articles by noon and enjoying tons of free time – why wasn’t everyone doing this? Piece of cake, everything is going to be so much easier now…!

Of course, in real life, this kind of productivity is unsustainable and doomed to self-destruct if pursued. When I tried, the ensuing results were spectacular!

It was a fine morning. The kids were in place. The laundry was swishing and Dad was coming by to move a piano. Barricaded behind the studio door (the lawn chair long since abandoned in favor of privacy), I immersed myself in composing an article about karate, not an easy task since my knowledge of this fine art was zip.

Concentrating intensely, I nearly leaped from my skin when Haley pounded on the door. “Good grief, what?!,” I hollered, realizing the mower wasn’t mowing and, with Haley here beating down the door, the hose wasn’t hosing either.

“Grandpa wants you,” Haley announced.

Apparently the piano was being difficult and Dad’s proclamation he would be finished in twenty minutes wasn’t quite panning out.

I arrived on the scene to find Alex manning a crude lever Dad had constructed from wood scraps. “Don’t bounce!,” Dad was yelling. “Just sit here…”



Catching sight of me and Haley, he stopped short, ordering “Ok, Reba, slide this cart under the piano when I say. Haley, help your brother by sitting on that lever and moving it down slowly and gently.” He placed emphasis on “slowly” and “gently”. Fleetingly I wondered what had transpired before my arrival, quickly concluding I was probably better off not knowing.

Dad supported the top of the piano while my kids slowly and gently raised that piano high enough for me to wheel the cart under one side. Flushed with success, we enthusiastically repeated this professional maneuver on the other side. Mission accomplished. We now had a baby grand precariously balanced on two tiny wood carts.

Five hours and four people into the twenty-minute, one-person job, victory was near. The piano had been coaxed over the longest thirty feet ever crossed. The time had come to remove it from the carts and place it on the studs that would provide, as far as I was concerned, its final resting place, forever and ever, Amen.

Alas, a piano on wheels on tile is a lot different than a piano on wheels on carpet. So is taking it off the wheels as opposed to putting it on. Seconds later, the full impact (is there a pun here?) of our ignorance hit us like a ton of bricks, or, more like a baby grand, as the fine old instrument responded to our efforts by sliding slowly off the carts… then through the dining room window landing with a loud, discordant thud on the lawn.

“Crikey!” breathed Alex into the stunned silence, with an almost reverent display of despair and awe. His emotions were mirrored on every face. I daresay my family and neighbors will carry vivid memories that will be recollected at gatherings for years to come.

But I suspected the best stories would be tales told by schoolchildren on the bus unloading one house over. A single look at their wide-eyed, open-mouthed faces pressed against bus windows and my initial shock gave way to gut-wrenching laughter. Most of us present that day, me included, had never seen anything so funny in our lives!

Obviously we were going to have to spend some real dough to fix this, if indeed we could fix it at all, but I could not at any price have captured the wildly humorous human reaction to our wholly inopportune situation. When I finally regained a semblance of composure, I spoke to my well-meaning but ill-fated crew.

“Guys,” I said to my kin, “I always appreciate your efforts to contribute to my career, and while this fiasco should prove to be very entertaining reading, I would like to ask you confine yourselves to verbal suggestions. See, my writing needs to bring in more money than it costs to do. Today’s events, although truly hilarious, still BLEW THE BUDGET! Does everyone understand?!”

The kids were grinning – they knew I was joking. Dad playfully swatted the air beside me as we turned to slowly trek over to the downed baby grand. I wistfully thought of help-wanted ads, then thought “What? and leave all this?!”