Tag Archives: Helping out

Anybody moving? Need any help?

I love helping people move. Every once in a while I’ll write something on Facebook, like, “Anybody moving? You need any help? Call me up!” usually around springtime, when everybody decides to get out, to try life out in a new neighborhood. For a lot of people, nothing’s worse than packing everything they own into boxes, disassembling all of their furniture, and then spending a whole day moving all of those boxes and furniture pieces down several flights of stairs, out onto the sidewalk, into a big truck or a large van, you know where I’m going with this, driving to their new place, unpacking, unmoving, or I guess just moving, but the second part of the move. It’s terrible. It’s a whole day off from work of just unforgiving manual labor.

So yeah, I don’t particularly enjoy it either. But I love volunteering to help people move. Think about it. Everybody needs help moving. And everybody hates it. It’s the one thing in life, the one giant chore that you set out to do, you realize that it’s all but impossible to do alone, and then you go onto craigslist to look into maybe hiring some movers, and then you’re like, Jesus, that’s going to be so much money. I don’t have that kind of cash.

Why do I love moving then? The power. Doing a huge favor like that might seem like a nice gesture on my part, but on the contrary, I’m only doing it to someday hold it over somebody else’s head. And since moving is such a big chore – I’m giving up my weekend here! – I’ll be in a position to hold it over some heads for a long time.

One obvious benefit is that I’ll never have any trouble moving myself. I’ve already helped like ten of my friends move in the past year. So whenever I decide to get a new apartment or change houses, I can call five of them up and still have a five-person favor surplus. And probably more, because if five people show up to help me move, they’re only going to be doing like one fifth of the work that I did when I was the only one to show up to help. Maybe somebody else came, I don’t know. It’s never five people.

But I don’t plan on moving anytime soon. And so I can continuously call on ten people to return small favors for me almost indefinitely. Think about it, I’ll help you move. I’ll spend all day at your old place and then at your new place. When we’re all done, how about we head out to a bar? Maybe you can buy me a beer.

But that’s just the start. Maybe I’ll need some dry cleaning picked up next Friday. Maybe I need someone to hang out at my house while I’m at work to wait for a package to arrive. Maybe I need five bucks. Maybe I want a bite of your sandwich. What are you going to say no? I gave up a whole weekend to help you move. Come on. Hand it over. Just cut it in half.

And the great thing about these small tiny favors, they’re like an almost indefinite supply. Are you really going to tell me after giving me half a sandwich and buying me a drink that we’re even? Ha! Make sure you get extra mayo on the next one, that bite was a little dry.

Even better, if I ever do decide to move, even if I have been calling on you for favors for the past few months, who do you think I’m going to call to help me out? You. And what are you going to say, no? “Sorry Rob, I’m not going to help you out, even though you helped me out, because you’ve been asking a lot of small requests lately.” Nope. I helped you, you help me. And after you’re done setting that last box down over there in the corner, I’ll be like, “Here man, have a beer. Cheers,” clink, “we’re even.”

The absolute best part, and I’m almost reluctant to even admit this here, it’s almost like a trade secret, but when I’m helping you move, I’m going to act like such a spaz. Knocking into stuff. Almost dropping your lamp. Maybe even dropping your lamp, I don’t know. So I’ll be helping you, yeah, but you’re not going to rely on me to do any of the super heavy lifting. And I’m going to be taking it real slow, like, seriously, do you think this is a priority of mine? Making sure this moving job is done like it’s my stuff?

Having said all of this, seriously, hit me up if you need help moving. You’re probably saying to yourself, “Is this guy nuts? After revealing his true intentions for everybody to read, he thinks I’m going to ask him to help me move?” And the answer is, of course you are. Look around your place. Your couch. Your bed. All of that stuff on your shelves. You’re going to tackle all of that by yourself? You’re really going to say no to an extra pair of hands. Of course you won’t. Because moving sucks. And even though we both know you’re going to owe me big, you’re definitely going to call me up.

I can’t help you out, I’m sorry

Look, if you ever get sent to jail, I’m sorry, but I’m never coming to visit. No way. Do you know what kind of a process that would be? It’s like going through airport security times ten. And then you’re supposed to give your driver’s license in for a visitor’s pass? Call me uncooperative, but what exactly is the point of that? To me, it looks like a reason for them to keep you locked in. I can just see it now, I’m visiting you, whatever, you’re happy to see me, but it’s really bittersweet, because you’re in jail, they won’t even let us shake hands or high five or anything. And of course I’ll be leaving and you won’t. But what if one of your new jail friends spots my visitor’s pass? Or what if it falls off? Prison guards are the worst. Well, that’s not really fair to say. I’ve never actually met any of them. Plus, they’re dealing with a population that outnumbers them by a large margin. They’re living one stone’s throw from a prison riot. I guess I’d be on edge too.

So my pass falls off and I’m like, “No, I’m just visiting, I swear!” Yeah right. I’m sure the prison guard is going to be super cooperative. What if I get accidentally sent in with the general population? I wouldn’t last a day. Well, I would, but not under these circumstances. There’s just too much that could go wrong, so, yeah, I’m not going to visit. I’ll write. That would be pretty cool, to have a prison pen pal. But only if it’s somebody I know. I’m not just going to start soliciting prisoner pen pals, because, eventually they’ll get out, considering they’re not in for life, and then what? They’ll start hitting me up? Wanting to hang out? But I’d totally write to you. And I’d pick you up after you get released, again, assuming you’re not in for too long, and if I’m still in the area when you get out.

Also, and I hope we never have to walk down this road either, but if you ever get sick and you have to go to the hospital, listen, I wish you the best of luck, the speediest of recoveries, but I’m not coming to visit you there either. Prison or hospitals. Or is it nor hospitals? At what point do you start using nor over or? This isn’t really important I guess.

What I’m saying is, you know how I am about all of that hand sanitizing stuff they want you to use, right? I don’t buy it. I don’t like the idea of my personal micro-biome being messed up like that. And then what, I wipe my hands clean, five, six times, there’s no germs left on my skin, and then I run into some nurse who’s covered in antibiotic resistant superbugs? Not going to happen to me. Not if I can help it, anyway. I mean, if I have to go to the hospital, I have to go, no way of getting around that one. But just to visit? Sorry. But if you need a ride home, I mean, I don’t have a car, but I could see about borrowing my parents’. We’ll see. But you look pretty healthy.

You’re a big reader, right? Cool, that’s really good for you. And you should. Reading’s great. Definitely. But here’s the thing, again, I’m not even sure this really applies to us, or to me, but I’m not the guy you want to ask to do you a favor and return some library books. I’m just putting it out there, that you should probably ask somebody else. Not probably, definitely. It’s too much responsibility. Well, the responsibility is minimal, what I meant to say is that there’s too much that could go wrong.

Like what kind of a person wants to be a librarian? No, no, it’ll make sense. Because, think about it, they like being around books, all the time books, nose stuck in a book. Do you think they’re really paying attention to work? No, they’re paying attention to their books, they can’t get enough reading. Like you with your books, but every waking second. And so I come in with a whole stack of your borrowed books, and I’m like, “Hello? Can I put these right here?” And the librarian’s like, “Yeah, sure, right there, whatever,” without even looking up from her book. She forgets to restack them, you start getting collection notices from the library, you ask me if I’m sure that I remembered to return them, I say yes, the librarian says no, who are you going to believe? You say me, you say that now, but there’ll always be that little bit of doubt, like maybe I just can’t admit to a mistake, like I’m hiding them in my apartment, too afraid to come out with it already. That wouldn’t go away, inside of you I mean, it would linger, it would fester. You’re too good of a friend. I wouldn’t want us to ever be at odds over something so stupid. But I’d definitely give you a ride, or I’d help you find somebody else to return those books for you, not a friend, somebody not too close, like a work associate. You just name it. I got you man.

I’m the most helpful person ever

I’m always looking to help people out. I’ve heard others talking about me, saying how I’m one of the most helpful people around. I used to just think that maybe I had dreamt that up, because a part of me knew that it sounded way too cocky if I actually acknowledged that I overheard somebody saying that. But then I definitely heard someone else saying the same thing, again. I’m pretty sure it was somebody different. So even if the first time was a dream, which I’m not even positive that it was, the second time had to have been real. Who dreams about the same thing two times? I’ve never done that. I don’t even think it’s possible.

Always willing to lend a helping hand, that’s me. It’s like my unofficial motto. My official motto is, “Try to always be on the lookout for an opportunity to help out.” But it’s a little too official, if you know what I’m getting at. Sometimes you might have a great concept for a motto or a cool idea and it’s taking shape in your head and your playing around with it as the words roll off of your tongue. But as soon as you make it official, as soon as you lay that stamp down upon it, saying, OK, this is it, my official motto, something happens to it, something immediate. All of the sudden it’s set in stone, it’s too formal, it’s too institutionalized, and you wish it weren’t your official motto anymore. But it’s too late, way too late, it’s already official. You’ve already punctuated the whole motto with official quotation marks. It just doesn’t have that same energy anymore. It’s stale, stuck. So that’s why I only stick with unofficial mottos.

My helpful nature is just that, natural. A lot of the time I feel like I have to protect it from outside influences. Like, a lot of the time, because I’m so helpful, people will offer my services to other people, just by knowing me, just by knowing my helpful nature naturally wants to help out. But that’s not really me being helpful. It’s like someone else being helpful. And so I feel like I’m not actually helping out, but the other person, the person who referred me to help out is actually being the helpful one. They’re providing the help. It’s like if you asked that person to borrow a screwdriver, and they said yes, that person wouldn’t sit back and think to themselves, wow, what a great screwdriver. No, they’d think, wow, what a great friend. I’m nobody’s tool.

That’s why I never use screwdrivers. I always just hold the screw into the wall and push as hard as I can until it makes a tiny indentation in the drywall. After the indentation gets as deep as it gets just by my pressing it in there, I’ll try my best to, while still applying pressure, turn it ever so steadily with my bare hands as it carves its way slowly into the wall. It takes forever. And you have to use really long screws to get a good grip. And it’s much easier if you get screws with really big heads, because it’s much easier for your fingers. People always come over my house and look at my oversized and often poorly placed screws sticking out of the walls, doing a terrible job of holding up my pictures and paintings, sticking out in certain spots where I had once screwed something in, only to realize a little later that that’s not where I should have put the screw, but now the screw is in there, and it took me forever to get it in there, and how am I supposed to get it out? And they’re like, Rob, what did you screw these in with your hands? You know you could have just borrowed my screwdriver. I have a bunch.

But listen, I’m the helpful one, the most helpful. What kind of a helpful person would I be if I were always going around to my friends and family asking for help? Then part of me would feel obliged the next time I was in a conversation talking about who is the most helpful to bring up that time that I was helped out by this person or that person or so and so. No, I’d rather just stand back and listen to people feel obliged to talk about how helpful I am. He’s so helpful, that Rob, but so independent, and so resourceful. He never asks anything of anybody. That’s what they’ll have to say. Because it will be true. Or it is true. Or it will have still been true.