Arms...like...noodles!

Dianna in comments below reminded me of my last experience with UPS in Berkeley. You see, I had thought my dad was coming to pick me and my stuff up and drive us home to San Diego. Then, a week before my move-out date, I got a call from him telling me he'd rather not, and I should just ship my life down and take a plane. Suddenly I needed to arrange for shipping and get everything sorted and packed and set by the end of the weekend. I tend to like to have everything planned well in advance, and don't handle sudden, drastic changes of plans very well. But I recovered, and after a half hour spent alternately punching the wall in the bathroom and clutching my head, I calmed down and bought some boxes and packing material.

I learned something in packing that weekend: Books are heavy. Similarly, lots of books are very heavy. A medium-sized moving box full of books is about 100 pounds heavy. I also learned something about myself that weekend: Thanks to my sunken chest and string beany arms, I can't really lift a 100 pound box.

Zoom forward to 7 AM Monday, after I'd made arrangements for UPS to come and take my packages. I figured I'd leave them in the vestibule of the building. Nobody was likely to steal them there, mostly because they weigh so much, and it was more convenient than leaving them in my room for the UPS guy to get. So I endeavored to get my boxes downstairs. It bears mentioning, at this point, that my building had no elevator, and I lived on the fourth floor. The other four boxes were relatively easy; with some effort, I could lift them and get them downstairs. The box of books was a different story. I loaded them up onto a small dolley that I'd used for groceries in the past, then strapped it on with a bungee cord. I carefully got it down the first flight of stairs, and everything seemed to be going well.

A third of the way down the second flight of stairs, I accidentally let the dolley flip into an upright position. Gravity and momentum caused the box to fall from the front of the gurney, and soon the bungee cord gave way, snapping off of the box. Recall that it is 7 AM on a Monday morning, and I had been trying to be quiet. It's more or less at this point that I gave up in that endeavor, as the box rolled down the stairs, "BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! CRASH!!" Meanwhile, the strain of carrying the box had bent the poor dolley out of shape (This was a cheap plastic dolley) and it would be no further use to me. I went downstairs and tried pushing my box to the top of the next staircase, then getting below it and slowly inching it down the last flight of stairs. The box was battered, but the books, as it turned out, were fine.

So anyhow, I had a full day of work scheduled, so I left a note for UPS saying I'd be out, but the packages were waiting in the vestibule (Which they could see through the glass building doors) and that they just had to call me at the office phone number and I'd be there within 5 minutes to let them in, hand them the packages, sign them over, and everything.

Around 2 in the afternoon I started getting paranoid that someone might take my boxes (I was in a paranoid mood that week) so I clocked out and ran home to check. The packages were still there, and so was a note attached to my letter: "We do not call! You must be here!"

Well, I didn't want to leave my stuff there for the night, and I sure didn't want to go through the ordeal of that morning again, not to mention hauling everything up three flights of stairs. So I went online and discovered that, for a mere $40, I could schedule another pick-up that day. I resigned myself to not going back to work for the day and scheduled a second visit.

So I went downstairs to await the UPS driver, biding my time by mentally preparing a tirade about all the things that had happened that weekend and that morning and this was just the cherry on the cupcake. Naturally I said none of it; I'm much braver in my head than I am in real life.

So the UPS guy arrived. As it happened, it was a UPS girl. She was gruff and surly, and I was apologetic even though I had not, in fact, done anything wrong. She brought out her dolly and asked me to load my packages on, as I needed to officially hand the packages to her. The first four boxes were easy. Then I came to the book box. I squatted down, gripped it, grunted, groaned, and gradually managed to lift it an inch off the ground. I shifted my grip, and slowly got it onto the dolly, then exhaled and collapsed. At which point she asked "Why the hell would you pack a box so heavy you can't lift it?" To which I meekly replied, "Well... I didn't know it was that heavy when I packed it, it just sort of happened." She'd turned around and started wheeling the dolly out half-way through my mumbled explanation. She got the dolly to the curve and started loading boxes into the truck. When she came to the book box, I offered to help, with the idea that I could hold one half while she held the other. She laughed and said "How on earth can you help me? You can't even lift it!" And that's how the last vestiges of my sense of masculinity were shattered.

They did a good job with the packages, though. Everything was delivered fine, and they were less expensive then USPS.