By Kathy Miele
We had just closed on a new house and it was another grueling day of moving.
When I couldn’t take it anymore, I collapsed into the nearest chair. “I’m done!” I cried. “I can’t pick up another box!”
Steven and the boys looked over at me as they were bringing in yet another carload of our valuables.
“How much stuff do we own?” I whimpered as I rubbed my sore back. “I say we never, never move again!”
“It hasn’t been that bad,” Max said as he dropped the bag with all the linen closet towels in them on the floor by my feet.
“Are you kidding?” I had to laugh. “We’ve been moving for the past four days! It’s never going to end.”
“Boy, you were lucky you were born and raised in the same house,” Steven said as he stacked another box on top of the table. “When I was growing up, we moved every few years.”
“You have my heartfelt apology,” I said. “In fact I need to apologize to all the people who told me they were moving and I stupidly said, ‘Gee, that sounds like fun being able to decorate a whole new house, picking out paint colors, maybe even buying some new furniture.’ ”
Steven had to laugh as he looked at me laying on top of a pile of blankets that had been tossed on the chair I was trying to sit in. “Nope, I’m pretty sure their isn’t anyone who’d say moving was fun.”
“I know that now,” I said as I shook my head in disgust. “I must have sounded like an idiot when I’d say sounds like fun. No wonder the only response I’d get was a pained smile and a sad, ‘Yeah, fun’ from them. I just thought they weren’t up to the challenge of moving. Now I know moving is just one nightmare challenge after another!”
“Oh, come on, it hasn’t been that bad,” Steven said as he tried to sit next to me but instead had to balance on the arm of the chair because I was too weak to move any of the blankets I was sitting on to make room for him.
I leaned my head against his arm. “Promise me we’ll never move again.”
“I promise, he said.
“How can you promise that?” Alex asked. “What if I move across the country? You’ll want to move to closer to me to see your grandkids grow up, won’t you?”
I quickly sat up straight, every muscle in my back screaming. “You’re thinking of moving across the country?”
I guess Alex saw the fear in my face. “I was just messing with you,” he said as he patted me on the top of the head. “I’m never moving out.”
“What?”
Now he was smiling. “Still messing with you,” he said as he grabbed a box with his name on it and went down the hall to his room.
I looked over at Steven who was smiling. “That wasn’t very funny,” I said.
“It was a little.” Steven got up and pushed the bag of towels away from my feet. He reached out his hand to pull me up. “Let’s get back to work.”
I sighed as he pulled me upright.
Alex stuck his head out of his bedroom door. “What’s for dinner?” he asked.
“In this new house we’re all going to take turns cooking and tonight’s your turn,” I said. “So I’ll ask you, ‘What’s for dinner?’”
Alex looked surprised. “Really?”
“I’m just messing with you,” I smiled. “ Or am I?”
Alex just stared at me.
“But tonight you’re off the hook because we’re having takeout,” I said. “Can you go pick it up when it’s ready?”
“Um…sure.” Alex went back into his room.
I looked over at Steven. “That was fun. Do you think he thought I was serious?”
Steven shrugged his shoulders. “Were you?”
“I’m not sure,” I had to admit. “I started out just messing with him but I’m beginning to think: new house, new rules might be my new mantra.”
