so worth it

Last week I lifted an air-conditioner at least four times my weight and set it in my windowsill, four feet off the ground.



You would think I'd be in pretty good shape, since in high school I took a table tennis class. But you would be so wrong. Using the boxes of fragile items Paige has entrusted in my care for the summer, I built a stairway up to the window ledge, so I could lift the air conditioner up a couple inches at a time.

My plan was working out great until I finally lifted the beast one last time onto its wooden stand, which suddenly collapsed. Then it was just the two of us, the air conditioner and I. It was too heavy to set down, and way too heavy to lift the rest of the way. So instead I was stuck there, propping it up against the wall and wondering how long it would be before my arms gave out and I was flattened by 400 pounds of metal.

I thought of all the good and bad things that had happened in my life. I thought of the time I went to get some M&Ms out of the vending machine, and instead of one package, three came out.

I thought of when I was ten and we went to the zoo and there was a snake you could touch, but I was too scared to do it even though I really wanted to. I thought of when the same thing had happened when I was 23.

I thought the afternoon Bryn and I went to Coldstone to cheer me up because I was having a horrible day, and on the way out my ice cream cone fell on the ground.

I thought of one time when I was little and me and my dad were at the doctor's office because I was sick. And while we were waiting for the doctor to come in my dad said "Do you want to leave?" and I said yes and we ran.

I thought of the one day in summer that I decided to install an air conditioner by myself, but ended up being crushed to death by its weight. And how they couldn't untangle my body from the machine so I had to be buried with it.

After about 5 minutes someone saw me across the apartment complex and came over to help.

And now we have air conditioning! I love it.