Moving, Installment #20309232

We are closing on our glorious new co-op apartment on Tuesday late afternoon — tomorrow. And we are moving on Wednesday morning at 8 am.

There are, of course, a zillion loose ends. For instance, the movers are refusing to move one of our air conditioners, because it is larger than 8,000 BTUs.

I brought it up yesterday. “What about the air conditioner, hon? Should we think about getting someone to help you?”

“That’s ok,” Matthew replies, cruising from one room to the next, carrying a box. “I’m just going to bring it over Tuesday night. After the closing. With my mom.”

His mom is coming today, thank goodness. Ostensibly to help “watch the baby.” How surprised she will be that she also gets to stay up all night to help us pack! And, uh, to move air conditioners that are so big that movers won’t even touch them?

“With your mom?” I joke. “Sure. With your mom.” This is pretty funny, this scenario. So I say, like I feel I am supposed to: “Like your mom is better at moving air conditioners than me.”

Matthew cruises through the rooms again, now in a different direction, different stuff in his arms. He does not say anything.

Ugh, we’re too busy here. No time for fun. I hate it when there is no time for fun, but even under these circumstances, I feel that I deserve a reaction to the scenario that I have proposed. To my hilarious comedy joke. But right after I resume speaking, the possibility of an unusual truth occurs to me. “Wait,” I say, and as I say it, I see the seeds of an argument wafting through the air around us, like dandelion fuzz. Fishing for reassurance was not my intention. Nor was fighting. And I know he doesn’t want to fight. So good thing it’s not too late! He can still laugh at the situation, and we can be on our merry way. “You don’t really think your mom would be better at moving a huge air conditioner than I would, do you?”

As he whizzes past this time, he shrugs. “I don’t know.” There is a definite lack of eye contact, here.

Men move air conditioners with other men. Or alone. Or, in a crisis, with their wives. Never with their mothers: their mothers who are, no offense, but 70?

Don’t get me wrong. My mother-in-law is in super shape. She bikes 15 miles at a time in the Chicago winter. Do you think that I am exaggerating? Are you used to me exaggerating. and so you think that I am doing that now? Well I’m not. Only giant piles of snow stop her, and I suspect that when I am not around, people do not conjecture about my superhuman feats of strength against the weather.  Or on bikes. These are people who bought their grandma a bike for her 90th birthday. A bike which she used for several years. My grandmas were not biking at 90, and the fact that they were no longer alive is only a small percentage of the reason.

Wait, why is this story suddenly about how I married into a race of biking superhumans? About how just as in Bewitched, where Sam and Darren scrutinized poor Baby Tabitha for signs of whether or not she would be a witch, I take note that every day since he could walk, the progeny grabs his bike helmet and waddles it over to me and basically, begs? This story is not about that. But it’s not clear what it’s about, and I must go and pack.