Missy and I bought a new daybed this weekend. It came flat-packed, though. From start to finish, getting the bed, getting it home, and putting it together were a lesson for us in how much more capable we are, when we work with others.
So, our friend Rachel came down to help us. Rachel's part of our kinky-poly-ageplaying family. She's awesome. One thing about Rachel that she has a little trouble copping to, is that she has a serious service fetish. Remember how when you were a little kid, and your class had a guinea pig, or rabbit, or fish, or whatever, every kid in the class, including you, was mad-crazy-in-love with it, and just desperately wanted to feed it, water it, or clean up its poop? That's basically a service fetish - you express love through giving service.
And boy, does Rachel ever have it. Not only did she come down to visit us for the weekend and help us unpack some more, but she went with us to pick up the daybed, and brought her car along, so we could load it in there. That turned out not to be necessary, but just wait - her service fetish will shine forth even more brightly shortly.
When we got the daybed, it came in three enormous packages. Then there were the two vacuum-packed mattresses, and a ton of sundry bits and bobs and other whatnot we also picked up there. We had a PONDEROUS amount of stuff to get home.
I tried picking up some of the boxes to load them on the cart by myself, and they were so insanely heavy, I couldn't do it. So Missy and I loaded the carts together.
Then, in the parking lot, this random stranger, who was loading up his own car full of heavy swedish pre-assembled furniture boxes, came out of nowhere, to help us load 99% of the stuff into my car! He did it out of the goodness of his heart. We thanked him profusely, and he just said he was happy to help. It was sort of beautiful.
When we got home, we unloaded the car into our garage, because we just couldn't face the awful truth of lugging all that crap two flights of stairs to put it where we needed it for the next day.
This morning, I came down to find all the pieces already laid out neatly on the living room floor. While Missy and I were asleep, she went down to the garage, opened up all the boxes, and ONE BY ONE brought each of these things up TWO FLIGHTS OF STAIRS, to lay them out, and wait for us to wake up, and come see them.
Blown away? I was.
Missy was too. While Missy and Rachel strategized on how to get the thing built, I made breakfast for the three of us. (Gluten free pancakes, because Rachel is allergic to gluten.)
I always get joy out of finding things I can cook for Rachel that don't trigger her pretty serious food allergies. It's the double-whammy of making food for someone I love, AND making sure they don't die from an allergic reaction.
After breakfast, we got down to business, and started putting it together. About halfway through, Missy could see that I was tweaked by the whole process. (I don't have great spatial awareness skills, and I've always been terrible with that sort of put-stuff-together stuff. Need a computer fixed, a story written, some mindfulness advice, or some food cooked, I'm your guy! Fixing stuff around the house, not so much.) She sent me off to do some needed errands, and when I got back, the daybed was pretty much done!
I cleaned the whole kitchen, and later in the day cooked a really nice dinner for the three of us too.
So, the point of this longwinded and needlessly detailed account is this:
- It's good to get help from other people.
- It's good to give help to other people.
We really are social animals. It's amazing the stuff we can do when we help one another. I'm grateful to be someone who needs, gives, and receives help from others.