the determination of 100 arctic tern

the arctic tern is a seabird famous for its migration pattern. each year it flies from the arctic to antarctica, which is the farthest any animal is known to travel habitually.

as i sit here writing this, it is difficult to type because i'm shaking. why am i shaking you might ask? it is not because i'm cold. it is not because i drank too much last night. it is not because i'm in a vibrating chair. it is because i'm stupid. and also suffering from severe muscle fatigue.

a co-worker was having a moving sale today, which coincided with my plans to go to ikea. as i drove to her place this morning i had the pleasure of listening to sound opinions and was then greeted by some cool finds: two colorful schlitz trays, a framed cityscape drawing, a coffee grinder, and t.s. eliot's old possum's book of practical cats, which my mom used to read to me when i was little. pretty good haul. on my way to ikea i listed to this american life and fairly easily navigated the insanity that is a saturday spent at the swedish home furnishing store. my single lady self and prius conquered the few smaller items i got at ikea as well as the billy bookcase.

the drive home was easy, and i was marveling at all i had accomplished in just 3 hours. when i arrived at home there was even a parking spot! i unloaded everything but the bookcase, figuring i could call a favor on someone in the building to help me out. i knocked on a few doors, but no one answered. despite the fact that a friend had said she'd lend her helping hand the next day, i really didn't want to wait.

if you clicked on the link above you were taken to the ikea product page for the bookcase in question. you may have noticed the specs on said bookshelf: 79.5" tall and 11" deep, which is essentially the size of the box in which it's packaged. i should also note, that on the product's shelf in ikea there was a little yellow sign with red lettering that warned: attention! this item is more than 50 pounds and may require assistance. yes, well, we'll see about that.

somewhere, somehow there must be some semblance of drunken frat boy mentality in me because i quickly examined this situation and decided that i had enough brute strength to compensate for all the caution i had just thrown to the wind. i hauled the 6.5' box out of the car and was able to stretch my measly wingspan far enough to get myself in the middle and balance the several feet of box protruding beyond me and walk it to the front steps. after a brief break i even managed to get the box up to the front door and inside. at the foot of the flight of stairs, i rested for a few moments before grabbing the box again, assuming i could just walk it up. wrong. i made it 3 steps before my legs were shaking so badly i had to slide/drop it back down the stairs. at this point, most people would have stood the box upright in the corner and said, fine. i tried. i'll wait til tomorrow. not me. that's when the idiot in me decided, oh look how far i've come. there has to be another way to do this!

and indeed there was. i laid the box on its side and slid it up the stairs stopping at the stairs' curve to rest (really not much of a rest when you're holding a 50 pound box against your thigh). the sweat was starting to drip in my eyes, and i realized this was the half-way point on the monkey bars. as much as i wanted to turn back, doing so required as much effort as going forward. the difference here, however, was that the way forward was harder because i had jammed the box into the corner, not compensating for the curve. i also realized at this point how easily the leverage on this box could turn against me, pushing me down a full flight of stairs with 50 pounds of bookcase plus momentum following, squashing me like a gnat/fruit fly on a kitchen counter. but alas, i gathered every last drop of adrenaline i had positioned myself with about 3 feet of box in front of me and 3.5 feet behind, and wrangled it up the last few steps. by the time i pushed the box in my door, i felt like i had earned a spot on both this list and this list.

thus the reason i possess the determination of 100 arctic tern. or the stupidity of 100 lemmings.