You can't move a washing machine on a postal dolley...

...and other life lessons.

This illustration does make it look very easy, doesn't it? I guess the straps are a key part of the operation.

The Lady of the House said to leave the appliances, someone would get them later, and the middle-aged gals who had assembled to help her shut down the last of the house agreed: we were out of our element. Not so the 2 men who were there -- elementary school teacher men, but men nonetheless.

Straps Are Fer Saps! was the rallying cry, and this narrow wooden staircase without banister is a snap.

After the horrible crashing noise came an eerie silence and for a second we did what a woman will do: holler from the garage, "Everybody all right...?"

"It's fiiiine," the 2 insisted, taking care to roll the machine out with its back facing us and hope to get it to the U-Haul before we noticed. I thought it was the dryer, so when they rolled it past me, with its buckled gaping side, I asked the Lady of the House... "This thing run on natural gas?"

"It's fiiiine," they continued, with an explanation of why the smashed-in corner didn't matter -- a treatise that featured repeated use of the word "gasket." While delivering it, continue to pull on the dent as if the massive strength you lacked while carrying a washer will now materialize as you tug on it.

One of the women said, carefully, "You can't fault people for helping you for free."

(Can't ya?)

It's fine. really. No one was hurt. There is a dryer too, if you don't mind breaking up the set.