the shrewdness of apes

almost 10 years ago, i was part of a scheme that netted my group house a row of 3 movie theater seats. having been given the tacit approval from the film chair (now the man behind a popular personal website), we made our move under the cover of a summer night on a mostly deserted college campus. while the getaway Bronco and its driver waited three of us let ourselves into the movie theater, and quickly grabbed one of the loose sets of seats from the back of the auditorium. the lookout gave the all clear, and the two of us providing the muscle moved as quickly as we could considering we were dealing with an 120+ awkward pounds of metal, plastic and cloth. i would imagine the procedure for disposing of a body would be fairly similar.

we shoved the seats into the back of the truck and it took off. the rest of our brigade walked the 3 blocks back to the house and then helped move our plunder into the living room where they stayed for two years serving as extra seating during parties and otherwise just reminding us of how cool we were for having them. when it came time to move, i ended up with them sort of by default. i have moved 7 times since then, each time dragging them with me inflicting pain and increasing bouts of cursing from those unlucky enough to have helped me. in that time they've gone from decorative and functional to a couch stand-in to temporary garage storage to completely uncomfortable but still decorative to back in storage. at this point, they weren't something you actually wanted to use, but their service as a conversation piece was unparalleled.

the wife has been angling to get rid of them ever since we put them into storage 10 months ago (back when she was still "the fiance"), but i resisted. there was too much emotion wrapped up in them to bear giving them up. but as is wont to happen, money triumphed over emotion. as we moved my stuff in a smaller, cheaper storage space over the weekend it quickly became apparent that there would be no room for the theater seats. but what to do? we didn't have a truck to haul them away, we couldn't leave it in the hallway of the storage facility nor was there anywhere immediately outside to leave them without potentially incurring some sort of dumping fine. had we been able to lift them about 8 feet in the air, we could have tossed them onto the train tracks that may soon become a basketball arena. not knowing what else to do, we put them on a dolly and started pulling them around the block in search a suitable place for the unconsummation of our relationship (my and the chairs', not my and the wife's). after passing a couple cop cars and some people pushing a stroller, a parked SUV provided the cover we needed to unload them there on the Pacific Street sidewalk between the train tracks and the condos. our payload deposited, we hurriedly brought the dolly back and got the hell out of Dodge.

though they may have met an ignoble fate, quite frankly i don't miss them and when the day finally comes when i move my stuff out, it will be a huge relief not to feel the dread that comes from knowing they will need to be dealt with. we didn't have a camera to capture the moment, but if anyone is walking down Pacific between Carlton and 6th Ave, and they're still there, i wouldn't mind having a snapshot.