applesauce

These are strange things to admit to -- I like to help people move and I kind of enjoy giving people first aid.
Of course, I'd be happy to never do either thing again.
Last week the two things converged in to one goofy evening.

I have three things going for me in the moving category.

#1. I am freakishly strong.
#2. I'm good natured.
#3. I have a truck.

I also have three things in my favor in the first aid category.

#1. I was a certified EMT back in the day.
#2. I'm not squeamish.
#3. I'm unflappable.

I will go months at a time without helping people move or applying a band aid.
As with all things when it rains, it pours. My friend Matt (of the nice suit) moved this week and needed my help moving a sign. A sign that we may or may not have rescued (under the cover of night) from the side of a building that was recently torn down. I told Matt I could help him any evening.

So instead, I helped Mom move stuff twice last week. She is doing a remodeling project that involves the water being turned off and everything out of the garage. She's also moving out of her work office. I called Tammy to help the second day. Mom purchased a giant butcher block table at a store-that-shall-not-be-named. That store and their employees were most unhelpful. We wound up borrowing a cart from the lovely folks at Pottery Barn. They were very generous to loan it to us fifteen minutes before they closed to haul something that we did not purchase there. When we got back to snotty-attitude-store the guy looked at us and asked "Who's going to help you?"
He did not like my answer. He was complaining that the cart was too small, the table was too heavy, blah blah.
I can not convey in words how little patience I have for that crap. I gave him a look that must have stirred something in him. He helped lift the table on to the cart. And I restrained my urge to "accidentally" knock stuff over as I was dragging the table through the store.
A nice guy in the parking lot helped us lift it in to my truck. I was able to back the truck close to mom's front door (we had to move a heavy iron gate to do it). I measured the table, the doors and the hallway and determined that we could get it in to the kitchen.
Tammy and I somehow got the table off of the truck.
She mentioned that she was wearing the wrong shoes for the job.
That, of course was all fate needed.
The table slid over the top of her foot, slicing a nice gash on the top of her foot. She had the good sense to stagger to the tile floor and not bleed on the hard woods. I used bottled water to clean off the wound and applied pressure. I got Tammy's foot elevated and the bleeding slowed down.
That is when Mom kicked in to action, reached in the fridge and offered Tammy a cup of applesauce. That is Mom's comfort food. If the going gets rough offer applesauce --I declared applesauce the official snack food of the Spitznogle/Cothron nuptials, because anytime things got stressful Mom would bust out the applesauce.

In between trying to clean the blood off of Tammy's foot with cotton balls and bottled water and applying pressure I remembered that a cute single guy lives behind mom. I made Mom call Mike (he is a nice man, we're the same age, both Catholic. I'm surprised that my parents have not arranged a marriage), he arrived to find a table wedged in the front door, two blood streaked women laughing hysterically and Mom holding a six pack of applesauce.
I think that scene effectively insured that Mike will never ask me out.

We got the table in moved in to the kitchen and Mike fled in to the night.