Grace and Kyled Move Out

[summer 2006]

With Grace and Kyled living on the second floor, and myself living on the first floor, it was a rare occurrence that I ever saw them. Not that I didn’t hear constant complaints about them, but for the most part, I hardly ever saw them. When I would think of them, I would think of the old saying “When the cat is away, the mice will come out to play”…and I would just change it to “When Mike is away, Grace and Kyled come out to play.” I just couldn’t fathom what was going on in that bedroom. I knew that the room was totally empty accept for 1 chair and a futon mattress that lacked a sheet.

I digress though and probably shouldn’t spend too much time what was going on with those two characters.

11pm-ish, the last night of Grace and Kyled at 3900.

“Mike.” I heard in a soft voice through my bedroom door. My immediate thought was something must be horrifically wrong since it was the voice of Kyled, and why else would he be coming to my door. Nothing was horrifically wrong though, although some mind manipulation attempt was about to go down.

“Do you have a phone number for a taxi service?”….which clearly meant “can you give us a lift?”

I was all over it. I knew what he wanted. Without replying with a valid answer to his question I gave him a “I will drive you to the bus station. What time do you need to go?” It was late, I figured I'd avoid the game.

After 10 more seconds of conversation I am locked into giving them a ride to the bus station. I’m a nice guy, what can I say?

The departure of Grace and Kyled wasn’t all that eventful. The standard “take this money for gas” followed by the “no no, it was no big deal” went down. I really had no clue what was going to happen to them other than the fact they were moving to Toronto.

The post departure was semi eventful. I arrived back at home, grabbed Dale, and went into their old room. Boy did it smell of a funk that words can’t describe. The amazing thing about it was how the smell was contained to the room and didn’t really linger out into the hall. Dale and I knew that the futon mattress had to go, so how best do that? Throw it out the window of course.

The mattress was unbelievably heavy and hard to manage. We’re not weak guys. I hit up the gym at least a dozen times per year. Dale goes twice that. After forcing it out the window we had a great idea. After much giggling, we rounded up Ryan to help implement our new plan.

With Lora and Seyhla resting in their room, the 3 of us managed to stuff the futon mattress into Lora’s trunk. It didn’t take much to amuse us and this seemed hilarious. Based on the sheer difficulty in moving the mattress, we wondered if she’d even be able to get it out of her trunk without our help….

The next morning…

Damn, I am running late to work again. I take my usual 1 minute power shower and rush to my car to go to work. Shockingly, what do I see? The futon mattress is stuffed in the front seats of my car. Irritated to all hell that I had to deal with that when running late to work, I do not notice right away at the putrid odor it left behind.

Looking back, I think that someone had to help Lora move the mattress to my car. Given the time of night though that it would had to have happened, I’m left perplexed.

Life Lesson: Never underestimate the strength of a woman who had a stank mattress hidden in the trunk of her car.