Moving Furniture: The Achilles Heel of Jews Like Me: A Nevin Barich Blog Experience

I'm Jewish. And because I'm Jewish, I consider myself to be a good authority on what Jews are known for.

Jews are known for three main things:

1) Saving money.

2) Cooking (OK, technically my cooking doesn't extend beyond a microwave, but I make a mean melted cheese quesadilla.)

And 3) Being diehard Dodgers and/or Mets fans.

(Seriously, have you ever met a Jewish person who cheered for a baseball team other than the Dodgers or Mets? Think about it. You'll find that you've never met one. That Jew doesn't exist).

But one thing Jews are not good at:

Moving furniture.

When it comes to moving furniture -- whether you yourself are moving for one place to another, or helping a friend move, or being given a piece of furniture by someone to take back to your place -- Jews simply don't do it themselves. It's not in our DNA.

Please don't misunderstand. It's not that we look down upon it. That's not the case at all. We feel it's a honorable skill and trade. But it's simply something that we hate to do. I mean, we're not lifters of heavy things. We prefer to pay to have somebody do that for us.

And I think that's noble. Especially given the state of today's economy. :-)

As I write this blog, I am currently looking at these beautiful bookshelves in my living room, a generous gift from family members who previously had them in their home. But to get them here, they had to be moved. And though I'm not a mover by trade, my father-in-law Jim is. And he had me help him get these bookshelves from Pacific Palisades over to my San Fernando Valley home.

Now this experience -- which actually spread across over two weekends because we realized after the first weekend that there was no way in hell we could fit all four bookcases into the car -- had plenty of blog-worthy moments, especially given the fact that the bookshelves' previous home in the Palisades had two wrap-around staircases that we had to get them down from. But in the interest of time and space, here were the three main moments:

1) The vacant glaze.

God bless Jim. He's really trying to teach me these things. But learning has been slow. I mean, the whole concept of moving things myself is just foreign to me. So every time Jim asked me something or asked my opinion about this task, I answered with a vacant glaze.

"Nev, how do you think we can get these bookshelves down the stairs?"

Vacant glaze.

"Nev, do you want to trying unscrewing these bolts from the wall?"

Vacant glaze.

"Nev, what's the best way to get these bookshelves into your house?"

Vacant glaze.

That's why Jews pay people to do these things. All these questions...

2) Lack of help among my fellow Jewish brethren.

While moving these bookshelves, my cousin-in-law (and podcast partner) Mike was also there, packing up some stuff in the kitchen. Lucky bastard; the heaviest things he had to lift was spatulas. At one point, midway through this ordeal, he and I locked eyes for a brief moment and I mouthed to him the following words:

"Help me, please."

He responded by bolting the other way.

I couldn't blame him. I'd of done the same.

Moving heavy furniture: Simply not in the Jewish DNA.

And 3) The U-Haul.

U-Hauls are just foreign to me. I mean, they're borderline creepy. They're dark and gray and drab and the seats are rock-hard. We used a U-Haul to move the remaining bookshelves to my house and I swear these vehicles haven't been replaced since the 1970s. I sit in a U-Haul and I get all clammy. Like I'm truly out my element.

Plus, every time I'm driving in one, I feel like I'm sneaking Mexicans in across the border.

That's right, I said it. Don't tell me you haven't had the same thoughts driving a U-Haul.

In the end, moving furniture is a noble skill. Kudos to all that do it. And just a friendly reminder to all my friends: If you ever need help moving, I'll gladly assist.

I'll give you the phone number of a great moving company.

:-)

And now for this week's:

SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE

Monopoly is going paperless and cardless.

That's just wrong. Nothing's cooler than Monopoly money.

Especially when you steal it when no one's looking.

We used to call that "Valley Rules." :-)