Free God Drives a Tow Truck by Vicky Kaseorg Page A

for regular chairs, so Arvo built a slab to put the barrel on. Seated on barstools, now we could rest our feet on the bottom slab. We had gotten the pickle barrel for $5 at a garage sale. We were frugal and creative adventurers in our home furnishing exploits.
    When I was pregnant with Anders, the much anticipated first baby, we bought one of the few new pieces of furniture -- an inexpensive crib. Everything else we owned was garage sale hodge podge. The nursery, however, was to be beautiful. I painted a mural on the wall with all kinds of creatures holding flags of the various countries the grandparents and great grandparents were from. There was a heavy dresser in the room. It was a dark and foreboding piece, not at all what I hoped for in this fairy tale room. However, it had been handed down to us, and we didn’t have the money to buy new furniture at this early stage of marriage. I wanted it out of there, but barring that, at least transferred to a less conspicuous corner of the room.
    Arvo was working countless hours during his brief foray into the Stock Brokerage business. He hated the work, and it was much more time consuming than he had imagined it would be. He didn’t have the time, or the emotional energy to help me move furniture, nor honestly did he have the inclination during his few leisure hours. He didn’t share my nesting instinct. The room looked fine to him. However, he warned me, “You are pregnant, and should not be hauling furniture around.” He knew, of course, that the moment he was out of sight, I would be shoving furniture from one corner of the house to another.
    It isn’t that I disagreed with him. I knew he was right, but I was preparing my nest for my precious little bundle soon to arrive. So one day, while he was safely off to work and I could plot unimpeded, I had a brainstorm. While I should not be lifting heavy objects, I decided no one had ever suggested I not be pushing heavy objects.
    I was determined to push the dresser to the opposite wall. To get the proper leverage, first I had to inch the dresser forward from the wall. I rocked it and shoved, then rocked it to the other side and pulled. Just another few inches of rocking and tugging, and I was able to move it enough for me to squish behind it. I shoved it as hard as I dared, my pregnant belly a tight fit in the narrow space. It did not budge a millimeter. I would need to brace myself somehow to push against it using my legs. An idea began to form, a stroke of genius. I rubbed my hands together with delight. I braced my back against the wall, and then began inching my feet up off the floor, against the back of the dresser. This was even harder than it sounds, with my belly the size of a Mack truck. However, I finally positioned myself such that my legs were close to the middle top of the dresser, and I should be able to straighten them slowly, and push the dresser a good two or three feet. With a heave, I began to slowly extend my knees.
    There was a resounding crack, and I felt the wall behind me give way. My buttocks punched a hole in the sheet rock. I sat there, momentarily wedged in the wall, as a growing horror overcame me. Not only was I perhaps permanently stuck in the wall, but should I manage to disengage myself, there was going to be a hole ominously shaped like my bottom. I hung on the wall and glanced at my watch. I had, if I was lucky, two hours to come up with a solution before Arvo returned from work.
    With monumental effort, I pried myself from the Buttocks hole. I shook the sheetrock dust from my clothes. Little pieces of plaster crumbled to the floor.
    “Oh dear,” I mumbled. I didn’t care what the Pregnancy Manual said; I needed to move that dresser pronto. I shoved it back in front of the hole. The dresser was not quite high enough to conceal all the damage. The upper edges of the ruined wall gaped at me, a horrible impossible wound in my fairy tale room.
    “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” I muttered,