Gone in under an hour – Emz Cama.

We took the wardrobe out onto the nature-strip at 9pm. Two of us squished it through the narrow hallway and chipped a bit of the white paint off the door frame.
Then we didn’t lift it high enough and also managed to collect a clod of mud and grass. It sat a bit lopsided -but steady enough.
I didn’t want to sell it and I didn’t want anyone I knew to have it. I just wanted it gone and out of the house.

It was old heavy wood, two doors with a mirror in between. The doors would swing open any old time they wanted to. I had shoved a bit of folded up newspaper between the doors -I really wedged it in there. It dropped out almost immediately. The wardrobe lived in the spare room with the doors open, I let the whole room absorb its smell (It kind of smelt like an old wet coat that never dried). The whole thing was junk.

The night I decided it had to go wasn’t that special, it wasn’t important. I was sitting in the front room with the TV on and the sound down.
Actually, I was staring at the dead bird (finch?) sketch that was in a thin frame above the TV. I was just thinking about that bird when I decided it was dark enough to dump the old wardrobe. I didn’t even realise that I wanted it gone until that very moment.

It sat in a small room of the house and almost took up the whole length of the wall. just after I moved in, I remember cleaning out washing powder that was scattered all around the base of it. Maybe that was there so it would smell better? I didn’t know and there wasn’t anyone to ask.

A wardrobe that size needs two people to move it. Even with angles and leverage two people had to do it. So I called around to my neighbour Abby’s house, she was always home and asked her for help. Why not? She was always asking me for help to move her crap around.

Abby was grumpy about having to find shoes to wear because it had just been raining. She found a pair though, they where old brown leather and way too large for her. It looked like someone had backed a steam roller over them. I snorted about that and led her back to my house. It was really getting dark now.

We pushed it out of the spare room and one of the doors swung back and hit Abby hard in the face. She almost dropped her end of the wardrobe, but held it together until we got to the spot where I wanted it. I asked if she was okay and she grumbled something that I wasn’t bothered too much to understand.

It was gone in under an hour. I watched it go from behind the curtains in the front room. The TV light flickering around the room and the sound still muted.