8 years ago, the first time my wife had me move our incredibly heavy, multi-piece, Thomasville office furniture up two flights of stairs, my sons weighed about a buck fifty between the two of them; no help there. As I’m pretty big and was 8 years younger, I middle-age-man-handled that furniture up the stairs and into place. When my wife decided she would rather have our incredibly heavy office furniture down two levels in the basement 4 years ago, both my sons were bigger but it was an easy choice to rent a furniture dolly and move it myself. But this time when my wife felt it would be nice to have our incredibly heavy office furniture, back out of the basement, to the upper level of our house my 8-year-older body asked for my son’s help. He did a nice job and I thank him for it.

My son is 19. He is athletic and reasonably strong for a scrawny 150 pound kid. But he is a kid which means he lifts with his back, is unsteady, doesn’t know how to carry things, is always a little unaware of his surroundings, needs a lot of breaks, doesn’t understand how to dismantle furniture without a lot of instruction, and lays on the ground, in my way, between every piece of furniture moved. As we were nearing completion, he was slowing down as I was speeding up to get the job done. I had the next piece of furniture ready to move, and said, “Let’s get going.” He looked at me and said “I think I am worth half of a dad, this must be a dad and a half job.” I stood there in silence and thought about what he had just said and the more I thought about it, the more I thought he was correct; he is worth exactly half of a dad.

Over the course of Fatherhood you learn many things. You have to figure out how to make it through an airport with 10 pieces of luggage while your wife herds your three kids. You learn to assemble all sorts of crappy furniture, toys, and play equipment, because you can’t afford Thomasville furniture when you’re young. You know how to plunge a toilet, replace a toilet after it’s cracked by a frying pan, change out a light fixture, and fix a lawnmower. You learn that you wear gloves and lift with your legs when moving a piano, and as you get older all furniture. You get it, you’re a dad. I recently had Joe A. help me fix up a house and while we are not contractors, there wasn’t anything we couldn’t figure out how to do. We’re Dads. If Joe A. who is only a little bigger than my son and nursing a bum shoulder had helped me move and reassemble the incredibly heavy office furniture, we would have finished and been watching a game for 2 hours by the time my son and I were done. By the way, I am not criticizing my son, I truly appreciated his help. I knew it was going to take longer to do with him, I had just never really thought in terms of him being worth half a dad. It was very perceptive on his part, almost dad like.

So there you have it, it takes one and a half dads to move my incredibly heavy office furniture. All I know is that when I’m four years older, and my wife decides to move our incredibly heavy office furniture back down to the basement, a furniture mover (or divorce lawyer) will be involved.