Moving Day

No, not for me. My friend, Willy, asked me and another friend, Chris, to help him move some merchandise from a client's storeroom on Castlefield Avenue a few doors down to a new retail location.

His client, Dave, owns a store that sells vintage lighting as well as other vintage items such as advertising signs, architectural finds and industrial furniture. A lot of the stuff is really neat.

I particularly like the old signs. They're ultra cool. You may want to display them in your rec room or, if you have a restaurant or bar, on the wall there. Some of the items are quite expensive retailing at $1000-$4500 or more though.

Dave drives around shopping for these vintage finds. I believe he shops here in Ontario as well as going down to the U.S. in New York and Pennsylvania among other places. He told me he's been in business for 41 years.

I got there around 12:40 Saturday afternoon, while Willy and Chris arrived earlier. I made up for it by not taking lunch while they grabbed a bite at a shawarma place at the corner of Dufferin and Castlefield.

Most of the stuff we moved was large and awkward. We had to move it from a second floor storeroom about 40 metres down the street to a retail outlet. It was next door to Dave's regular store and was in the process of being renovated.

We carried the lighter things by hand and used a dolly for the heavier items. The heaviest item we moved was a huge, iron gear from some sort of industrial machine. It was probably 5-feet in diameter and weighed over 500 pounds.

At first we tried lifting it onto a dolly, but it was too unstable. So the three of us rolled it along the parking lot from one store to the other. There are two more. But we were too tired to move them after the first one.

Another heavy item we helped lift was a sold slab of marble that the workmen were installing in the new place. It was around 8-feet long, 2-feet wide and 2-inches thick. It took five of us a huge amount of effort to move it a few feet off a cart onto it's place on the floor.

I think we finished around 5:30 or so. Willy went to talk to Dave about our compensation. When he came back he told us Dave wanted to give us $200. Each. That was way too much. Willy accepted $150 each on our behalf and we went back to the shawarma place for chicken and fries for dinner.