Pulling the rug out

Oh, well played. Well played.
Once again, my wife has duped me into an afternoon of doing her bidding, and I didn’t even realize it until I was knee-deep in furniture rearranging.
She’s very good at this, and usually I see it coming, but still comply nonetheless. My reasoning is twofold: (1) The missions she chooses for us to embark on are usually worthwhile, such as cleaning out closets or having children and (2) resistance is futile.
It happened last weekend when my wife and I were in the playroom and she made the passing comment that she wondered if the couch would look better in a different part of the room. Moving a couch is easy enough, and she just wanted to slide it a few feet forward, so no problem, I thought. Well, when you move a couch in a playroom normally utilized by two small children, the following chain of events unfolds:
1. You move the couch from the wall, and discover 94,000 toy parts behind it.
2. You go to put toy parts in closets, shelves, etc. only to find that said spaces are already full, meaning you must...
3. Clean out the toy closet, which leads to...
4. Cleaning out other closets, which leads to...
5. Leaving an “Escape from Alcatraz”-style dummy while you try and climb out of a window.
After several hours of playroom overhaul, you could see one main difference: The couch was about three feet from its previous spot. “But all the toys are cleaned up!” my wife remarked. True, but had we kept the couch in the previous spot, the toys would have still been out of sight, and therefore out of mind. For the record, I once again was vetoed when I offered up the idea that, if a toy can live behind a couch for six months and not be missed, it could easily be removed from the house entirely and not be missed.
Once we finished the playroom, we went downstairs, when my wife struck again, commenting that she did not like the way the den was set up. The rug was too small, she said. “You know what look nice in here? The rug from the dining room.”
Not even thinking, I said, “Yeah, it probably would.”
Time to start moving rugs.
Normally, moving area rugs is a fairly easy task. Roll one up, making sure you haven’t caught a kid or a dog in it, and start hauling. But before I agreed that the rug change was a must-do, I didn’t stop and think that the dining room rug had on it a dining room table and a China cabinet. When we walked in the room, my wife noticed this, too, and immediately realized she had made a misstep. She has seen me move furniture. I take the approach that sheer force and the occasionally assistance from gravity is the way you move things. (You should hear the sound of a washing machine sliding down stairs.) “Uh, why don’t I get someone to help me move the cabinet.”
Well, that right there is a challenge. I told her that it wasn’t necessary, and that I would simply tilt the cabinet while she pulled the rug out from under it. (Note to potential china cabinet movers: If you are like me, you have a habit of resting furniture on your foot between moving. Do not do this if you are barefoot. It is both stupid and painful.) After a few minutes of lifting, tilting and occasional yelping in pain, my wife was able to shimmy the carpet free. I don’t think she intended to sound as surprised as she did when she remarked, “It worked!”
Once the rug was free, I switched the den rug with the dining room rug, and my wife moved furniture two inches this way and an inch that way making it perfectly to her liking. She also recommended I no longer sit on couches she was trying to move.
When we were all done, I reflected on the rooms, expecting to see minimal impact. However, I was pleased to see that the simple change of rugs had made a nice difference, and I was quite happy with the improvement. And, upon further reflection (and repeated questioning) I conceded that the playroom was better, too. (I stopped short of agreeing that it was “cozy.”)
In the end, it was a solid day’s work that made our house look nice and my wife happy, so I guess it’s considered a success. The only thing that would have made it more of a success is if I had made it out of that window.