An odd thing happen today. I realized that there is a thing we do that we take for granted and, since the craziness, I haven't been able to do it for a couple of years now. Let me tell you what happened.

I'm moving our studio space from one office around the corner to another. I decided to troll craigslist for storage cabinets for the new space and found some for free not too far away. "Frank" and I communicate a plan and in the morning I load up the trailer and head to Pasadena. A typical uneventful LA traffic morning, slow but going.

Once I told him I was bringing a trailer he says, "I hate to ask this but could you help me move my new cabinets from a house a few miles away?" He offers gas and lunch and I said sure. We meet for the first time at the other guy's house. He's a wacky collector whose favorite display was his Dukes of Hazzard collectibles cabinet. It was amazing. He had several cool collections and we laughed a lot about our silly obsessions.

Again, uneventful, we roll out and load all of these glass door cabinets, letting the young man do most of the work. Frank helps carry and I wrapped blankets and tied stuff down. Google map to Frank's house takes me the long way but I get there and back that trailer into his driveway like a boss. Seriously, 16ft trailer, no back window, narrow gate into the complex, expensive cars on both sides, neighbors watching and I backed it in and 6 houses down the row. BahBAM!

He opens the garage and I see my cache for the first time and I can't help but notice that they are NOT empty yet. We get the big one ready and unscrew it from the wall and realize it's too heavy so he grabs a neighbor to help. We wrestle that one outside and they start unloading the other one. The neighbor was getting annoyed. He had company on the way and every door opened to more junk.

I was laughing at them groaning every time they bent over as I grunted to move the big one over so I could strap it down. A young lady hops out of her car and heads to her door just as I'm saying, "three old guys doing work this morning." All I could see was her back but you could tell she was laughing and as she turned she was madly doing that 2-thumb thing on her phone. Texting, no doubt, about how adorable we were.

So, we get it done and the neighbor leaves. Frank and I are putting his new cabinets in the old space and I'm wrapping up. That's when it hit me. I'm standing there by my truck saying good bye and thanks and all that and, of course, he offers to buy me lunch and pay for my gas and I stopped him and said, "I got you, old man."

I told him it has been two years since I got to simply help someone. As caregiver to Wakitu with my own immuno issues we have remained isolated and have pretty much kept to ourselves to stay healthy and I really miss being a neighbor. Helping a guy move, pulling someone off the beach, rescuing a cat in a tree, grabbing the heavy case of water for that lady and taking it to her car, all the silly little things that happened as part of our days.

I'm one of those guys with all the cool tools and ropes and chains and a big truck or two. I have trailers and rigging and a big box truck. I miss getting that call "Hey DanGrigor, what are you up to? I got this crazy thing involving a sketchy road trip in a hoopty car, a couple of chainsaws and chicken salad sammies in the sun. You in?" I miss that. "Shit yeah. Lemme grab my guitar, I'll be there in ten!

Silly me, of all the things, I miss helping people shlep shit. Go figure.
Now who can I call to help unload these things?