Mercy, Quality

Art Shipper coming for the Impressionism show today, down from Columbus and back up, show going there, so first thing I open the vault and lock the elevator. D had forgotten to sign them out (sixty-three signatures) so I get three elevators down before he joins me to get the larger pieces and the ones in crates. We both count, starting at opposite ends, yes, 63, and we stack by size against the walls. We've loaded a lot of trucks, so prep things the way we would want them. Just before lunch the shipper calls, late leaving, missing help, won't be down until after lunch, so we slip out to eat at the pub and Jim gives us a couple ounces each of a new fusion beer that is truly disgusting, D takes a tiny sip and makes a face, Jim laughs, telling us we have to expand our horizons, we tell him he's full of shit. He says the stuff sells, girly beers he calls them, but they are insipid and awful if you're of the school that thinks of beer as a malt and hops thing. Shipper arrives and we must load quickly as he has to be back at the museum in Columbus before 4. Nice high-sided shipper's van and a mini-van driven by his kids for the small pieces. We load him in 33 minutes and there isn't room for another painting. Excellent packing, nothing can move, thank god the show came insured for travel, 3.3 million in a couple of vans, but, as I say to D when he expresses concern, it's out of our hands, we have signed off. Then we are off to the White's for auction stuff, almost all glass and nothing packed, we don't have the necessary supplies and I just can't believe they would think we could move everything loose. We do an odd thing, that works if you have a good careful driver, and that is, the same as the vans of art, pack everything tightly and avoid bumps in the road. We get back to the museum with hundreds of pieces of glass (plates, wine glasses, vases, useless doodads) without a single broken piece. Amazing. Get afternoon coffee and have to get D's new desk out of his truck, two base peds that are very nice wooden file-drawers, and the top, which is 2 inch thick sandstone, 2 feet deep and six feet long, 280 pounds (my chart says Specific Gravity 2.32, 145 lbs a cubic foot, but my empirical experience, maybe mudstone (which the locals call this) is slightly different, and I have a perfect block for reference, collected for just this purpose, three-quarters of a cubic foot exactly, 105 pounds), the top weighs 280 pounds, take that number to the bank. I don't know how D loaded it by himself (I can imagine, probably almost exactly, but don't have to) our concern is just to get it inside. We decide to load it upright onto a two wheeled dolly, on a piece of foam at the bottom, to absorb vibration, and strapped in place, that way we can get it inside and lay it down and still get our hands under to lift it again tomorrow. The Deputy gives us rafts of shit about D's new office furniture, how she thinks everyone should get new office furniture, that D builds, at least until her number comes up. Transparent. Again it happens, certainly a pattern, that the last couple of hours at the museum are very cool, give-and-take, the four of us in sharp funny banter. We get the rock top slid out of the truck to the tipping point and I have to foot the dolly because it's creeping and D can't get behind the piece, we need a third person, we're stuck. I'm footing the piece and have to stay there, I tell D to go get somebody from either the bar or the furniture store because we need help, not a lot, but we need help, and Howard answers the call, foots the dolly so that D and I can tilt the top into position, which he then rolls inside and we are home free. Tomorrow is another day.