war stories

My Pops had to run some errands today, which included moving a couple of coffee tables.  He could easily lift the weight, but they were too bulky to manage alone.  Probably he could've found someone to assist, because who wouldn't help an old man do that?  But it's definitely easier with a second set of hands.  He picked me up, and I texted my sister that we were going to do it (because she had arranged it from afar).  She texts back, "are they even ready?"

Ugh, apparently, we didn't have any confirmation.  Pop said, oh well let's take a ride. 

Spoiler alert, they were ready, after many family drama texts later.

With some Tetris puzzling, we managed to fit both into his car.  One had a glass top, and we didn't plan ahead with any padding or wrapping.  Therefore, he decided to take surface roads home.

Pop was feeling nostalgic, so we drove by my brother's old house.  Which we couldn't easily get to because of new construction.  After a couple detours, we made it, and I texted photos to my brother, who was texting me photos of his poor dog at the vet, after a fight with another of his dogs.

We stayed on surface roads for about twenty minutes, until Pop got sick of the traffic, then he lost patience, was all, fuck it, and we tried to get to the freeway.  Three detours later, and we made it.  Surprisingly, the glass top of the coffee table was fine when we got it to his place.  We carried them both upstairs and set them up. 

After that, I was starving, so we picked up some food to go and took it back to my place. 

Continuing in his nostalgic mood, he somehow got on the topic of when he first enlisted in 1948, during a time of peace after the second World War.  All until the Korean War started, and he was still enlisted.  He was quite chatty, and his stories were so interesting.  About two hours into it, I wished I had recorded him.  But I thought it might make him self-conscious.  Plus I was fighting a migraine from all of the day's activity, and I could barely hold my head up and listen to him, let alone mess with any technology. 

It was with much reluctance that I finally said goodnight to him and went to bed to nurse my migraine.